JOTC reborn
Got enough tabs? Well, probably not. There’s a new one on the horizon if the folks at the new Jungle Operations Training Course, under the auspices of the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii get their way, according to the Army Times;
“When you look at the area we operate in, from India all the way through Bangladesh, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, and into the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore, to East Timor and Papua New Guinea, all of them are jungle,” said Maj. Gen. Kurt Fuller, commanding general of 25th ID.
But the training won’t be limited to Hawaii-based grunts.
“We’re offering it up to the Army,” Fuller said. “If that’s something they’re interested in doing, we’d be happy to support it with the right resources.”
The ability to operate in the jungle is important not only for troops aligned with Pacific Command, but also potentially for those working in Africa and other places around the world, Fuller said.
“Eventually, I think it would be a healthy thing to have it as an Army course,” he said.
I went to the old JOTC in Panama a year before the Army stationed me there, so I’d been dipped in the experience and knew what to expect when I got there. Of course, I ran into some folks who had been stationed in Panama for years who were a little jealous that I’d spent two weeks there once and got a badge. But, hey, there’ll be a tab! I wonder how soon the phonies will be wearing that one. They had Sapper tabs before I knew such a thing existed.
I’m behind the concept, though. Even a few weeks in the jungle stays with you a lifetime and if the Army needed to drop someone off in the jungle somewhere, Africa, for example, they won’t be panicking right off the bat. Hawaii is a far piece to send CONUS-based units, though. Panama was a five hour flight, Hawaii is a bit further.
Category: Army News
What was it like to do a JOTC course? I’ve heard all sorts of horror stories about the bugs in Panama.
Hardest land nav course I ever did. You could be 3 feet from your point and never know it.
People and equipment take a beating in short order while you’re in the jungle.
I wonder if the guys out in Hawaii are going to bring in some howler monkeys and killer bees. Y’know, for nostalgia’s sake.
I’m kind of ambivalent about the whole “Jungle Expert” tab. It’ll probably start out like the Sapper tab, authorized for local wear only.
I was always acceptable at land nav so I confidently led my platoon into the jungle for the exercise using terrain association.
With the expected result and another LT story.
Made me a believer in azimuth and pace count.
Our small patrol found two points then somebody slipped and fell, their rifle butt hit a hollow tree, the killer bees swarmed us, we ran like hell lost our pace count, azimuth, and we’re totally lost. We finally stumbled out onto a hardball road hours later
I went through the 3-week course in 1978 (there’s a pic of me in the member’s gallery getting ready to leave Howard AFB at the end of it). The bugs were indeed epic and quite varied – my “fondest” memory was laying in the muck on an ambush waiting for what seemed like hours silently, and every so often wiping a full handful of bugs off the back of my neck. I won’t mention what it felt like was going on under the uniform. Worse than the bugs were the numerous black palm trees, that had bands of spines that were similar to sea urchin spines, and which would easily penetrate leather gloves and skin. We heard lots of stories about the larger critters, but only saw (lots) of howler monkeys and the occasional sloth. And a bunch of snakes. The terrain was incredible, our topo maps had 20-meter contour intervals, and there were a massive number of 19-meter high hills everywhere, just to mess with your land nav. Good compass skills and discipline was the key to solving the land nav problems, there was just no way to do it by eyeballing the situation. It was also surprisingly dark in the jungle (which I suppose I should have expected, but didn’t), and “Panama soles” on our jungle boots just barely shed the worst of the muck you slogged through everywhere. A fun part was working with the Navy Mike boats, which were larger version of the Higgins boats the WWII guys used, and moving up the smaller rivers in black rubber rafts. There were a number of air assaults ops, and a couple of longer RIF’s where you had to set up remote resupply operations. They did a couple of great classes on living off the land, but did not have any hands-on experiences using those skills. IIRC, there were also classes and exercise on Vietnam-era boobytraps and mine warfare, radio commo using PRC-77 era gear and really bizarre antenna arrays, indirect and direct fire coordination exercises, a butt-load of various scenarios that broke down to finding you way… Read more »
I went through the course in 1984. In return for playing OPFOR with the black boats, our combat craft operators got to attend the course a few at a time with an Army unit. I was with a recon platoon from the 82nd. And yeah, the patch was cool.
What was it like to do a JOTC course? I’ve heard all sorts of horror stories about the bugs in Panama.
Sorry, ignore this one.
I remember a guy who had the old pocket patch back in the mid 90s. It does annoy me a bit that they keep adding “flair” to the uniform, but at least it is something you have to earn and not another gimmie.
http://youtu.be/U5YClmS3umk
JOTC had the best looking patch in the Army. I went as a Cadet. Back when we owned the Canal Zone.
Gee – you reckon that we are shifting our focus to the Pacific side of the world???
On a side note, my step-dad told me of when he when to JOTC waaaay back then as a Marine – the year AFTER returning from Viet Nam. Wonder which place he learned more from?
nbcguy54…Remember it is not off of Obama’s radar yet to make a show of force to the Chinese. My money says, that left to his own devices, without any common sense, which he and his entire admin are absent, Obama would have us on another two front war. One involving the Ukraine and the other in the Pacific, maybe Korea (God forbid). This is where all the current efforts of the Joint Chiefs to “improve” the military will really have them lined up outside the recruiters’ offices.
Once upon a time, the “Two-Front” war was what we were all about – Europe and Korea-ish. When the USSR went belly-up, we not only pulled almost all of our forces out of Europe, but Asia too. That made a shitload of sense. While we were ignoring Europe and Asia to concentrate on Iraq and A-Stan, the threats in Europe and Asia slowly popped back up and here we are again going “where in the fuck did they come from?”. Gotta love it….
When I went through the course, some of the sergeants and instructors were Vietnam vets, and all said to a person that Panama had far worse jungle conditions than Vietnam.
I’ll never forgot when I did Marine Corps JWTC on Okinawa.
Have fun US Army.
My dad had the “Jungle Expert” pocket patch, along with the “Recondo” pocket badge.
Re-issuing BDU’s and Vietnam era jungle boots.
Guess big army can curtail the uniform and equipment research now.
Unbelieveable.
On another note we (A/5th EN) rebuilt the outer LOC bridges on our rotation in 1987. I can’t remember what the abutments were made of but the stringers were inverted railroad rails. We replaced the top plate, decking and handrails. Dragging the BOM thru the jungle was a pain until some bright guys said hey, the worksite is at the stream mouth. Why not float them down? Worked great until one young lad lost a weapon…
Also watched a local make a covered bus stop from dimensional lumber.
With a machete.
Educational.
H1- They’re not re-issuing the BDUs. They’re just using them for the course to keep from fracking up the ACUs.
LebbenB – currently, the patch is only authorized while attached to the unit. Army has yet to authorize it as a whole.
That’s what the term, “Local wear” means.
Damn! Missed that by a few years (decades). I served in Hawaii (88-92) with the 625 Maint. I would have loved to have had the opportunity to go thru the JOTC.
I have a Recondo Badge but always wanted to go to Panama. My sweeties Dad ran some of the course there years before I met her which is funny.
I’m not sure about the rocker though. How many can you add to the tower of power before you look like a Russian General?
Bring back the “Spartan” Tab.
I was stationed on a ship that did a couple of counter narcotic deployments. We pulled in regularly to Rodman Panama. Just walking the road from the front gate of Rodman to the pier at night was enough of a jungle adventure for me. I’ll just tip my hat to those of you that had to venture off the pavement.
They will be missing all the poision frogs, snakes, plants, and of course al lthe other dangerous wild and plant life not to mention everyones favorite black palm. I will say this I had a good time in Panama for the school.
The Pacific side of Panama is completely different from the Atlantic side, even though they’re only 50 miles apart. We still had howler monkeys, black palm, snakes and bugs, but it was mostly a savannah rather than a jungle.
I hated the monkeys and came back from that deployment with a fair amount of balck palm in me. I did fair better than a batch of the Rakasans though that chose to sleep on the ground and ended up with ring worm. I did enjoy the buses as well with the paintings on the side like one with Rambo on one side and the Virgin Marry on the the other.
The thing that she said always got the guys when they first started the course, she was there with her parents and her first son was born there, were the vampire bats. Guys never seemed to believe them thinking that they were a movie prop or something.
I do remember the bats. The one location we were at was on top of a hill with what was at one time a gun emplacment. Under the area that used to hold ammo there were bats in there and I can remember no one wanting to sleep that night. The fun part was the little zoo area they had with all the critters that you could run into. Of course the best was Green Hell and the low crawl through what I was sure at the time was mokey urine and sloth crap.
In ref to the zoo. Remember the cigarette smoking monkey?
It is also quite interesting that the Atlantic/Caribbean entrance to the Canal (where Ft. Sherman/JOTC was located) is *west* of the Pacific end.
I didn’t know that about the western side being mostly savannah. We went over there only once during the course, had a day pass to go into Panama city to see a couple of the museums and get some Balboa beer.
Actually, it’s north of the Pacific coast of Panama.
You can actually see Sherman in the background of Quantum of Solace the old screened in barracks that were great until the rain came sideways.
I’m glad I was in the USMC… If you went to training all you usually got was a notation in your SRB and maybe some badge for jumping from a plane or learning to scuba dive… All these tabs and other ornaments are confusing. 😀
Wow, can I have an “Ass Wiping” tab now?!