Migration
VIDEO, PHOTOSMarines, airmen eat venomous critters while training in Thailand
Stars and Stripes
February 22, 2017
A Thai jungle-survival training instructor pours cobra blood into the mouth of a Marine during Cobra Gold drills underway in Thailand. (Markus Castaneda/U.S. Navy)
A Thai jungle-survival training instructor pours cobra blood into the mouth of a Marine during Cobra Gold drills underway in Thailand. (Markus Castaneda/U.S. Navy)
Marines test out edible roots during a jungle-survival training as part of Cobra Gold drills underway in Thailand. (Markus Castaneda/U.S. Navy)
A Thai jungle-survival training instructor teaches Marines how to handle cobras during Cobra Gold drills underway in Thailand. (Markus Castaneda/U.S. Navy)
A Thai Marine prepares exotic delicacies during jungle-survival training as part of Cobra Gold drills underway in Thailand. (Markus Castaneda/U.S. Navy)
Servicemembers expanded their palates during jungle-survival training, as part of the multinational Cobra Gold exercise underway in Thailand.
Experts from the Royal Thai Marines’ Reconnaissance Battalion taught Marines and airmen how to safely consume some of the Thai jungle’s most dangerous animals — venomous snakes, scorpions and tarantulas. Servicemembers also learned which herbs, roots and plants contain water or can be safely eaten, how to fashion crude hunting weapons and how to prepare wild fowl for dinner.
“When you are out there by yourself, you cannot worry about your emotions,” said Chief Petty Officer 1st Class Pairoj Prasansai, a Thai Reconnaissance Marine, according to an American Forces Network report. “When your life is on the line, you simply have to do what you have to do to survive. You have to value your life.”
Cobra Gold is an annual military exercise in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region, with approximately 8,000 personnel from 29 countries participating in or observing the 11-day exercise, which ends later this week.