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Of all the climes and places a soldier could find himself fighting in combat, few are as challenging or nightmarish as the jungle. The oppressive heat during the dry season can sap a man of his strength, while the humid air and heavy rainfall of the wet season can, in equal measure, break the spirit of even the toughest men. Jungle rot, rashes, heat stroke, and other such frustrations aside,
the impenetrable walls of jungle foliage serve to make both navigation and radio communication difficult. If all that wasn't enough to contend with, the jungle hosts an array of toxic, aggressive, and terrifying wildlife. Then, of course, there's the enemy, his traps, encampments, and ambushes laying in wait, perfectly concealed to the eyes of an unsuspecting and weary patrol.
Serving as a soldier in such an environment is an unenviable line of work, but few men are as proficient and effective in jungle operations as the elite Philippine Army Scout Rangers.
Tasked with fighting various insurgent groups in the southern islands of their homeland for over 70 years, there are few perils within the jungle depths that these men aren't comfortably familiar with. Formidable and cool-headed as they are, however, even from the ranks of these seasoned, highly capable men, come whispers of something nefarious lurking in the jungle, an ancient evil that any Filipino has known of since childhood.
Something with an insatiable hunger for human flesh, an asuwang. I'm Luke LaManna and this is Wartime Stories. In the early years of the 21st century, the Southern Philippines still found itself embroiled in the long drawn-out war dubbed the Moro Conflict.
Largely centralized in the Mindanao region of the Philippines, the war, raging since 1968, pitted Muslim nationalist groups against the armed forces of the Philippines. The conflict in and of itself was seen by the native Bangsamoro Muslim people as yet another fight on the road to national independence. Chief amongst these groups were the Moro National Liberation Front and Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
Moving into the 1990s, however, fundamentalist jihadist groups started to take root in the war-torn southern islands. While generally smaller in number than their nationalist counterparts, these groups, namely Abu Sayyaf, were of great concern to both federal and separatist forces. With the Moro conflict largely taking place within the impregnable jungles of the southern Philippines, a specialized force was needed to root out the insurgents.
Enter the Philippine Army's 1st Scout Ranger Regiment. Founded in 1950, the Scout Rangers had firmly established themselves among the Army's top-tier units. With specialties in counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency, hostage rescue, and of course, jungle warfare, the Scout Rangers spearheaded many federal operations. Their reputation as stout warfighters has earned them the respect of friend and foe alike.
With the war now bleeding into the early 2000s, the time our story takes place, the scout rangers found themselves deployed to the province of Sulu in order to counter the growing presence of Abu Sayyaf in the region. Having been at war for well over 30 years, by 2001, the Philippine armed forces were generally overstretched and under-resourced.
Building their forward outposts with what few resources they had to hand, we find that the patrol base established in the Pitakal municipality of Sulu is little more than a collection of squat structures made of wood and tin. The large perimeter encompassing the otherwise tiny base was nothing more than a haphazardly constructed low wall consisting of sandbags and barbed wire.
Housed within, 18 Scout Rangers, including their commanding officer, are in charge of patrolling an entire municipality with little in the way of fire or air support. In spite of their humbling conditions, these men are clearly skilled at doing more with less. However, despite the warfighting capabilities of the Scout Rangers, even the most inexperienced insurgents could see that the base was a soft target for a coordinated assault.
The scout rangers were also wise to this. As resourceful as they were, ingenuity could only take a fighting force so far when desperately needed resources and logistics are sorely lacking. Because of their scant perimeter defense, the scout rangers, much to their chagrin, found themselves conducting heightened patrols of the grounds of their compound. Again, in spite of their combat proficiency, it was no less a taxing position to be in
The scouts felt like sitting ducks, knowing that the enemy was likely watching their every move. And one night, as the sun set over the island, eight scout rangers mustered in preparation for yet another routine walk around the perimeter. That number was quickly reduced to seven when one of the men, having drank some tainted water, found himself guarding the latrine for the better part of the night.
Undermanned and undersupplied, the remaining scout rangers then set out on their evening walk, what would soon become a highly eventful night. Watermelon, watermelon, papaya, papaya, coconut banana, coconut banana, fruit salad, fruit salad. Why do you look at the client today? Can you keep it down? You know I'd like to keep it up, not down, brother.
I don't remember you being this tearful during Ranger course. Please help me. Time makes both of you mother... Get down!
The patrol had been quiet at first, but now the seven-man team, moving in a tactical column along one of the perimeter's sandbag walls, found themselves in the kill zone of a small group of Abuseya fighters. Perfectly concealed in the jungle beyond the wire, the ASG militants peppered the scout rangers with small-arms fire, wounding their point man, sending him sprawling to the ground.
The other Rangers reacted quickly, ducking for cover and establishing fire superiority over the camouflaged fighters, firing back at any muzzle flashes now appearing in the pitch-black jungle. Roused from their sleep by the gunfire, the other scouts now joined in the defense of their base. After a few minutes of sustained fire from both sides, the Abosea fighters fell silent, likely retreating back into the comparative safety of the jungle. A typical hit-and-run ambush.
With bullets no longer flying, the Rangers then quickly moved to offer medical aid to their wounded point man. It became quickly apparent that he was in grave condition. The round that struck the point man had torn straight through his upper right thigh, severing the femoral artery. With no major facilities to hand at their small outpost, the Scout Rangers knew that their friend's only hope was a medevac airlift to the nearest field hospital.
Radioing up a report before loading the wounded man onto a stretcher, while a new patrol was sent to guard the perimeter for any further attack, the first team withdrew to a spot 300 meters inside the wire, setting up an improvised landing zone and triage just outside a cluster of jungle trees. Despite their best efforts to stem the bleeding, their friend's condition rapidly deteriorated. He gradually slipped into unconsciousness due to blood loss.
With their patrol base being in such a remote area of operations, the helicopter was, tragically, still hours away. As they waited, staring out into the dark, they prayed that no further ambushes would take place. One wounded man was bad enough. On this particular night, however, the jungle would not relent. As he lay dying, with the smell of his blood now on the air,
the wounded man would garner the attention of something much worse than the Abu Sayyaf. Quite some time had passed, and the night skies were still distressingly quiet. Unable to abandon their fallen brother, the rangers remained alert, their attention focused outward, hoping to keep the LZ perimeter secured. Unbeknownst to the men, however, something was already inside the perimeter
The movement was subtle at first, masked by the tall grass and the field bordering the looming patch of jungle behind the rangers. The medic, nearest to the body of their fallen comrade, was the first to notice. Casting the dim beam of his rifle-mounted flashlight towards the man, now covered in a blanket, he saw that something had coiled itself around the man's legs.
Slowly but surely, something appeared to be dragging the wounded man closer and closer to the treeline. His look of confusion turned to one of horror, as the medic realized that what was coiled around the man's legs wasn't a snake. Maroon-colored and coated with a foul-smelling layer of mucus, what he was staring at was a grotesquely long tongue.
Its owner, hidden in the darkness of the jungle, was clearly attempting to make a meal out of their fallen comrade. Now alerted to the bizarre situation, in the ensuing confusion, the rangers had first thought the medic had seen some indication of a person hiding in the tree line behind them.
While issuing verbal warnings to whoever was in the jungle, unsure of how they had just managed to tie what appeared to be a slime-covered rope around their friend's legs, the rangers attempted to prevent him from being dragged any further into the brush. Slashing and stabbing it with their bayonets, with the soft ground underneath of it giving way, the rangers found that the unknown material was seemingly impervious to being cut.
Though it appeared slick and organic, its hypertensile strength was clearly incredible.
Unsuccessful in their attempts to cut or remove it from his legs, their friend being dragged closer and closer to the jungle, the rangers then gave up on shouting any more warnings and let loose with their weapons. The bullets quickly chewed through the dense jungle foliage, but by the time their magazines ran dry, the scouts realized that whoever or whatever this was, it had no intention of letting go of its prey.
His body soon to disappear through the brush line, with blades and bullets proving ineffective against the unseen threat, the scout rangers resorted to one final, drastic measure: the explosions of two grenades echoed through the night, slightly muffled by the jungle undergrowth. This, finally, seemed to ward off the mysterious assailant, the strange appendage immediately uncoiling itself from around their comrade's legs before hastily being drawn back into the jungle.
Shaken and on edge, still believing this was some kind of enemy attack, the scout rangers were certain that the enemy would open fire at any moment. After a long period of tense silence, however, it seemed that the rangers were now alone.
Their attention now drawn to the sound of an incoming helicopter, the medic realized that sadly, their friend had already succumbed to his injuries. The long-awaited medevac chopper had arrived, only to now transport the lifeless body of the fallen scout ranger. With dawn fast approaching, the remaining six men returned to the compound, eager to relay the specifics of what they'd encountered to their commanding officer.
While the after-action reports written by their captain covered the perimeter ambush and subsequent casualty in great detail, the strange ordeal that took place at the improvised landing zone was ultimately omitted. Some of the rangers, as odd as the situation was, felt confident in some sort of rational explanation, determined to believe it was a snake or some unknown insurgents. Others, however, knew what they had seen.
They could not shake the thought that they had encountered something truly unnatural. Something that was clearly not a myth. An Asawang. On a pragmatic level, an encounter with an unusually brazen python seems to be the only viable substitute for what was described in this account.
In the dead of night, with what he described as "dim, weapon-mounted flashlights to cut through the darkness," their nerves rattled by recent combat, could the "tongue" described by the rangers simply have been just that? To further cement this theory, reticulated pythons, among other large snakes, have been known to drag their prey to concealed dens before eating.
Perhaps, feeling exposed in the open field, the snake attempted to drag the body into the jungle before the rangers cut its plans short. There are, however, clearly elements in this theory that don't quite add up, namely with regard to the physical characteristics of the creature, namely its tongue, as relayed by the scout who witnessed the event.
Surely, the scout rangers, well-trained and versed in all the natural perils of the jungle, would be able to quickly identify such a distinct animal. Whatever this was bore a distinct maroon color, unlike any known python, and was reportedly covered in a viscous layer similar to mucus or saliva.
Concerningly still, the material or flesh that this thing was composed of was apparently impervious to bayonets. In fact, the only thing that seemed to ward off the unknown creature was the use of fragmentation grenades. Eerily enough, it is said that one of the few ways one can effectively fend off an Asuang attack is through the use of fire or extreme heat.
In Philippine folklore, the length of the Asawang's tongue can vary in descriptions. But as described by the scout ranger who shared this story, it is often depicted as being unnaturally long, enabling the creature to reach its victims from a distance. Other stories and accounts describe the Asawang's tongue as extending significantly beyond what would be considered normal for a human or animal tongue.
This allows the creature to reach into houses or even climb onto roofs to access its prey. Pregnant women in particular should be wary of this beast, as it has a particular taste for unborn children.
On that note, we come to our second story. Another reported encounter that soldiers serving in the Scout Rangers had with a similar creature. Only this time, it was the northern region of the Philippines, far from Mindanao. So how you been, brother? It's good to see you. It's been a while. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm doing good. Doing good. How was work? You know, it's all right.
Probably not as exciting as what you've been doing. Yeah, I was going to ask you when you're going to join the army, eh? No, no, no, no. I think you would be really good at it. The army is your thing, brother. I like my nice quiet job fixing cell phone towers. One Lima, this is Hotel Charlie. Come in, over. I don't think... Hold on one second. Sorry. This is One Lima. Send it over.
Interrogative. You think he's MPA? Over. Okay. We're heading over there now. Over.
Everything okay? Sorry bro, I gotta take this. We're the only unit in the area. Just tag along. This should be fun. Okay.
For such a relatively small country, the number of socio-political issues and armed insurgencies in the Philippines is staggering. It's no wonder their armed forces are often stretched thin and run ragged. Not only are there fundamentalist jihadist groups operating throughout the southern region, but this next story enlightens us to the fact that pro-communist groups operate throughout the island nation as well.
Coming into existence alongside other militant groups, the New People's Army, the NPA, founded in 1969, has long maintained their goal to overthrow the Philippine government through a protracted "people's war." Over the decades, shared anti-government sentiments have occasionally led to alliances between the NPA and Islamist groups. Despite their occasional cooperation, ideological differences, and conflicting goals, often
often lead to tensions and even violent clashes between the different armed groups, particularly in Mindanao. So saying, while their areas of operation do tend to overlap in southern regions, like Mindanao, the NPA is also known to conduct its operations in the north, on the islands of Luzon and Visayas.
Like their Islamist counterparts, the NPA typically operates in remote and less accessible regions, such as mountainous terrain, dense jungles, and hinterlands. These areas offer natural cover and make it difficult for government forces to conduct effective military operations. This next story was shared by a Filipino man, a
a civilian, who, because of the dangers in the area he was called to repair a cell phone tower, was accompanied by the scout rangers while visiting a remote village. He was worried about running into communist NPA fighters, but evidently he and the soldiers encountered something far worse. He writes:
Out of all my paranormal experiences, this is probably the most compelling I had simply because I was not alone when this happened, and I was not with just the average kind of people either. I'll put in as much details exactly as I remember them. To protect the persons involved, I will change their names. I also cannot state the name of my company, but it is one of the largest telcos, telecommunication companies in the Philippines, which is synonymous to world.
I currently work as one of the senior IT network and server engineers there. I usually get assigned to work on priority repairs on various cell sites and server data center sites, mostly in far-flung provinces. This happened in mid-December 2016 in Nueva Vizcaya, a mountainous province in the northern region of the Philippines.
It was a priority service call, severity 1, the highest of priorities where even the CEO of the company receives status updates, since the cell site in question also services various military communications devices. As soon as I got to the office, I was dispatched immediately, carrying with me the various equipment to replace the existing ones at the cell site. It was a 6-hour drive north of Manila.
I was asked to go to a specific meeting point in the town nearest the cell site to rendezvous with my escort, an eight-member team from the Philippines' 1st Army Scout Ranger Regiment.
The area of the cell site is a place where the local communist movement, the New People's Army, NPA, is highly active. Apparently, the NPA carried out an operation earlier in the morning of that day, which is what caused some of the equipment to be damaged. The scout team was actually led by one of my former high school classmates. I'll call him Lieutenant Ramirez.
He specifically asked for me knowing that I worked for the telco. He had his men transfer the equipment to their truck and we began to travel to the cell site. It was already dark by this time. Also, during the long uphill ride, First Lieutenant Ramirez and I did some catching up when they received a call.
i i don't understand military speak so i could not tell exactly what was being talked about but he updated us accordingly saying that a village on the way to the cell site requested assistance with a possible npa member harassing a household apparently the man was up on the roof of this house and he was still in the area
Being the nearest, 1st Lt. Ramirez responded that his team will be handling it, so instead of continuing to the damaged tower, we drove towards the village mentioned. Now with our headlights turned off. The countryside, especially the poorer places, are very dark. Soldiers aren't allowed to smoke at night in places like this, since the light from their cigarettes could be clearly seen, even from a distance, giving away their position. It was that dark here.
I was hesitant to be riding along since I'm not exactly a soldier, but Ramirez brushed it off saying it would be a good chance for me to become a soldier for at least one night. First Lieutenant Ramirez, I can say, is a battle-hardened junior officer. He's been to a number of dangerous situations before fighting in many encounters, both high-profile and low-key.
He's the type to jump in quickly, then ask questions later. That's how he's been ever since we've been kids. Very cocky individual, but not entirely without cause. He did receive a medal recently after all, although I don't, I wasn't sure for what action. Either way, we're going in. It's part of the job. He casually said to me,
Now, you have to understand, the Philippine army usually does the police work in the areas where communists, Muslim insurgents, or bandits are active. And when you send in the scouts, the best the military has to offer, you can get an idea of how bad the situation is in the place that they're being sent. Even other countries recognize the abilities of the Philippine scout rangers.
All the more so in this case, since the scouts came from the 1st regiment. They're the best the scouts have to offer, from what I've been made to understand. Anyway, we get to the place, maybe 5 minutes later, with me still having second thoughts, and Ramirez looks at me and he says, Dude, make up your mind. Either you shadow me, or I leave you in the truck. If you stay here, you're free dinner for them commies though. I can't spare a babysitter for this one.
So he made the choice easier for me. I had no plans of being abducted that night and I was pissing myself already. I'm not cut out for this danger stuff. I just wanted to repair the cell site and go home. I wished he had never taken me and I was wishing I had never ended up in this situation and I planned to get his wife to kick his ass once he goes home on vacation for this.
Here, he said, handing me a loaded 9mm pistol and two clips. He goes, I know you're used to this one. Safety's on. I sat there thinking, I am not getting paid enough for this job. And I recalled my company insurance policy doesn't even cover sports related injuries, let alone firearms related ones.
I didn't have time to waste, so I stuck with my friend instead of waiting in the truck for someone to drag me into the woods and hold me for ransom, which nobody's going to pay for. The plan was for six of his men to break off into three pairs to surround the house in question. Me, First Lieutenant Ramirez, and his sniper, PFC Santiago, were going to go up to this water tower about 50 to 60 meters out.
i guess he had planned to snipe the guy and have his men stand by on the ground in case the sniper missed as we moved to the water tower he was telling me you're too stiff you're wearing dark clothes no one will see you we'll be in and out 10 minutes tops you're a vip that's why i came and had my sergeant stay with the platoon at the cell site i didn't know vips had to join in responding to these types of calls
But the scouts were undermanned, as it was already. And that's why my friend needed to multitask at the moment. Well, we get up to the water tower. PFC Santiago immediately positions himself. And 1st Lieutenant Ramirez sat beside him while I positioned myself behind them. And I was thinking, yeah, this wasn't so bad. I'm far from the area and pretty safe as far as I could tell. Until PFC Santiago said, sir, you need to see this.
First Lieutenant Ramirez brought out some type of binoculars, I guess they called them night vision scopes. I couldn't see his reaction because it was dark, but he was silent as he put down the binoculars. He swears under his breath. He then turns to me and asks me to look in the direction, and he pointed and asked me to tell him what I see. Of course,
My initial concern is that there were more NPA soldiers and that we were outnumbered. A reaction like this from a seasoned scout didn't exactly paint a nice picture in my mind. But what I saw was definitely something that will probably haunt me for the rest of my life. I wish I hadn't taken those binoculars at all. I wish, I even wish I saw more communists instead of what I did see. The image was green. I saw someone on the roof of a house.
It was a man. He didn't have a shirt on, nor did he have any sort of firearm or weapon on him. He had very short hair, maybe a shaved head. He was barefoot. He had jeans on, but the lower part was ripped. And from what I could tell, he had dark skin. He seemed normal at first glance. But then I noticed his arms. His arms were very long. His hands were almost to pass down his knees.
His fingers were also very long and pointed, much longer than normal, and they had tips which looked like long nails or even claws. The first thing on my mind was, "This thing isn't human." And then I hear PFC Santiago say, "Sir, it's moving." I did not expect what happened next. As soon as he said that, as I'm looking through this binocular,
This thing, whatever it was, looked at me through the lens. It fucking looked at me. It was unmistakable. He or it had its head now turned in my direction and I could see it had white eyes, at least through the green. They looked white like eyeshine in a cat's eyes. I dropped the binoculars. Had it not been strapped to my wrist, it might have fallen straight through the grated flooring of the water tower. Ramirez looks at me.
asking what I saw and all I could say was it fucking looked at me, man. It knows we're here. And at the same time, PFC Santiago said, sir, orders. My friend gave the order to put two in its head. I think the first shot hit its mark because a scream then echoed through the valley. Sounded like a mix of a high-pitched male shout and a cornered or dying animal's cry.
Not sure how to describe it because it was the first time I had heard such a sound, but I am sure all of us heard it because of how loud the sound was. Santiago never got off a second shot. I don't know if he did so on purpose or if he was caught off guard by the scream. We then heard automatic rifle shots in the distance. Ramirez then tells us, we gotta go.
PFC Santiago went down the ladder first, followed by me, then Lieutenant Ramirez. Once we hit the bottom of the tower, we ran to this house. These guys run fast, and Ramirez is having to drag me along so I don't get left behind. Honestly, I was very reluctant to be running where we were headed. I wasn't as hardcore as these scouts. I could barely even keep myself from wetting myself, right?
one of the guys was still shooting in the direction towards the tree line when we got to the house and near the front area was one of the soldiers sitting up against the wall his buddy seemed to be applying first aid and i saw that his left forearm now had a long bloody gash which was bleeding freely into the soil he reported to ramirez that something jumped from the roof landed right on top of him right after pfc santiago had shot
And while he didn't get a good look at the thing, his attacker, due to the darkness, he specifically refused to call the thing human. I noticed even his buddy seemed to indicate that he didn't think it was human at all. The other four soldiers come back over to us saying that whatever this thing was, it got away. My friend decided to talk to the people in the house. We found out that a young couple lived in this house and that the woman was seven months pregnant.
They were the ones who had texted their local village official, who in turn requested the military to check on the situation since he suspected this thing was an NPA soldier. The three of us, me, First Lieutenant Ramirez, and PFC Santiago, never told anyone, even this couple, what we saw that night. We simply stated it was a machete-swinging communist trying to rob them. NPAs were...
known to resort to banditry, so they believed it. We eventually made our way to the cell site, where I immediately began to do the necessary repairs. I was eavesdropping as I was working, and I heard Ramirez and Santiago stick to their story when they were asked by the rest of their platoon regarding the recent encounter, but they never mentioned anything about the man's description, nor the strange animal sound that we heard.
After working an all-nighter and making sure the cell site operation was stable, Ramirez and his men, minus the injured one, took me back to the town where I'd parked my car as soon as daybreak came. As his men loaded the damaged equipment that I'd replaced into my car, Ramirez came to talk to me. At first, he was joking around, saying I could probably enlist in the regular army now that I'd had my first-hand experience of what it was like for them.
And I went along with this, hoping to forget about the strange incident. But before I was able to drive away, he said, "Dude, Santiago, me, we saw the same thing you did. You know what it was, don't you?" I never responded, but inside, I knew what he was talking about. The Asawang, a creature from Filipino folklore, the stuff of a Filipino child's nightmares,
the description the sound it was the only thing that made sense explaining what that thing was during the spanish era 1500s to about 1890 these creatures were said to be once human who were blessed by the moon priestess of old called babylon
so these people could have power to fight the Spanish colonizers who had done them wrong. The Spaniards decided to persecute these priestesses for witchcraft, then spread tales that Asawangs attacked locals and foreigners alike. The Asawang is a creature said to be able to shapeshift into either a human or an animal but is never able to correctly imitate one or the other.
As a human, it has leathery black skin and disproportioned limbs. As an animal, like a dog or a cat for example, it's always black and three times the normal size. It can never speak or do animal calls. It can only growl, shout, or scream. They usually eat the flesh of recently deceased humans and animals, but also have a preference of targeting very ill people or pregnant women.
pregnant women like the one that was in the village they can never become human again and being an aswang is hereditary no one will turn if attacked by one although the wounds they inflict can be fatal this is of course all true if the folklore is to be believed i've never been back to the general area after this
First, Lieutenant Ramirez and his whole team were recently dispatched to the south to deal with the ISIS terrorists there. And before he left, before writing this, I asked him about that night. It's hard to imagine a soldier of his caliber believing in those kinds of tales. And I find it even harder, as I write this, to believe what I saw was real. But no matter how hard I try to come up with an explanation...
I couldn't come up with anything else other than the legend passed down by our forefathers. One of the last things Ramirez said to me was, I told you before, you and I both know what that thing was. And then he said, I go with what I see. And oftentimes, I don't have the luxury of time to doubt whatever is in front of me. I don't know if I'll ever know the truth. I don't even know if I want to.
While we can of course speculate about what was seen by the scout rangers that night back in 2001 or this story from 2016, as indicated by the telecom engineer, what's not up for debate is the conviction of many Filipinos who, to this day, maintain their belief in the existence of the Asawang.
In fact, drawing on the stout belief in such folklore, the CIA, in an effort to combat communist-aligned Huk guerrillas in the 1950s, staged an Asawang vampire attack in order to rid the region of its local insurgency. Reportedly, this operation was a resounding success.
The Hux, coming upon the body of one of their own men, terrified to find his corpse completely drained of blood, and with two distinct bite marks on his neck, they practically fled the area overnight. In the modern era, certain rituals meant to ward off any malevolent Asuang are still prevalent, even amongst those who don't necessarily believe in their existence.
For instance, if a loved one's body is to be removed from a home following their passing, it's advised that the homeowners refrain from sweeping the front porch. It is thought that the action of sweeping spreads the scent of death far and wide, possibly attracting the attention of lingering ghouls.
Likewise, the color red, symbolic of positive energy and good fortune in Filipino culture, is commonly worn by young children and orphans as a sort of shield against any nearby malevolent forces.
As for the Scout Rangers, from 2001 on, they continued to clash with various militant groups all over the southern regions of their homeland. It was only in 2019, after nearly 51 years of constant fighting and over 100,000 lives lost, that peace has finally settled over Mindanao.
While the major separatist groups disbanded, small cells of radical Islamists, often affiliated with Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State, continued to fester in the remote regions of the Philippines. And so, the Philippine Army's elite 1st Scout Ranger Regiment continues to lead the charge into these jungled regions, further building upon their renowned expertise in counter-terror operations.
Whatever human enemy they might face, however, according to this ranger's testimony, it is far from being the most terrifying presence prowling in the jungle.
Wartime Stories is created and hosted by me, Luke LaManna. Executive produced by Mr. Ballin, Nick Witters, and Zach Levitt. Written by Jake Howard and myself. Audio editing and sound design by me, Cole Lacascio, and Whit Lacascio. Additional editing by Davin Intag and Jordan Stidham. Research by me, Jake Howard, Evan Beamer, and Camille Callahan. Mixed and mastered by Brendan Cain.
Production supervision by Jeremy Bone. Production coordination by Avery Siegel. Additional production support by Brooklyn Gooden. Artwork by Jessica Clarkson-Kiner, Robin Vane, and Picotta. If you'd like to get in touch or share your own story, you can email me at info at wartimestories.com. Thank you so much for listening to Wartime Stories.