SERE .... that takes me back! Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) school
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival,_Evasion,_Resistance_and_Escape
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_n4_v20/ai_6676337/
My west coast Navy SERE school (the "S" part, at least) started off at North Island NAS on Coronado Island, included a week of physical training interspersed with classroom on topics of water and land survival focused on our flying environment. As Navy aircrew, we had to cover open ocean survival (raft, gear, signaling devices etc), beachfront and land situations as well where they differed. IIRC, we used the
Air Force Survival Manual as our guide book for most of the land based course work. We covered what food was available and edible near the shore line, making water collectors on rafts, solar stills on land, making shelter, making snares, etc. One general premise I recalled was that, while the water, food and shelter aspects were important, water was most important of all. Also, the thinking was not to prepare you to survive for weeks at a time, since the Viet Nam experience shows that capture was usually very imminent. After all, aircraft shoot-downs and parachutes were all very visible, and the general population very motivated to assist in capturing downed airmen.
The rest of the classroom work covered Evasion, Resistance and Escape portions with reenforcement of the
Military Code of Conduct with stories from and about Viet Nam POWs. After spending the weekend on the beach, we bused up to Warner Springs, CA and had more classroom and field work on desert survival. At this point, we realized that Darwinism works - every living creature within 50 miles of there had scrammed - but we had all the water we could ever want - the instructors forced and reenforced drinking more water than one thought one could.
Somewhere in the middle of the second day of field work, our class was "attacked by hostile forces" - including weapons fire (blanks), explosions, the whole works. Most of the class was captured on the spot. I (and 3 others, I found out later) evaded and hid out in the brush, and then began navigating towards Freedom Village, where we were told sandwiches, cookies and apples awaited. Unfortunately, we weren't told where Freedom Village was or how far, just generally "east", nor were we given a map. We did each have a compass tho, so I headed east while evading the trucks and black uniformed hostiles.
Somewhere during the middle of the day, the sirens sounded, which signaled the end of the evasion phase of the course, after which we were supposed to make our way to the nearest trail and wait for the truck to pick us up.
Then the fun started.
Our instructions were that we strike any instructor's hand with any part of our body we wished, as long as it didn't include our hands, legs, knees, feet, elbows, etc. I came home in a beautiful technicolor hue of purple, black, blue and green ...
The Resistance and Escape portions of the class were held in a prison camp (5 days, IIRC), complete with interrogation rooms, "the box" (equivalent to crawling under your desk and living there for 12-24 hours at a time), sleep deprivation, work details, water boarding (yes, real water boarding), chain of command disruption, and more. One member of our class escaped, which earned him water boarding and special attention for the rest of us.
Before dawn of the last day, we were allowed to cook a large pot of oatmeal. (I believe this was about day 7 or 8 of no food). The first pot was almost done when they kicked it over in front of us. We were given permission to start over and each got a bowl of oatmeal. Moments later our camp was "liberated", with the enemy flag lowered, and the Stars and Stripes run up the flagpole as the sun rose behind it. Not a dry eye in the class that morning, I can guarantee it.
Closing ceremonies and graduation was held back at North Island, with a presentation by
Doug Hegdahl, the first US POW in Viet Nam, who has an incredible story centered around his memorization of over 200 names of POWs that he brought back upon his release. The main presentation was made by
Admiral James Stockdale who recounted his story as a POW.
edit: I just read thru the second link above - brought back a lot of other memories - my story is pretty similar to that author's. I forgot about being bounced off the wall, raking gravel with my fingers, the "let's play a game - choose up teams" trick and others. I swore I would never forget my "war criminal number" but alas, I have.
