Vunak and his Seals

[Thai Bri]

I know that Paul Vunak is beginning to get a bit of a bashing. But hey, he's a big boy right?

Anyway, he's made a BIIIIIIG deal about how he used to train US Navy Seals. They have a great reputation as fighting men. Vunak being chosen as their trainer gives him a great deal of credibility.

But can anyone answer me this? How long did he train the Seals? And why isn't he doing it any more? If they thought he was that good he'd have a multi million dollar contract with the US Navy.

But he hasn't.

[eXcessiveForce]

Most likely because after you train a few seals in what you know and they go up in rank they get into positions to set up their own programs that they do not have to pay for.

Frank Cucci also trained the seals and helped design seal team 8's combat training. I think frank is now working as head of security of disney. That's what I was told anyway.

[brokenelbow]

I like Cucci, but I think the program he developed for the one of the teams was unofficial. XF, doesn't Frank still have a school by you? As a frequent Disney goer I'd like to know if he's handling security.

[Paul Sharp]

Duane Dieter

[eXcessiveForce]

He did have a school in Virginia Beach, I went to train with him but he told me they don't spar. I couldn't believe it and ended up not signing on. I was told the school was going to be sold to his juniors and he was headed to florida to work with disney. I live in Missouri now so I don't know if that actually transpired.

[Aaron04]

Frank Cucci was a student of Paul Vunak.

[ryanhall]

Duane Dieter

Last time I checked, he was currently in charge of much of the SEAL H2H and CQB training. They hold him in very high regard, and are very quiet about what goes on.

I've looked around a bit, and I can't find anything on what he does--other than his system is allegedly loosely based off of Fukien Wing Chun. But don't quote me on that, because I am not sure that it is anywhere near the truth.

Fact of the matter is that our SF guys don't engage in unarmed combat that frequently. Hell, if they do, they're probably in very big trouble. I'll bet they're tough guys period, but hand to hand undoubtedly comprises a relatively small percentage of their training. Dieter must have something to him if he has stuck around this long, though.

[NuffSpeed]

A friend of mine in the regular army, told me a story the other day about Seals training with them when they were both training on a ship together, basically they were asked to resist when the Seals tried to take them out in a certain situation, the first time they resisted heavily and actually mopped the floor with the seals. The head officer, then asked if they could do it again, going full out. They did, and this time, the seals went ballistic and mopped the floor with the reg force guys, he said they were pretty good hand to hand, pulling off some pretty crazy sheeiit.

[Great Sage]

Yeah... I agree with Ryan. Special Forces only train in hand-to-hand combat as a last case resort... However, it's very unlikely that our troops engage in such scenarios. If you're separated from your weapon, you're in deep shiet.

The fact that our military hires martial artists to train them only shows that they like to keep updated and improve their physical conditioning. I mean, Jhoon Rhee was once a trainer for the Pentagon and we know the guy is a wimp. So in that regard, training for SF doesn't really make you a badass, but you sure will have credibility in marketing.

[roz]

Vu trained frank and when paul left the seals frank took over. as for the seals not having that much hand to hand combat - who knows. i can imagine, sometimes they would have to be silent and accomplish kills with a knife or hand to hand combat, this has to be a must. how much work do you think they have been doing since 9-11. a lot of things go unreported, would you not say. i don't know of anybody bashing Vu. that would be a redundant thing to do.

[Thai Bri]

I don't know te guy. But there are a couple of people here who have trained with him, and they speak of a sorry legacy of unreliability, being ripped off and then finding him impossible to contact.

[roz]

We Are Human

[Nutz]

You guys crack me up. Most of you have this hollywood image in your heads of what SEALs, SF, etc do.

To put it bluntly, SEALs are the military equivalent of SWAT teams. They go into situations such as boat siezures (of drug cartels), when diplomacy fails in high profile hostage situations you may see SEALs or one of the SF companies put into action. Things like that. They are not Ninjas that go around slicing people's heads off (yeah, I know what you're thinking... that's why I use that analogy).

SF guys actually fit the definition of Ranger better than our actual rangers do. Go figure. SF/GBs live off the land and do things like teach rebel forces how to fight for themselves. Well, that's one of the things they can do. Rangers are like shock troops that flash into an area and take the first hit so SF teams can get in close for the precision shit. I could go on and on, but I've got a test in a few minutes.

[fullcircle]

What are you talking about? For one, boat seizures are done by the Coast Guard, and you have it backwards, SF go in so the normal forces can take precision hits (paint targets, recon, etc.) or to take out specific targets.

[Nutz]

First hand knowledge here. Trust me. I will give ya that missions are not always carried out, or even planned for that matter, in a black and white fashion. We all carry mixed roles nowadays.
But you do need to realize that whatever you've read about SOF operations may have been counter to normal mission paramaters and was just the way things panned out during that op. I can see your point at the end of your post. Hell most of the guys I've worked with don't even see action in this day and age (depending on their unit's mission). 90% of it is all behinds the scenes--Some of my commo buds find their weapon of choice these days are telescoping video cams