Under the guidance of Royal Thai Marine instructors, U.S. Marines and sailors learned how to survive in the jungle while in combat. The training included classes in how to catch a cobra and use its blood for field medicine, where to find water in plants, and which insects, plants, and reptiles are edible and which are poisonous. Such training allows the forces to be self-sustaining in the jungle.

Non-Combatant Evacuation Operation
When chaos threatens a group of non-combatants overseas, getting them to safety as quickly as possible is often up to service members. However, transporting people means more than putting them on a plane. Some evacuees may have critical medical conditions. Or, a child may be unwilling to leave a pet behind.

To keep track of information during non-combatant evacuation operations (NEOs), the United States uses the NEO Tracking Software. Thai Royal Marines and Navy personnel saw how that system works before participating in a mock NEO in southern Thailand.

The NEO tracking system includes readily available commercial equipment, such as laptops and scanners. During an emergency, an evacuee’s passport is read by a scanner that reads bar-coded passports from around the world. The program then allows the system user to input means of transportation and destination, as well as any special medical considerations. It also prints bar codes for the family pets, so they can be evacuated too. The information is relayed via satellite to the Defense Manpower Data Center’s database in Monterey, California, USA, said program manager Ms. Darlene Robinson.

The system is a leap forward from the previous process and its paperwork, noted Ms. Robinson. Every 30 minutes, the field system sends updated information to the database that staff officers can access during an unfolding emergency. That gives service members in the field the opportunity to do their jobs without the need to respond to requests for information, such as how many people have been evacuated.

According to Royal Thai Marine Capt. Somchai Choksanguan, the Thai armed forces used cell phones to relay information during a NEO near the Cambodian border a few years ago. The U.S. tracking software “could be very useful for the Thai people in those types of operations,” he said.

Mass Casualty Drill
More than 100 Thai service members and U.S. Marines conducted a large-scale mass casualty drill at Phramahachedsarajchao Camp, in Chonburi province. The drill was the largest Thai-U.S. casualty evacuation exercise to date and helped enhance evacuation procedures.

Thai and U.S. forces treated and stabilized about 25 casualty role players with various mock injuries from minor to fatal. Medical personnel evacuated, stabilized, and triaged the role players. Teams from Her Majesty Queen Sirikit Naval Hospital evacuated role players who required extensive treatment. A seminar followed immediately after the exercise to identify problem areas and ways to improve procedures.

Explosive Ordnance Disposal Demonstration
Members of the U.S. Navy’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Mobile Unit 5 shared their expertise with Royal Thai Navy counterparts as part of COBRA GOLD 2005. Some of the EOD team’s equipment is technical and some is available at convenience stores and understood by high school science students. For example, an EOD technician can use a bottle of water to defeat an improvised explosive device, such as those used in Iraq. “Water is focused and compressed, and when it comes out of the tube it hits like a sledgehammer,” said U.S. Navy CPO David Prasek.

Before they broke out the fuse-laden water bottles for the demonstration, CPO Prasek and his team pulled out a covered shoebox and ran it through a mobile X-ray unit. Once they determined it was a bomb, they set up the controlled explosion. EOD sailors fire a clay slug into the bomb while detonating the water bottle next to it using a fuse and several feet of wire. The water strikes the bomb with enough force to blow pieces of it several meters backward. EOD sailors then follow the debris trail to gain information on the bomb’s components.

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