SERE: The most feared military training

Imagine yourself stuck behind enemy lines. You hear voices shouting as they get closer to your position. You hear the crack of gunshots all around you. You try to hide frantically covering yourself in a pile of leaves. You hear the pounding of boots coming closer and closer. Then the unthinkable happens and you're captured. Taken to prison where you’re forced into an isolated cell with a bag over your head while loud terrifying psychological warfare music is played at full volume. This is a taste of what the US Military’s Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape Course is like.

SERE prepares soldiers for several realities. How to avoid capture. How to navigate and live off the land. How to build makeshift shelters. What to do if you’re captured. In this video I want to find out everything we need to know about SERE. In order to get to the bottom of this I’ve read through a recently declassified 35 page document written by a former SERE instructor that outlines how they operate. As always none of the information I present is sensitive it is all publicly available I’m not breaking OPSEC here don’t worry.

The outline makes it clear the instructors are to be harsh and realistic with the training. Their goal is to put students through sleep deprivation, hunger, boredom, exhaustion, isolation, its one of the only schools where they use physical abuse but throughout the document they provide safety regulations to prevent students from being seriously injured. The goal isn’t to fail students but to give them the tools needed to succeed in a POW situation. So while they will put black bags over peoples heads and handcuff them the instructors are told not to march them in circles or have them walk over dangerous obstacles with a hood over their head.

Even if you’ve been to SERE school there’s a good chance you haven’t been through the top tier levels. Even this declassified document does not go into the top secret portions of the class that is reserved for high level SF operators and CIA types. There is mention in the document to instructors avoiding discussing Shadow Level techniques. Savvy Shadow is the codename that appears to denote students who are given just enough information to accomplish their job. Basically there are all kinds of clearance levels for information in this course.

Written by: Chris Cappy
Edited Co Produced by: Rebecca Rosen

Sources:

[sedadmin]

I did it in 1971 before going to Vietnam as a helo crew member. It was very physical and punishing. It started with hunger and fatigue and ended with pain and abuse. I had a small box to call home with a can for your business. Late at night were interrogations that included water boarding and super small boxes. Plenty of gun fire and screaming enemy (instructors). Plenty of bruises and scrapes and sleep deprivation for everyone. And a LOT of psychological crap. The end of the exercise was cool...we were all lined up in the prison camp courtyard to bow to the Camp commander but instead the American flag was raised on a pole and we knew the exercise was done. They fed us hot sweet oatmeal. The best food I have ever tasted!

I was 19 years old then and now, 50 years later, I can remember it in perfect detail.

[gordo]

The best part of SERE is the fact that the local pizza places get a sudden spike in business once it's done.

[jbknight]

The Navy learned the VC in Vietnam were tieing prisoners hands and feet and throwing them in a river to drown. So the Seals made that part of their training. How to swim subsurface while tied up. Pretty bad ass.

[gangstar]

You read 35 pages Chris?
Whole pages no pictures?
They really are educating those marines better these days!

[johnsteiner]

My friend went through this before his pilot training. He described it as, "Learning things about yourself you don't really want to know."

[recondo]

I met LTC Rowe in the chow line at the JFK Special Warfare School dining facility. very personable and approachable. shame how he died.

[migueltraviesa]

I should have taken the SERE course before I got married 😂. Greetings from Spain.

[johnathanadams]

“Open-hand slaps are authorized...and highly encouraged.”

[madjackblack]

I did SERE in 1977. They brought in a couple of old guys who had been POWs of the Japanese to talk with us. Much respect to them. We did the survival thing, got chased by guys with dogs, captured, bagged, and taken to a camp where we were stuck in boxes with a tin can for a latrine. We were interrogated with soft sell and hard sell techniques. Best course I did in the Army - made me think. Nick Rowe remains one of my heroes.

[scottsutoob]

Before my high school biology teacher became a school teacher, he was an instructor for this in the Air Force. A lot of the class wasn't standard high school biology. It was what plants are edible, how to stay warm in winter if stuck outside unexpectedly, and how get water in deserts and swamps without getting the squits.

[panzervor]

I keep wondering how they deal with someone (which, you know there was at least one) that replied to physical torment with "Harder daddy!"

[frankieb]

I missed my chance to go with my buddy taking my spot, so I did what any rational person would do and pulled a Blue Falcon by providing the instructors some of his personal info for the interrogation phase.

[darthhodges]

My father became a Marine pilot in the late 60s and he related that part of his training was they gave him a knife and half a parachute, dropped him off in the woods and said "See you in 3 days." Some of the ideas that make up SERE school predated it but they have certainly refined such training in the last half century.

[casavalero]

I went through SERE in 2000. My most memorable experience was my own pet rabbit. But other then that I had blast, the Cadre were beyond awesome

[JZ]

The slang term for the course in the military is "Advanced beatings school".

[AndrewHosford]

I remember hearing about this school from one of our drill sergeants who was a sapper. The broken bones rumor was still circulating at Ft. Jackson back in 2005. Luckily, that wasn't the case in 2007 when I went to the Ft. Rucker SERE(C) school. It was one of the worst experiences in my life, and the best training I ever had in the military.

[dustoff]

I had the chance to go through several types of SERE school, Special Ops and Aviation.
They were, well something like no other. What we were always reminded of, was this training WILL save your life. The instructors are there to teach, and they were the best. Anyone who have been though this training are gratefull to those who teach us what we needed to know, to survive. What some don't know, the enemy has a bounty of certain groups of the military.
The instructors are truly heros to every, pilot, flight crew and Special Operator they teach.

[navegandolejanooriente]

1, 000 days of evasion is better than one day captivity. That's the number one thing I learned there, no matter how hungry or cold you get you do not want to be capture by the enemy.

[carlalm]

Been through the swedish version of this twice. Why twice you might ask, I'm wondering the same thing myself...

[coltsinglearmy]

Every POW flag I see gives a different feeling after this experience.

We will always be there for each other.