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Dave Young – Continued

1972 was the start of Dave’s personal studies in surviving real world threats. He grew up in a low-income and rough environment and, out of necessity, learned boxing, street fighting, judo, aikido, and various forms or karate and taekwondo.

Whatever he learned during the week was immediately applied on the weekend (“Knowledge learned is knowledge applied.”) During his younger years, most of his fights were against bigger attackers or more than one attacker, and used everything from empty hands, knees and punching — to sticks, clubs, knives, and guns.

Graduating from Hialeah Miami Lakes Senior High School in 1980, he moved by himself to Long Beach, California to attend Long Beach City College to play water polo.  He took a job with Frank Shaw Investigations where he was assigned to some of the toughest areas in California such as Inglewood, Compton, and Watts.  He worked as a shoplifting agent responsible for loss prevention where he monitored and made arrests for shoplifting, vandalism and various larceny violations. During this time Dave had many physical confrontations, some of which lasted seconds to several minutes.

In 1982 Dave enlisted into the United Stated Army and after graduating from United States Airborne School in June of 1982, he proceeded to the 5th Quartermaster in Kaiserslautern, Germany (K-Town) as Parachute Rigger, where he represented the United States in the 100 mile March throughout Nijmegen, in Europe. This group trained for 3 months and received a letter from President Reagan for their efforts. During his tour in Germany he was attached to many specialized units for his packing expertise, where he later received the Army Achievement Medal for his dedication, efforts and knowledge of the Martin Baker Extraction Systems. During his tour he trained in Russian Sambo and various European martial arts.

In 1985 he was honorably discharged from the Army to pursue a career in law enforcement.  Graduating from his first law enforcement academy in 1985, Dave was dual certified as both a Correctional and Law Enforcement officer in the state of Florida.  During that time he served as a correctional officer-processing officer where his skills were often challenged by a variety of inmates, and later in 1986 as a sworn deputy sheriff.

In 1988 Dave enlisted into the United States Marines and attended Marines Corps Boot Camp in MCRD Paris Island with platoon 1041. In May of that year Dave was awarded the highest graduating honor for his platoon.  He continued his advanced training in his MOS and in August of 1988 he graduated from the United Stated Air Force Military Police Academy in Lakeland, TX, and was then transferred to MCRD, San Diego, CA as an MP.

Shortly after arriving in San Diego, CA he was instrumental in saving a little boys life named Peppin Morales by rescuing him after he was missing for 3 days in the Cuyamaca Mountains in CA — for which he was awarded a Meritorious Masts. Also during this time he was awarded his first of two Navy Achievement Medals.  In 1990 he was transferred to Okinawa, Japan where he served as a gate sentry, patrol, and watch commander, black market investigator, training Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge (NCOIC), and SRT Team Member, and Team Leader.  His duties took him all over the island on various Marine Corps Camps, Hansen, Courtney, Mc Taurus and Camp Butler and into the Japanese communities.  He studied various Martial Arts on the island like Okinawa karate, muay-thai, jujitsu, aikido and other mix martial art forms with local Japanese police officers.

During this time he developed one of the first Chemical Aerosol Projector Programs for the deployment of Oleoresin Capsicum (OC).  His OC programs are now used worldwide. In February of 1992 he was awarded the Navy Achievement Medal for developing the first civilian compatible related defensive tactics programs between military and civilian agencies, called the “Defensive Tactics Development Course,” focusing on all of the use of force tactics teaching weapons transitions and various control tactics.

Since leaving the Marines, Dave has dedicated his career to real-world defensive tactics training working with some of the top professional law enforcement training and weapon companies in the business.

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