That was, and remains my attitude, that Jungle Warfare was thee best training I received. There wasn’t a single part of it that wasn’t challenging and interesting.
The most challenging part as I recall was the river crossing problem using Aussie poncho rafts on the Chagres. Never swam so hard in my life.
Best of all, if you were Nam-bound, it preconditioned you mentally to be at ease in the jungle.
A few days after I took over my first platoon my RTO wanted to know if he could ask me something: Had I been in the Nam for a prior tour?
Nope. Why?
Well me and some of the guys have been talking and we’ve never seen anyone get used to the jungle so fast. Figured you must have been here before.
Hell, I was In Panama.
Panama? That must be some bad shit.
You don’t know, Specialist.
What you said I had heard many times from SEALs who went to Nam. Except for the getting shot at part, Panama was a lot tougher and more challenging. Best training ever, that’s what they said. And the land nav-cross country-survival phase was supposed to be without equal. When we gave up the Canal, I heard the greatest laments about losing the jungle school and the cadres who were the best of the best of instructors.