First Aussie completes hellish jungle course
A Queensland soldier has become the first Australian to complete a gruelling nine-week jungle warfare course in the French Guiana controlled Amazon rainforest.
Sergeant Matthew Reid, of the Townsville Combat Training Centre’s Tully Jungle Training Wing, was one of 35 participants who braved the Jaguar Course, internationally renowned as being one of the hardest courses on the planet.
The two-month challenge includes one week spent doing tests before contenders are taken to the Amazonian forest of French Guiana and confronted with a series of endurance, combat, and survival tests.
Speaking to the Gold Coast Bulletin, Sergeant Reid described exercises like carrying casualties through waist-deep mud and survival exercises that require participants to build shelter, and forage and hunt for food.
The course then ends with a five-day mission alongside France’s 3rd Foreign Infantry Regiment in a local village.
Adding to the challenge was all instructions being given in French.
However, Sergeant Reid said it was a “once-in-a-lifetime experience”.
“I loved it, probably not while I was doing it. There were definitely parts where I was like ‘this is rough’, but afterwards, I absolutely loved it,” he told the Bulletin.
“The staff from the Legion were extremely professional and incredibly proficient.”
The Jaguar Course runs from February to April and is organised by the French Foreign Legion’s Jungle Training Centre.
