Above: A soldier from 3/502nd Infantry Regiment 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) mans an M249 SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon) at a cordon and search of a gas station in Mosul, Iraq, during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Sept. 2, 2003. U.S. Army photo by Pvt. Daniel D Meacham.

Spc. Jackson out of the 1/9 Field Artillery, 3rd Infantry Division stand guard inside their M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle. He guards the water distribution point in Kandari located near Falluja, Iraq, July 6, 2003. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Robert Liddy.

Marines of 2d Battalion, 6th Marines, fire a Javelin AntiTank Missile at Blair Airfield, Iraq, May 2, 2003. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Mauricio Campino.

The “bo,” is a wooden staff 5-6 feet long that was first used by Okinawans to carry buckets of water, grain or fish on their shoulders. The “sai,” which looks like a handheld pitchfork with a protruding center prong, is said to have been developed as a tool for sowing seeds. And the “tonfa,” a 15-17-inch thick, wooden club with a perpendicular handle protruding 4-5 inches from one end, was originally a handle of a grinding wheel.

Sensei Reese Rigby, 8th-degree black belt in Isshinryu Karate, Co-Owner and Chief Instructor, Rigbys (sic) Karate Academy, Dover, Del., demonstrates their use. Photos by Scott Wasser.

Editor’s note: This is the last in a four-part series that explores the sometimes symbiotic relationship between military and civilian tools and technology. Over the years, tools or technology developed by one sector has been adapted by the other for its own purposes and, in some cases, become even more universal in that sector. The first three articles discussed hybrid powered vehicles, radar, and satellite communications.

There is a prevailing and indelible image of Operation Desert Storm that was etched in the mind of anyone who witnessed the 24/7 coverage of that conflict provided by the Cable News Network (CNN) over a decade ago. That image, unlike those of previous conflicts whose most unforgettable events were conveyed in still photographs, is a video.

The video wasn’t taken by a television cameraman. It came from a camera lodged in the nose of an American “smart bomb” which gave television viewers in their living rooms and bedrooms a perspective of the conflict as personal as the military personnel who actually fought it. Will anyone who saw it ever forget the “first-person” view — complete with superimposed bullseye — from a smart bomb as it zeroed in and then obliterated its target in a flash of white light?

If there was any doubt prior to that about how specialized weaponry had become during the second half of the twentieth century, those images erased it. Granted, some of today’s warriors still carry knives and other tools of their trade that are useful for purposes other than killing or maiming an enemy, but these are not their primary or even secondary weapons.

“Weaponry has become very much specialized,” states Dr. William Atwater, who as director of the U.S. Army Ordinance Museum at Aberdeen (Maryland) Proving Grounds is one of the foremost experts on the subject. “The military has always been interested in maximum firepower, and today every (soldier) can lay down automatic fire.

“And that has nothing to do with how civilians use firearms.”

Yet throughout most of mankind’s history, according to Atwater, military and civilian development and use of personal weapons went hand-in-hand. Before the advent of firearms, in fact, most personal weapons evolved from ordinary tools and implements.

There probably is no better example of this than the weapons brandished in countless martial arts movies. Bruce Lee, the legendary martial artist and actor, fascinated us by furiously twirling a pair of sticks connected by a tiny chain to create a cinematic windmill of destruction. These “nunchaku,” which according to experts can reach 85 mph, are unquestionably a weapon in trained hands. But most laymen don’t realize that the nunchaku were not created by Lee, but merely adapted from an ancient Okinawan horse bit or grain flail.

Okinawa, the island off the Japanese mainland, is the home of an entire cache of tools-turned-weapons, nearly all of which have “starred” in martial arts movies. Granted, such movies often also feature the “katana,” (commonly called a “Samurai sword”), a purpose-built killing weapon for hundreds of centuries. But they also feature karate or kung-fu practitioners wielding exotic weapons that weren’t initially developed as weapons at all.

The “bo,” a wooden staff 5-6 feet long, was first used by Okinawans to carry buckets of water, grain or fish on their shoulders. The “sai,” which looks like a handheld pitchfork with a protruding center prong, is said to have been developed as a tool for sowing seeds. And the “tonfa,” a 15- 17-inch, thick, wooden club with a perpendicular handle protruding 4-5 inches from one end, was the handle of a grinding wheel long before it replaced the nightstick as a weapon for many of today’s civilian and military police forces.

Okinawans, history and legend tell us, were forced to turn tools into weapons beginning in the late 15th century. That is when the first king of the then newly unified country banned traditional edge weapons such as metal swords, knives and spears. Some history and martial arts experts say that the king’s ban was related more to the scarcity of metal than his desire to keep deadly weapons out of the hands of a potentially rebellious civilian population. However, as blurry as the line between history and legend can be, there is little doubt that the latter was the motivation when a powerful Samurai clan reinforced the ban after invading and occupying Okinawa at the turn of the 17th century.

The lack of detailed records makes it difficult to track the precise development of warring personal weapons in earlier times and other parts of the world. Yet weapons expert Atwater is certain that, until very recently, mankind’s development of weapons has gone hand-in-hand with its development of tools. As an example, he cites the modern axe or hatchet, a tool that he says can trace its roots to the stones early man used to ward off predators and kill prey.

As time passed, Atwater says, the stone was shaped so that it was longer and pointier on one end. Then it was attached to a stick. That stick was lengthened at some point, making it not only a more effective tool for taking prey, but also for combating other humans. The stone eventually was replaced by a highly sharpened metal blade and other metal shapes more effective than stone against armed and armored foes. Similarly, some of these axes were lengthened and grew fierce points, turning into pole-arms. These weapons could be used at relatively long range to pierce armor and sever limbs or crush bones.

Armor and, eventually, most edge weapons were made obsolete by the invention and adaptation of firearms. It isn’t certain where (China or the Middle East) or when (sometime between the early 13th and 14th centuries) the first guns were used, but Atwater says there is little doubt that weapons which used gunpowder to fire a projectile were developed initially for combat.

“You couldn’t use a ‘hand cannon’ to hunt,” he said, because it was too big and cumbersome. The hand cannon evolved into the “arquebus,” which was more portable but still required a fuse or burning “match” to ignite the black powder that made it fire.

These primitive firearms changed the course of warfare because such weapons could be used by relatively unskilled peasants to defeat highly trained and armored warriors. Yet they were the last personal weapons for many centuries to be adapted by the military before civilians. Weapons that used firing mechanisms such as the “wheel lock,” “flintlock,” and even “percussion caps” were embraced first by civilians for hunting or dueling before gaining military acceptance.

“In general, the military simply couldn’t afford to arm its troops with the latest weapons,” explained Atwater. “By the time the military figured out how to produce a similar weapon cheaply in quantity, a newer and better firing mechanism was usually developed.”

For that reason, even weapons that would have given military forces great superiority over its enemies were not quickly adapted. The revolvers and repeating rifles introduced in the 19th century were being used by settlers and even American Indians before they became military issue. Amazingly, even the Thompson Submachine Gun, developed by the U.S. Army’s chief of small arms ordnance, John Taliaferro Thompson, was embraced by civilian bootleggers long before the American Military.

The “Tommy Gun” was developed too late for World War I, but that conflict did mark the beginning of a distinct divergence of military and civilian personal weapons. The divergence became even more pronounced in World War II, particularly with the introduction by the Nazis of an assault rifle. Today, there are still rare occasions when a particular weapon finds its way into both sectors. The military’s M16, Atwater points out, was adapted from the AR15 varmint rifle. But the military’s needs have become so specific and its thirst for firepower so overwhelming that even its personal weapons have no place in the private sector — at least not in a civilized society that can lie in bed and watch even more potent weapons deliver their deadly payloads.