It is absolutely incredible how much stress a human being can take and still continue to function. I think that must have been the main point of the week long class I just completed on Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape (SERE). The other point was to teach us, and have us apply, some very important practical survival skills.
The instructors for SERE are referred to as “Cadre.� The Friday before school started the Cadre suggested everyone eat a very big breakfast before reporting at 0600 on Saturday. I had a large bowl of oatmeal and a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich. I would have eaten more had I truly known what was in store.
The first four days were spent in an outdoor classroom environment. This consisted of a covered concrete pad with metal bleachers surrounded by Alabama forest. We had classes and demonstrations in this area. We were divided into eight teams of five or six soldiers and slept with our teammates in improvised shelters that we constructed nearby. These were our “hole sites.�
The classes consisted of subjects such as shelter construction, fire building, edible plant procurement, signaling, tool and weapon making, wire-crossing, trapping game, and how to kill, clean, eat and preserve game. When we were not in classes we were applying the skills we had learned at our hole sites.
While the cadre were teaching classes they were also trying to simulate a Prisoner of War environment. They wanted to see how well our class bonded and how well we resisted efforts at exploitation. For example, they made the teams race against each other with an offer of extra food for the winning team. We recognized this as an attempt to cause fractures within the group and resisted by ensuring that every race ended as a tie. No one got any extra food but we retained group cohesion – something critical for survival at a POW camp. Read more about I Survived
