Founded in 1992 by former Marines Bob Kasper, Joe Kanabrocki & John Watson, the Gung-Ho Chuan Association, or GHCA, is a brotherhood of close combat instructors who research, practice, develop and teach the principles, tactics and techniques used by the elite Allied Forces of World War 2. The GHCA is one of the premier close combat training organizations in existence today.
Forged in the Orient and tempered in the Pacific and European theaters of war, this form of Western combatives which is also known as "gutter fighting" is still considered by many to be the true essence of close combat.
Like our forefathers, GHCA members not only practice "gutter fighting" but have carried their skills to high risk environments such as Mexico, Eastern Europe, Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, and Colombia. Since the GHCA's existence approximately one-half of the certified instructors have deployed to high-risk environments as trainers and members of protective security details.
Keeping with WW2 USMC Close Combat tradition the Director Bob Kasper is a Close Combat Subject Matter Expert for the United States Marine Corps.
The goal of the GHCA is to produce high-quality instructors and practitioners of close combat, and to live up to their motto -
"Working together to keep our fighting heritage alive."
Gung-ho, or "working together" comes from the motto of the US Marine Corps' most elite WW2 outfit, the Raiders. Often misinterpreted as "hard-charging" the term "gung-ho" was brought to the Marine Corps from China via Col. Evans Carlson.
Col. Carlson was temporarily attached to the Chinese 8th Route Army as an observer. This disciplined guerilla outfit was the only Chinese unit that held the Imperial Japanese Army advance. So impressed was Carlson that he brought back their motto and instilled their harmonious fighting spirit into his newly formed command, the 2nd Raider Battalion.
The founders of the GHCA adopted Gung-Ho as its own to identify with its fighting spirit and close combat roots. The term "chuan" or "fist" was added to denote an organization of close combat practitioners.
The GHCA logo is the Chinese characters for "working together" surrounded by an inverted triangle with rounded corners. The symbol was first seen in the U.S. at the beginning of the 1942 Raider movie "Gung Ho" which starred Randolf Scott as Lt. Col. Evans Carlson. The colors red & gold are the Marine Corps colors.
There is strong evidence that Carlson first saw the ideogram on a triangular shaped sign in a Chinese Army camp. This logo can be seen in the beginning of Our Kind Of War which is a book about the Raiders, authored by the Raiders.
In November of 1992, the GHCA Director received written permission by the President of the United States Marine Raider Association to use the gung-ho symbol as its own logo and emblem.