An infantry officer from 1st Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment (1RAR), has become the second Australian to complete and pass the French Foreign Legion's Jaguar Course.
A tap on the shoulder in December last year was the first Lieutenant Guy Campbell had heard of the elite jungle warfare training program held in French Guiana.
"I'd just finished the basic reconnaissance course when I found out about my nomination," he said.
"I didn't know what it was until then, so I thought I'd better start learning French and increase my training volume."
Three months later, he travelled to the Legion's Equatorial Forest Training Centre to begin the gruelling eight-week course alongside 29 trainees from the French Army and 13 other countries.
After a week of briefings, kit issue, cognitive tests and pre-fatigue physical training (PT), the first hurdle was a barrier test at 3am to progress to the jungle.
The next two weeks were aguerrissement - or war hardening. Early days filled with a relentless tempo of obstacle courses, PT, jungle survival lessons, tests and limited food.
A standout activity was the Piste Brancardage: a 400-metre course of chest-deep mud, tree roots and rocks through which teams stretcher-carried a 100kg log.
Over three hours, the team fought through sucking mud, inching their way forward, but only managed 300 metres when the time was up.
"You have a pack on, so if you fall over it takes you 10 minutes just to stand up again. You have to pull your leg out of the mud with your hands for every step," Lieutenant Campbell said.
"Towards the end of it, the mud started to smell like bacon, maybe because I was hungry from the lack of food, but I didn't mind the smell at the end."
'When you start, the badge is just a badge, but every day it grows in significance.'
After sufficient hardening, the course moved on to the combat tactics phase to learn foundational Legion tactics and insertion methods such as helo-casting and small boat operations, before progressing to complex platoon-level full mission profiles.
With the entire course delivered in French, Lieutenant Campbell relied on the few bilingual trainees who would translate when they could.
"You do end up picking up words here and there, especially words related to burpees and push-ups - those become crystal clear," he said.
After the tactics phase came a five-day survive, evasion, resistance and escape activity.
The trainees relied solely on their new skills to build fires, construct shelters and find food before the pursuing enemy captured and interrogated them.
The final stage of the course was the Synthese, a 10-day full mission profile that tested all the skills trainees had learned, clearing a river system from deep in the jungle to seize Saint Joseph's Island, which features the unrestored ruins of a 19th-century French colonial prison.
While it was a relief to finish, it did not mean trainees had passed. Soldiers only found out if they were successful minutes before marching onto the final parade to receive the coveted Jaguar brevet.
Of the 25 trainees who finished, only 17 passed. Lieutenant Campbell placed 12th.
"When you start, the badge is just a badge, but every day it grows in significance," he said.
"By the end of the course it's the only thing you care about, and you go out to that parade praying you get that badge punched into your chest."
