The JOTC prepares Soldiers for operations in jungle environments. The jungle encompasses every type of terrain,” said 1st Lt. Peter Dierkes, officer in charge, JOTC. “If you can survive in the jungle – it is the harshest terrain in the world – if you can survive there, you can survive anywhere.

JOTC Course Overview

The course is 15 training days and progresses from individual skills to platoon tasks. Dierkes said Soldiers learn survival, communication, navigation, waterborne operations, traversing, knots, evasion, marksmanship and patrol base operations. The land navigation and marksmanship are what you would learn in a standard Army course, but with jungle-specific knowledge.

Land navigation in JOTC

The unit observed jungle training courses in Australia and the 3rd Marine Division Unit’s Jungle Warfare Training Center on Okinawa, Japan, to derive the most recent version of the JOTC. The course is meant to train the trainer. Soldiers who go through the course return to their battalion as jungle expert.