I finished SERE today!!!!

[enflyt 0]

Holy holy crap... I didnt think these 17 days were ever going to end... but I'm finally done with Survival School!!!

I know i know i know that I'm very fortunate to have the chance to go through this course... but MAN am i glad its OVER!!! Supply turn in in about an hour, our 'graduation' shortly after that... several well deserved ice cold adult beverages tonight, and gettin on a jet plane home tomorrow!!! wahoooo!!!

[waltappel 1]

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Holy holy crap... I didnt think these 17 days were ever going to end... but I'm finally done with Survival School!!!

I know i know i know that I'm very fortunate to have the chance to go through this course... but MAN am i glad its OVER!!! Supply turn in in about an hour, our 'graduation' shortly after that... several well deserved ice cold adult beverages tonight, and gettin on a jet plane home tomorrow!!! wahoooo!!!

Congratulations!

Walt

[JustChuteMeNow 0]

Yeah Congrats. It is one of the few schools that you can't quit once you start. hahahahaha

Which one did you go to?

Think of how stupid the average person is and realize that statistically half of them are stupider than that.

[enflyt 0]

thanks for the congrats....

Air force.....up at Fairchild AFB in spokane, wa. but I dont care how many jokes you crack about us being the chair force... this training was tough!!

5 days in the woods, couple of classroom days, then resistance training (ugghh) few more death by power point classes, a final trip to happy land ......and now we're done!

i honestly didnt think I was going to make it through... several times i wanted nothing more than to just quit, but even if i had.. i would have had to start over. I'm just glad its done. I have to come back for another weeklong course in January.. but at least i'll have some recovery time!

[JustChuteMeNow 0]

Hey no jokes from me although I will relate a story about my sere school. We had an airforce guy that was standing outside in his black issued pajamas and the cadre asked him a question. He didn't answer it correctly and so they broke some ice covering a water puddle and threw him in it. They asked him the question again and again they didn't like the response and threw him in the water.

Now for the classic part. He got out of the water and told the cadre that he quit and that he wasn't going to play anymore. They slapped him pretty hard in the face. Told him that he was a POW and that he couldn't quit. And then they threw him back in the water.

I confess I was laughing my ass off on the inside. It was a pretty chilly morning in Brunswick, Maine.

Think of how stupid the average person is and realize that statistically half of them are stupider than that.

[Amazon 7]

Gee how would you have liked to do it for 6 months... travel all over.. so you get to experience the "best" conditions the world has to throw at you and survive... oh yeah .. and our RT was a tad longer too.. on the way to being one of the instructors there

After that I had a lot of fun there...

[livendive 8]

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Air force.....up at Fairchild AFB in spokane, wa. but I dont care how many jokes you crack about us being the chair force... this training was tough!!

Congrats...I'm friends with some of the guys who were just making your life hell.
Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[akarunway 1]

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Holy holy crap... I didnt think these 17 days were ever going to end... but I'm finally done with Survival School!!!

I know i know i know that I'm very fortunate to have the chance to go through this course... but MAN am i glad its OVER!!! Supply turn in in about an hour, our 'graduation' shortly after that... several well deserved ice cold adult beverages tonight, and gettin on a jet plane home tomorrow!!! wahoooo!!!

And prolly right to the Middle East after that. Sorry about your luck.

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

[enflyt 0]

yeah... its been about 10-20degrees here throughout most of our training. you never know just how cold the ground is till you're laying half naked on it.

and it IS amusing to watch those folks who take a bit longer to figure things out.

and hell no... i wouldnt want to do it any longer than what I did. This has been plenty of snow and cold and crap. I am surprised they dont make us return in another season (ie summer) but I'm not gonna ask for it!!

and for all you who know instructors or are gonna be instructors!!!! wow. they are some special people. Some of the best actors I've ever come across!! Its hard to sit beside them even when its back in a classroom environment!

and now... its time for some of those tasty adult beverages I've been dreaming about all day!! yay!

[MrFreefall383 0]

Nice work! Hoorah!

"If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

[LouDiamond 1]

"Who here hasn't been slapped yet?" Sound familiar? There is always one who will raise his hand. HAHA. Congrats

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[McDuck 0]

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"Who here hasn't been slapped yet?" Sound familiar? There is always one who will raise his hand. HAHA. Congrats

I really like it when they show up with their unit coins. It's fun to watch them try to refute what they do when their name is on the coin in their wallet.

Kevin - Sonic Beef #5 - OrFun #28
"I never take myself too seriously, 'cuz everybody know fat birds don't fly." - FLC
Online communities: proof that people never mature much past high school.

[sctriguy 0]

I loved it. I was arrogant enough when I went through 12 years ago that I actually studied and quoted the geneva conventions to my interogator. The second time I got interviewed I wouldn't say a word. Not one word! so the guy told me if I didn't open my mouth the next time he asked me a question then my friend was gonna get "stressed" so he asks me the question and I opened my mouth as wide as I could like I was at the dentist without making a peep. I think he had to try pretty hard not to laugh and stay in character because I honestly don't think he had ever seen that before. Congrats!

[akarunway 1]

"geneva conventions" Gimme a break. Like the USA abides by them anymore?

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

[Krip 2]

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"geneva conventions" Gimme a break. Like the USA abides by them anymore?

I think we abide by the rules on US soilSome folks(Gov't Lawyers) think its ok to break the rules outside our country as long as soldiers don't do the rule bending. Spooks contractors or allies no problem


Fairchild
FWIW we had a chance to runaround fairchild in the winter and play their E&E, & POW stuff. But it was back in the day when the Nam was going on.

I declined the chance to freeze my butt off and evade & survive in the PNW just to get my ticket puched and went to jungle survival school in panama instead

Nam, Jungle, panama, jungle,get it.

Surely 40 yr's later theres a real desert survival school someplace since our troops are doing there thing where it's hot and sandy or a school where the troops are learning survival skill at high altitudes in rocky terrain,

Don't tell me I don't have a need to know

[woodpecker 0]

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Gee how would you have liked to do it for 6 months... travel all over.. so you get to experience the "best" conditions the world has to throw at you and survive... oh yeah .. and our RT was a tad longer too.. on the way to being one of the instructors there

After that I had a lot of fun there...

If the functional gets off his ass and hits the "yes" button, I'll be heading up that way for six fun months as well. Feel free to PM any info you would have loved to know before you started the school amazon.

SONIC WOODY #146

There is a fine line between cockiness and confidence -- which side of the line are you on?

[SARLDO 0]

SERE... Man, that was a long time ago, 22 yrs now. I still remember the most important lesson I learned from that course. DON'T GET CAUGHT!

All the respect in the world for those who made it through real life captivity.

"Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest" ~Samuel Clemens

MB#4300
Dudeist Skydiver #68

[Amazon 7]

Get to the local community college and take some public speaking classes. You have to be capable of standing up in front of people and sounding intelligent on the subject matter at hand.

Most can handle all the mental challenges ( if you know they cant make you quit and you have the idea that hell will freeze over before you quit you will do fine)

Most can make it thru all the varied environments you get to experience....the whole idea of the training is to become an instructor....... if you cant impart that knowledge of all the things you get to experience...... to others......you are worthless to them .

[BIGUN 1,307]

I don't care what branch of SERE course you go thru. You will learn more about yourself than ever before and you will be a different person for having graduated. Congratulations.

-Former SERE Instructor

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[enflyt 0]

yep... i definately learned a lot about myself. Like i said... i thought i wasnt going to make it through quite a few times- especially out in the woods. I've lived a lot of places-none of them big on snow. Trying to navigate and 'survive' in 3 feet of snow with continual snowfall and freeeeeezzzzzing cold temperatures, along with the fact that I am a total clutz and fell about every 5 steps in snow shoes made life a little more than difficult. I dont even want to know what that ruck sack weighed after becoming completely soaking wet-but it was heavy- and nearly impossible to get up after my graceful pirouettes into the snow. And its nice to know I can make a shelter out of a poncho-but my teeth chattered pretty much non stop all throughout the night. My toes are still numb from the experience. OH... and did i mention our instructors told us when we got back that the conditions we were in were probably the worst ones they've sent students up on in about 20 years?! And that was just the SE part of the training. The RE was a whole other battlefield!

but thanks again for all the congrats... i do feel pretty stoked about getting through it all. One more week up there in January and I'll be done-and then, after 2 years of training-i'll actually get to start doing my job! haha.