Stories

The Jungle

I do my best work in the Jungle.  I'm trained and experienced.  I attended the Jungle Warfare School at Fort Sherman, Panama, three times.

My first trip was in 1977 when I was a Specialist.  Though I was the company Armorer, my First Sergeant ensured I got to do all the training, though I was with the headquarters section during the final exercise.

My second trip was in 1982 as a Staff Sergeant and Scout Section Leader.  This trip let me stretch and test my skills.  I made a few mistakes but fared well throughout the tests and exercises.  This trip was the perfect train-up for our deployment to Grenada in 1983.  Except for a couple of the new guys, the entire platoon that had trained in Panama deployed to Grenada.  We put every skill we learned there to work on the island.

My third trip in 1987, when I was a Sergeant First Class and the Scout Platoon Leader, was my most successful trip.  We accomplished every task and mission, destroyed a Seal Team on the land navigation course, beat them in a Rubber Boat (RB-15) Race, and ran ragged the aggressors who were supposed to be harassing us.  I assessed my section leaders, tested every man in my platoon, and taught the lessons I had learned from past trips.

My last trip was in 1994 when I was the Headquarters First Sergeant.  We were deployed to Panama just before Christmas to quell the riots in the Cuban Refugee Camps.  We shut the riots down shortly after we arrived.  Sadly, there was no jungle training during this trip.


Jungle Warfare School brings back some pretty funny memories and stories -


Fried Chicken -

I can tell anyone, with absolute certainty, the best meal I ever had.  At the end of the final FTX of Jungle School during my first trip to Panama, the Mess hall had Fried Chicken.  I had eaten nothing but C-Rations for two weeks.  I probably ate two chickens.


Fishugh and the Coatimundi - 

Panama has this very cool raccoon-like critter called a Coatimundi.  They travel in packs moving like little four-legged infantry soldiers through the jungle.  They can be aggressive when cornered.  Steve Fiscus and I manned a position for an exercise guarding the perimeter of the Air Force Base against mock insurgents (Special Forces aggressors).  About midnight, we heard something in the Monkey Grass across the road.  When we saw movement, we opened up with our M-16s, firing blanks on full-automatic.  A fire team of Coatimundi attacked poor Steve.  They didn't hurt him, but he spent days shivering at the thought of the furry things running all over his body.


Bees -

The Scouts were moving through a thick patch of jungle after our final platoon evaluation when we hit the bee hive.  I could hear the lead Scouts getting hit.  Snap! Snap!  Snap!  Scouts began running to the rear.  I stood still and was one of the only people who didn't get stung.  We consolidated and took stock of our injuries.  A couple of the guys had stings all over them and needed to get to the aid station ASAP.  Our shortest route to the road was back toward the bees.  Tony, the platoon sergeant, moved forward and popped a couple of smoke grenades where we had just been hit.  Everyone began pushing through the smoke.  Now the bees were really mad.  Snap, Snap, Snap!  Again, I was the only one who didn't get hit.  We took the long way around.


Front Toward Enemy -

My squad was assigned an Air Force guy for the duration of the school.  I remember him as a nice enough person but with no soldier skills.  The other thing I remember about him was a mistake during the live-fire ambush.  Wanting to give him something cool to do, I sent him out to the Kill Zone to set up the Claymore Mine.  I had just given everyone in my squad a class and figured he'd have no problem.  When he returned, I took the clacker from him and followed the wire to the mine.  Though it says clearly on the front, "FRONT Toward Enemy," he had it pointed back at us.


Sleeping Under My Hooch - 

When I took my Scout Platoon to Panama, I was a pretty experienced jungle soldier.  On our first night, I moved the platoon into an assembly area for the night.  I button-hooked our route into a defensible area, so anyone tracking us would have to move past us and under us .  I stopped in plenty of time to set up security and hooches for the night.  Like we were all trained by the school to do, I began setting up my jungle hooch - a hammock, covered by my poncho and mosquito net, stretched out between two trees, and spread by long palm stems.  My Scouts, worn out from the day, crashed on the jungle floor.  Not Smart.  I decided that they would learn this lesson soon enough. Then the mosquitoes hit, a Python crawled across SSG Jones, and the rain came.  Hooches went up every night after that.


Swimming the RB-15 - 

On my third trip, the Scouts did a nighttime deep-water insertion by rubber boat in Limon Bay.  We were to conduct a recon of Limon Point.  I knew exactly where I wanted to insert and pointed the way acting as Coxswain for the boat.  The boys, unmotivated, were not "giving way together" and we zigged and zagged across the bay.  Tired of their nonsense, I stopped them.  "Listen up!  If you guys don't start working together, we're all getting in the water and swimming this boat to shore."  When I commanded them to give way together, the boat almost made a wake we went straight to Limon Point.  Limon Bay is among the most Hammerhead shark-infested areas of the world.


The Turkey -

During my second trip to JOTC, I was moving the platoon along the trail on the south side of Limon Point.  At one point, there was a wash in the trail and I had to swing by a root from one side of the wash to the other.  A turkey living in a cleft in the rocks came flapping and gobbling straight at my face.  I almost fell down the cliff.  Five years later, now the platoon leader, I related this story as I gave the Op Order for our Deep Water Insertion and Recon of Limon Point.  Since I knew the trail, I led the platoon once we landed.  Sure enough, the bird attacked me again. I never got a good look at the bird.  Both movements were at night and I was too busy ducking.  It sounded like a turkey.


Hubba and His Compass - 

Jungle navigation is a tough skill to learn.  The School in Panama had a tough course for practice.  I sent my three squads off on their own, but not before giving them advice.  I traveled with my least experienced Squad leader, but let him do the work.  When we got to the endpoint, one of the other squad leaders approached me.  One of his troopers, Private Hubbard, was missing.  I took the whole platoon back into the jungle, retracing his steps.  I led, reverse-tracking their movement.  We found Hubbard, who we called Hubba, about a half mile into the jungle, sitting on a log.  Hubbard had not only lost contact with his squad, he had lost his rifle.  The platoon conducted a fan recon of the area and found it.  For the rest of the trip to Panama, I required Hubba to carry his compass around his neck and a map in his pocket.  On command, he had to give me his 6-digit grid coordinates and the azimuth to his destination.  Additionally, I reemphasized the need and requirement to dummy cord everything to your body in the jungle to my squad leaders.


That Jungle Smell - 

After a long stint in the jungle, everyone is filthy. Uniforms, caked in mud and the rotting jungle, are mixed with sweat and tropical rain and stuck to your body.  You have to peel it off.  After a two-week training exercise for the Scouts, we returned to Ft Sherman for a little rest.  I was among the last to make it to the showers and the hot water was long gone.  In the Tropics, any shower is acceptable.  I took off my uniform and scrubbed the nastiness away.  When I stepped out of the shower, I was hit by the most horrific smell.  I realized that it was my uniform piled in the corner.  Now I understood why the ladies in the little PX wouldn't let us in until we were cleaned up.