SATTAHIP, Thailand -- “In any clime and place,” is a well-known saying throughout the U.S. Marine Corps. The motto refers to Marines and their resiliency to finish the mission no matter where it is. From time to time, those missions can place them in “sunny tropic scenes.” To better prepare for a jungle environment, the Royal Thai Marines held a class on jungle survival training as part of Exercise Cobra Gold 2014.
Royal Thai taught jungle survival techniques to Republic of Korea and U.S. Marines Feb. 11 at Camp Latowin, Kingdom of Thailand during CG 14.
“You never know when you will be placed into a situation where you must survive in a jungle environment, especially while in the military,” said Lt. Pranom Yodruk, a jungle survival instructor with Reconnaissance Battery, Royal Thai Marine Corps.
Throughout the class, the Thai Marine instructor gave examples of countless ways to survive. Subjects covered included edible vegetation and fruits, edible animals and how to capture those animals.
“Understanding how to survive in jungle is the difference between life and death,” said Yodruck.
The ROK and U.S. Marines were able gain hands on experience and learn what it takes to survive in the jungle.
“They passed around fruits and animals for all of us to eat so we can get an actual taste of what this region has to offer in the jungle,” said Cpl. David Cannon, a reconnaissance man with 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, 3rd Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force.
Not every animal in Thailand is safe for human consumption and it can be very tricky to catch a meal.
“There are six types of snakes in Thailand and the poisonous ones will kill you in about 55 minutes,” explained Yodruck.
To help prevent getting bitten by a snake, Yodruck showed the class how to tame a cobra with various holds to prevent snake bites.
As CG 14 is a multilateral exercise, the period instruction came with its own challenge of translating between the different languages but with Marines of any culture, adapting and overcoming is second nature.
“The class started off slow with everyone trying to adjust to a different way of teaching and and understanding,” said Cannon. “Towards the end, we hardly even noticed the language barrier.”
Though the jungle survival training is a small part of CG 14, it laid the ground work for the rest of the exercises to come, greasing the wheels of interoperability and strengthening the bond between the participating forces.