Joseph Drexel Biddle: Father of Marine Corps Close Quarters Combat

Estimated reading time: 13 minutes

Human beings are born to fight. It’s honestly kind of weird. All of God’s creations have a violent streak. Your typical house cat will torture anything smaller than itself for fun. When your adorable puppy is violently shaking that little squeaky toy, in his mind, he is ripping the very life out of some small, innocent creature. However, all that pales in comparison to homo sapiens. One particular US Marine, Joseph Drexel Biddle, just had a gift for it.

Humans’ Fighting Nature

This curious drive toward pugilism pervades everything about our culture. Football is just thinly veiled small-unit combat. Feel free to raise your kids in a gun-free home if you wish. Just don’t be surprised when little Junior gnaws his Pop-Tart into the shape of a handgun and then shoots you with it. It’s hardwired into our DNA.

Fighting is also big business. Everybody on the planet recognizes Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson. Floyd Mayweather is the highest-paid boxer in the world. He’s currently worth around $450 million. He earned all that cash by beating the holy bejeebers out of folks. And then there’s the government taking things to the very next level.

The US defense budget is roughly $770 billion per annum. There are currently 328 million people in our great republic. Putting that in perspective, the United States spends $2,347 a year on defense for every man, woman, and child in America. Throughout a typical lifetime, that’s $183,110 for each and every one of us. All those F-35 fighter planes aren’t going buy themselves.

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While social justice warriors might hallucinate up some feel-good tripe about some ethereal spark of goodness in all of us, that’s just not true. We all come from the factory broken. However, some seem more inclined to scrap than others. One of those curiously violent men was Joseph Biddle.

Joseph Drexel Biddle Origin Story

Joseph Drexel Biddle was born on 1 October 1874 to Emily Drexel and Edward Biddle II. Young Joseph spawned from banking royalty. His grandfather on his mom’s side was Anthony Joseph Drexel. His great-grandfather on his dad’s side was Nicholas Biddle. Anthony Joseph Drexel was a banker who established modern American global finance in the aftermath of the Civil War. JP Morgan was a junior partner in his firm.

Great-Grandfather Nicholas Biddle

Nicholas Biddle lived a generation prior and personally precipitated a financial recession in America after a spat with firebrand American President Andrew Jackson. In response to some offensive action or other by President Jackson, a man notoriously distrustful of financial institutions, Biddle hiked up interest rates in his banking house. This had the effect of destabilizing American currency. It’s not just every day a single man who isn’t a Bond villain can threaten to topple the American economy. Together, these two families were lyrically rich. All that cash was destined to funnel right into the pockets of young Joseph Drexel Biddle.

I grew up in a family of modest means. We never wanted for necessities, but we didn’t have just gobs of cash lying about, either. Having personally known periods of both austerity and plenty, I would posit that it was the relative deprivation that actually best honed my present character. Most really rich people I have known can be a bit caustic. Not so with Joseph Biddle.

Joseph Drexel Biddle

That guy could have just chosen to live out his life anonymously in opulent comfort. Truth be known, had it been me, I likely would have gotten some plastic surgery pec implants and embarked on a satisfying career as a part-time TikTok influencer. However, Joseph Biddle opted for something else entirely.

The word Karate means “empty hand.” This martial art originally arose in Japan and revolves around self-defense without the use of weapons. There are countless variations. Nowadays, the more photogenic adherents can land lucrative movie deals and become ludicrously wealthy in the process. Jason Statham, Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, and Wesley Snipes have all converted some killer martial arts moves into gobs of cash. Chuck Norris’ roundhouse kick should hang in the Louvre. Joseph Biddle got into martial arts back when martial arts weren’t cool.

Close Quarters Combat

With more money at his disposal than he could ever spend, Biddle sought out training opportunities. Unencumbered by the need to make a living or feed himself, the man threw himself into everything he did. He became a published author and playwright and earned the title of fellow of the American Geographical Society. Along the way, he trained extensively in savate and jiu-jitsu.

Savate is a French martial art, believe it or not. The word means “old shoe or boot.” Savate combines elements of English boxing with a variety of graceful kicking techniques. In the annals of savate, only foot kicks are allowed. Therefore, mastering savate involves some epic footwork. Bruce Lee was a serious student of the technique.

Jiujitsu dates back to the 16th century in Japan and can be employed in either offense or defense. The art was perfected among the Japanese warrior class in the 17^th century. Jiujitsu went on to spawn judo, aikido, sambo, and the contemporary sport of mixed martial arts. 

In addition to being an absolute close combat monster, Biddle also lived out a powerful and abiding Christian faith. He fathered a popular movement titled “Athletic Christianity.” At one point, his organization boasted some 300,000 active members. When teaching children, he was wont to explain that, “(Jesus) had gone into the jungle [sic] for forty days to train for a match with the Devil.”

An avid boxer, Biddle tended to attract attention based on his station and his extensive writings. He therefore typically boxed incognito under the pseudonym “Tim O’Biddle.” Along the way, he got fairly good at it.

Biddle – Answering the Call

In 1917, the United States stood poised to enter World War 1. We always were an undeniably scrappy mob. That institutional tendency toward pugilism very nearly destroyed us during the American Civil War. However, in the early 20th century, the state of American combat training was fairly rudimentary. As a result, Joseph Drexel Biddle–socialite, author, Christian lay leader, amateur boxer, and recognized master of unarmed combat–enlisted in the Marine Corps at age 41.

The Jarheads recognized the value of an intense regimen of calisthenics and hand-to-hand combat training. As Biddle was the only show in town, they commissioned him a Captain and gave him free rein to tour Marine training camps in Britain and France, schooling young Leathernecks in the fine art of close quarters fighting. His technique focused on English boxing but also taught mastery of the bayonet as well as general physical toughness. 

Instructor

After the war, Biddle remained in the Marine Corps Reserve but also branched out. In 1919, he gave a public demonstration on rifle bayonet fencing as an opening act before the Willard-Dempsey prizefight. Biddle and his Marines put on a spirited and rousing display. However, the bout had to be postponed as the Jarheads absolutely destroyed the canvas boxing ring in the process. 

In the 1930s, Biddle taught close combat techniques as part of new agent training for the FBI. In 1937, the Marine Corps Association published Biddle’s book titled Do or Die, Military Manual of Advanced Science in Individual Combat. While some complained that the techniques described therein were somewhat dated on a battlefield liberally populated with machine guns and armored vehicles, hand-to-hand combat remains an important part of military training even today.

With World War 2 brewing, Biddle was recalled to active duty once again as a Marine close combat instructor. By 1941, he was 67 years old and a full Colonel. Even then, his teaching technique was sufficiently radical as to strain credulity.

Joseph Drexel Biddle’s Legacy

Lee Marvin’s hand-to-hand training scene in the epic war film The Dirty Dozen was inspired by Joseph Biddle. Biddle would face off unarmed against young, fit, hard Marines equipped with an unsheathed knife or a bayonet on a rifle. Biddle would then invite them to attack him. During many years of these demonstrations, he was only seriously injured once. One young fire breather got a good slice in against Biddle’s wrist and put him in the hospital for two full months.

Biddle’s influence lives on in the Marine Corps today. Nowadays, individual combatives are formalized in the Corps as the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program or MCMAP. The motto is One Mind, Any Weapon. The MCMAP was launched in 2001 and is designed to improve morale, enhance team-building, and foster mental and physical toughness. The MCMAP is a major part of the Marines’ embracing the warrior ethos. Components address combat with edged weapons, the bayonet, weapons of opportunity, and unarmed hand-to-hand techniques.

The MCMAP employs a belt system akin to that of most recognized martial arts programs. Trainees advance from Tan through Gray, Green, Brown, and eventually Black belts as they master the intricacies of the program. The MCMAP draws from a wide variety of styles, all tailored to the unique demands of the modern combat Marine.

Ruminations

The United States of America is in a fairly shoddy state these days. The fine art of manliness is institutionally discouraged. In some quarters, we struggle to define what a man even is. One might be forgiven for feeling that the inmates had taken over the asylum. However, this was not always the case.

READ MORE HERE: Dr Dabbs – When America’s Ace of Aces “Shot Down” a Crocodile

There was a time not so long ago when a 67-year-old man voluntarily faced off alone and unarmed against a hard young warrior wielding an unsheathed bayonet and sincerely invited the kid to kill him. Along the way, this remarkable, wealthy theologian helped create the most lethal and effective amphibious military force the world has ever seen. 

Joseph Biddle died of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 73 in 1948. His obituary in Time Magazine read, “Died. Colonel Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle Sr., 73, muscular Christian, father of the wartime ambassador to the governments in exile; following a cerebral hemorrhage; in Syosset, N.Y. He founded the Drexel Biddle Bible Classes in 1907 (their curriculum of fighting-&-praying ultimately attracted 300,000 members), taught jujitsu and dirty fighting to Marines in both World Wars.” A muscular Christian who taught dirty fighting. That’s a true warrior’s obit right there. Wow, what a stud.

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