Frosted misery: A Navy SEAL in SERE School

SERE – short for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape – training is one of the more psychologically challenging training courses the U.S. military has to offer. It is not really that physically challenging, other than having to overcome the short duration of enforced hunger and the occasional slaps and stress/discomfort techniques employed against the students in the course. But for a young man or woman who has never been a prisoner of some type, it is mentally jarring, uncomfortable, even. That is where the real challenge is presented.

I won’t go deep into SERE training here (just because it is a school that should remain cloaked in some mystery for it to be truly effective as a training program) other than to share a few of the memories that stand out for me, almost 25 years after I went through it.

I went through a SERE program run by the U.S. Navy, in January in the American Northeast, with a handful of my fellow SEALs, some Navy pilots, and a few Marines. The other service branches ran their own programs at that time, I believe, and still do. I am not sure how the program is run across the services. I am sure, however, that the training continues in some form given its perpetual relevance to servicemembers in danger of becoming prisoners of war.

The goal of SERE training is to prepare U.S. servicemembers to survive, on the run from enemy forces and while evading capture, and to resist your captors should you find yourself a prisoner. It also touches on escaping from captivity, and aims to provide guidance on how to behave and organize if you find yourself in a prisoner situation with other Americans. Enough on that for this venue.

SERE is mostly a hazy memory for me now, in terms of the particulars. But certain scenes, events, sights, and smells, continue to bubble up every once in a while. They are lingering yet occasionally vivid impressions of a long-ago tribulation, I suppose.

The snow and the cold

U.S. Air Force 1st Lt. Matthew Feeman, of the 80th Fighter Squadron out of Kunsan Air Base, South Korea, builds a fire to help combat frostbite and hypothermia during a survival, evasion, resistance and escape exercise in support of Red Flag – Alaska near Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, on Oct. 14, 2008. Feeman is role-playing a pilot who was shot down behind enemy lines. Red Flag – Alaska is a Pacific Air Forces-directed field training exercise for U.S. and coalition forces flown under simulated air-combat conditions. (Photo by Tech Sgt. Jonathan Snyder/U.S. Air Force)

My SERE training took place in the far Northeast in January. It was damn cold, especially for a Florida boy who had spent the previous year-plus in sunny San Diego and Norfolk, Virginia.

In SERE, we spent a significant chunk of time in our survival and evasion phase stumbling around in the woods, in a couple of feet of snow, with nothing but the minimal amount of gear we were supplied to keep us warm. It was not ideal. It was an enforced “pack light, freeze at night” situation. Some shared sleeping bags to stay warm, while others built shelters in the snow. We all shivered a lot.

The memory of all that snow and the bleak, wintry landscape still pops into my head occasionally, in photograph form. While it was lovely, especially to look back on now, at the time it was frosted misery.

The hunger

Okay, let’s be honest: Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training is not hard on the stomach. At no point in the training do they try to starve you, like they do in Ranger School, for example. In fact, in BUD/S, you can eat as much food in the chow hall as you can stuff down your gullet in the allotted meal time. And boy did I stuff myself, and yet I still lost 15 pounds during BUD/S training.

In SERE training, however, there is no food offered after a certain point, and you have to eat whatever you can forage. Let me tell you, there is not much edible out there in the hellscape of a January New England forest. So we just didn’t eat for a few days, which made me very hungry.

After the course had ended, they advised us not to go out and stuff ourselves, since our stomachs would not handle it well. I failed to heed this advice, however, and paid the man for it. It was not pretty, but I doubt I will ever forget how good that (Italian) meal tasted my first night after SERE ended.

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The slap

Senior Airmen Jonathan Harvey, a Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) Specialists with the 106th Rescue Wing, demonstrates survival training at the US Army’s Jungle Operations Training Course in Hawaii on March 8, 2017. (U.S. Air National Guard Photos by Staff Sgt. Christopher S. Muncy)

So, there is some physical discomfort inflicted on SERE students, all of which is to make it as realistic as possible. Part of the physical discomfort comes by way of open-handed slaps to the face and head. These aren’t too terrible, especially if you are ready and braced for them and they thus don’t whip your head and neck around too violently. It is really no worse, and mostly less painful, than taking a punch while sparring in the ring. I was used to the slaps by a certain point in SERE training and ready for the men who administered them each time they approached me.

Well, in a very effective curveball thrown at me by the instructors, the details of which I will not divulge here in case this little surprise is still employed, I found myself at one point face-to-face with a female captor whom I did not expect to hit me in the face. Needless to say, when she did in fact smack my face, at lightning speed and with some real force behind it, my entire upper body, neck, and head swiveled nearly 180 degrees. It was the most effective slap I received in the entire course, in terms of the pain and shock it caused, and kudos to that woman for catching me unawares.

Well done, madame. To this day, I still remember the surprise and the pain of that slap.

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The almost-meal

Airmen from the 109th Airlift Squadron and 109th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron survey the land for the best route in Arden Hills, Minn., April 12, 2014. The Airmen are going through a refresher Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training exercise to maintain their proficiency with the techniques and skills that will keep them alive. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Master Sgt. Amy M. Lovgren/ Released)

As noted above, by a certain day in the survival and evasion phase of SERE training, I was pretty damn hungry and would’ve eaten just about anything I could get my hands on. At just that point in time, we were told to link up with a notional “foreign contact” in the woods who would supply us with some sustenance.

This was to simulate resistance fighters in enemy territory who might help an evading American servicemember. The three or four of us in our small group were so damn excited to see what we’d get, and I had visions of bread and cheese and jerky and all the food. Well, it turned out to be just one thermos of “borscht” (soup) for all of us to share. Fine, whatever, anything at that point.

What happened next is frozen in my mind forever: One of our guys walking back to us from the link-up with the foreign contact, the steaming thermos of borscht in his hand, his eyes full of victory, hunger, and satisfaction. Total victory.

And yet, right at that moment, the clumsy bastard tripped in the snow, fell in slow motion to the ground, and spilled the steaming thermos of life-giving soup all over the snowy ground. He then looked up in total defeat, and seemed to say with his eyes, “Murder me, I deserve it.” To this day, I am not sure he was not a plant all along, in a highly effective and sick scheme to demoralize us. Oh well, we’ll never know.

The End

Through all of SERE school, I never really went to that mental place that some go to, in which they start to believe they really are a prisoner, and that they might never get out. Apparently that happens to some, and they kind of lose it. I just went back into BUD/S mental mode, where I tune everything else out, and focus on surviving to the end, telling myself that everything ends at some point.

Still, when the end was signaled – in an admittedly moving and patriotic display orchestrated by the instructor cadre – I experienced a flood of relief. Some made audible sighs and expressions of relief, and some even cried right there in front of everyone. I was mostly happy to have finished another required training course, and excited to get some sleep in a bed that night. Mostly, though, I remember being excited to stuff my belly with that ill-advised Italian meal.

Good times.

Feature image: A Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) instructor surveys the surrounding snow field during a Red Flag 23-1 exercise at Rachel, Nevada, Feb. 1, 2023. The goal of Security Forces involvement is to work through planning and execution with combat search and rescue. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Jon P. Anderson)

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on September 2020. It has been edited for republication. It has been edited for republication.

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