<p>Anyone know the current policies on SERE at the academy? A friend of the family who graduated a while ago was telling me horror stories about his experience with the training, it was really messed up. When I went to find out current policies online, there wasn’t any reliable info, and now I’m curious.</p>
<p>SERE now is NOT the SERE of the '90s. Unlikely that any of those horror stories are happening here now. </p>
<p>SERE was restarted as a pilot program last summer after the phasing out of CST a couple summers before.</p>
<p>yea i read somewhere, probably wikipedia, that they just restarted it and it’s more of a toned down version of the old one, much less traumatic.</p>
<p>Also, the new one is run by SERE instructors from Fairchild, no more cadets running the dirty parts. Can anyone say “Stanford prison experiment.”</p>
<p>Ok, thanks for the quick reply, but what with the “you can’t ever talk about this ever again?” Is that still around, and if so, why?</p>
<p>Quite possibly. Portions of SERE are classified.</p>
<p>so i’m guessing that for us (2012), we’ll have the cadets running most of it, but the Fairchild instructors running the resistance? i havent been able to get a clear answer from anyone all year about this, not even CST cadre</p>
<p>I’m going to be the supe for 1st go CST this summer. Some of this stuff is still in the works, but I can tell you for sure that trained airmen/nco’s from Fairchild will be doing the resistance portion. The rest of it will be cadet run with airman/nco supervising. In order to work resistance, you need at least 5 years of training up at fairchild.</p>
<p>You’ll like CST, I had a blast, and you learn a lot.</p>
<p>awesome! i’m actually really excited for it. it’s gonna be a lot of work/fun</p>
<p>
Last year none of it was classified and we were never told that we “couldn’t talk about this” during any part.</p>
<p>This year there will be. At least, according to the manual sent out to 2012.</p>
<p>“…SERE of today is NOT the SERE of the 90’s…”
(implication of difficulty?)</p>
<p>Ahhh, kiddies…whatever happened to the great days of the PDR of the…</p>
<p>“wait for it…”</p>
<p>LATE 1970’s and early 1980’s?</p>
<p>The blood, beatings, torture, scars that you now explain were accidents that happened when you were a child, had NOTHING to do with SERE or the AFA or, etc…etc…the long hours of psychological counseling to get your PQ back because of what had happened to you in the hot box, etc…etc…etc…</p>
<p><strong><em>tsk, tsk tsk…</em></strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Konyets</li>
</ul>
<p>Pod-Polkovnik Quay
PDR Interogator 1981, 1982</p>
<p>LOL!</p>
<p>I couldn’t leave that like that…someone’s parent would probably read that and be convinced we really injured/abused cadets back then!!!</p>
<p>Well…we didn’t injure them…abuse? Not like it’s termed today, but we did make it a serious challenge! </p>
<p>And at the end…EVERYONE that came out of it said it was one of the better challenges that they’d had and they were very proud of what they had accomplished!</p>
<p>Which was our goal!
(And FYI, back then the cadets were HEAVILY supervised by both Fairchild Master Instructors and AF officers)</p>
<p>
Well, except, you know, for the men and women that were sexually abused. You can’t just bury your head in the sand and pretend like stuff like that didn’t occur…because it’s documented that it did.</p>
<p>“Well, except, you know, for the men and women that were sexually abused. You can’t just bury your head in the sand and pretend like stuff like that didn’t occur…because it’s documented that it did.”</p>
<p>You make an absurd assumption that I “bury my head in the sand and pretend that stuff like that didn’t occur…”</p>
<p>Okay…here’s what I’ll say. First, please refer me to the DOCUMENTED proof of SERE sexual abuse. I ask because while I’ve been VERY involved in the sexual abuse studies (as an ALO, I worked up at USAFA with the “teams” doing discovery that ultimately led to people being fired, etc.), I don’t recall a specific SERE incident. Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, just that I didn’t learn of it. </p>
<p>Did “other things” occur in SERE such as females making comments about males while they were hooded and naked and vice-versa? Yes. I heard it when I was a cadet. I also saw how it was done while I was in the compound: the women/men were kept behind a wall and we had them just make comments…they were never where the men/women were. But I can only speak to the two years I worked there.</p>
<p>Second…my two closest female classmate/friends were RAPED while we were cadets, by classmates. Yes, raped. Do NOT get me started on that because I was initially “detained” for attacking one of my classmates because he was the rapist! (I was in the process of beating the living…well, you get the idea…out of him). I was “let off” because of “extreme emotional provocation” and he was “lectured” on what NOT to do on a date.</p>
<p>The only “good news” from those incidents is that my female classmates “recovered” from that horror and have done extremely well in their lives. One works in industry and is HIGHLY respected and the other is a Colonel on duty.</p>
<p>And finally, did you understand my original post? Let me repeat it:</p>
<p>“…and at the end…EVERYONE that came out of it said is was one of the better challenges that they’d had and they were very proud of what they had accomplished!”</p>
<p>WHERE did you get sexual abuse out of that???</p>
<p>Documented at: <a href=“http://ia311306.us.archive.org/2/items/allegationsofsex00unit/allegationsofsex00unit_djvu.txt[/url]”>http://ia311306.us.archive.org/2/items/allegationsofsex00unit/allegationsofsex00unit_djvu.txt</a></p>
<p>Obviously the people that were sexually abused wouldn’t agree “that it was one of the better challenges they’d had”</p>
<p>How did I get sexual abuse out of it? You claim “Well…we didn’t injure them…abuse? Not like it’s termed today” But there was abuse…</p>
<p>You know, I don’t even know how to address you/this.</p>
<p>I tried make a comment regarding SERE and the positive aspects of completion of a difficult challenge, and having a little “ribbing fun” with another that was posting about the difficulties of the past versus the present and the ever present “posturing” about what happens, etc…etc…</p>
<p>And you feel/felt compelled to bring up the sexual abuse/assault scandals of the 1990’s and to disparage the comment I made that folks that completed the program, at least while I was there and the one’s I personally know, might have a feeling of pride and satisfaction.</p>
<p>Your pointing out the link to the congressional testimony of Gen’l Jumper, Sec’y Roche, etc., during the 2003 committee investigations, etc., was nice; thank you very much. I have to ask: how many of the 704 pages did you read? Since the topic was SERE and I couldn’t recall how many allegations, etc., of “sexual abuse” were made I asked you to point them out. You gave me a link to 704 pages of testimony. Did you peruse them for SERE comments?</p>
<p>There were two mentioned. Two. Does that mean more didn’t occur? I have no idea; and I’m guessing neither do you, (again, that’s my assumption. Perhaps you’re a senior officer with more knowledge of this than I; I don’t know). However I’ll hazard a guess and say “yeah, probably more.”</p>
<p>What I can say, personally, is that I never saw it in the two SERE’s I worked as a cadre member. Did I see things that 28 years later might be viewed as “unacceptable” behavior? Good question. Is it unacceptable to have hooded males strip in the open area of an enclosed camp, wearing hoods, and having females behind a wall and unable to see the males, making rude comments, etc.? And vice-versa? Is it abuse to deprive the “students” of sleep? To make them so fatigued that they’re struggling to keep their minds on their tasks and they have to reach down deep inside to press on? To feed them very little for a few days, all the while they’re being observed by medical teams to make certain nobody becomes ill, is injured, etc?</p>
<p>I will say this 49 year old senior officer doesn’t think so. Is that “politically correct” of me? The answer is no.</p>
<p>Finally…yes, I’d agree that those that were abused would probably say it wasn’t a great experience or challenge. Only a fool would think otherwise, and if you’ve read anything I’ve written here, you know I’m not a fool. But I would pose that of the many thousands of graduates of USAFA SERE, the number that fits your description, the legal definition, and that mentioned in the congressional testimony, of “sexually abused” is quite small. And while we will all agree (and I’d relish the opportunity to sit on the court martial of ANY cadet that did any of this) that ONE is too much, you can’t paint ALL as evil or bad or tainted.</p>
<p>End of rant.</p>
<p>
However you meant it, you certainly didn’t restrict it to the people that you personally knew when you wrote it initially. You threw out a blanket statement. When you write that you are trivializing the abuse that these people went through.</p>
<p>These techniques are necessary for the trial by fire conditioning/attrition process required for special ops groups. This is not pretty or fun and it wasn’t meant to be. I find it ironic (and sad) that these same techniques are also considered torture by the politically correct police running rampant today. Imagine the scandal that would ensue if pictures of Gitmo prisoners being treated like this made the headlines… The more I think about this, the madder I get! Do you think the enemy will be friendly and polite with our captured sons and daughters? They need this training and our support rather than constant undermining based on liberal nonsense.</p>