Jungle Expert Warfare Course Panama Patch

Fort Sherman sat at Toro Point on the Caribbean end of the Panama Canal, and from 1951 to 1999 the Army sent soldiers there to learn the jungle on its own terms. The Jungle Operations Training Center, the JOTC, picked up the nickname Green Hell from the men who went through it. At its busiest the school put as many as 9,000 people a year through training. The Jungle Expert patch went to the ones who finished the course. Anyone who wore it had been through the real thing on the canal's western bank.

Fort Sherman was named for General William Tecumseh Sherman by War Department order in November 1911, and coast artillery batteries guarded the canal entrance from its ground into World War II. The JOTC sat across the water from Colon, close enough to see the city and far enough into the bush that it did not matter. Alongside the main course the center ran a ten-day Air Crew Survival Course for aviators and a four-week Engineer Jungle Warfare Course. Fort Sherman closed on April 1, 1999, the post went to Panama, and Army jungle training moved to Hawaii. In 2026 the Army brought jungle training back to Fort Sherman, now a Panamanian aeronaval base, with an 18-day course.

The patch is a round royal blue disc with a curved blue tab across the top reading JUNGLE EXPERT in white block letters. In the center a white sailing ship rides a white arc of sea, a pennant flying from the top of its mast. A red cross is stitched on the mainsail, the only warm color on the patch. We have not found a documented meaning for the ship, so we let it stand on its own. It has a cut edge, trimmed close so the tab and the disc keep their outline, and it measures 3 inches wide by 3.25 inches tall.

Jungle school had a reputation that traveled with every graduate. Men who came out of Fort Sherman talked about the heat, the mud, the rain and the land navigation for the rest of their careers. The course taught soldiers to move, live and fight where a map and a compass were most of what they had. In 2026 the Army authorized the Jungle Tab for Army-wide wear and made soldiers who trained at Fort Sherman from 1990 to 1999 eligible for it, which says plenty about what that training was worth. For the soldiers who earned the patch in Panama, it was proof they had done it before the tab existed.

This patch has an iron-on backing and can also be sewn on, which holds up better on a jacket or field shirt. Frame it in a shadow box beside a Panama service photo, or put it on the vest you wear to a reunion. It also makes a good gift for a father or grandfather who did his time in Green Hell. A small patch for a hard course.