I got tagged to go to ALS before i take off for indoc in August. I am having to fill a ten minute speech on an Air Force Heritage Topic, and selected to represent SERE to the best of my retrainee abilities. Could some of you veterans out there please help me out in finding info on the Air Force Arctic Survival School (Cool School.) I found an artical on the history, but it doesnt go into much detail. I am currently searching far and wide on the net. Hope you guys have something that could help. I also know the impact, but would benefit from an artical on the actual impact of arctic survival skills training in todays Global Operations.

Are they really going to let you do that? Having been through ALS and the NCO academy, that isn't the direction they were looking for those speaches to go. They were looking more for speeches about Air Force Cross winners, Medal of Honor winners, and other distinguished enlisted members.

They approved it. It is as much our heritage as an Air Force Cross winner. They are letting us be kind of independant with our topics. We just have to fill the time with a topic that is related to Air Force Heritage.

Why angle it towards arctic survival? I can't think of any examples off hand where that training has been used for real world scenarios, but if you were to use the standard survival school, you could illustrate the many cases of downed pilots using the skills learned from SERE instructors to survive. Scott O'Grady and Lance Sijon just to name two easy ones.

That is probably some good input. I am having a really hard time coming up with scenarios to talk about. I guess if i talked about the whole survival school in a whole i could get into DET 1 and the arctic portion for a minute.

went through artic survival scool in feb 91 great school. call sign ardvark. sgt Moore was an instructor from WA I believe.

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Originally posted by caninedale:
Why angle it towards arctic survival? I can't think of any examples off hand where that training has been used for real world scenarios,...

I am aware of several from the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

FYI:

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United States National Search and Rescue Supplement to the International Aeronautical and Maritime Search and Rescue Manual:

6.10.4.a) Polar survival professionals may assist. Pararescue teams should be considered as a primary means of polar rescue. Appropriate agencies should be alerted and briefed as to the possible need for pararescue teams.

I am sure there has been arctic rescues, but I think he can do a great job on the paper with the regular survival shcool. Lots more information available.

Thanks Sgt. Cassidy this was a good bit of help. I think my speech is going to be pretty good. Thanks guys i will let you know how it comes out.

This rescue resulted in the making and establishing of the first formal arctic survival training courses. It also resulted in the replacement of SAC rescue parachutist at the 10th Rescue Squadron with ARS trained and qualified Pararescue Teams.

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The B-29 "Clobbered Turkey" crashes December 23, 1947 with eight crewmembers on-board. The ensuing rescue operation demonstrated the importance of proper equipment, methods, and techniques. On 27 December 1947 a senior officer directs Lt Albert C. Kinney, Jr., USAAF (MC), First Sergeant Santhell O. London, and T/5 Leon J. Casey to jump to the crash site located 95 miles north of Nome Alaska. They were ill-prepared for what they encountered. The hostile environment (poor visibility, high winds 25 MPH to 40 MPH, and temperatures -40°F to -50°F) soon claim the lives of the three jumpers. Surface rescue teams rescue six survivors of the crashed B-29 on December 29th. Sgt London's body is found 500 yards from the wreckage on January 5th. On January 12th search teams find the body of paratrooper T/5 Casey seven miles from the crash site. They also find the bodies of Lt. Vern H. Arnett (pilot), Lt. Frederick E. Sheetz (Navigator), crewmembers of the “Clobbered Turkey” who decided two days after the crash to walk out of the wilderness to get help, about four miles north of the crashed B-29. The saga of the “Clobbered Turkey” ends when the flight surgeon’s body is found on 2 July 1948. Contributing causes for the tragic death of three parachutists include: lack of adequate training on how to survive in the hostile environment; survival equipment was not carried or available; flight surgeon had no jump or field experience; they jumped unaware the surface winds exceeded 30 mph; dragged by their parachutes, for miles, over the tundra. Rescue jumper equipment, procedures, and techniques would have prevented this useless loss of life.

An FYI of enlisted heritage overlooked on this mission is Sgt Landon was considered the Army's top frigid zone (Polar region) expert. He had an exploration team member assignment with the 1946 Admiral Byrd Antarctic expedition.

Of other Air Force Arctic survival historical footnotes it was USAF Arctic survival trained PJs who irrefutably demonstrated arctic military operations were possible.

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16 April 1954: Two pararescuemen, TSgt Elliott Holder and SSgt Robert Christiansen, jumped to the crash site of a Navy patrol bomber high on the Polar Ice Cap, far above the Arctic Circle. They landed in high winds and traveled more than a mile over treacherous ice ridges to the crash. A storm with temperatures below zero and winds, oftentimes exceeding 100 knots, howled around them for eleven days. On the 12th day, the storm abated and they and the bodies (all aboard the bomber died upon impact) were lifted from the crash site by helicopter.

Previously, no expert considered military operations in the Arctic practical or even possible on any significant scale because of the extreme cold, high winds, and difficult terrain. This and other ice-cap rescue jumps proved conclusively that with proper expertise, minimal equipment, and a few "guts," troops can survive and operate for significant periods of time under the worst of arctic conditions.

FYI there is one in the public domain event in history that is the basis for the novel and movie Ice Station Zebra. Now you know one of the reasons why ARRS C-130s were configured with the Fulton Recovery System.

Reference--To catch a falling star- satellite recovery operations: Film recovery

Spy sat Down

CORONA capsule catcher reminisces

This message has been edited. Last edited by: johca,

I scored a 90% on the speech. I think it went pretty well. I had the second highest score in the class. Couldnt hang with the finance dude. He has had a lot of experience.

Was this the formative or summative speech?

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Originally posted by jpratt0826:
I scored a 90% on the speech. I think it went pretty well. I had the second highest score in the class. Couldnt hang with the finance dude. He has had a lot of experience.

Good job.

I think with the enthusiasm and pride you have going into your retrain, you are going to do quite well at SERE school. Best of luck. Don't forget to take some wood home from ALS as well.

It was our summative briefing, but we have one more. The next one is going to be on foriegn terrorisism. There is a lot of info out there about this topic. Should be easy.

On another note I have been doing crossfit for about a month now. I have put on ten pounds already and a huge gain on my workouts. One of which is my pull up capabilities. I have put over 100lbs on my sqaut and deadlift to in the past 4 months.

quote:

Originally posted by jpratt0826:
It was our summative briefing, but we have one more. The next one is going to be on foriegn terrorisism. There is a lot of info out there about this topic. Should be easy.

It’s actually a complicated subject which is why there is so much published about terrorism. Its causes are many and there is a longer history in dealing with it than many realize. WWI and especially WWII contributed to a lot of the current problems. There are other contributing causes too.

BTW—in my opinion it should just be terrorism, the foreign is an inappropriate additive descriptor in today’s world.

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Originally posted by johca:
BTW—in my opinion it should just be terrorism, the foreign is an inappropriate additive descriptor in today’s world.

I agree with this entirely, but they define it as foreign in the course description. Unfortunately no matter my opinion in PME they still have that guideline that they have to follow.


I have a question about a scenario i came across today. If you are conducting a humanitarian mission and are captured by a terrorist organization would you fall under the POW/MIA guidlines and Articles of the Code of Conduct or would you fall under the DOD Staff Guide and be considered a detainee. I know that an organization or country that has signed the Geneva Convention must adhere to the guidelines. What happens when they do not sign the Geneva Convention and we are still conducting war operations against them?

quote:

Originally posted by jpratt0826:

I have a question about a scenario i came across today. If you are conducting a humanitarian mission and are captured by a terrorist organization would you fall under the POW/MIA guidlines and Articles of the Code of Conduct or would you fall under the DOD Staff Guide and be considered a detainee. I know that an organization or country that has signed the Geneva Convention must adhere to the guidelines. What happens when they do not sign the Geneva Convention and we are still conducting war operations against them?

Now you know one of the reasons why it takes a good 4-5 years to educate and develop a competent Pararescue Team Leader.

There are lots of legal aspects, especially for the PJ Team doing a humanitarian mission in a country not having any U.S. Military bases. I could be thrown be detained and thrown in jail when I was operational just on the type of narcotics and syringes and other equipment I might bring across a border to do a humanitarian mission. It is also why I have opinion most AF lawyers are not prepared to do their military duties in giving me accurate advice on the rules of engagement before I go on a mission. During peacetime (also important to understand when and where an active combat zone exists during combat operations) any lack of significant U.S. military or U.S. Embassy presence in the area complicates determining the better choices of action as local civilian law and political orientation of being friendly or unfriendly to U.S. interests rules the day in regards of killing civilians and destroying public and private property. Even the Geneva Conventons make it clear once captured the military member is no longer a lawful combatant and killing a guard is a punitive civilian criminal crime. Typically evadining initial capture in a coombat zone the military member is typically consider a lawful combatant. An evading escaped PW does not revert back into becoming a lawful combatantant. Lots of situational awareness needed.

As you suspect each situation has many variables and once a PJ team leader get a warning order or a mission notification where such concerns you are asking about exist, the better competent team leader would consult the judge advocate (if available) during the planning process to ensure operations comply with United States Law, national policy, Air Force policy and rules of engagement. This also gets into the area of why I think most AF intel support and legal support at the operational level is often clueless in supporting PJ teams.

Once you are captured or detained it's to late to figure out if the potential situation you fall into is detainee, prisoner, or convicted criminal category and what policy is best to adhere to. I have gotten considerably disappointed and upset with a few intel weenies and useless legal beagles in my day as they were totally incapable of answering a single planning question I needed answers to.

Suffice to say this is another complicated subject with no simple answers. It is also why I subscribe to avoid capture and don’t surrender in an active combat zone when the resulting situation has strong potential of being worse than jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: johca,

Consider just an Army Infantry man conducting combat operations in Iraq. He gets catured by a terrorist org. working inside the borders of the AOR is he still not given his right of POW status? What the H$ll is going on witht this whole thing. If the nature of our wars are changing shouldnt the nature of our rules change as well. If what i was told today is true, then there are very few cases of an actual non-combatant POW anymore and just about every case would be considered detainee status right.

I suspect that if you get captured in many parts of the world today your status is whatever the hell your captors say it is. Like John said - better to not get captured. If undavoidable hope for the best and expect the worst. Your captors will probably laugh at any legal arguments you might come up with, unless you get captured in England or Germany or someplace civilized (unlikely).