Today we’d like to introduce you to Matthew Little.
Hi Matthew, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I was heavily into martial arts as a teenager, and competed nationally. This led to me having a fascination with warrior culture. Which in turn led me to join the military and make my way to army special forces. I wound up leaving active duty but staying in special forces in the national guard while working as a police Officer in Chicago, where I wound up supervising all training for thevSWAT team.
By the end of my special forces career, my team was one of the oldest in group. Probably one of the oldest in the regiment. My team sergeant had hunted SCUDs in the gulf war in Fifth Group, and my commander holds the regimental record for continuous time in command of the same ODA. First as a captain, then as a warrant. A record that will never be broken, because they’ve changed the rules to prevent it. By 2009, probably half the team was over 40, and a couple were around the half century mark. Staying operational that long is not an easy thing to do in this profession, and my elders on the team were my mentors, passing along hard lessons learned.
During that 2009 deployment, we had a capture-kill mission on an HVT. During the hit, our blocking position came under fire from small arms and RPGs. We called in air support a couple of times as we wrapped up SSE on the objective and made our way across the village to exfil. Dave and I took two squads of Afghans and moved out to secure an LZ for the chinooks while the rest of the team remained in covered and concealed positions. We set in a perimeter and just before calling in the pilots, our interpreter came running up to me. He had just heard the Taliban saying on the radio that they would attack our position and get revenge for their brothers we had killed. Dave and I put the Afghans on alert, told the rest of team to stand by, and settled in for more fighting.
My interpreter came running up again with a disheartened look on his face. “Commander Matt, I am so sorry. The Taliban they say, ‘It is the Greybeards, everyone go home and hide your guns. No more brothers die today.’” As we exfilled without any further fighting, I thought about that intercepted transmission. Much like active cops in the US, the bad guys gave us a street name. Life expectancy in Afghanistan is short, and anyone who lives as long as we had is seen as wise. And in our case dangerous. My beard wasn’t grey yet, but I was lucky to fight alongside and be mentored by senior teammates with the breadth and depth of experience mine had. The lessons they taught and the decisions they made kept us alive.
Now that I’m older than my senior leadership on the team and in the regiment was then, now that my beard is grey with the weight of experience, I’ve adopted our Taliban “street name” for my training company. I can’t ever repay those who came before me for the lessons that kept me alive. But I can pay it forward. I can pass that wisdom along to the next generation of warriors and add my own lessons learned to it. More than any victory overseas, more than any arrest as a police officer at home, that is the legacy I want to leave. Knowledge and wisdom. Given to me by those who came before. Added to and passed along to the ones who come after so that they too can one day be old, and grey, and wise. Then the next greybeards can add what they have learned and pass it on in turn. And so on down the line.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Nothing has ever been what I would characterize as smooth. I excelled at passing physical and mental tests, but honestly when I was younger my intensity and aggressive nature caused me to ruffle feathers and as a result I made things more difficult for myself than they had to be. It wasn’t until I learned to avoid this self created trap that things in my earlier careers began to truly go well.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
GreyBeard Actual LLC is a service disabled veteran owned small business. We provide advanced training in firearms, tactics, and combatives to law enforcement, military, private security contractors, and responsible armed citizens. Our training model draws on decades of operational, competitive and instructional experience, and our sole goal is to enable our students to master their craft as quickly and efficiently as possible.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
I am a US Army Special Forces combat veteran who has extensive law enforcement experience, including serving as training coordinator and an operational supervisor on a major metropolitan SWAT team, and has worked as a government contractor in non-permissive environments. Additionally, I am a lifelong martial artist and former national level competitor. I hold black belts or equivalent rank in multiple disciplines. I am also ranked as a master class shooter with pistol and carbine by the US Practical Shooting Association, the Steel Challenge Shooting Association, and the International Defensive Pistol Association. I have instructed foreign and US military personnel and police officers, martial artists, and civilians. This instructional experience was not solely academic, as I was usually then leading my students operationally either in combat or in arguably the most violent major city in North America. I am now a published author, with articles in leading industry magazines, and a best-selling book called “The Way is in Training.”
Contact Info:
- Website: https://greybeardactual.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/greybeard_actual?igsh=eXdiYnliZzVueWlw&utm_source=qr
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greybeardactualtraining?
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@greybeard_actual?si=sayRwOS_2VXwL30B
