Photo By Cpl. Adeline Smith | Cpl. Christian Hiraldo, right, leads his Marines and sailors through a mud pit during...... read more read more
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CAMP GONSALVES, Japan - A Marine climbs over a stone wall and drops into a muddy trench. Sweaty, wet and tired from running through obstacles and thick jungle vegetation, he pauses when he hears the shouts of instructors from above, counting down the seconds before he will have to start over at the beginning of the mud pit portion of the course. Summoning willpower and strength from within, he presses on in a watery belly crawl, determined to finish what he started.
Scenarios like this are indicative of the final leg of a jungle endurance course that Marines and sailors participated in June 20 at the Jungle Warfare Training Center, Camp Gonsalves, Marine Corps Base Camp Smedley D. Butler, Marine Corps Installations Pacific.
The Marines and sailors are with 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, and 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, which are currently assigned to 4th Marines, 3rd Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force, under the unit deployment program. After being stationed in North Carolina and California, where the training areas are mostly desert valleys and plains, the service members had an opportunity to experience the rugged terrain of Okinawa at this unique training center.
“This is the only jungle training center we have (in the Department of Defense),” said Lance Cpl. Pheonte T. Dobson, an instructor at the JWTC. “The entire endurance course is meant to establish a point of how far can you push yourself in a situation like this, because you never know where the Marine Corps will go.”
The service members are out of their comfort zones in the humid, subtropical environment, according to Dobson. However, the instructors know that combat will not simply be a change of climates, and they implement various stressors to make the chaotic training as realistic as possible, such as yelling and simulated machine gun fire.
“(We’re) pushing the Marines as fast and as hard as possible to ease the stress they will have in (a jungle) environment,” said Dobson, a Wilmington, North Carolina, native.
The training consisted of rappelling down slippery slopes, running through dense jungle and over mountains, trudging through water obstacles, and carefully carrying a simulated casualty on a field-expedient stretcher while navigating through jungle until the end of the course.
“It was hard, doesn’t matter where you’re from or how good of shape you’re in,” said Lance Cpl. Thomas W. Floyd, a rifleman with 1st Bn., 8th Marines, currently assigned to 4th Marines, 3rd Marine Division, III MEF, under the UDP. “The mix of humidity, the altitude, the jungle itself and the terrain (will) wear you out pretty quick.”
Some of the obstacles, like the mud pit with waist high sludge that stuck to your every movement, were strenuous, according to Cpl. James E. King, a warehouse clerk with 1st Bn., 8th Marines, currently assigned to 4th Marines, 3rd Marine Division, III MEF, under the UDP.
The service members had their pick of which parts of the course were the hardest to endure to include water obstacles with concertina wire, simulated improvised explosive devices, and the grueling stretcher carry.
Carrying a Marine on a field-expedient stretcher up and down mountains and through narrow creeks involves every person in a squad, according to Floyd, a Nacogdoches, Texas, native.
“Overall, the training is very necessary; it teaches you a lot of things,” said Dobson. “Most guys know the land navigation. We’ve all done it in North Carolina and California, in the desert, but once you get out here in the jungle, all of these mountains look alike, the terrain looks alike, brush, everything. You can get turned around and lost pretty quickly, so you’ve got to know what you’re doing.”
| Date Taken: | 06.20.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 06.24.2014 03:36 |
| Story ID: | 134144 |
| Location: | CAMP GONSALVES, OKINAWA, JP |
| Hometown: | NACOGDOCHES, TEXAS, US |
| Hometown: | WILMINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA, US |
| Web Views: | 257 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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