NAVIGATING PANAMA’S WILD JUNGLE

Deep in the jungles of Panama, there existed a US fort dedicated to training US soldiers in jungle warfare

I was one of those soldiers sent to train in the art of jungle warfare.

Arriving in Panama City by air, I was transported to the Atlantic side of Panama to a US military base known as Fort Sherman.

At Fort Sherman, we were briefed on jungle warfare operations including living, fighting and surviving.

 To get us started, we were told supper consisted of rattle snake meat.

During the training, we learned how to navigate large bodies of water, building rafts, climbing/repelling steep mountainous terrains, capturing food and avoiding poisonous plants and dangerous wild animals.

Finally, we were dumped into the wild jungle with only a knife and canteen and told our mission was to find our way back to camp without being captured. It can get awfully lonely in thick jungle alone not knowing what wild beast is going to jump you. I was able to catch food (fish, plant roots & leaves and small wild animals), avoided being maul by any vicious jungle wild beasts, avoided being captured by cadre personnel and found my way back to camp.