In 1961 I had taken a brief hiatus from big game fishing and was working at the Underwater Ordnance Station at Newport RI in the Oceanographic Department. All was going well when I got a letter. It said, "Greetings. The United States Army really needs your expertise." I made a panic-stricken dash across the road to the CO of the Marine detachment, saying something like, "Let me in! Let me in!". My previous experience with the Army while my father was stationed at the Aberdeen Proving Ground did not proffer any interest in participating in the Army's activities. The Marine CO just smiled and said, "Son, you should have been here yesterday."
Believe me, there's no choice between being in the military and being a big game fishing guide making a hell of a lot of money, basking in exotic parts of the world. In fact my younger brother had already graduated from the Naval Academy by then and I had absolutely no interest in anything to do with anything military.
Well, I managed to distinguish myself by missing five weeks of basic training by being in the hospital with a bad foot wound. The Army, in its infinite wisdom, sent me on a 10-mile road march within a few days of when I got back. When my foot reached the size of a football, I entered the hospital where I then stayed until three days before I was to graduate from Basic. Theoretically I wasn't supposed to graduate, having missed almost all of it, but I had passed the shooting and a few other tests and I don't think they knew what to do with me. It was easier to get rid of me and graduate me.
Eight weeks later I graduated from advanced training as a communications lineman. Somewhere in the middle of all this, a man with a neat green hat told me about something new called Special Forces. Figuring that it was a good idea to hang out with people who really knew what they were doing military-wise, I signed up.
My next stop was Fort Benning Jump School. I think Benning was the beginning of what became sort of a contest between me and the US Army. I was going to get everything I could out of them, and they were going to see me as little as I could possibly manage. I think the best prank I managed to play was in the first run we made. It was supposed to weed out the folks who weren't physically able to run long enough. Gene Bostick and I had gone through Lineman School together. Both of us had been serious runnrs in high school, Gene in NY and I in Maryland. Our last names placed us near the front of the runners. We kept pushing the pace and at the end there were only about 70 people out of the 300 or so that started. Our drill instructor threatened to weed the rest of us out until he could fit the last of us into an Otter — a very small plane.
I managed to graduate from Jump School and reported to Smokebomb Hill at Fort Bragg. By incredible good luck I managed to get through the whole program to being fully qualified as a Green Beret in the shortest period possible. They then turned me loose in the Fifth Special Forces, then being formed to operate in Vietnam.
There I specialized in 'ghosting', the art of not being anywhere someone of superior rank could find me. The best place seemed to be the library, which suited me just fine. I also shot my way from the Fifth's shooting team to the Army Marksmanship Unit.
My buddy Manuel Vissipo Arrivé talked me into going to a training session where I was to meet one of the most interesting men I've ever known. The occasion was a visit by a well-known military close-combat trainer. The group we joined was made up of senior NCOs and some officers, all awaiting the arrival of this trainer. Soon a tall, elegant man who looked to be in his early 50s showed up carrying an M1 rifle with a scabbarded bayonet attached. What happened next made an indelible impression on me.
"My name is O'Neill," he said. "I've been asked to teach this group unarmed combat to form a nucleus for you to train other students." He then asked if anybody there had a high degree of training with a bayonet. A large NCO in the back put up his hand and O'Neill told him to come front and center. O'Neill handed him the rifle and as he stepped back he pulled the scabbard off the bayonet.
"Attack me." The NCO hesitated. "You heard me, attack me. Don't hold anything back," said O'Neill.
The NCO still hesitated, and O'Neill hit him on the face with his open right hand. The NCO then attacked him full force. What happened next was a little blurred, but when things sorted out the NCO was on his back, disarmed. O'Neill held the bayonetted rifle in his hands, and looking at us said, "Gentlemen, there are two ways to do this when you throw the man. You can land him nice and gentle like I just did or you can break his back when you drive him into the ground."
I didn't attend all the classes that O'Neill offered, but I learned a great deal about military martial arts from the ones I was able to attend. O'Neill did things I've never seen anybody do before or since.
The main impression I got at that time was that O'Neill's system, unlike many martial arts systems, was fairly straight-forward and simple. It emphasized the use of the feet and very direct attacks. This pattern was very similar to what I had learned to use while going through over 30 schools all over the world before graduating high school. At an early age I learned that when going into a new school the best way to get along was to find the toughest guy in your class and beat him up the first day. I'd learned to box when I was 6 from an ex lightweight boxing champion at the Naval Academy. This was available to all Navy juniors, male and female. I have always been a bookworm and later got involved with ballet. If you have these interests you'd better be able to fight if you're going into new schools frequently. Before graduating from high school I finally found one guy I couldn't knock out, and had to put him out with a choke hold. This was the impetus for seriously studying other forms of martial arts.
I watched what this very talented man did, learned a number of techniques I'd never seen before. I don't remember talking with O'Neill much at this time although I sparred with him a few times. Fortunately I have always been very quick — sparring with O'Neill was not much fun.
I managed to survive being in Special Forces for two years. They never realized I was a draftee with only two years to serve, so I got a heck of a lot of interesting training, met some other very interesting people, turned down repeated offers of commissions, and went happily back to big game fishing. Aside from what I learned from O'Neill, shooting on the Army Marksmanship Team made me truly expert in handling handguns and rifles.
The period between meeting O'Neill for the first time and getting to know him 10 or 12 years later, was one of the busiest in my life. I went back to fishing for a couple of years then went to American University for about five years and got a good education while big-game fishing each summer to pay for it. I was accepted as a student by Master Kim, the #1 Korean martial arts teacher, while at AU. I married for a second time and became a business man working in the fishing tackle industry. I probably learned more about more different things during this time than at any other in my life.
I had long been a customer of InterArms in DC from my days in Special Forces. It was through this connection that I again came into contact with O'Neill. Bob McGee, who did all the advertising, design and layup, etc., for InterArms had become a friend. I got involved in some very complicated small arms deals through McGee. O'Neill was a friend of McGee's. O'Neill didn't recognize me and I told him that I'd met him briefly before, and where.
For a period of some weeks, O'Neill and I spent a lot of time talking about just about everything. He told me that during his teaching career at the International Police Academy in Washington DC his students from around the world invariably had a technique or style of martial arts which they felt was unique. Patrick said he was very fortunate to be able to study what these people knew to add to his knowledge. I asked him if they were truly unique and he said no, frequently not, but the overall knowledge he gained was enormous. I told him about Master Kim accepting me because I had done ballet and he liked my balance. Kim was much older than O'Neill, but I wouldn't want to pick who'd win in a contest between those two.
Some of the stories O'Neill told me I believed only because of how he told them to me, and because I'd seen him in action. O'Neill's martial arts techniques for the military may have been almost simplistic. On the other hand his knowledge of and exposure to the many schools he'd studied and the people who were involved were probably unique. O'Neill was always an avid student, regardless of the level of skill he'd already attained. He would throw himself into anything that took his interest, and he would master it.
Conversations with O'Neill always revealed interesting things. For example, O'Neill believed that there were men that couldn't be beaten. You might kill them but you couldn't beat them. As long as they were alive, they would keep fighting. He told me stories about several of these people, emphasizing how different they were from each other. As we got to know each other better, he told me I was one of those people. He told me this after I mentioned that I'd never lost a fight. I told him this was because I could sense the capabilities of who I was facing. Also I had grown up with a younger brother who quickly became much bigger and stronger than I was. I was in constant practice fighting with him, and size never meant the same thing to me that it did to most people. O'Neill said no, it was my character, it was the way I was.
O'Neill had also met people in the martial arts who could do things that he couldn't explain. He was very adamant about the ability to use inner force to defeat enemies. I didn't fully understood what he was saying at the time. As I grew older the memories of these conversations stayed clear and made more sense.
I think it is very important to keep in mind that O'Neill was more than expert at what he did and was perfectly willing to use anything as a weapon. He told me that oddly enough he didn't have to use martial arts during his military time with the US Army, although he did use knives and guns. He also told me that the commanding officer of the Special Services brigade was wounded five or more times while he served with him. O'Neill, however, as his attaché and bodyguard and almost constantly with him, was never injured. O'Neill said he'd occasionally get a feeling something bad was going to happen and he'd move, sometimes just a very short distance.
O'Neill was a born traveler. He told me how wonderful it had been to travel in his younger days, and he took every opportunity for travelling. I doubt that anyone really knew all the places he'd been or much about what he'd really done. I think one of the most interesting things he ever talked about was that if you were going to be a Soldier of Fortune, like he was, you'd better "travel with a light rucksack". My title for a book about O'Neill would be "The Man with the Light Rucksack". He was also a born storyteller like all good Irish, but all of his stories rang true with me.
One of his great regrets, he said, was missing out on capturing or killing several key senior members of the Chinese Communist Party while in Shanghai. I think he was very proud of the fact that the Japanese martial arts world respected him enough to have one of their senior masters and a member of the Japanese military advise him when to leave Japan.
O'Neill told many stories, and as I've said, they rang true with me. But this one I saw myself. One of the people involved in the small arms deal was a 250lb Swedish weight lifter and wrestler. O'Neill did two things to him: he made a ring with his thumb and forefinger and told the wrestler to use both hands to try to force his fingers apart. He couldn't. He also set up a situation where the wrestler held a DC telephone book in front of his chest. O'Neill put his hand within inches of the phone book and hit him so hard — from that distance — that he flew across the room. This, O'Neill said, was an example of inner force. Incidentally, he also warned me never to trust that man and time proved him right.
If you saw Patrick O'Neill walking down the street, you'd see a tall, handsome, well-dressed man. If you watched very closely, you'd see he was exceptionally alert and moved very gracefully. What you wouldn't see was that he was usually wearing steel-toed shoes and was totally relaxed yet ready for anything that happened.
I think O'Neill could speak at least five or six languages, perhaps more. We carried on conversations in French when we didn't want somebody to know what we were talking about.
Patrick O'Neill did two very nice things for me. The people in the arms deal had figured out a way to con me out of a sizeable amount of money. O'Neill told me what he thought was going on and that the person I thought would receive the money would not. I figured a way to retrieve my check and got out of the deal safely… only because he sensed the problem and told me. His comment to my thanks was that "old soldiers stick together."
O'Neill had an design for a defensive bracelet which he'd patented. It was a special bracelet made of silver. It was designed to allow the wearer to break holds, and, using the prongs on the bottom to physically mark the person who attacked them. O'Neill intended it primarily for women. He asked me to figure a way to have it made for him, and gave me a copy of the patent and his prototype. I built a modified prototype from silver which I wear to this day. Unfortunately we never got it into production. I've always thought it would be interesting to find someone to pass it on to with his level and type of skills, someone who lives by the same code and ideals that were Patrick O'Neill.
One of my deepest regrets is that during the times I got to know Patrick O'Neill the demands on my time were so intense that I wasn't able to spend much more time in his company. That is as big a compliment as I can pay to anyone.
