Fordham Veteran's Writing Project - Ft Sherman's Jungle Warfare School

Fort Sherman’s Jungle Warfare School

Seriously, Lieutenant Brookstone, I had doubts about getting through this training from the moment I landed in Panama City.  When I deplaned, the heat and humidity, as well as the smell of the jungle, gave me my first hint as to what was in store.   I didn’t yet know about the sights, sounds and terrain of the jungle, as was probably true for you, too.  It’s hard to forget the screaming monkeys, the full-throated croaking frogs, the unidentifiable sounds of the night and the screams of that other trainee having a nightmare during our first bivouac.  I certainly wasn’t assured of this graduation day once I discovered those afternoon rains, the mud, the huge bugs, and the piranha fish that we suspected were in the river that we swam across.   Did you notice that our “Jungle Expert” graduate certificate is embellished with the graphic of a snake?  How appropriate, right?  Honestly Brookstone, how did we both wind up here? 

There were a couple of times during our training that seriously almost caused me to wipeout.  The first was when we were learning how to cross the river using a zip line.  Not sure how you felt, but it sounded like fun until I saw what we were expected to do.  First, it was the sight of that monstrous tower up on the bluff at the river’s edge.  It must have been close to fifty or sixty feet high and displaying that spindly looking ladder on the side that we would climb to the top platform.  I don’t know about you, but I was such a wreck by this time that I could barely recall our instructions.  All I remembered was to hook our harness to the zip line, look for the ready signal from the other side of the river, jump, go into a tuck position to control spinning and then brace for a hard landing.   I was near the middle of the line of maybe 25 trainees starting the climb to the platform.  My old fear of heights bubbled up and I seriously wondered how I was going to even get on the ladder.  In the beginning, I took some comfort in the rhythm to the process, which helped to control my panic.  One soldier jumped as another reached the top platform, while one was half-way up and the next was waiting for the OK to start the climb.  After a few minutes of this, I noticed a couple of guys too frightened to climb off the ladder and onto the platform, starting back down to the howls of ridicule from the trainers.  Eventually, it was my turn and I somehow managed to step onto the ladder.  Shaking and sweating, I tried not to look down but felt really sick to my stomach.  I debated going back down, but just couldn’t face the consequences and the loss of face.

Finally, after that agonizing climb to the top, I dragged myself onto the platform.  Lining up behind another soldier beginning his jump, I felt dizzy.  As I tried to focus on how he was doing his jump, he got his signal and then leaped forward.  You probably remember that this is when everything went wrong.  Right away he started screaming and his arms and legs were flailing…he was completely out of control, spinning all the way down.  From my vantage point, it was obvious that he had been injured when I saw the trainers on the other side removing his harness.  They placed him onto a stretcher with a collapsed lung, so I hear.  During this commotion, I was standing on the edge of the platform, tethered to the zip line for maybe ten minutes, with nothing to hold onto before the medics finished with the injured guy. I just stood there waiting, feeling wobbly and honestly, just praying my ass off.   Finally, I got the signal to jump, took the leap, went into the tuck position and took the ride of my life.  The landing was hard, but I was thankfully in one piece.

The second instance wasn’t nearly as intensely scary as the first, but it really tested me in a way that I had never imagined.  Awakened in the middle of the night we were told to get our gear and climb into the back of the truck parked outside.  Driven for several miles down the dirt road we were unloaded into the pitch black of the jungle’s night.  As you probably recall, we divided into groups of five and were handed a glow in the dark compass and told the group’s coordinates to follow.  We were ordered to remain totally silent during the exercise and to start walking.  The instructors climbed back onto the truck, driving away.  At first, I didn’t know what to do.  Not sure how it worked in your group, but in ours one fellow holding his compass started to move in the direction we were given.  As we all quickly discovered, there were no trails or cleared spaces in the jungle, so this was not going to be easy.  Someone soon noticed that the hats we were wearing had a small glow in the dark patch on the back.  It was so dark that you couldn’t see anything else, except the patch and the compass.  Eventually, we figured out that we should hold the shoulder of the guy in front of us, as we silently moved as a unit in single file.  Going through bushes, bumping into trees, climbing over rocks, getting entangled in hanging vines, we managed to move forward.  At one point, our group had to sit down as we slid down a steep and wet slippery slope, walking across a shallow stream at the bottom and then crawling back up the other side.   The only sounds as we moved forward, besides critters, were our boots crushing the foliage, and the grunts from the occasional trip and fall.  Unable to see anything but the patch, my biggest fear was that we might walk off a cliff, or be attacked by a wild animal lying in wait for us.  Of course, we encountered the alarmed monkeys, the monster frogs and heard the unrelenting sounds of crickets.  A couple of hours later we emerged onto a road exhausted, but relieved to see a military truck waiting for us. 

I can’t imagine I’m saying this, but I was happy that we learned how to capture one of those screaming monkeys.   Who knew that if you ever got lost in the jungle and needed something to eat, this is what to do.  Find a coconut, punch a small hole in the side, drain it out, stick a wadded-up piece of foil or something shiny inside, hang it up and then wait.  As we learned, monkeys are very curious and will stick their hands in through the hole to retrieve the shiny object.  They won’t let go of the shiny foil…no matter what.  And congratulations, we just caught lunch.  Fortunately, I thought monkeys tasted like chicken.   Brookstone, what did you think?