CAMP GONSALVES, Okinawa, Japan -- With sweat streaming down his face and into his eyes, the Marine carefully pinpoints his team’s location and accurately guides it to its next objective.
More than 60 Marines and sailors with 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, took part in land navigation training at Camp Gonsalves July 24-27.
The unit is in Okinawa under the unit deployment program. The commandant of the Marine Corps established the UDP in October 1977 to provide for the deployment of units to the Western Pacific for periods of approximately six months to reduce the number of unaccompanied tours and improve unit continuity.
“This unit deployment program gives us the unique opportunity to train at the Jungle Warfare Training Center, which other units stateside do not have,” said 1st Lt. Trevor A. Miller, a platoon commander with the battalion. “This is the first big training evolution we have done on Okinawa. Land navigation is an essential skill for infantry, and we pride ourselves in being proficient in it.”
Land navigation is a perishable skill and requires consistent training in various environments, according to Miller.
“(This course) is harder to navigate than any I have done in the past,” said Lance Cpl. Matthew J. Vito, an anti-tank missileman with the battalion. “The terrain is thick the whole way. You cannot follow any paths because any paths you find will lead you to the road or deeper into the jungle. If you want to find your objective, you will have to go through brush and navigate steep slopes.”
The jungle terrain proved to be both physically demanding and threatening to navigate, according to Seaman Conlin N. Bartow, a corpsman with the battalion.
“If you lose your footing and injure your leg or ankle, it is going to be very difficult to get out of the dense vegetation,” said Bartow. “We found ourselves having to move from tree to tree, staying low and sometimes sliding down the hill. Scaling the hills often required sending our best climber up with the rope and then throwing the rope down for others to climb up.”
While current operations require knowledge of desert terrain, knowing how to operate in the jungle is valuable for all service members, according to Miller.
“We never know where we will be required to fight next, so we need to be able to fight anywhere,” said Miller. “Performing land navigation in this environment is part of that.”