Photo By Tech. Sgt. Christopher Hubenthal | U.S. Army Soldiers and U.S. Air Force Airmen carry a littertowards the end of the...... read more read more
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EAST TRAINING RANGE, Hawaii – Maneuvering through the thick jungle, climbing up and down steep gulches, scanning for threat indicators, and searching for hidden adversaries are a few of the challenges that Soldiers and Airmen face daily at the 25th Infantry Division Lightning Academy’s Jungle Operations Training Center (JOTC). Students spent three weeks sharpening skills needed to survive in a jungle environment here, from March 7 to March 25.
The terrain proved very different from what 1st. Lt. Joseph Ross of 2nd Platoon, Alpha Company, 29th Engineer Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, was used to.
“The jungle definitely presents a lot of different hazards and different types of training as opposed to anywhere else,” Ross said. “The line of sight is little to none and you can be right up on the enemy before you even know it, before you can even hear them. The terrain is also different because you have your gulches or your deep valleys. By the time you get there you have to figure a different way of getting down, getting back up, and also how to deal with an enemy that might be around you as you’re going down this different type of terrain.”
Students practiced techniques in various training events including reacting to contact, waterborne operations, rappelling, and countering improvised explosive devices (IED). They were then flown in to a culminating platoon-sized mission by UH-60 Black Hawks to test all aspects they learned throughout their experience.
Although the mission presented obstacles the difficulties they experienced proved beneficial in the end.
“I’ve never been in something so thick before where you’re pulling trees apart to try and walk through and helping the guy in front of you pull trees apart so his ruck sack can fit through and then getting attacked from the top of a mountain when you’re already at the bottom, having to run the whole way up,” Ross said. “For me I thought it was great training and I know a lot of the guys, even though it was very tiring, once the missions were over, you could see they got a lot out of it.”
Private 1st Class Robert Leseth, 552nd Military Police Company, 728th Military Police Battalion, 8th Military Police Brigade, said that the momentum and teamwork of his squad was impressive.
“I’m actually the only one here from my brigade,” Leseth said. “The guys here, we meshed very well together, we formed squads, guys from all different units took me under their wing, took care of me and they led me. It was pretty awesome to see individuals that weren’t combat MOS’s (Military Occupational Specialty) to mesh together and form a fighting force. If I was with the same guys in the real world I know that I could trust them.”
U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Eric Bast, JOTC instructor, emphasized why members of U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) have transitioned to a jungle focus.
“I know in the past couple years we operated mainly in desert environments, in Iraq and Afghanistan, but now, with PACOM centric Soldiers, we can start kind of transitioning into this jungle environment,” Bast said. “It’s a completely different fight, a completely different set of rules of engagement and everything is different in the jungle than it was in the traditional fight in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
Learning how to navigate jungle terrain may be a learning curve for some but U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Jeff Bermudez, JOTC counter IED instructor explained that understanding how to move through the jungle is only one step in the training.
“Everything looks the same when you’re going through there so unless you get the proper training it’s going to be very difficult to actually spot an IED,” said Bermudez. “If we go into a jungle environment blind and we don’t know what to look for, that’s going to cost lives. If we train Soldiers and get them familiarized with what they should be looking for, it increases our chances of succeeding and continuing the mission and fulfilling the mission.”
With 36 partner nations in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region, U.S. forces assigned to U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) could find themselves in a jungle environment either supporting training exercises, humanitarian and disaster relief response, or other operations.
“Definitely having our entire platoon out here as well as me gives us a better knowledge of what we might come across if we do deploy on [Pacific Pathways] or anywhere out in the Pacific and what we can kind of expect,” Ross said. “If we do get called for a mission like that it won’t be the first time we’ve seen this type of terrain.”
After completing the course, students not only gained knowledge and a new skillset, but also earned the exclusive U.S. Army Jungle Tab.
“It’s always good when you complete some kind of training to have something to show for it and the jungle tab is definitely something that is very unique to Hawaii and when I first heard I was coming here I really wanted to go to the school,” Ross said. “Now that it’s completed everybody is pretty happy.”
They went into in the jungle for 19 days and emerged with an increased understanding of what it takes to persevere in a new environment.
The Jungle Operation Training Center’s course is just one class that the Lightning Academy facilitates. Qualified military members can also take academy courses focused on air assault, pre-ranger training, combatives levels one and two, tactical rifle, and the Adaptive Leaders Program.
| Date Taken: | 03.25.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 04.05.2016 15:47 |
| Story ID: | 194447 |
| Location: | EAST TRAINING RANGE, HI, US |
| Web Views: | 419 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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