[pram]

TBH I went through SERE school (aircrew) and I questioned its value, since the training is in eastern Washington/northern Idaho area mountainous woodland environment and all the evasion they showed us relied on that kind of cover and "bushcraft"

And you know, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran are definitely not eastern Washington lol

[eddieh]

Iran isn't just central Tehran. Look up the Zagros Mountains and the Alborz Mountains. Or just look at a picture of the northern Tehran skyline, it is at the foot of the Alborz, a huge mountain range. There's plenty of woodlands and forest too. Some parts of the Hyrcanian forests get over 50 inches of annual rainfall, which isn't Forks, WA, but it is substantial.

[overfeed]

You're reinforcing parents point by highlighting the variety: at most, just 1 of the areas is a close match to the terrain at the training grounds.

[eddieh]

Not really, if you're entering Iranian airspace from the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf, or Europe, you're flying over either the Zagros Mountains or the Alborz Mountains. Unless you crash/eject in a city, you're almost certainly going to be in the mountains. Look at a map.

[ericmay]

You'd get additional specific training for deployments and the skills are transferrable. But obviously they can't train everyone in every biome that we have, otherwise you'd spend a whole year just flying around to different areas of the country to train and on a 4-year contract it's just not going to work time-wise.

[ambicapter]

If you're doing SERE school you're probably not on a 4 year contract. Pilots have 10 year contracts.

[budman1]

some enlisted air crew go to SERE. loadmasters, airborne intelligence, and SMA (Special Mission Aviators).

As an added benefit, enlisted air crew have no restrictions on mustache length or on professional wear of the uniform.

[MarkMarine]

Add Huey crew chiefs to this list

[cactusfrog]

Eastern Washington has a lot of hot desert

[pram]

Washington indeed has a giant desert but it's in the middle fwiw, the SERE school is in Spokane

[Manuel_D]

Spokane is in the Eastern arid region of the state.

[pram]

What an absolutely pointless thing to get pedantic about. Put "spokane washington" into Google images and tell me if that looks like a desert to you.

[Manuel_D]

https://maps.app.goo.gl/Yud6EFprZeaVDaeQ6

This is the view outside of Fairchild AFB, which runs the training course in question.

Wikipedia reports that Spokane has a Mediterranean climate, as does Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province where this F-15 is reported to have been shot down.

[justin66]

It's sad how quickly this comment thread went from someone talking about their experience at SERE to... this.

[hedgehog]

They're also wrong. The geographic center (around Ellensburg or so) is also in what is known as Eastern WA (east of the Cascades).

[cbron]

Spokane is Eastern Washington, the college in Cheney is literally called Eastern, its just not a desert.

[cbron]

Spokane is not desert. Even surrounding territory is more plains. Some desert military training happens at Yakima much further west.

[s0rce]

Eastern WA is mostly open sagebrush (or farms) they were just in the wrong part of it.

Source: lived there.

[boogieknite]

far from pc but i grew up hunting along the snake and the old guys always called those hills "Bin Ladens" bc it looked like the pictures of where news reported he was hiding

[burnt-resistor]

Sounds like typical one-sized-fits-all, checkbox military nonsense. Perhaps there are better and/or climate-specific SERE courses in one or more services? Because if it's ineffective, it's a waste of time and money more so than usual and puts expensive-to-replace personnel at risk.

Seems like it's all about vacating the area and busting out the CSEL (or NGSR when materialized) personal SAR comms is the best way out, or it may well turn into a weeks(s) long, nonstop spy-shit ordeal getting out. Perhaps some forethought and packing with knowledge and specific local-appropriate items (and chunk of cash) would help more than MIL-STD Walmart camping aisle prepper bullshit.