USAF SERE School / Class 2012-02 Patch

USAF SERE School / Class 2012-02 Patch

The 336th Training Group, U.S. Air Force Survival School at Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash., provides Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) training primarily to aircrew members. Instruction concentrates on the principles, techniques, and skills necessary to survive in any environment and return with honor. Instructors assigned to the Survival School teach seven different courses to approximately 6,500 students annually. Five of the seven courses are taught at Fairchild. The other two courses are conducted at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla., and Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska.

The 22nd Training Squadron conducts combat Survival Training, which all Air Force aircrew members must attend. Forty-nine classes are taught per year, with each class lasting 19 days. The majority of the course is taught at Fairchild; however, six days are spent in the mountains of the Colville and Kaniksu National Forests, approximately 70 miles north of Fairchild. Instruction at Fairchild begins with classroom training on the physical and psychological stresses of survival. This is followed by hands-on training in post ejection procedures and parachute landing falls, various life supports of equipment procedures, survival medicine, and recovery device training. Students then transition to the mountains where they receive additional training including shelter construction, food procurement and preparation, day and night land navigation techniques, evasion travel and camouflage techniques, ground-to-air signals, and aircraft vectoring procedures. Finally, students are returned to Fairchild and given training in conduct after capture.

The SERE Training Instructor Course, conducted by the 66th Training Squadron, is also taught at Fairchild. This is a five-and-one-half-month program designed to teach future survival instructors how to instruct aircrew members to survive in any environment. The course includes instruction in basic survival, medical, navigation skills, overland travel, evasion, arctic survival, teaching techniques, rough land evacuation, coastal survival, tropics/river survival, and desert survival. Basic survival, navigation skills, overland travel, evasion, and teaching techniques are taught in the Colville National Forest; arctic training is conducted on Calispell Mountain near Cusick, Wash; desert training is conducted in an arid sand dune area near George, Wash.; rough land evacuation is conducted near Tum-Tum, Wash.; tropics/rivers survival is taught in the Olympic National Park, Wash.; and coastal survival is conducted on Tillamook Bay off the Oregon coast.

The third course conducted at Fairchild is the non-ejection water survival course, which trains aircrew members of non-parachute-equipped aircraft. The course lasts two days and includes instruction in signaling rescue aircraft, hazardous aquatic life, food and water procurement, medical aspects of water survival and life raft procedures. Group and personal survival are stressed throughout the course.

The fourth course is the resistance training orientation course. The 66th Training Squadron conducts the five-day course for U. S. Air Force SERE training instructors and designated Department of Defense personnel. The course covers the theories and principles needed to conduct Level C Code of Conduct resistance training laboratory instruction. Established by 1993 Year of Training initiatives and the new career field education and training plan for SERE training instructors, course graduation is mandatory for upgrade to the 5 skill level.

The final course conducted by Fairchild is the SERE training instructor, 7-level upgrade course. This 19-day course, conducted annually, provides 5-level instructors with advanced survival training in barren arctic, barren desert, jungle, and open-ocean environments. Training is conducted at Eagle Summit, Alaska (arctic); Yuma Proving Grounds, Arizona (desert); Schofield Barracks Military Reservation, Oahu, Hawaii (jungle); and the Gulf of Mexico based out of Pensacola NAS, Florida (open ocean). Instructors spend three to four days in each environment learning and applying skills required for surviving with minimum gear and support.

Detachment 1, 66th Training Squadron at Eielson AFB, Alaska, teaches Arctic Survival Training. This is a five-day course conducted from October through March, and it is designed for aircrews assigned to flying duties in the northern regions. Instruction concentrates on food and water procurement, thermal shelter construction, firecraft, and various signaling techniques. This course prepares individuals to cope with the harsh arctic environment and familiarizes the student with cold weather survival equipment and procedures.

Detachment 2, 66th Training Squadron at NAS Pensacola, Florida, conducts a second water survival course offered by the Survival School. This course lasts four days and simulates in-flight over water emergency. The course centers it's training on aircrews, which utilize parachuting as the primary means of escape. Instruction includes initial academic training, parachute equipment procedures, parachute drag training, post egress and recovery training which includes a deep water landing, and a one to two hour raft familiarization exercise.

Each summer, the group also supports the United States Air Force Academy in the conduct of their survival and evasion training program. Additionally, survival instructors train approximately 2,200 Air Force Reserve Officers' Training Corps cadets at different field training encampments throughout the United States each summer. Approximately 1,200 Air Force Academy cadets are instructed in three 21-day programs.

Survival personnel also conduct survival presentations to hundreds of civilian organizations including Boy and Girl Scouts; Civil Air Patrol, and local schools. In 2003, Survival School instructors performed more than 100 public appearances and tours, taking the survival message to more than 15,000 civilians.

"RETURN WITH HONOR," the motto of the Survival School, is symbolic of the school's dedication to providing lifesaving training.

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