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Project Jenny KLIK - 1st Inf Di v Women in Vietnam RELATED-- To AFVN To Saigon To Vietnam Further Afield Index
From: Joe Ciokon
Dated: September 29, 2012
Subject: SERE
Survival/Escape/Resistance/Evasion -- S.E.R.E.
I know the Air Force had it.
jc
From: Jack Holsomback
Dated: September 29, 2012
Subject: SERE
Dickie: I would love to visit Carbine's workshop and see the various items there . Where is it located?
Jack H
From: John Lehman
Dated: September 29, 2012
Subject: SERE
Spent a week in the Northern Training Area on Okinawa for refresher training by 1st SF Group in 1971. Those guys loved C4.
John
[NB: I went through the same course in early 1970. Jim White]
From: Joe Ciokon
Dated: September 29, 2012
Subject: SERE
I went through the first time in ’67, right after a detachment of SEAL Team ONE went through and took over the compound. They put two SEALs on the training staff from then on. The ones who were there when I went through had been students in my Judo class. There’s a story there about why they kicked me out the first day.
See you in Memphis.
Joe
From: Dickie Ellis
Dated: September 29, 2012
Subject: SERE
JoeC....
SERE training hell! I didn't even get any training on the M-16 rifle! Out of basic...I was assigned to the HQ Company, Ft. Bragg. PIO shop... Getting ready for Vietnam....we were told there was a law that says no soldier could go into a battle zone until he was qualified with at least the principal weapon of the theater. I had to go one morning after breakfast and sit in the company commander's outer office for more than 4 hours waiting for a letter to insert in my 201-file saying I had never qualified with an M-16. (I fired expert with an M-14 in basic by the way...) I sat there all morning....finally this young Captain came out and signed the letter.... "You will stop on the west coast and qualify with the M-16 before you fly to Vietnam."...he said with all confidence. I later traveled to New Jersey, took a big plane to Anchorage...gas stop....Yokota, Japan,....gas stop and Long Bien, Vietnam. Several days later they were processing me for AFVN and a clerk came across that letter in my 201. "What the hell is this? I have never seen anything like this..." "It is a letter saying I have never qualified with am M-16!"..said PFC Ellis. "You sure haven't," he said, pulling the letter out of the file and with a sweeping motion depositing it in the can next to his desk. The whole time I was in Vietnam I kept telling everyone I had never qualified with an M-16...and they all just looked at me. JoeC if you remember, every time you took me out into the street with you...like the car bomb...and a couple of other times we heard gunshots near-by...I always had an M-1 Carbine...(actually an M-2 automatic Carbine). One reason is, I knew the man, David Marshal "Carbine" Williams, who invented the rifle while in a NC prison and had visited his home and workshop several times...and #2 I owned an M-1 with which I had dispatched a deer or two prior to becoming a US Army trained killer! They found these things in a CONEX box out back and issued them out especially after Tet. They were from the Korean war and were still in tin-foil like packs and packed with cosmoline. I became the part-time trainer for AFVN...showing (especially Navy and Air Force guys) how to disassemble and clean the thing so it would shoot. And the end of the chapter.... We were told my military intel one night that a sapper squad was going to attack AFVN and blow down our tower. We were all dispatched to the sand-bag nests created on top of CONEX boxes around the wire. I climbed up into mine and the Admin Sgt...(the guy standing next to the splintered door in the photo...can't remember his name)...came around handing out M-16's. "Sarge," I said, "I don't know how to shoot an M-16!".... "That's OK," he said..."If they start coming over that wire, you'll learn!" turned around and walked off into the darkness of the AFVN back compound. I spent the next hour taking that thing down with the light of a flashlight...and learned how it worked!!! I also sat there the rest of the night with a grenade in each hand! My first experience at real live combat!!!
SP5 Dickie Ellis, War Hero
From: Jean LeRoy
Dated: September 29, 2012
Subject: SERE
I learned all that when I was single.....
From: Jack Holsomback
Dated: September 29, 2012
Subject: SERE
Joe, during my trips to Vietnam, I never even heard of SERE. What was it some kind of scoot, loot and take pictures training?
Jack H
From: Dick Ellis
Dated: September 29, 2012
Subject: SERE
Jack...I knew Carbine very well...we have a great exhibit of his workshop and the complete history of he and the M-1 in the NC Museum of History across the street. We had a whole shipment of M-2 Carbines when I got there. That is what they issued to us at the station during Tet..... My ex-wife sold my entire gun collection when we divorced in 1992. I have yet to buy another M-1...but there are many of them at the gun shows down here.... I know less about computers than JoeC...if you can imagine!! My daughter put mine in last time she came through on the way to the beach. I am in the computer room typing and it goes off like a burglar alarm....and it is her....(she?) The only other person I have talked to/seen is Bob Nelson in Alaska. One evening I was on and he buzzed me. If you can find me please "Skype" anytime.... I am sure I have a name and what all...
Dickie
From: Joe Ciokon
Dated: September 29, 2012
Subject: SERE
I kept looking for a jar of slipstream and relative bearing grease.
AFVN Group Conversations
From: Frank Rogers
Dated: September 29, 2012
Subject: SERE
Waiting for Joe to answer, but it's something like Survival, Escape, Rescue, Evasion.
At Ft Eustis I was in a STRAC unit, but I don't think the popular wording was really Sweep, Trim, Rake And Clip.
FR
From: Jack Holsomback
Dated: September 29, 2012
Subject: SERE
Joe,
We had bunches of those "names" such as a TR double E (tree) B one RD (bird) and, of course on ship there was prop wash (for washing propellers), Charlie Nobel (designation CN for the galley stack, Mail buoy watch which was always given to some "greenie boot" who was complaining about no mail out in the med. On and on....
Jack H
From: Jack Holsomback
Dated: September 29, 2012
Subject: SERE
Dickie: You knew and met Carbine Williams? Now that was a story how he developed the carbine while still in prison. You mentioned the M-1 you had before going in the army. Do you still have it? I would give anything to have one. In fact that M-1 you found in the station along with the cartridge belt and ammo was mine. I left it when I FIGMO'ed back to the world.
My Skype is now ready. I called a local friend, now I must figure out how to call people free with AFVN. I am currently on facebook with it. Any suggestions?
Jack H
SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) Training
Also some comments on weapons qualification and using Skype
September 2012
From: Jack Holsomback
Dated: September 29, 2012
Subject: SERE
Dickie It is she.... damn I feel smart for a change. Maybe Bob Nelson can tell all of us how to contact him as well as you.
Jack H
From: Jack Holsomback
Dated: September 29, 2012
Subject: SERE
If you guys may recall, for awhile, some of the VC were found dead with an exploded AK-47 next to the body. I later found that some friends were pulling the round from the brass, putting in a small ball of C4, then putting the round back in. As these guys were out on patrol, they would occasionally drop a round on the trail. Charlie, being the scrounger he was, would pick them up and later try to use them. Jarheads could also be very resourceful.
Oh. and don't anyone tell me they Sniped or Scoped or what ever it is and found it untrue. Marines never lie.
Jack H
From: Ken Kalish
Dated: September 29, 2012
Subject: SERE
My SERE began at Coronado for 3 weeks, Whidbey Island for ten days, then Cubi Point for two weeks. Cubi was both the most practical and the most useful.
Ken
From: Randy Kafka
Dated: September 29, 2012
Subject: SERE
Joe,
I did a modified SERE before I went in 71. After my CA training, I did a small course in the PI. Worked with some very professional "older gents" from WWII in the jungle behind the 500 man camp at the top of the hill in Subic. Not sure if I was more scared of the instructors (they were great) or the dang monkeys. Got my butt kicked for telling them I was a door gunner on a TL29 (for you Army types.....that is a Navy electricians knife)
Randy
From: Joe Ciokon
Dated: September 28, 2012
Subject: SERE
Did everyone going into Vietnam have to endure SERE training? Mine was here at MCB Camp Pendleton School of Infantry and Warner Springs. I asked for a SERE refresher when I got orders to Beirut, then gave them some input when I returned.
Joe