Richard Carmack’s favorite photo shows an American soldier poking his head out of a tank. In one hand, the young man is holding a tomahawk; in the other, he’s holding a sign on which he’s written, “Thank you, RMJ Tactical!” The photo was taken in 2009 in Iraq. Carmack is the vice president of RMJ, which made the tomahawk for which the soldier was grateful.
Located in the Business Development Center in Chattanooga, RMJ designs and manufactures tomahawks that see action around the world. But their actual use surprises people.
Carmack sat down with the Hamilton County Herald to dispel a few myths about the tool and the weapon known as the tomahawk.
Tell me about RMJ Tactical.
The “RMJ” in RMJ Tactical stands for “Ryan Matthew Johnson.” When Ryan was a kid, he liked ninja tools. And he figured if he were a blacksmith, he’d be able to make his own stuff. So at 12, he started learning blacksmithing. Later, his dad gave him a Boy Scout craft book. One of the items in it was a tomahawk. Ryan fell in love with it. By the time he was ready for college, he was already known across the country for his historical tomahawks. He made historical tomahawks and knives to pay his way through engineering school.
In 2001, an acquaintance with Air Force Special Operations in Kuwait contacted Ryan. He wanted to know if he could make a tactical version of some of his tomahawks. The main requirement was that the tomahawk be able to pierce a Kevlar helmet. His thought process was, “We have body armor. In five years, our enemy is going to have body armor.”
The guy had talked with eight other blacksmiths, and they didn’t know how it could be made. But Ryan has a combination of skills that, as far as we know, no one else who makes tomahawks has: his expertise in forging and mechanical engineering. So, he said, “Yes, I can do that.”
Is the tomahawk used primarily as a weapon?
Historically, the tomahawk has rarely been used as a weapon. Tomahawks were everyday tools people used when doing chores. But because they were efficient with digging, cutting and chopping, they were also efficient as a weapon.
Unfortunately, Hollywood did a number on the tomahawk. We were featured on “Modern Marvels: Axes” on the History Channel, and while they were here, they kept asking Ryan, “They used tomahawks for scalping, didn’t they?” No, no, no. He said that would be like peeling a potato with a meat cleaver. They had scalping knives.
As more steel came to be available through the colonies, and as more tools and firearms became available, the tomahawk lost its use in battle and fell out of favor with the population. By the middle of the 18th century, tomahawks, and especially pipe tomahawks, were strictly ceremonial.
But now you have a business that makes tomahawks.
Ryan started making up to 40 a year for various people. Following 9/11, one of the colonels had one of Ryan’s historical tomahawks on his wall. And as he was giving an interview, he pointed at it and said, “We might have to go to this level to win the war on terror.”
Then Forbes Magazine sent a reporter to talk with Ryan. As she was looking at one of his tomahawks, she said, “Isn’t this vicious?” And Ryan said, “Ma’am, they’re not playing touch football.”
The 5th Group Special Forces, along with some of the Coalition of the Willing, secured the entire country of Afghanistan. Those 300 people accounted for over half of the casualties in the entire war. And they carried Ryan’s tomahawks.
They sent us some pictures, and we could see they had them on their gear, but they weren’t using the scabbards Ryan had made. Ryan said, “Far be it from me to tell you guys what’s dangerous, but don’t you have some reservations about having something sharp just hanging there like that?” They said, “No, we want the locals to see these things and know we’re willing to go to this level to get the job done.”
I believe I’d rather be shot.
People are more willing to run toward firearms than they are a blade. And a tomahawk is the worst. The killing stroke with a knife or a sword is a thrust. But when people have a knife, they want to slash back and forth. That will cut you, but it won’t stop you. However, that is the killing stroke of a tomahawk.
Tell us more about the history of RMJ.
Ryan was making historical and tactical tomahawks by hand. That was his job. Then, in 2004, he received an order from some Marines for 18 tomahawks. Ryan was running behind, so he asked if he could borrow my two boys, whom we were home schooling. I said yes. They spent 36 hours eating pizza, drinking Mountain Dew, and lacing the handles of the tomahawks with paracord. Following that episode, we started thinking about what we could do to be able to make more. So, we formed a company.
I started managing the business and Ryan did the design and made the tomahawks. He has them laser cut, but he does all the grinding and heat-treating by hand.
Over the last six years, our tomahawks have become easier to reproduce, and we have the quality where we want it to be, so we’re coming up with new designs. The Shrike is our most popular tomahawk. We also have the Eagle Talon and the Kestrel, which is a small raptor.
Then we had some requests from some Force Recon Marines – the guys who jump out of planes at 15,000 feet – for a different kind of tomahawk that weighed about the same as a large combat knife. So Ryan developed that, and we called it the Jenny Wren-Spike, after the main character in a children’s book one of his girls was reading. We were overwhelmed with the testosterone level in the names of weapons, and that struck him as being like the war birds of World War II, like the Enola Gay and the Memphis Belle.
And you have a Jenny Wren-Hammer Poll.
We make that because there are people who are afraid of hitting themselves with a spike as they’re coming back.
Who’s carrying a RMJ tomahawk as we speak?
Our tomahawks are currently being carried by Special Forces operators, Seals, Rangers, Maries, infantry, SWAT, Air Rescue and others around the world, including Afghanistan and Iraq. We also have a number of EOD teams that order tomahawks from us. They set circuit charges in concrete walls, and use our tomahawks to make a small hole in the wall. Other EOD groups use them to hook and then trip wires.
So tomahawks are not used just as a weapon?
Correct. It’s still primarily used as a tool for breaching, extraction and rescue. A Canadian EOD sent us a picture of the tools he uses to remove explosives, and he said our tomahawks replace 35 pounds of those tools. We rarely hear stories about someone using them in combat. When that does happen, the guys are reluctant to talk about it.
What’s your favorite story about how someone has used one of your tomahawks?
A man called and ordered a couple of tomahawks from us. It was his second order. He said his son was going back to Afghanistan, and he wanted him to have a tomahawk. He said, “You guys are doing something important. Enemy fire had pinned down my son and his team in a concrete building for three days. My son used your tomahawk to chop a hole in the back on the building, and he and his team escaped.” That changed our attitude about what we’re doing. So our favorite calls are the ones when the parents tell us our tomahawk is why their son was able to come home. That has given us a deeper understanding and respect for our men and women who are over there.
More at www.rmjtactical.com.