Jungle Survival School

Prior to landing on Vietnam soil, the Air Force needed to teach us how to survive “in case….” “In case of what?”, I asked. “In case you are shot down”, they said.

My first school was 6 weeks in Amarillo, Texas, where we learned all kinds of things about survival, in a classroom setting. We learned about survival techniques from the steamy tropics to the frigid arctic weather; how to evade the enemy soldiers AND their bad dogs!

The second school was in Spokane, Washington where we went through some classroom work, then ran a night-time obstacle course to “evade the enemy”, which culminated in getting “caught” at the end of the obstacle course and thrown into a POW camp. We were “tortured” in the POW camp and we learned how to deal with mental and physical fatigue, POW organizational structure and non-cooperation with the enemy. From that we were sent out into the wilderness for a whole week with only 3 days food rations and were instructed to “survive off the land”. (I am here today to tell you that “I made it”.)

The third school was in the Philippines at Clark AFB. We learned jungle survival and how to “live off the land”. The whole idea of survival was to assume that our airplane was going down and we would crash land easy enough to survive the crash. We would have limited food supplies, weapons, ammo and other gear. We did have waterproof maps of Vietnam for survival purposes. I still have those.

The final day of Jungle Survival school was instruction to “fan out”, alone, unarmed, without anything except our clothes and a Poncho; it was Army green, like you remember seeing soldiers wear in the movies. We had 30 minutes to find our hiding spot before the military superiors “released” the enemy. The enemy was native Filipinos called Negrito. They were told they could hunt us down and if found, we gave them a “chit” that would be worth 2 or 3 pounds of rice to them. We carried 3 chits.

We could not move from our spot once darkness fell. The terrain was much too dangerous and soldiers have died from doing such things. My night alone was spent off of the “trail” about 100 yards in the trees on a sloping hillside. I positioned my feet against an old Banana tree so I wouldn’t slide down the hill much. The Poncho came in very handy when the heavy rains came. It seemed to rain all night! Water ran down the hillside and nothing was dry, except me inside the Poncho. I was curled up in the fetal position all night with my feet planted against the Banana tree so I wouldn’t slide down the now very slick, hillside!

I can’t explain much of how I felt because there are no words for it! Alone, in unknown territory, with unknown sounds, fighting my own imagination of all the evil things that were lurking just outside my Poncho, played tricks on my mind. I just KNEW I was about to be “eaten” any second by a Panther or something. I also felt insecure about sharing my Poncho with a large snake! All I can say is, it was a LOOOOOOOOOONG night alone and I wouldn’t EVER do that again!!