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Jungle hide-and-seek Marines learn tracking skills

USMC News

Story Identification Number: 200332418320
Story by Lance Cpl. Elsa M. Portillo

CAMP GONSALVES, Okinawa, Japan(March 25, 2003) -- The art of tracking is a skill man has used for many years. The Jungle Warfare Training Center began a new course recently to train servicemembers how to use this ancient skill to their advantage.

The center aimed at creating a course to fill the void left after the same type of training facility in Panama closed in 1999, after Panama regained full control of the Panama Canal. Since that time, no facility for servicemembers existed to learn tracking skills.

The Jungle Warfare Training Center has other training courses, which teach skills ranging from jungle survival to rough-terrain movement but until recently didn't include tracking.

"Every course is always changing. The only thing you can do is make it better," said Gunnery Sgt. Richard T. Smith, chief training instructor, JWTC.

When the first course went through, two British Royal Marines and a British Army officer observed the 18-day training program.

"This is the third time the British have come to JWTC to observe our training," Smith said.

Smith has also traveled to their neck of the woods, the British training facilities in Brunei located on the island of Borneo. He attended a five-week course, which teaches the skills needed to train others.

"The tracking program in Brunei is outstanding," Smith said, bringing back lessons learned at Brunei to start this new course off on the right foot.

The first day started off with classes about signs to look for and the methods used to track. The next day, students went out to put some of their new-found knowledge to the test. They walked through thick vegetation and ragged terrain and began to track one another.

"Each day provides students with ways to hone their skills," Smith said. "The objective of the course is for students to leave with a solid foundation in the fundamentals of tracking."

Students will be able to recognize, categorize, and classify various signs in order to make a fairly accurate suggestion of where the enemy may be.

The main focus of JWTC instructors is teaching students to be able to track the enemy in any kind of environment, and the ability to be a lead scout within a patrol.

"Currently, patrolling gives troops the heads up if the enemy is in the area," said Lt. Col. Z.E. Fearing, Jr. commanding officer, JWTC.

Tracking narrows down the area and gives a servicemember a more definitive path to follow directly to the enemy, Fearing said.

"Students are learning not only what to look for but also what not to do. Students may have leaned on trees or snapped little bits of wood off trees, and now they catch themselves before they leave telltale signs behind," said Sgt. Daniel L. Ready, rough terrain and tracking instructor, Company L, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines, 3rd Marine Division.

The tracking package offered at JWTC is a tool that will be useful in the type of war we are fighting now, according to Fearing.

"It is a force multiplier. We can save lives by using trackers," Fearing said.

Small signs like a freshly broken weeds or a depression in the foliage on the ground is all it takes to track or be tracked, according to Smith.

The skills learned at JWTC will help the students' units retain more of their troops by helping them to find the enemy's ambush instead of stumbling into it.