Army Jungleers making a GOYA comeback

The Army is getting a newfound interest in jungle warfare. COL Keith W. Benedict and CPT Christian M. Hert have a great article in Line of Departure (How Panama’s Crucible is Yet Again Testing Soldiers’ Mettle) detailing how legendary jungle training has returned to former Fort Sherman, Panama– now a Panamanian aeronaval base, Cristóbal Colón– after more than two decades of hiatus. Before the doors closed in 1999 and the course moved to Hawaii, the Fort Sherman-based “Green Hell” Jungle Operations Training Center (JOTC) was training up to 9,000 personnel annually and awarding the Jungle Expert patch to successful units. JOTC also offered a 10-day air crew survival course and a four-week engineers’ course. Today the course is back as an 18-day event, using lots of old-school sweat, blood, and mud, blended with new technology. U.S. service members and Panamanian partners, all candidates of Jungle Operations Training Course – Panama, make it to the finish line of the green mile at…