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Having been an aviation maintenance rate, Avionics Tech (AT3), who volunteered to fly, I didn’t even know that I was going to be “high risk of capture” until I got to SERE school.

I agree, we don’t need to tell the world about what happened there, but I will say that this was one of the most defining experiences of my 20 year career.

Everything since then has seemed relatively easy..It kills me to hear some people whine about how “hard” they have it in the civilian world.

Try a week out in the desert, in the winter, naked, hungry, cold, and scared shitless, and that’s the good stuff…I won’t go into detail about the “bad” stuff..

sellsell59@comcast.net

Bill

Mark

I am a graduate of S.E.R.E. Myself and thought that I would join a conversation with fellow servicemen who have all endured the same. From what I read above, the school has changed in great deal from what it used to be to what is is today in the way of techniques used, As for wether it should be discussed or not I am at odds with myself for the reason that I wouldn’t want anyone on the other side being able to use the information against our own servicement and women, but at the same time anything that is in written public publication is fair game I guess. I have both read Bravo Two Zero and have seen the movie as well. If I am rambeling I do appologize but after I read everything from the top to here it’s alot to comment on. At any rate gentlemen. My thanks to you all for hearing me out and also for doing your time in your countries service. Take care and good luck

P.S. I agree with the article. I don’t feel shame for the acts committed of interogating the prisoners. I just feel shame that someone was dumb enough to take pictures so that an unknowing, judgemental society could get ammo for their PC Guns.

Thank you for the input. I have redacted it. If you think more should be removed, please let me know.

What is bravo two zero? The SAS movie?

In any case, please accept my thanks for your service to our country in a time of great peril.

If an ex squid can say this, Semper Fi!

John

For all you know, hardly anything you have discussed has changed at all since the sixties. Discuss survuval and evasion ’til your blue in the face, but I find the resistance discussion innappropriate for the WWW.

My oldest son, combat MP, is named Gordon; amused and in touch with a man of your modesty.

Anyway, I disagree with you too. I carry a similar order not to discuss crypto procedures and equipment which, over the course of thirty-seven years, have become laughingly obsolete. I never discussed any of it because no one cared.

What details about the SERE ordeal should be kept confidential? Some of it maybe for matters of delicacy, to wit: the blue-flame maneuver, but the rest is less detail than a description of a real test of endurance.

I’m not proposing we argue about this. Just that I don’t see anything that can be used by the opposition.

I think I still have that particular issue of Leatherneck, incidentally, tucked away in a bookcase in my office.

I did leave out some of the more important details, as you may have noticed (like what the signal really was).

What we saw and learned at SERE should stay there and in your memory, not shared on the WWW.

At first, after only briefly perusing the previous posts, I was going to whine to you just how ‘bad’ I had it while stationed on Okinawa, where we once went two-weeks without liberty and even a thimble-full of typhoon sake! (And then there was the time at the AFEES station in Kansas City, Missouri, when gruffy, World-War II-era Air Force staff-NCO’s refused to buy us lunch at Hallmark’s “Top of the Crown” Restaurant! Imagine the indignity!)

But then, following a thorough re-reading of each of your posts, I figured, “Nah, better not go there!” Frankly, your responses made me realize just how GOOD I had things while in-service!

I don’t have time right now to tell the full tale of SERE school. I don’t want to reveal information which may still be of value to an enemy, even though legally everything I learned is unclassified by expiration and I know the school has changed in some ways.

I’ll tell you just a bit now… I attended around Dec 15, 1967 (don’t remember exact dates).

First, we needed to have an unlimited duty physical and sign a waiver allowing the school to do anything they wanted to us.

NOTE: MORE RECENT ATTENDEES HAVE REQUESTED THAT I REMOVE DETAILS. I have done so for security reasons.

At the time, about one person a year was dying in the training.

The first day was at the point of North Island, San Diego, California. We tried to catch and eat food without having any implements. My little group caught a good sized crab but it tasted terrible.

The remaining days were at Warner Springs, CA, next to a prison. This is a wooded, mountainous area next to Mt. Palomar. There were a little over 100 people in our class. We were each issued half of a parachute to use to construct shelter, and instructed in building tents with these. The night temperature was around freezing, and in the day it was pretty warm.

We had classes during the day, [...]

During the entire SERE school, we were not fed except at two times. The first was a few days in, in an outdoor survival class. An instructor strangled a rabbit, popped out an eyeball and ate it, and then cut up some rabbits and handed out raw pieces. I ended up cooking a rabbit lung and eating it.

We were supposed to forage for food, but there wasn’t anything left, not even ants. Previous classes had eaten them all, one of the instructor’s dogs, and a neighbor’s steer (these were subsequently placed off limits).

We also had a night evasion course. The goal was to get from the starting line to a light bulb maybe a mile away. In between were aggressors (instructors dressed up in NVA uniforms, speaking pidgen English, and carrying AK-47s), a [deleted], and [removed]. It was pitch black – no moon – when we did this. I made it through without capture or [removed]). It was less fun hearing guys being beaten for being caught. At one point I heard an aggressor nearby, so I knelt down and froze. His boot missed my hand by inches. I never saw him.

We also had a long navigation hike (around 18 miles – that’s long for a sailor, nothing to a Marine… I was a sailor) where we were forbidden from using roads or trails, and where there were two objectives. At the first objective, we were given the location of the second objective. We had a topographic map and were in squads of about 6 people. I was an E3 in a group where the next lowest rank was E7 and the rest were officers, including an aircraft navigator. After walking in straight lines over mountains, I finally convinced him that I knew an easier way (boy scout training paid off). That involved going downhill to the first wash, and following washes to the objective. It was a piece of cake.

The next morning we had “day evasion.” This involved getting through a 3 mile long course to a flagpole without being captured. The reward was fresh fruit near the flagpole, and our cigarettes (those who didn’t give up their smokes ended up eating them if they were caught). I also made it through that without being caught (thank you, James Fennimore Cooper),. To be honest, I was scared to death because I’m not very physical and the idea of [deleted] (the price of getting caught) was very unappealing. About 10 of us made it. The rest were caught.

I got to the flagpole early – the first hour it was a red flag meaning you couldn’t touch it and be safe. My time sense was so dilated that I thought I had gotten there too late (at 4 hours they put the red flag back up). I hid in the bushes by it and just then, a guy came out and ran up the green flag. I jumped out of the bush and grabbed the flag. So did about five other guys! None of us knew the others were there, and it was broad daylight. I’m not kidding about James Fenimore Coopere, when I was a kid used to ride my bike to the Albuquerque Public Library and read every book he wrote, and some other series on the French/Indian war. There were lots of tricks about tracking and sneaking in there.

[deleted]

I should mention that all of our instructors had been POWs in Korea. They were doing this because they didn’t want us to suffer as they had – in the Korean war the U.S. was not ready for an enemy that did not follow the Geneva Convention.