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A Little History
Old Warrior was founded by Mr. Gary O'Neal. His story is both amazing and inspiring.
After
40 years with the US Army Rangers and Special Forces, Chief Warrant
Officer Gary Lee O'Neal (Ret.) defines Old Warrior. Trained from
childhood in the warrior traditions of the Oglala Sioux, Mr. O’Neal
epitomizes the spirit of the Ranger/Green Beret.
Drafted in
1969, Mr. O'Neal reenlisted, serving multiple combat tours in
Vietnam with multiple elite teams — from the 173rd Airborne
Brigade line company, Battalion Reconnaissance (Recon), Long Range
Reconnaissance Patrols (LRRPS), and Company C-75th Rangers to the 5th
Special Forces Group (SFG). He served on some of the most
dangerous missions of the war including special reconnaissance,
Prisoner of War (POW) rescue, sniper operations and classified
operations involving multinational forces.
Awarded the Silver
and Bronze Stars during his Vietnam service, Mr. O’Neal refused the
award of the Purple Heart several times, regarding his wounds as
hard-earned learning experience rather than reason for
decoration. Mr. O’Neal mastered several styles of martial arts,
among them, military Muay Thai, Hwarang Do, Chinese and Okinawan Kenpo,
Ninjutsu, and Jiujitsu. Tailoring the techniques to military
combat, he developed what eventually became his own school, the
American Warrior Free Fighting System, in which he holds a 10th-degree
black belt along with a 6th-degree Dan black belt in American Karate Do.
Returning
from Vietnam, O’Neal served with Company B-75th Rangers and later
joined ODA 594, 5th SFG, completing scuba and sub-operations
training. Handpicked as one of the first men on DoD’s first
anti-terrorist teams, he also shared his expertise in the creation and
training of the first Special Operations teams. Mr. O’Neal spent
over 15 years training and fighting with American and Latin American
forces in Central and South America.
Later, having earned accolades
as an instructor of US and foreign military free-fall (HALO/HAHO),
tandem, small unit tactics, hand-to-hand combat, SWAT tactics, recon,
and hostage rescue, he was personally selected by Colonel James Rowe to
help establish the US Army Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape
(SERE) School, where he assisted in developing the POI, lesson plans,
and actual survival manual.
Mr. O’Neal served with the US Army
Parachute Team (Golden Knights), competing nationally and
internationally with distinction. As NCOIC of the R&D
detachment of the Military Free Fall (MFF) School, he helped to develop
tandem and MFF bundle delivery systems. Key in developing the
advanced MFF course and training assistance teams, he was selected by
General Wayne A. Downing as Safety and Training Officer and was
instrumental in organizing the school SOP and redesigning its POI.
Retiring
in 1996, Mr. O’Neal attended advanced aviation technology school and
worked as a military technical advisor for movies and television.
Severely injured in a motorcycle accident, he returned to Pine Ridge
Indian Reservation to recuperate. Asked to return to Ft. Bragg to
train SF recruits, Mr. O’Neal served from 2004 to 2007 as a master
trainer in the world's largest unconventional warfare field exercise
(Robin Sage), where his lifelong commitment to training—mind, body, and
spirit—has continued to focus on being the Old Warrior.
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