What would you do if someone told you to drink cobra blood? You would probably look at them like they needed to be locked up in a mental institution right? Well when you’re a U.S. Marine, chances are you may have no option. As part of a joint military exercise in Thailand, one U.S. Marine tilted his head back,closed his eyes closed and drank cobra blood.
No this isn’t something that’s out of an action or horror movie but the dreadful spectacle is really a part of a jungle survival training course at a military base in Sattahip, Thailand, as part of the Cobra Gold 2012 exercise. During this exercise, the Marines were being shown how to kill cobras by Thai navy instructors, before being offered the chance to drink the snake’s blood, eat its entrails or even behead chickens. Supposedly this is all part a survival craft including being shown which bugs to eat in the jungle.
These exercises and more are carried out by Cobra Gold, a U.S.-led multi-national exercise which oversees a total of 13,180 personnel from Thailand, the U.S., Singapore, Japan, Republic of Korea, Indonesia and Malaysia that take part in a series of simulation combat situations. A lot of their operations feature computer-simulated command post exercises, field training operations and humanitarian and civic-assistance projects that increase the standard of living for the Thai people in surrounding communities.
So I get all of that but I still don’t understand what drinking a snake’s blood has to do with helping anybody especially the Thai people. Is it supposed to give them strength or something? So if you were a Marine or someone being trained in the armed forces and this was one of the things you had to do in order to move ahead, would you do it?
