Airmen help aircrews return if all goes awry

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Shad Eidson
  • 379th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFNS) --  When Staff Sgt. Eric Zwoll presents his briefing, aircrew members preparing for a mission listen carefully because they know if a mission goes awry then their lives will depend on his every word. 

Sergeant Zwoll is one of a handful of survival, evasion, resistance and escape specialists here who support missions throughout the region by briefing theater preparation and SERE refreshers, planning and execution of reintegration operations, and serve as advocates for isolated personnel. 

"In the U.S. Central Command theater, we don't actually train anybody," Sergeant Zwoll said.

The shop specialists here do not teach or instruct SERE as each service trains and prepares individuals before they arrive in theater, said Sergeant Zwoll, who is here on a permanent change of station from Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash., which is home to the Air Force's main SERE school.

"Our main responsibility is to directly assist and support personnel recovery operations," Sergeant Zwoll said. "We coordinate with all assets in theater to execute personnel recovery in the CENTCOM area of responsibility."

The SERE specialists support recovery as part of the Joint Personnel Recovery Center here. The JPRC prepares aircrews in CENTCOM to be recovered from an isolated situation and executes the recovery operations. SERE specialists do not run recovery operations but advise as subject matter experts.

"We focus on giving aircrew the information they need for the environments that they will be operating within," Sergeant Zwoll said.

The different environments within the AOR affect mission planning and recovery operations, he said. Aircrews fly in and over the desert, water, mountains, temperate plateau areas, and arctic conditions in the high altitude regions. Knowing theaterwide information allows SERE specialists to be knowledgeable advocates for not only aircrews, but also anybody who may find themselves isolated.

"We prepare individuals for what to do in case they find themselves isolated. (We explain) how to survive in any environment and what actions they can take to help affect their own recovery," said the native of Orma, W. Va. "If there is an event where we need to recover an individual, we put ourselves in their shoes knowing the type of training they have received and determining what they should be thinking and doing to survive."
Following a recovery operation, SERE specialists have a critical role in an individual's reintegration from isolation. Reintegration in this case has few similarities to when deployed servicemembers return to home station.

"We don't just recover the individual and say great to have you back, get back to work. That is not the focus," Sergeant Zwoll said. "Reintegration is geared toward taking care of this person throughout the full spectrum of their physical and psychological well being."

SERE specialists here focus efforts to expand reintegration into two more steps -- learn from the incident and use the information to prepare for future incidents, Sergeant Zwoll said.

SERE specialists see their job as helping aircrews ultimately return with honor.

"The point is to do what it takes to survive to the best of their ability. Give them the tools so they can do everything right and return with their honor intact and not do anything to the detriment of their country and fellow Airmen," said Senior Airman Brandon Dunphy, also deployed from Fairchild AFB.

Since its inception when the Air Force created SERE at the end of the Korean War, the training has evolved through its application in worldwide operations. There are always going to be lessons learned and modifications to the application of those lessons to prepare future operations, said Airman Dunphy, who was raised on Kadena Air Base, Okinawa.

"You have to push yourself to learn more and not be content with what you already know," Airman Dunphy said. The SERE specialist said he feels that with the mission and fellow Airmen's lives at stake, the status quo can never be accepted as already perfect.

"Today, the career field has expanded because we have such a wealth of knowledge we have garnered from teaching, experiencing, and we are putting it into operational use here," Sergeant Zwoll said.

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