Deep in the jungles of Indonesia, Sgt. Timothy Bostic swallowed the raw heart of a cobra.
"I didn't want to do it, but it was cool," he said, laughing. "I definitely didn't chew it up, no way."
The experience, which came during a jungle survival class, was just one of many memorable moments during the Army's very first Pacific Pathway, which deploys soldiers for two or three months at a time to engage in a series of exercises and training events with partner militaries.
Bostic and his fellow soldiers from B Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, spent a month living in tents, sharing meals and trading stories with their Indonesian counterparts. They then moved on to Japan, where they trained with their Japanese partners.
Bostic, an infantryman who deployed once to Afghanistan in 2012, said he particularly enjoyed his time in Indonesia.
"It was a huge culture shock," he said. "I'd never met any Indonesians before, but working with their army was the best part of the Pacific Pathways deployment because we interacted at the soldier-to-soldier level."
After the success of this year's Pathway, the Army plans to send soldiers on at least two more Pacific Pathways in 2015. A third Pathway for the year is pending final approval, and officials have said the long-term goal is to have three Pathways every year.
The first Pathway in 2015 will involve soldiers from 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, with 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment providing the core element, said Maj. Gen. Charles Flynn, commanding general of the 25th Infantry Division.
They will go to Thailand for Exercise Cobra Gold, South Korea for Foal Eagle, and the Philippines for Exercise Balikatan.
The second Pathway will feature soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division's 3rd BCT. The battalion task force has not been designated, he said.
Those soldiers will go to Australia for Exercise Talisman Saber, Indonesia for Garuda Shield, and Malaysia for Keris Strike.
For both Pathways, soldiers also will have time in between exercises to conduct military-to-military engagements and participate in cultural events with their hosts.
Where you'll deploy: Facts about Australia
The three- to four-month rotations are part of the Army's contribution to the United States' rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region. It also lines up with the Army's regionally-aligned forces concept, which aims to commit troops to a specific region of the world to support the geographic combatant commanders.
The Army has more than 80,000 active-duty soldiers dedicated to the Pacific, including I Corps, the 25th Infantry Division and the 2nd Infantry Division. The service even has shielded these units from deploying to places such as Afghanistan because of its commitment to the Pacific.
The Pacific Pathways concept employs a single unit through what officials call a "training pathway." This unit spends the deployment in a series of already approved, consecutive bilateral and multilateral exercises and engagements with foreign militaries.
This year, for the first Pathway, more than 800 soldiers from the 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, of Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, spent three months in Asia.
Where you'll deploy: Facts about Thailand
The soldiers went to Indonesia for Garuda Shield and Malaysia for Keris Strike in September, and they finished their tour in Japan for Orient Shield in late October.
Spc. Joseph Seldon, a mortarman with the Stryker brigade's 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, left the United States for the first time when he left for this year's Pacific Pathway.
"It was cool to go out and experience the different cultures and train with the different countries," he said.
In Indonesia, Seldon didn't eat a raw heart, but he ate some cooked snake – it tasted "kind of like chicken," he said – and drank snake's blood.
"It was really weird," he said. "It didn't really have a taste. It just kind of made me gag. But it was part of their culture and they wanted us to experience it."
Seldon, 20, said he also got the chance to train with the Japanese soldiers.
"We got to train with their mortars and the way they do their mortars, which is pretty different from us," he said. "It was kind of cool to see that."
Where you'll deploy: Facts about Indonesia
Sgt. Christopher Kelley, a team leader with 2nd Battalion, said the soldiers prepared for the Pathway like they would for any deployment, from platoon-level exercises to a rotation at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California.
"I think it was a really good experience, especially with the drawdown and everything that's happening," he said. "Instead of just staying at home station and doing the same things we always do, it's nice to get out and see other parts of the world. It's nice meeting other nations' troops and seeing we're actually not too different."
Pacific Pathways is a new model of operational deployments, said Gen. Vincent Brooks, commanding general of U.S. Army Pacific.
It "builds on our experiences of deploying into other areas of the world while applying this deployment construct prior to a crisis emerging," he said in an e-mail to Army Times. "Pacific Pathways stimulates our planning and operations skills and opens opportunities for significant whole of government and multinational relationship enhancements that must be the foundation of [U.S. Pacific Command's] work in this critical Indo-Asia Pacific region."
Pathways also demonstrates the U.S. military's presence and commitment to the region, Brooks said.
Where you'll deploy: Facts about The Philippines
By considering Pathways a deployment, the Army gets to exercise the various mechanisms required for a deployment, providing the participating units with invaluable practice and experience, according to USARPAC officials.
The units have to think through the planning for a deployment and then execute it.
Flynn described it as "an operational deployment that is exercising capabilities, versus simply an exercise."
"We have to get our rear-detachments ready and prepared," he said. "We have to get our families ready and prepared. We have to get our communities ready and prepared. We have to get our formations ready and prepared."
Through Pathways, the Army gains readiness and relationships, while PACOM gains more contact with partners and allies, officials said.
"You have the Army in motion in the Pacific," Maj. Gen. James Pasquarette, deputy commanding general of USARPAC, has said, and it allows soldiers to gain a deeper understanding of the Asia-Pacific region.
"When I first came in the Army, there was a deep understanding of Europe," he said during an October interview with Army Times. "Then the last 13 years or so you had a good appreciation for the [Central Command area of operations]. I think there's not the deep understanding of the Pacific that there probably should be."
To prepare for the 2015 Pathways, soldiers from 2nd SBCT completed a rotation at the NTC this summer. Soldiers from 3rd BCT are scheduled to go to the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana, in May, before they embark on their Pacific Pathway.
"They'll invest that readiness in the Pacific on a Pathway, working with our partners and allies," Flynn said. "Before '14, I was a little unsure whether our readiness was going to be maintained or increased in a Pathway, and I was struck by the fact that it actually went up."
For this year's Pathway, the 25th Infantry Division planned the first two-thirds of this year's rotation, providing two division tactical command posts, an aviation task force, enablers and planners, Flynn said.
The division also had operational control of the more than 1,000 soldiers in the Pathways task force right up until they arrived in Japan for Orient Shield and fell under U.S. Army Japan and I Corps (Forward).
The division will again send out division tactical command posts for both Pathways in 2015.
It also hopes to evaluate some basic jungle gear, Flynn said.
Details are still being worked out, but this could include rations, ropes, carabiners, boots, netting, water reproduction capabilities, and first aid kits designed for jungle operations.
Where you'll deploy: Facts about South Korea
The 25th Infantry Division, which recently revived jungle training for the Army through its Jungle Operations Training Center, has been working with Program Executive Office Soldier and other experts on gear that's suited for jungle operations. This includes outfitting jungle school cadre with the old Battle Dress Uniforms and black jungle boots, which are more suited for the jungle's unique environment than the today's Army Combat Uniform and boots.
The Pathways, along with other events and activities across the division, will keep the 25th busy, but it also gains a lot of benefits from participating in the various exercises, Flynn said.
"What we get is readiness. We get relationships, we get a form of reconnaissance, and we get a form of rehearsal," he said. "We're taking the readiness the Army affords us to get, and … we're putting our most prepared forces, commanders, command posts, operating alongside of our partner nations, sharing, learning, growing and getting an understanding of the environment, the culture, the militaries, the training, and building relationships with leaders at every level."
Being on the ground, in person, across the Pacific gives the Army an advantage, Flynn said.
"We're able to understand a lot about the human domain out there that our people, our soldiers, our leaders are going to have to understand if they're asked to operate in those countries in support of those nations," he said. "When you have real people, with real materiel, real training, and they're out doing real operations, you just can't replicate that."
One of the key advantages to Pathways was the relationships his soldiers built with their Malaysian, Indonesian and Japanese partners, Flynn said.
"The relationships that are built by soldiers on the ground at the very, very tactical level, junior leaders at the squads and platoons all the way up to the generals, that partnering is the best I've seen," he said.
Flynn chalked that up to the Army's experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Working with NATO forces in Afghanistan, working with other forces in Iraq, our junior leaders, they just get it," he said. "This aspect of them fighting, training, working alongside one another is very natural to them."
During their time in the Pacific, soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division as well as 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, of Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, conducted combined live fire exercises using AH-64 Apache helicopters, artillery and mortar systems and mounted forces.
"It's significant," Flynn said. "Those skills, those experiences, that tactical and combat savvy, is being transferred to our allies and partners in the Pacific in these exercises on these deployments."
Where you'll deploy: Facts about Malaysia
Looking ahead to the Pathways scheduled for 2015, Flynn said the team will have to pay closer attention to sustainment, communication and mission command as it works to operate over 16 time zones and a dateline.
"When you spread the division from Hawaii and Schofield Barracks to two separate tactical command posts in separate countries, and you're coordinating strategic sea movements, air movements, and you're doing risky training, and you've got a number of capabilities on the ground, you want to make sure the force can be sustained and commanders can communicate routinely over the distance of half the globe," Flynn said.
The division "grew a lot from it, and we're going to have to continue to get better at that in Pathways in '15 and '16," he said.
This marks a change from the way the Army has operated in Iraq and Afghanistan, where soldiers mostly were able to fall into relatively mature facilities, Flynn said.
"Every time we do one of these Pathways, we're rehearsing our ability to communicate, we're rehearsing our ability to on-load, offload, we're working out the bugs and rehearsing having to do resupply using commercial means and military means," he said.
Michelle Tan is the editor of Army Times and Air Force Times. She has covered the military for Military Times since 2005, and has embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Haiti, Gabon and the Horn of Africa.
