Soldiers at the Army’s jungle training school on Oahu.

       U.S. Military Returns to the Jungle, Training for a Very Different Threat

       Far from the deserts of the Middle East, the Army is instructing troops in Hawaii on the skills needed for a potential clash with China.

       Soldiers at the Army’s jungle training school on Oahu.Credit...

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       By Damien Cave

       Photographs by Mark Abramson

       Reporting from Oahu, Hawaii

       Dec. 15, 2023

       One by one, the American soldiers slid down a muddy hillside to a river deep in the Hawaiian jungle. With guns on top of rucksacks, they kicked their way across, wobbling in the current, trying to stay quiet.

       It was a sluggish advance stinking of sweat and silt — reminiscent of Vietnam, and similar to what they might face in a potential fight with China almost anywhere in the Pacific.

       “It’s incumbent on us to become resident professionals,” said Col. Christopher D. Johnson, who traversed the river arm in arm with a junior officer. “Firemen don’t figure out how to work a fire engine at the fire, right?”

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       Damien Cave is an international correspondent for The Times, covering the Indo-Pacific region. He is based in Sydney, Australia. More about Damien Cave

       A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 16, 2023, Section A , Page 4 of the New York edition with the headline: In Hawaii, U.S. Soldiers Are Preparing for Jungle Warfare . Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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