One by one, the American soldiers slid down a muddy hillside to a river deep in the Hawaiian jungle. With guns on top of rucksacks, they kicked their way across, wobbling in the current, trying to stay quiet.
It was a sluggish advance stinking of sweat and silt — reminiscent of Vietnam and similar to what they might face in a potential fight with China almost anywhere in the Pacific.
"It’s incumbent on us to become resident professionals,” said Col. Christopher Johnson, who traversed the river arm in arm with a junior officer. "Firemen don’t figure out how to work a fire engine at the fire, right?”