SERE Trained Survival Evasion Resistance Escape Embroidered Patch

In 1952, with the Korean War showing how little the services had done to prepare men for captivity, the Department of Defense made the Air Force its executive agent for joint escape and evasion training. Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape grew out of that decision. It drew on World War II, when the British MI9 trained airmen to evade and the U.S. ran its own MIS-X program at Fort Hunt, Virginia. Every branch built a school, and every school taught to the same Code of Conduct, issued by President Eisenhower under Executive Order 10631. SERE TRAINED on a patch means the wearer went through one of them.

The Air Force survival school moved from Stead AFB, Nevada, to Fairchild AFB, Washington, in 1966, and its 336th Training Group is now the largest SERE provider in the U.S. military. The Navy started a SERE detachment at NAS Brunswick, Maine, in the late 1950s with a 12-day Code of Conduct course, then opened a second school at NAS North Island in San Diego. Today SERE East runs out of Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and SERE West out of North Island, with its remote training site at Warner Springs. The Army's course belongs to the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Camp Mackall, a 19-day course that includes Level C. The Marines opened Pickel Meadow in 1951 and run Level B at the Mountain Warfare Training Center in Bridgeport, California.

The patch is a 2.5 inch circle of golden orange twill with a dark merrowed edge rolled around the rim. SERE arcs across the top in heavy black letters and TRAINED runs along the bottom. Down each side runs a looped strand of black barbed wire, a common shorthand for captivity. At the center is a single red Chinese character, stitched large and plain on the gold. It is a small patch with nothing extra on it, which suits a course whose graduates rarely say much about it.

DoD Directive 1300.7 set the training levels in 1984. Level A is entry-level Code of Conduct training for everyone, Level B is for people who work forward, mostly aircrew, and Level C is for those at high risk of capture, covering resistance to exploitation, captivity survival and escape. The aviators, special operators and aircrew who went through Level C came back with something that does not show up on a service record. They know what the resistance phase asked of them, and they know who else in the ready room went through it. That shared understanding is what the patch carries.

It fits a shadow box next to aircrew wings and a squadron patch, or the sleeve of a flight jacket worn to a reunion. It is also a good gift for a son or daughter who wants a display that reflects what a parent's training actually involved. Two words on a gold circle, and everyone who went through the course knows exactly what they mean.