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Associated Press
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
GySgt. Dale Simmons' Life of Combat Now Available as Audiobook, Offering Insights into Revolutionary Military Hand-to-Hand Combat System
Life of Combat by GySgt. Dale Simmons, detailing his journey to introduce the SAMBO combat system to the U.S. Marine Corps, is now available in audiobook format, offering powerful insights into military combat and resilience United States, June 28, 2025 -- GySgt. Dale Simmons' Life of Combat Now Available as Audiobook GySgt. Dale Simmons' highly anticipated memoir, Life of Combat, is now available in audiobook format on Amazon. This gripping autobiography chronicles Simmons' remarkable journey as he worked to introduce the Russian hand-to-hand combat system, SAMBO, to the U.S. Marine Corps. The audiobook offers a firsthand account of his experiences training Marines in a counter-combat technique, overcoming both physical and psychological challenges along the way. Life of Combat captures the struggles and triumphs of a man who, despite a difficult and traumatic childhood, grew into a respected combat instructor. It's a story of resilience, persistence, and the mental and physical toll that military combat demands. For those interested in military history, martial arts, and personal stories of overcoming adversity, Life of Combat provides an unparalleled, authentic perspective on military life. From Personal Struggles to Combat Mastery Simmons' story begins long before he became a Marine Corps instructor. As a child, he faced significant trauma, from abuse to a severe dog bite injury that left lasting scars. These early life challenges shaped his determination to learn martial arts, leading him to teach himself various combat techniques, from hand-to-hand combat to assassination methods learned from other cultures. Through intense self-discipline, Simmons eventually found his calling within the Marine Corps. He noticed a gap in the hand-to-hand combat training for Marines and worked to fill it by introducing SAMBO, a Russian system known for its brutal effectiveness. His Counter-SAMBO course became an integral part of Marine Corps training, eventually training 93 Marines to instructor level. 'I always felt that the Marines deserved better training to survive in hand-to-hand combat,' says Simmons. 'The Soviets had mastered SAMBO, and I believed that American troops needed a counter-system that was just as effective.' Overcoming Resistance and Bureaucratic Challenges Simmons' attempt to introduce the Counter-SAMBO program was met with resistance from military leaders, who were reluctant to adopt foreign techniques. Furthermore, Simmons faced bureaucratic roadblocks, psychological opposition from colleagues, and even personal attacks throughout his journey. Despite these obstacles, Simmons refused to back down, believing that the course could ultimately save lives. His story is one of determination and the pursuit of excellence against all odds. 'I had the weight of 172,000 Marines on my back,' Simmons recalls. 'It wasn't just about teaching combat—it was about ensuring they were prepared for the realities of close-quarters combat.' A Powerful Message of Perseverance Simmons' memoir is not just for military professionals or martial artists—it's a source of inspiration for anyone who has faced adversity. The book is a testament to the power of perseverance and never giving up, even when the odds seem impossible. Simmons' journey demonstrates that no matter how difficult life may seem, determination, hard work, and self-belief can lead to success. 'The fight wasn't just physical—it was mental, emotional, and bureaucratic,' says Simmons. 'But I knew I had to keep pushing forward, no matter the cost. If it meant saving the lives of my fellow Marines, it was worth it.' Simmons Receives Prestigious Award for Martial Arts Instruction Adding to his accolades, GySgt. Dale Simmons has recently been honored with the Best Martial Arts Instructor for Military Personnel in the U.S. of 2025 award, as announced on June 27, 2025. This award, given by Best of Best Review, recognizes Simmons' groundbreaking work in martial arts training for military personnel, especially his development of the Counter-SAMBO combat course. His work has revolutionized the approach to military hand-to-hand combat training, combining practical techniques with a deep understanding of psychological and tactical expertise. 'It's a humbling honor to receive this award,' says Simmons. 'It's a recognition of the hard work and sacrifices made to ensure our Marines are ready for any combat scenario. I'm proud to continue contributing to the legacy of excellence in military training.' Now Available in Audiobook Format In addition to the book's written version, Life of Combat is now available in audiobook format. The audiobook brings Simmons' story to life, offering an immersive listening experience that reaches an even wider audience. The format is ideal for those who prefer to absorb the narrative while on the go, making it a valuable addition for both casual listeners and combat sports enthusiasts. 'I'm thrilled to offer this book in audiobook format,' Simmons says. 'It allows even more people to hear the story of perseverance, the lessons of combat, and the dedication it takes to make a difference in the world.' The audiobook version of Life of Combat is now available for purchase on Amazon. To purchase or learn more about the book, visit About Life of Combat Life of Combat is the true story of GySgt. Dale Simmons, a former Marine who developed the Counter-SAMBO hand-to-hand combat system for the U.S. Marine Corps. The book details his journey from a traumatic childhood to becoming a leader in military combat training, and his mission to help fellow Marines survive the brutal realities of close-quarters combat. With a passion for martial arts and an unyielding drive to save lives, Simmons' story provides insight into overcoming adversity and the importance of resilience in combat. Media Contact Dale Craig Simmons Close Combat Scientist Email: [email protected] Website Contact Info: Name: Dale Craig Simmons Email: Send Email Organization: Life of Combat Website: Release ID: 89163446 Should you detect any errors, issues, or discrepancies with the content contained within this press release, or if you need assistance with a press release takedown, we kindly request that you inform us immediately by contacting [email protected] (it is important to note that this email is the authorized channel for such matters, sending multiple emails to multiple addresses does not necessarily help expedite your request). Our expert team will be available to promptly respond and take necessary steps within the next 8 hours to resolve any identified issues or guide you through the removal process. We value the trust placed in us by our readers and remain dedicated to providing accurate and reliable information.
Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Air Force F-35 buy would be cut in half under Pentagon spending plan
The Air Force would cut its F-35A purchase for fiscal 2026 roughly in half under the White House's draft defense budget. The service typically buys about four dozen Joint Strike Fighters each year, with some years' purchases topping 60. But a budget document obtained by Defense News shows the service would procure 24 F-35s next year, for a cost of nearly $4 billion. That is less than the 44 F-35s, costing $4.8 billion, the Air Force is on track to buy this year, and the 51 jets worth $5.5 billion the service bought in 2024. And while the number of jets the Air Force plans to buy would drop by 45% between 2025 and 2026, the savings would lag far behind. The cost of the F-35 purchases in 2026 would drop less than 18% over the 2025 cost, suggesting economies of scale would suffer from the reduced buy. The slow emergence of budget documents and administration spending plans in this way is highly unusual, even for an administration in its first months. Proposed budgets for the upcoming fiscal year are often released formally sometime in the spring and accompanied by briefings explaining the spending plans. But President Donald Trump's administration has not rolled out its full budget proposal for fiscal 2026, though it has trickled out broad outlines of spending plans. The House Appropriations subcommittee on defense advanced Tuesday its own version of a Defense Department spending bill that looks closer to a typical F-35 purchasing plan. That bill would provide $4.5 billion for the Air Force to buy 42 F-35As, as well as another $1.9 billion for the Marine Corps to buy 13 short takeoff and vertical landing F-35Bs. Another $2 billion was included for the Navy and Marine Corps to buy the F-35C carrier variant. While the Air Force has sought to pare back some F-35 purchases in recent years, primarily due to dissatisfaction with delayed upgrades known as Technology Refresh 3, the apparent plan to slash purchases to this degree would be a surprise. Top Air Force leaders have stressed consistently that the F-35 is the centerpiece of its fighter fleet. Some have referred to it as a 'quarterback' that uses advanced data sharing capabilities to tie together multiple assets. The Air Force's fighter fleet is rapidly aging, and older F-15s and F-16s are retiring. Air Force leaders have often said the service needs to buy at least 72 fighters each year to modernize its aircraft and bring down the average age of its fleet. US Air Force warns of aging fighters, poor purchasing efforts Buying 24 F-35As, along with 21 F-15EX fighters also budgeted in the Pentagon's plan, would leave the Air Force far short of that goal in 2026. The Air Force's future budget plans, which it released last year, included proposals to buy 42 F-35As in 2026, 47 apiece in 2027 and 2028, and 48 in 2029. The service eventually wants to buy a total of 1,763 F-35As. Doug Birkey, executive director for the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, said in an interview that cutting F-35 purchases this severely would be disastrous to the Air Force and irrevocably set it further back in its effort to modernize its fighter fleet. 'There's no way the Air Force or the nation can afford to bring down the fighter buy rate,' Birkey told Defense News. 'The legacy [fighter] assets are rapidly failing due to age, and we need 72 fighters per year just to tread water ... We will never regain the time.' A reduction in F-35 purchases would also throw the supplier base for the jet into disarray, Birkey said, not just Lockheed Martin, but also the more than 1,900 other companies that feed its supply chain. Without consistent targets to work toward every year, the supplier base will get 'whiplashed around,' he said. 'Everyone says we need to rebuild the defense industrial base, but this is not how you do it,' Birkey said. 'The workforce, access to long-lead supply — everything that's required for maintaining the ability to produce [F-35s] and surge [when more production is necessary], you destroy it through cuts like this.' Birkey said the Pentagon is likely considering such drastic cuts due to rising expenses that are squeezing its budget, but he expects Congress will ultimately bring the F-35 buy rate back up to normal. Trump has spoken highly of the F-35 and its stealth capabilities in the past. Former Trump adviser Elon Musk has been a prominent skeptic of crewed fighters such as the F-35, calling them 'obsolete in the age of drones.' Musk has dramatically and publicly fallen out of favor with the administration in recent weeks amid his criticism of the president's signature spending bill. Lockheed Martin's stock dropped more than 6% after news broke Wednesday of the possible purchase cut, although the company has since pared back some of that loss. The Air Force did not respond to a request for comment.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump's cruel immigration machine is still tearing families apart
A Marine Corps veteran's wife, taken from her two-year-old and three-month-old children. A fourth-grade boy from California taken from his father and detained at a routine immigration appointment, later deported to Honduras. An asylum-seeking 9-year-old girl and her mother parted from her stepfather and 16-month-old sister and taken into federal custody. Those are just a few examples of the families ripped apart by the Trump administration's cruel immigration policies. During the president's first term, the practice of forcibly separating families of immigrants faced widespread outrage and protracted legal challenges. A 2023 settlement between the Biden administration and the American Civil Liberties Union banned that practice at the border until 2031. Yet in his second term, it didn't take long for Trump to violate court orders and continue tearing families apart. Amid protests in Los Angeles earlier this month over family separation and Trump's broader immigration policy, the president deployed National Guard troops and U.S. Marines to the city. His top adviser Stephen Miller posted on X that Americans face a stark choice: 'Deport the invaders, or surrender to insurrection.' Framing immigrants — including children — as 'invaders' is not just inflammatory rhetoric. It perpetuates dangerous, dehumanizing narratives and serves to justify violent family separation practices. Migrant children and families are not 'invaders.' They are victims of U.S. immigration policy that has repeatedly torn families apart, inflicting lasting harm on child development and well-being. How did we arrive at a moment where protesting the detention of a child ripped from their parent's arms is met with militarized force? Although President Joe Biden called family separation 'criminal' as a candidate, accountability for the practice never materialized and U.S. immigration policy continued to separate families throughout his administration . Now, in Trump's second administration, family separation has gone largely unchecked, as the courts and Congress abdicate responsibility and cede control of immigration policy to the executive branch. In its first five months, this administration has taken approximately 500 migrant children living in the U.S. from their homes and into government custody. As the examples at the start of this piece show, family separation is not limited to the border, but is happening in homes, schools, and courthouses across the country. Although the Trump administration has emphasized that their focus is on mass deportation, mass deportation is family separation. 'Shock and awe' deportation campaigns arefamily separation. As of 2019, an estimated 4.1 to 5.7 million children in the U.S. lived in mixed-status households, i.e. households with at least one citizen or documented immigrant child and at least one undocumented parent. The Trump administration has also escalated attacks on migrant children's rights. Trump violated the court-ordered settlement to provide legal representation to thousands of families separated under the Zero Tolerance Policy. The Office of Refugee Resettlement terminated legal representation for 26,000 unaccompanied children, forcing children to represent themselves in court. ICE raids and rescinding the sensitive locations policy have turned playgrounds and classrooms into places of uncertainty and trauma. And Trump is fighting the landmark Flores Settlement Agreement that limits how long children can be held in detention. Already, data show migrant children are being detained for longer periods. This prolonged detention and parent-child separation has profound and lasting consequences on the developing brain. Children are especially vulnerable to trauma early in life, when brain plasticity is highest. Forced separation from a parent — or living in constant fear of it — triggers the brain's threat detection systems, causing children to remain on high alert and increasing their risk for mental health disorders like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Deportation of a parent can lead to drastic reduction in family income, forced relocations, and emotional trauma. These consequences are linked with emotional and behavioral challenges that can last into adulthood. Immigrant communities are scared and outraged. Millions of Americans who recognize immigrants are our friends, our neighbors, and our fellow human beings are outraged. Protests — not just in Los Angeles but nationwide — reflect a growing demand for accountability. And should future leaders get a chance to remake our immigration system, they must not forget who is at the center of the harm Trump has wrought: children and families seeking safety. This article was originally published on
TimesLIVE
2 days ago
- Politics
- TimesLIVE
US military to create two new border zones, officials say
The Pentagon will create two new military zones on the border with Mexico, US officials said on Wednesday, a move that will allow troops to temporarily detain migrants or trespassers. President Donald Trump's administration has hailed its actions on the border, including the deployment of active duty troops, as the reason for a sharp decline in crossings by undocumented migrants. Trump made voters' concerns about immigration a cornerstone of his 2024 re-election bid. The Pentagon has already created two military zones, but only four people have been temporarily detained on them, a US official said. A new 'national defence area' will be created covering about 402km of the Rio Grande river in Texas and administered as a part of Joint Base San Antonio, according to the air force. The US officials said the other military zone would be administered as a part of Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, Arizona. The zones are intended to allow the Trump administration to use troops to detain migrants without invoking the 1807 Insurrection Act that empowers a president to deploy the US military to suppress events such as civil disorder. As legal deterrents to border crossers, the zones have had mixed results. Federal magistrate judges in New Mexico and Texas dismissed trespassing charges against dozens of migrants caught in the areas on grounds they did not know they were in a restricted military zone. However, about 120 migrants pleaded guilty to trespassing in the first Texas zone in May and federal prosecutors obtained their first two trespassing convictions for the New Mexico zone on June 18, according to US attorneys' offices in the two states. About 11,900 troops are on the border. Illegal border crossings fell to a record low in March after the Biden administration shut down asylum claims in 2024 and Mexico tightened immigration controls.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Lorenzo "Larry" Chavez Lorenzo "Larry" Chavez passed away
Jun. 25—Lorenzo "Larry" Chavez Lorenzo "Larry" Chavez passed away peacefully on June 5, 2025, surrounded by his family. He was 88 years old. Born on November 7, 1936, in Los Quartitos, New Mexico, to Guadalupe Olguin and Guadalupe Chavez. He proudly served his country as a member of the United States Marine Corps, a chapter of his life that instilled in him a deep sense of discipline and pride. Larry cherished his roots in Los Quartitos, where he grew up roping on the family ranch. A lifelong fan of the Dallas Cowboys, and an avid golfer, Larry found joy in the simple pleasures of life. Later in life he competed in the Senior Olympics in Track and Field Games and Golf. He and his wife Delia spent their retirement at the local casino. Larry was a devoted grandfather, and great-grandfather. He is survived by his children: Larry (Rose) Chavez, Jeannette (Gary) Tripp, and Gary (Noel) Chavez. His legacy continues through his grandchildren: Hilario (KariAnn) Chavez, Orlando (Dawn) Chavez, Marcelina (Adam) Garcia, Delia Ann (Randall) Hayden, Jennifer Gonzales, Hilaree (Joseph) Levi, Gayle (Andrew) Aho, Lawrence Chavez; 19 great-grandchildren, and 3 great-great-grandchildren, all of whom brought immense joy to his life. He is also survived by his siblings Norman, Clarence, George, Leroy, Patsy, Irene and Connie. Larry was preceded in death by his wife, Delia, his parents, his brothers Frank and Orlando Chavez, and daughter-in-law Sandra Gonzales. Many thanks to Martha (Jeannie) Anaya for her dedication to our father during the last five years, your help was truly appreciated! Also, to BeeHive Homes, especially Kittie, Tristan, Briana, Natalie, and the entire staff as well as Roadrunner Hospice for their care and compassion for him and our family. A memorial service will be held to honor his life and legacy on Thursday, July 3rd, 2025. Rosary at 10:00 a.m. followed by mass at 10:30 a.m. at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church with the burial soon after at Vista Verde Cemetery with reception to follow. To view more information or place a condolence, please visit
