“It was a great opportunity for me and made me prouder of the job I have here at the Air Force Academy to help develop the leaders in our military.” - Joel Sharratt, Air Force coach
Air Force’s Sharratt assists troops in Iraq
By Jason Bryant s a wrestler, Joel Sharratt had to deal with his fair share of hand-to-hand combat. But when you’re talking in military terms, hand-to- hand combat has an entirely different meaning. Sharratt, who is heading into his sixth year as the head wrestling coach at the U.S. Air Force
A
Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., found this out first-hand during an April trip to Iraq. As a three-time NCAA finalist and 1994 NCAA Champion for
Iowa, some of Sharratt’s toughest battles on the mat were in the Hawkeye wrestling room. But it’s nothing like the battles troops stationed in war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan could encounter. “My purpose was a part of an MTT, a mobile training team,” explained Sharratt. “We ran a certification program that entails 40 hours of training during a week for all the people in the class. (The troops) would gain some level of certification and competency in our combatives program. Some were looking to be certified instructors while others just getting a certificate for finishing the course.” Even as Sharratt and his colleagues arrived in Iraq heading
toward Joint Air Base Balad, about 200 miles north of Baghdad, things were tense. “When you put your butt in a seat of a C-130 from Kuwait to
Iraq, you’re getting shot at every night,” he said. “When we got over there, we were in a heightened sense of awareness. All the flights were at night, pilots wearing night-vision goggles. It’s like all the stuff you hear about on the news, you’re aware of what’s going on.” Just two days prior to Sharratt’s arrival in Balad, the base was
hit by seven mortars, one of which hit the base hospital. “A lot of buildings we were in, the Saddam Hussein-era build-
ings, were fortified by eight feet of concrete,” Sharratt said. “The rooms we were sleeping in were single-wide trailers and you were glad the Air Force was vigilant in doing their duty 24-hours a day overhead.” “We were lucky. It was a combat environment, but we were
very fortunate the time we were there that the troops sup- pressed any attacks on the base,” he said.
14 USA Wrestler
Lt. Col. Hall Sabren works on a technique during a session taught by Air Force wrestling coach Joel Sharratt in Iraq.
Sharratt’s involvement was based heavily on his presence at
the Air Force Academy, which is the home for all the Air Force combatives training worldwide. “Dave Durnil has worked with the Modern Army Combatives program and is a brown belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu,” said Sharratt. “He was the guy who headed up the training opportunity. I was part of that team.” Sharratt’s work involved putting troops through a series of
classes and combative circuits three times throughout the week, Continued on page 15
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