The jungle was a strange, fearsome place; moving and fi ghting in it was a nightmare. To us it appeared only as an obstacle to movement and to vision; to the Japa- nese it was a welcome means of concealed manoeuvre and surprise. The Japanese used formations specially trained and equipped for a country of jungle and rivers, while we used troops whose training and equipment … were for the open desert. — British Field Marshal Viscount William Slim, 1956


The jungle remains as formidable a foe today as it was in the 1940s, when Field Marshal Viscount William Slim took on the Japanese in Burma. Once again, troops — this time, American ones — have primarily been trained and equipped for operations in the desert.


As the confl icts in Iraq and Af-


ghanistan began to wind down in 2011, President Barack Obama announced a strategic rebalance focused on the Asia-Pacifi c region. “The United


56 MILITARY OFFICER FEBRUARY 2017


States is a Pacifi c power, and we are here to stay,” he reminded allies. As the British learned during


World War II, the ability to operate in a jungle environment is essential in order to eff ectively wield power in the Pacifi c. That’s where the Jungle Warfare Training Center (JWTC) run by the Marine Corps at Camp Gonsalves in Okinawa, Japan, and the Army’s Jungle Operations Training Center (JOTC) on the Hawaiian is- land of Oahu come in.


Down and dirty


Since 1958, the JWTC has provided expert instruction to prepare Marines and joint forces for the rigors of jungle combat, stressing small unit leader- ship, a tactical mind-set, and unit cohesion. The “classroom” is spread over more than 17,000 acres of dense jungle populated with sheer cliff s, muddy slopes, and fl ooded trenches — an ideal backdrop for teaching basic jungle skills such as land navi- gation, patrolling, rope management


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