Four Weeks of Challenging Jungle Training

Another aspect of the Trade Winds exercise is a first-of-its-kind certified jungle training being hosted by the Belize Defense Force.  For the past four weeks, thirteen soldiers from across the region have been in the wilderness learning jungle and survival skills. The training was designed to be one of the most arduous exercises a soldier can take on. Leading the charge was Captain Clifford Avila of the Belize Defense Force. We caught up with Avila in Hattieville.

Captain Clifford Avila

Captain Clifford Avila, Belize Defense Force

“The training that these guys have been going through is a very rigorous training. The jungle is no easy place to survive. The jungle is no easy place to live. They have been trained on survival. They have been trained in different physical aspects. When these guys came here they did not expect the terrain and the jungle to be like this. It is an area that is very mountainous in the primary jungle. There is several things that they have to go through to become a basic jungle warrior, things that include physical assessments they must pass. One of the physical assessments they must pass is a hill called the death trail, which you have to make it up that hill and back down in a time of twenty minutes. That is also the area where they have their classrooms. Some of the other physical assessments include annual personal fitness test, a rock march personal fitness test, we have survival training we teach them that they must go through, tactical training that they must go through. We have rappelling and we also have small river crossing trainings we also do in jungle. That is what these guys were doing for the past couple of weeks.”

Paul Lopez

“Throughout this training, did any of the men every break?”

Captain Clifford Avila, Belize Defense Force

“When we went to visit them, and if you ever meet anyone of them they will tell you that many of them met their breaking point. But, they endured. As rule number five of the jungle says, learn to bear pain in discomfort without complaining, and be moderate in your necessities. That is what these guys did. When we commenced the course on the twenty second of April we started with twenty nine students, today it was thirteen of them that made it out.”