Editing Rex Applegate (section)

==World War II==
In 1941, Applegate was developing armed and unarmed close quarter combat courses for the US Army at [[Camp Ritchie]] when he was recruited by [[William J. Donovan|Wild Bill Donovan]] for the OSS, specifically to build and run what was called "The School for Spies and Assassins", the location of which is now [[Camp David]].<ref name=Goldstein/>  Donovan had Applegate learn all that he could about armed and unarmed fighting from [[William E. Fairbairn]] to form a brutal and effective system.  He was the close-combat coordinator for all clandestine missions and this role brought him into contact with other fighters and martial artists of the time period such as a Finnish soldier who killed 21 Russians with a knife, and the founder of the [[United Kingdom|British]] [[Special Air Service|SAS]]: [[David Stirling]].<ref name=Todd>{{cite book|title=Military Combative Masters of the 20th Century |first=Tank |last=Todd| publisher =[[Lulu.com|Lulu Press]]|year=2006 |pages=52–57|isbn= 978-1-4116-6196-7}}</ref>

At one point during the war, he served as the personal bodyguard to President [[Franklin D Roosevelt]].<ref name=Ron/><ref name=Goldstein>{{cite news|title=Rex Applegate, 84, Instructor of Deadly Skills|first=Richard|last=Goldstein|date=July 27, 1998|work=New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/27/us/rex-applegate-84-instructor-of-deadly-skills.html|access-date=September 29, 2011}}</ref>