SERE School: myths vs. reality

I graduated from class 10-94, USJFKSWC&S SERE-C. My certificate is the one military certificate I have framed and matted. The course is a fond memory; good and no so good (saw stars a couple of times). I had the privilege of being a student of Dan Pitzer, The Bearded One and the instructor who could of been his twin, Santa Clause and those who help preparing us for the rigors of service. I was challenged mentally, my knowledge was drastically improved (Geneva Conventions, Rule of Law, do not engage in a political discussion for it may lead to your death) etc... I cried upon the end of the "stress lab" portion, along with 47 other proud Americans! For those who have attended you know what I mean, it's very inescapable unless your very disconnected from human emotion. I thank all the instructors and my leaders who supported my attendance of the course. I would attend the course again if given the opportunity, TTPs always change, you owe it to yourself to have the best knowledge to remain alive. SERE-C will always remain one of my fondest military experiences.

Thank you for this post Mr. Murphy.  I am a SERE school graduate and I appreciate this post!

@JackMurphyRGR Sorry this is so late but I just finished Five Years To Freedom and wanted to thank you for the recommendation. This is one of the best books I've ever read. It should be mandatory reading for everyone to show what faith, commitment, honor, determination, and survival at all costs really mean. Thanks again.

My husband is in SERE school right  now, I was wondering if there is a public graduation for the school. or will it be a here is your certificate you graduated type thing? 

Myth #1: Instructors are allowed to break one bone in your body during the  POW portion of SERE.  This is incorrect.  While in the detention  facility, students are placed under some level of physical duress but this is  closely monitored and supervised to ensure that it does not get out of  control.  SERE is a very professionally run school and has to be for just  this reason.

So this is why I watched a soldier get his eyeball slashed by in Instructor with long finger nails during training.  This soldier "soldiered" on, but eventually got dropped because his eye ball was ruined.  It was sad.  Is this why a month later, a Marine I spoke with said the same Instructor, with the same long finger nails, once again, committed the same act? Closely monitored my ass, this man should have been placed under probation and barred from committing these career ending injuries.  "It's just business" my ass, if I ever saw this man on the street, I would beat him with a baseball bat and leave him twitching and bleeding and pleading for his life.

     That being said, there are great instructors there, but some are a bit out of control, and don't know the LINE between training and seriously injury. 

Went thru SERE school at NAS Brunswick in 83'. DECEMBER 83' to be precise. I'm a native of Miami Florida born and raised. You can imagine how much colder and wetter I felt than the New Englanders and Mid-Westerners in our group. My toes were numb for months afterward. I lost 10 pounds. All the above myth busting is correct. I'll add the following. If you do break down they are even harder on you. The interrogators end up wailing on some guys just to get them to STFU. I get treated to the 'box,' the 'wall bounce' the 'rubber hose by the nose,' 'the smoking pipe on the stool' but I didn't go into the Fucking Pond, because I did not break down. A squadron mate of mine who went to SERE before me went into the pond twice. We were all scared shitless of going into the pond.
Some of the lore is correct. You do cry at some point. My point was at the end. Distant machine gun and small arms fire is heard in the woods outside the camp over the course of an hour, it seems to be getting closer. Nervous Soviet guards swing their tower guns outward away from us. UH-1 flies over with American markings. Guards scatter, our SRO appears and runs accross the compound between the barracks, helicopter pad and wood shed holding an American flag on a pole. He is tackled by a several guards. Half dozen enraged, but weakened and hollowed eyed prisoners jump on the guards in the pile. Other guards start pulling us out of the pile. Loud speakers begin to blare Star Spangled Banner. SRO jumps up with American flag held high. We all snap to attention(guards too) and salute the tears streaming(as they are right now)..... A pair of 2 1/2 ton trucks enter the compound thru the front gate. They have sheet cakes with red white and blue frosting and half pink milk cartons. The guards are handing them out to us. Now, they speak english and are shaking our hands and calling us shipmate. We load into the trucks and drive down the dirt road a few miles to the buses(with blacked out windows) that pick us up. I filch an unfiltered Pall Mall off the bus driver and nearly faint on the first drag, three of us end up sharing it. Back at Brunswick we go straight to the mess and its open for us between lunch and dinner. We have it to ourselves(on purpose) They serve us breakfast, we gorge ourselves and straggle back to the TAD barracks thru the snow. I'm so tired I can barely climb the flight of stairs to "B" deck. I open the door to my room and look at my rack, perfectly made and gleaming with white sheets and two gray wool blankets. I feel filthy and sticky in the warm barracks and decide to drag ass to the shower dropping my clothes as I go down the hall leaning against the wall the whole way. I take the hottest shower of my life and walk naked back to my room in a daze. I still recall that one of the very best feellings of my entire life was the sensation of sliding between those clean white sheets in that simple, steel framed, regulation Navy rack with a $2 dollar mattress they got from the lowest bidder. I slept about 14 hours. Here's another thing. You don't get a certificate but you do get the SERE Bruins patch, but you can't wear it or show it to anybody. That's the Navy.

When I went through, the scariest of the captors was a tiny Filipino (who I later found was a Senior Chief). That guy knew how to hit, made the Buddha Palm a reality for my class. He grew up in the boondocks in the Philippines, under the "protection" of the NPA, and had a special place for Communism in his heart (hated them), he added reality, seriousness and perspective to SERE school. Everyone cries at SERE school, everyone.

Went through USASFC SERE school about 6 months ago. By far the best training i have ever received. What Jack has said is spot on, but i will add one thing. SERE school is unlike any school you will EVER go to. It doesn't train you for specifically anything, airborne school trains you to fall out of planes, HALO to fall out of planes higher, Dive School to conduct water borne ops ECT..... SERE school teaches you perspective, on every facet of your life, planning, speech, metal toughness, survival. I used to work as a volunteer for NOLS and the things they teach you and train you for at SERE school not only help, but what they teach you last throughout your life. You literally look at things differently.

I thought there was a non-disclosure agreement you had to sign about SERE? http://goo.gl/JS7h6

Served with a PH1 that was a RED hat in the '80's. Back then they spoke to each other in"Russian." Pensacola was pretty cushy compared to Brunswick.

I know many Marines who went thru SERE and said they ALL cried at the end. But none of them would say why. What happens at the end?