The Army is reestablishing jungle warfare training in Panama, and soldiers who successfully complete the course will be authorized to wear the jungle tab.

This will be the Army’s second jungle tab-producing school, and the Panama school’s program of instruction will closely replicate that of the jungle school operated by the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii.

Charged with operating the Combined Jungle Operations Training Course in Panama will be soldiers with the 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade, whose advising mission has been transformed into a unique organization called the Army Security Cooperation Group-South, or ASCG-S.

Established in 2017 as the first of six specialized advisory brigades, the 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade, known as an SFAB, completed one deployment to Afghanistan in 2018 and then became regionally aligned with the U.S. Southern Command area of operations, conducting security force assistance with Colombia, Argentina, Panama and Honduras, among other partners.

In a ceremony Jan. 27 on Kelley Hill at Fort Benning, Georgia, the 1st SFAB was redesignated as the ASCG-S, according to an Army news release. The new organization “will become central to security cooperation in Panama through its assumption of the Joint Security Cooperation Group-South and the Combined Jungle Operations Training Center missions,” the news release said.

“We are now charged with holding a different line, no longer as advisers, but as committed jungle warfare experts,” said Col. Keith Benedict, who commanded the 1st SFAB and now commands the new ASCG-S. “We are charged with and have the opportunity to spearhead combined and combined arms jungle training,” he said.

During the ceremony, former 1st SFAB soldiers replaced their distinctive brown berets with patrol caps and their adviser patches with the patch of 6th Army, the release said.

“Our soldiers are excited to build upon their experience working in Panama to establish a digitized training environment and work with our partners to test and evaluate our warfighting capabilities in one of the most challenging jungle environs in the world,” Benedict said.

Located within Base Aeronaval Cristóbal Colón on the Caribbean side of the Panama Canal, on an installation formerly known as Fort Sherman, the Jungle Operations Training Center’s instructors and students will use the base facilities in coordination with Panamanian authorities during and intermittently in between courses, according to ASCG-S spokesperson Maj. Val Bryant.

Bryan explained that U.S. Marines have been training in the Panama jungle since late last summer “because they were in-country and it was a target of opportunity,” but soldiers will begin arriving in February to begin training.

“The school is fully operational, but we continue to refine and improve it,” Bryant said, explaining that classes began in August with U.S. Army and Panamanian instructors teaching a combined course with Panamanian security forces and U.S. service members. “Army Security Cooperation Group-South assumed responsibility of the course in October and is working with subject-matter experts in Panama and across the joint and combined community to continually enhance the training.”

The new organization, which will remain at Fort Benning but keep a persistent presence in Panama, falls under U.S. Army Western Hemisphere Command, which is leading efforts to “deepen and widen interoperability with Panamanian partners on strategic terrain and in the 2025 National Security Strategy’s priority region,” according to the release.

In addition to incorporating much of the 25th Infantry Division’s jungle school program of instruction for individual training, the course integrates more of the Panamanians’ survival and fieldcraft skills, Bryant said.

The Hawaii-based jungle Instructors “have been crucial, mentoring us during the school’s build, and we look forward to sustaining that partnership,” Bryant said, adding that the Panama school  is intended to serve “as an enhanced collective training location for both U.S. military and our Panamanian and regional partners to pursue a capability and capacity to develop jungle warfighting expertise. “