Hanshi McGrath Presents
Master David Moore
October's
Devil Dog
Martial Artist & Warrior
A few weeks ago, I went to a jam-packed Junk Mail section. I was glancing through it, to ensure that something worthwhile was not incorrectly placed, before I cleaned them all out. Suddenly, a name that often went around the back of my brain from 48 years back, David Moore. Dave was one of only three Officers on the deck. He studied Judo and Jiu-Jitsu under Master Ernie Cates, the owner of the dojo and five times Marine Corps Judo Champion. Despite that, being two Second Lieutenants on the same deck, we grew to be good friends. Often, when I wanted to unwind from Sensei Nagle’s Isshin-ryu classes, I would go down to the Judo end and let Dave toss me around. On these occasions, Sensei would be gone and never saw these friendly tussles. Unfortunately, Sensei walked back in one day and saw me being tossed around by a Judo student. He called me over and asked why I was allowing a Judo-ka to throw an Isshin-ryu student around the deck. Sensei also told to go back and beat the Hell out of Dave, and then he sat down and waited. On the next throw, I hit the deck and drove my right foot into Dave’s chest. I then jumped to my feet and began to fire kicks and punches at Dave from all areas available. When we finished, Sensei Nagle stood up smiled and nodded to me and left the dojo. Dave and I went back to me being thrown around the deck. Suddenly, too quickly Dave and I were sent in different directions. Dave was a helicopter pilot, with wings of gold and when reports of the Vietnam War began to appear on the TV screen, I started to fear for Dave’s future, realizing that copters were going down all over the war zone. As it worsened, I began to enter him in my night prayers, feeling that his time was shortening, as the war grew more vicious by the day.
Over the decades, Dave would pop up in my head and I would pray for him, thinking, deep down, that his soul wanted a prayer. One afternoon this month, there was an e-mail from Dave Moore, entitled “Old Days at the Dojo.” Unlike my worries over the decades, his story was the exact opposite, it was a genuine warriors miracle. He had been searching on the Internet trying to locate Master Ernie Cates and wound up running into my web site. Perhaps, since he says, “ I believe that it was the prayers of family and friends that got me through,” as well as being helped by an Aikido principle that Ernie Cates taught him. The result is extraordinary and I will relate the story for all of you. There is a God and He created a miracle for David Moore, who would remain in the Corps for twenty years and become a Lieutenant Colonel, based at Marine Corps Headquarters. The ACLU probably will be shocked to hear this factual story.
During three separate tours of duty in Vietnam. In his first two tours, he flew H-34 copters and in his third tour, CH-46’s. He had 1000 hours under his belt, with 800 missions. He was in several flights of over 20 aircraft doing troop insertions for major operations, wherein every copter in the group took several hits and some copters went down, but not one round ever hit any aircraft Dave flew. He does not believe that any of this was by chance and if you go back, to ruminate on what he did, you will realize that the odds of not being hit were off the charts. As Dave said, “It certainly wasn’t for lack of the bad guys trying to get me.”
At the end of his first tour (1962-1963) in Nam he was sent to Okinawa for the
last half of his tour and then was assigned as a Flight Instructor for the next
three years at Pensacola, Florida. He instructed new pilot candidates and was
fortunate to be selected to train two of the Apollo astronauts (Dave Scott and
Dick Gordon) to fly helicopters, since the astronauts were all fixed wing jet
pilots and they needed to be able to land the Lunar Module vertically on the
Moon, since the standard 150 kt. Touchdown they were used to would not do the
job. Simultaneously, he took on the duties as Officer-in-Charge of the Naval
Basic Aviation Training Command Judo team. They set up programs at Pensacola
Naval Air Station and Ellyson Field (the helicopter base where I was stationed.)
He worked closely with the AFJA (Armed Forces Judo Association) and sponsored a
variety of clinics, tournaments and special events. A highlight was a clinic
given by Professor Katani, the highest ranked Black Belt at the Kodakan and he
was the head of the Kodokan’s Foreign Section. He also had several clinics
taught by Olympic Judo stars. The only sour note that occurred were, the
political maneuvering from the civilian Yadanshakais (Black Belt Associations.)
They would attempt to take over their tournaments and even went so far as to
forbid the Association members to participate. They were unable to cause that
sanction, because of the intervention and action of the Armed Forces Judo
Association (AFJA). Dave said that it was because Grand Masters Ernie Cates and
Don Nagle gave the two of us the mindset that ego and politics did not have a
place in Judo or karate, that we persevered over that type of interference. Only
the art counted. He has always been grateful for that.
Outside of the military, Dave’s group put on numerous demos at malls, schools and was on TV regularly. The local school (Pensacola Junior College) invited me to teach a Self-Defense Course, during a period when a rapist was on the loose and had attacked several women in the summer. By the time that Dave was able to put the schedule together, they had caught the rapist, but he had a full class, anyway. The class became popular and Dave also offered a Judo Sport class, in addition to the Self-Defense. A few years ago, Dave ran into a former student at a Marine Vietnam Helicopter Association convention. At that point, he had become Major General Rick Phillips (who was also a Judo student and helo instructor) and his clearest memory was of throwing each other around the mat.
Leaving Pensacola Dave spent six months transitioning into the Ch-46 prior to leaving for his second Vietnam tour. However, when he arrived in Nam he found that the Ch-46’s were literally falling apart in the skies, so he was assigned to an H-34 squadron. After returning to the states and a tour at Jacksonville (New River Air Station) North Carolina, he was assigned for graduate school at American University in Washington, DC.
After his third tour of duty in Vietnam, Dave returned for a tour of duty at Headquarters Marine Corps, which was the post that he retired from despite the fact that he had good friends and associates among the highest Generals in the Corps and may have been able to retire with a star if he stayed in the Corps. Dave just felt it was time to move on and entered the technical search and consulting business, which included writing three books, working as a technical consultant on a movie, as well as teaching undergraduate and graduate courses on a part time basis for several colleges and universities over the last twenty-five years. Like most Marines, Dave is a Conservative, as I am. He is also a man whom God watched over. And the ACLU wants to throw God out of America, as though that was possible.