Gritz shares some of his SF experiences with Spikers'; He says training does not focus on offensive military techniques

SANDY VALLEY, Nev. Bo Gritz has both a wife and a mistress.

His wife of 20 years is named Claudia. He calls her "CJ."

His mistress of more than three decades is named Special Forces. He calls her "SF."

"Special Forces is my life," said Gritz. "I love her. I court her. As a commander, I used to tell my men, you better make love to her every opportunity you get, 'cause she's fickle and someday, you'll be gone and she'll be loving someone else."

Gritz is no longer a Green Beret. But he said he's decided to share part of his SF training.

Enter what Gritz calls SPIKE training. The acronym stands for Specially Prepared Individuals for Key Events.

During his travels over the past three years, said Gritz, he began to notice an America on edge. "People were paranoid. People were afraid. They were afraid of the government. They were afraid of their own shadow. They were afraid of different groups. They were afraid of everything."

Rather than write and talk about how to overcome such fears, Gritz said he decided to train people.

"I thought if I could impart what I feel, if I could impart what I know, then there would be no excuse for this paranoia. Because they (his students) would feel as I do. They wouldn't be afraid of anything. They'd have great confidence."

"Spikers," as Gritz calls the hundreds of people who participate in his training program by video or at various sites around the country, are schooled in everything from self defense and human relations to gardening and alternative energy.

He brings in outside experts to share their knowledge. Participants can work toward qualification as a SPIKE "green beret" or earn gold crossed officer arrows. Survival equipment, including such items as a year's supply of food rations, are available to Spikers through the Center for Action here.

Gritz denies suggestions that SPIKE is really a front for paramilitary training.

"We don't teach them the offensive things like how to take out an esophagus," he said of the lethal techniques he learned as a Green Beret. "We teach them how to put an espohagus back in. We don't teach them how to hurt anybody. We teach them how to defend against people who would hurt them."

The 10 phases of SPIKE training, which have been held at a number of cities around the country, are scheduled through the end of this year. A training session will be held this month in Idaho Falls. Other cities on the list include Portland, Sacremento, Phoenix, Dallas, Atlanta and St. George, Utah.

Dan and Barbara Fuller, formerly of St. George, Utah, now live at Almost Heaven near Kamiah and have attended SPIKE.

"They teach you how to be self sufficient," said Dan, 69, who with his wife is building a log home with solar power.

Barbara said she doesn't even know how to shoot a gun. "The only thing that Bo teaches you about guns is to hit the target," she said, adding with a chuckle, "and that includes reporters."

Gritz said men and women, adults and children, and people of different races and religious beliefs attend his SPIKE classes, not because they want to arm themselves against the government or anyone else, but because they want to enhance their abilities to take care of themselves.

"We're teaching them the useful skills in Special Forces," he said, "not the combat skills." People like the Fullers say Gritz is the perfect person to impart such knowledge.

"You see," Gritz said, "not everybody makes Vietnam their life. Not everybody is the most decorated Green Beret commander. Not everybody is selected by the one man that represents Vietnam, Gen. William C. Westmoreland, as THE American soldier."

Gritz claims he was "born to be a warrior." He attended military school at 14. His father, Lt. Roy L. Gritz, an Army Air Corps pilot, was killed in World War II.

In 1957, Gritz enlisted in the Army after a recruiter agreed to let him have a crack at Special Forces. "It was like throwing Br'er Rabbit into the briar patch," said Gritz.

Then came Vietnam.

"As a Special Forces major who had no real bosses over there, you're like a gorilla loose in your territory," Gritz said. "I walked all over everybody. We fought. We killed the men. We took availabilities with the women. We tore up the countryside. We were the dogs of war. But that is the way you do these things. You can not have men who weep."

Gritz earned 62 medals of valor in Vietnam, among them numerous Bronze and Silver Stars and , of course, a Purple Heart.

"I got shot in the back of the head," quipped Gritz, "and the bullet bounced off."

After five years in Vietnam, his return to America, Gritz said, became a battle within himself.

"I knew who I was over there," he said, "I was Major James Bo Gritz. I was the commander of special operations forces. I had an army of Cambodians. I met the enemy daily. My men died because we were trying to justify the loss of blood, the life, the limb, the liberty of Americans that had been victimized in Vietnam."

But Gritz came home to a government that "handled me with kid gloves." He was sent to language school and became fluent in Chinese Mandarin.

"Next they sent me to commander and general staff college. I was an honor graduate. Then they sent me to get a degree at the University of Nebraska (in criminal justice). They just kept me in school all the time."

But Gritz admits he remained a jungle warrior at heart. "For six years I would raise hell," he said. "I would throw colonels over the bar in the officer's club. I would intimidate people. I shot street lights out in Tucson, Ariz., Washington, D.C., in Leavenworth, Kan. Everybody was very patient. Nobody ever arrested me. Nobody ever put me in jail."

Finally, in Washington, D.C., he and a fellow Army general staff officer were told to leave a bar for no good reason, said Gritz. Having never used his martial arts skills on anyone except the enemy, Gritz left only to return with a gun.

"I shot the guy's Cadillac," he said. "I shot the engine full of holes."

Mission accomplished, Gritz said the incident marked a turning point in his life. "I just put my gun away. All of a sudden," he said, "the war was over."

Today, despite having never pulled the trigger on his .44 Magnum again, Gritz still looks the part. "People see me as a 230-pound, sixth-degree karate black belt Green Beret."

His wife Claudia, herself a black belt karate instructor, says Bo Gritz has become a gentle, trusting man, sometimes to a fault.

"I'm not a violent person," Gritz said. "I've never hurt another American that I know of. I don't want any violence. But I am a person who is capable of extreme violence. That's what those decorations are for."