Course instructor Senior Airman Christopher Bennett, left, and Capt. Wyatt Huff, operations officer for the 736th Security Forces Squadron, discuss the Jungle Agile Combat Employment Course at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, Dec. 12, 2024. (Alex Wilson/Stars and Stripes)
NORTHWEST FIELD, Guam — A new Air Force course in jungle survival is preparing airmen to operate from remote airfields if a conflict forces their squadrons to disperse.
Under the agile combat employment, or ACE, doctrine, Air Force units, including fighter squadrons, will scatter to contingency airfields, making them harder targets. These airfields may be in austere locations or cut off from regular supply lines.
“We basically made a course for every airman — not just defenders — that focuses on if supply is interrupted and you have to survive,” course instructor Senior Airman Christopher Bennett told Stars and Stripes during a tour on Dec. 12. “Food, water, shelter — can you do that, and can you be tactically proficient enough to survive in a small team until you get that supply reintroduced?”
The Jungle Agile Combat Employment Course places trainees in the heavily forested northwest corner of Guam for 10 days of survival skills and tactics, said Capt. Wyatt Huff, operations officer for the 736th Security Forces Squadron.
The training covers water purification, trap making, evasion tactics, wilderness navigation, game cleaning and other survival skills, Bennett said.
This static F-16 Fighting Falcon is used for fire-rescue, survival and other training at the 36th Contingency Ready Group's training center on Guam. (Alex Wilson/Stars and Stripes)
The course takes place at the $300 million Pacific Regional Training Center at Northwest Field on Andersen Air Force Base. It is one of only three such facilities globally in the Defense Department and the only one of its kind in the Air Force.
The program, which completed beta testing over the summer, has already graduated airmen, Marines, soldiers and members of the Air National Guard.
“There’s really only two places you can do it right now, and they’re oversaturated,” Huff said. “So that’s where getting this course stood up goes — it allows it to get to more people.”
The Air Force adapted aspects of its training from the Marine Corps’ Jungle Warfare Training Center on Okinawa and the Army’s Lightning Academy in Wahiawa, Hawaii, but with less emphasis on combat, said Bennett, also with the 736th.
Along with survival skills, the course emphasizes agile combat employment, first codified in 2021 to enhance flexibility and adaptability.
The ACE doctrine calls for dispersing Air Force assets — including aircraft, personnel and maintenance gear — across multiple sites. It follows a “hub-and-spoke” model, moving operations from spots like Kadena Air Base on Okinawa to a network of smaller, dispersed airfields.
This strategy “can complicate adversary planning and provide more options for joint force commanders,” according to a June report by the Congressional Research Service.
The 36th Contigency Ready Group's training facility on Guam features a variety of structures for its courses. (Alex Wilson/Stars and Stripes)
Troops completing the survival course come from various backgrounds, including ground combat support, security forces, communications and airfield operations, Huff said.
Some attend for team operations experience in jungle environments, but the course is also useful for personnel stationed in locations such as Hawaii or Japan.
“The main thing is it’s getting airmen exposure to an environment that a lot of people probably haven’t thought about in their lifetime,” Huff said.
