(Click To De-Smallen)
Senior Airman Charlene Plante, 22nd Training Squadron, Survival Evasion Resistance Escape specialist, teaches her students triangulation March 13, 2011 in Colville National Forest, Wash., The purpose of this block of training is to teach students how to pinpoint their location using a map, compass and sticks. (U.S. Air Force Photo/Tech. Sgt. JT May III)
Boq
Guess I have been OOTL too long.
Also an interesting place for a pen holder pocket, right at the end of her left sleeve. Is that a new multicam poopie suit or something?
This was in jungle.
Mark, SERE school IS at Fairchild, but the backcountry experience is taught up near Chewelah, WA, about 100 klics North on US 395.
BTW, the Army has Natick Labs, the REAL USAF has the instructor cadre at SERE to tell them what works out in the bush and what doesn't work. When I went, the outfit was commanded by a chopper pilot with MULTIPLE Silver and Bronze stars, and he was STILL flying on 19 different waivers, including having one leg shorter by over 2" (Hanoi Hilton torture).
Beautiful country and my platoon had a blast hunting downed pilots.
Our unit's best SERE story came from one of my fellow Aerial Reconnaissance Weather Officers. First run at the course his survival group caught and ate a porcupine. He volunteered to eat the liver (he ate cows liver, after all). After they medevaced him out for Vitamin A poisoning he had to finish in the next class when he got of the hospital. He always carried suggestive magazines in with his pro gear on flights, so we weren't surprised to learn that he had plastered hi "prison" cube with centerfold pinups. Then he actually engineered a prison camp revolt that real MPs had to come break up.
It seems like more fun from the distance of three decades, but I remember telling myself at the time (and meaning it) that if I had to do it again I should think about resigning my commission in spite of the fact I loved my job.
What did you use? 5.56 NATO? Or did they make you use handguns?
Went through USAFA SERE when I was 19. Have the distinction of having my ass kicked by a Medal of Honor winner in "prison camp" (he bounced me off a chain link fence several times, at least that's what it felt like, since I had a bag over my head).
Land nav? Not a problem--yes, Virginia, they give you maps before you go strap into the jet. And, yes, you can learn to read a map, use a compass, etc., in about 10 minutes, assuming you're not an aviator. If you're an aviator, if you can't read a map/E&E your way out of the bush, you deserve to be eaten by wolves (but I'm a heartless bastard, but I digress...). Anyway, the trick is knowing how to walk in a straight line, or focus on a distant objective without wandering off-track (too much). Hint: pay attention. In the dark, it's harder. Hint: pay closer attention and be patient.
As for the subject in the photo...nice blue eyes. But I went through the Academy when they didn't have girls so I tend to focus on stuff like that...another reason I'm glad I'm out (too feral).
Didn't you understand the secret to keeping those "guards" in the camp from wanting to get too close? Nah, I don't mean beans and cabbage. Just put a couple of cloves of garlic in your jacket - a small hole in the bottom of one of the lower pockets makes that fairly easy and they won't find it during the search. Then snarf one down just before they take you for interrogation. They pop in real close at first. But if you exhale gently - don't need to spit on them or blow at them or anything like that - they back off fairly quickly, and don't seem to want to get back in your face...
Sometimes it pays to be an A-hole.
They took the Mercury 7 out in the desert in a wooden capsule and a coupla days later old John Glenn was struttin' down the main drag looking for the O Club. Sunburnt to hell and thirsty. Hell of a man.
An yeah, porkies are not your first dinner choice. Grubs 'n bugs mo betta.
Thirty-six hours in the Okeefenokee. Eight of them sitting in a gum tree with a wild hog glaring up at me, thinking evil thoughts about what he'd do to me for flicking lit matches at him from my perch...
The entire motivation of which seemed to be "Dude. This is why you don't want to be taken alive." It was a seriously miserable experience.
Cheers
Gromit
Just as quantity has a quality all of it's own, so does competence.
Got to go in '79 to the Navy's version up in Maine. We didn't get an invite or orders, either. My crew went into the ASW ops center for what we thought was a typical brief prior to a 12-hour mission. Instead, the lights came on and in walked some Navy guys in cammo and told us our plane had crashed, and to go outside and get into the waiting truck.
About 5 hours later we arrived for 4-day's of fun in Maine's autumnal foliage.
The training was very straight-forward, earnestly taught, and well remembered. I took away a sense that I could survive under about any conditions, and that I did NOT intend to be taken prisoner. At least, a live prisoner.
Comparing notes over the years with other graduates, it was surprising how many Navy guys also had made a similar decision.
V/R
Although she is NOT part of the POW experience if she's up at Colville National Forest.