Why do those who have gone through SERE school not like talking about it?

Question

This is just a curious question that i've had for some time. Im in a CAP (Civil Air Patrol) unit, and there are a few ex military pilots who are in my unit. I'm interested in flying for the Air Force, but one thing that has always really caught my attention was the SERE school. From what I know they supposedly do torturing techniques on you in order to train you to resist giving out precious information. I know quite a few ex military pilots and navigators who have endured this school, and when you ask even politely, you just get a kind of "well its just..." response, not much to it. I'm just curious is all.

Answer 1

I recommend going to your local library and searching for the memoir called "One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer." Beginning on page 149 the author, Nathaniel Fick, spends a couple dozen paragraphs recounting his weeks at SERE.



I can't fit it the whole section in my answer, but here are a few excerpts you'll find interesting:



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"The first few days in Warner Springs were dedicated to hands-on application of skills we had learned in the classroom -- navigation, camoulage, signaling, and foraging. Nothing new for a Marine grunt. We slept in piles beneath tiny squares of parachute silk, struggling to keep warm. In six days, I ate one carrot, a few handfuls of wild barley, and a little bit of rabbit. Much of SERE's fearsome reputation was based on this starvation, and it slowly degraded our decision making, putting us in a more vulnerable state of mind.



Toward the middle of the week, our final exam began: the simulated plane crash behind enemy lines, evading the packs of men and dogs pursuing us, and, when captured, resisting interrogation in an isolated prisoner of war camp. No one evades the whole time; everyone goes to the camp. But the one thing the staff can't control is the clock -- the course ends when it ends. The trick is to avoid capture for as long as possible, spending time on your own terms in the woods rather than at the mercy of your captors in the camp."

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Fick goes on to write that, especially without much food or sleep, the simulation seems very real and that, at times, he forgot that it was just a training exercise.



As far as the torture goes, it's all closely regulated to stay within safe limits, but it's still terrifying for the participants. From his written description, it mainly consists of being punched and slapped and being subjected to solitary confinement in dark, claustrophobic boxes.



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"When SERE ended, the staff carefully debriefed each student on his performance. A Navy petty officer sat with me in an empty Coronado classroom.



'So, sir,' he said with a smile, 'how long do you think you were locked in the box?'



'An hour, maybe two,' I replied.



'Eight minutes.' [replied the petty officer]"

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The main aim of SERE is to train you to maintain careful consciousness of your actions even when extremely uncomfortable and disoriented. They don't want you to spill all the beans to the enemy just because you couldn't handle the stress.

Answer 2

Sere School Navy

Answer 3

By most accounts these (2014) days, the SERE POW camp is the worst best-kept secret in the military, with men who're going to it knowing fully well what'll go on.



The question is whether it's relevent today. Drones increasingly are taking over military flight responsibilities, the military is withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan, the US military presence around the world is decreasing, and the military is shedding men.



No serviceman has been captured in several years.



There is no Al-Qaeda POW camp.



The POW camps are staffed with civilians, with the military strictly in an oversight role, because when the Interrogators were servicemen they weren't welcomed back into regular units if they left that line of work.



A thoughtful write who went through the SERE POW camp experience called it a form of hazing, and said that those who support it are the Yah-Yah gung-ho types, the guys who have a psychological need to appear to be tough and to have an experience that sets them apart form other people, sort of like a secret society.



The need for the POW camp has passed. People involved today are there because they, too, have a psychological need---to dominate weakened men. You wonder what happens to those people when they no longer work in that field.

Answer 4

In a nut shell, what training would you get if you knew what was going to happen? How would you be able to establish a baseline as to how you would have reacted to being isolated without training? This important to have this baseline so you can appreciate the training that comes and remember it forever.



Telling someone about SERE school not only is illegal because we don't want hostile nations to know how we resist exploitation, especially when you're capture, but also screws over the people going through who now can't get that same experience as described above.

Answer 5

Navy Sere School

Answer 6

There are several different levels of SERE training.... not all SERE trainees are "tortured" (??)

Approximately 2,000 SERE students have been "waterboarded".... but only people with a sloppy inaccurate definition of the term would classify it as torture



It ain't fun......but it is not torture,,,,,,it does no physical damage and if done properly ( not like those jerks on YouTube)..... it is perfectly safe



You at greater risk learning to SCUBA



Only guessing on why the pilots wont talk about it.....possibly they did not get that level of SERE.....or maybe they just do not want to talk about it.....



Actually SERE school does not train you to resist.....I was a personal friend of Col Nick Rowe the creator of the SERE program....the impetus for the program was not to teach resistance which got his friend killed in Vietnam.....but to teach you to survive.....

The old "only name, rank and serial number" rule has changed....



EDIT..... Funny.....I went through SERE and never signed a non-disclosure form?? Guess they could have changed policy later. The POI for SERE is not classified. And if having the enemy know how we are trained is a threat to America.... why is Obama telling everyone in the world what we will do and will not do.....how our enterrogation works and our limits.... doesn't that cripple our ability to obtain information and keep us from saving American lives?

Answer 7

Some people will feed the dog when dinner is over and they think that's different, but the dog can't tell when it's dinner time and will bug you until you stop dinner and then feed him. So think about the chain of behavior that you're rewarding here. Learn here https://tr.im/chP70



Contrary to what you're being told here, feeding your dog "people food" is not what's making him beg. I'm a professional trainer and always feed my dog human quality training treats (cut up chicken, cheese, beef, turkey, etc.) and those of us trainers who do this never have a begging problem. Our dogs know that they get "paid" for correct behavior and never from the table. You could feed your dog dogfood from the table and have a begging problem. It isn't *what* you're feeding, but *when* and *where* you feed him that counts.



If you have a problem with begging, the odds are that you have other problems as well. Consider taking your dog to a basic training class to teach him to obey when you ask him to do something or stop doing something undesirable. Dogs that bark and pester you have learned bad habits-- from you! Going to a training class will help you unlearn those and help you get into better habits.

Answer 8

Rob G is correct. It has nothing to do with being uncomfortable. It has to do with not allowing the wrong people to know what is trained there and how it is trained. It also means that you cannot confirm or deny what someone may have said about it in a publication. Just because you read or heard it somewhere doesn't mean it is fact. This is done to protect the integrity of the school and it's training so that the "enemy" can't use it against us.

Answer 9

Because it isn't something that you recall with any pleasure.

It makes a person confront their real personality and sometimes that can be a frightening experience.

It changes people.

Answer 10

Because you sign a nondisclosure paper saying you won't discuss it.