Dyess SERE instructors keep fliers ready

  • Published
  • By By Airman 1st Class Carolyn Viss
  • 7th Bomb Wing Public Affairs
DYESS AIR FORCE BASE, Texas --  Dyess' Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape specialists, together with Abilene Special Weapons and Tactics team members and police K9 units, gave survival skills training to 16 Dyess aircrew members at Lake Abilene Feb. 14 and 15. 

Technical Sgt. Ryan Sterling and Staff Sgt. Roger Zehr, 7th Operations Support Squadron, regularly train 7th Bomb Wing and 317th Airlift Group pilots, weapons systems officers, load masters, flight engineers, and navigators in survival skills necessary for deployment. 

"What we do with the aircrew is basically a refresher course for the initial training they received at Fairchild Air Force Base (Washington)," Sergeant Sterling said. "We go over global principles of survival in combat and captivity situations. Courses include navigation, medical procedures, evasion, personal recovery, and resistance training for arctic, desert, open ocean, jungle, and temperate environments." 

According to the SERE Web site, www.gosere.com, their mission is to "prepare aircrew and high risk of capture (Department of Defense) personnel to survive under any conditions. SERE specialists train more than 6,500 aircrew members a year in the proper use of principles, techniques, equipment, and procedures necessary to survive anywhere in the world." 

Captain Janis Cavinder, 9th Bomb Squadron life support, said spoke highly of the SERE specialists and said the participation of the Abilene S.W.A.T. and K9 units was an added element of challenge for the students. 

All of the training Sergeant Sterling and the other SERE specialists give aircrew is "historically" necessary for them to keep their flight qualifications, but he said the hope is that the people they train will not actually need it real-world. 

Both noncommissioned officers had to complete the basic survival training at Fairchild AFB themselves, before continuing with another six months of SERE specialist training school - all after graduating from basic military training and a two-week indoctrination class. 

Their job as "pewter berets" is "definitely not easy, but pretty fun" they both admitted, and so is the course they offer here. 

"The better shape the students are in, the easier it'll be for them to pass the course - but it's definitely do-able, and we try to make it interesting," Sergeant Sterling said.