Free Republic

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has said he intends to partially reopen the “Jungle School,” where up to 9,000 troops a year trained in jungle warfare from the 1950s to 1999 in the former Panama Canal Zone. Secretary Hegseth made the announcement to U.S. troops in Panama amid an ongoing trip to the Central American country, where he will attend the Central American Security Conference (CENTSEC). Thanking the troops for their service, Hegseth said, “We will have your back; President Trump has asked me to share that with all the groups of troops I talk to,” stressing the importance of...

HONOLULU (AP) — The U.S. Army soldiers finished wading across a stream in a rainforest in Hawaii, and they were soaked. Their boots and socks were water-logged and their clothes, hair and ears were caked with mud. The soldiers were going through training at the first jungle school the Army has established in decades. The course is part of a program to train soldiers for exercises and potential combat on terrain that looks more like islands and nations in the Pacific than arid Afghanistan and the deserts of the Middle East. Brig. Gen. Stephen Michael, deputy commander of the 25th...