U.S. service members and three Japanese Ground Self Defense Force soldiers from Corporals Course 7-24 spent three days learning basic survival skills, land navigation, and how to perform a casualty evacuation from a jungle environment at the Jungle Warfare Training Center on Camp Gonsalves.

On Sept. 17, Sgt. Christian Mulholland, an Instructor with the Jungle Warfare Training Center, taught basic jungle survival skills like best ways to procure water, make shelters, and start a fire with the resources around them or what they should bring with them to any jungle exercise.

“The first day was a little bit difficult, because everybody wasn’t on the same page,” said Cpl. Charles Ozurumba, a student with 7-24 and a patrolman with Provost Marshalls Office Headquarters and Support Battalion, Marine Corps Installations Pacific. “But later down the line when we’re learning land navigation and going through the jungle, we started building a certain cohesion, learning more about each other, and building a little bit more camaraderie.”

The subject for the second day was land navigation where the class split into separate squads and were tasked with finding markers out in the jungle and make their way back to the start point using a map and a compass.

Sgt. Arthur King, one of the instructors, said that he was looking for his students to show cohesive decision making while traversing the jungle.

“It can be hard to lead those that are the same rank,” said King. “But when you are in a team together, and everyone is on the same level, cohesive decision making is a big thing, so that there’s not just one guy taking charge and all inputs are taken and the best course of action is addressed.”

On the third day the class participated in a casualty evacuation from a jungle environment. The goal of the exercise was to take a training dummy and transport it from the start point, through the jungle, and finally to the helicopter pad for a simulated evacuation. While traversing the jungle the students were met with obstacles like steep hills, rivers, wildlife, and extreme weather conditions.

“I saw some struggles out there, but that’s the point of this Corporals course — to get them developed in those areas of leadership,” said King. “So there were some struggles, but I saw that in those stressful situations, they were able to overcome many of the unknowns and were able to put a decision in place and act on it.”

The purpose of taking the class to Jungle Warfare Training was to not only teach basic jungle survival skills but to teach these leaders a better understanding of what leading in the field can look like.

“I honestly believe it’s necessary, because you can sit here in a classroom and go over everything about leadership,” said King, “but that on-hand, in person, experience — actually doing those things is what really instills in people’s minds that this is completely different from sitting in a classroom, and there’s actual stuff going on, and people can get hurt if we don’t do the right thing out here.”

MCIPAC currently plans to continue to send classes to the JWTC as a way to better teach those cohesive decision making and leadership skills.