The U.S. Navy SEAL Survival Handbook: Learn the Survival Techniques and Strategies of America's Elite Warriors

The U.S. Navy SEAL Survival Handbook: Learn the Survival Techniques and Strategies of America's Elite Warriors

The U.S. Navy SEAL Survival Handbook: Learn the Survival Techniques and Strategies of America's Elite Warriors

The U.S. Navy SEAL Survival Handbook: Learn the Survival Techniques and Strategies of America's Elite Warriors

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Overview

From New York Times bestselling author Don Mann and Ralph Pezzulo, Navy SEAL expert advice on surviving in the jungle, in the mountains, in the desert, or at sea.

As the elite of the military elite, U.S. Navy SEALs know that they can be deployed anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice. Whether in a temperate, tropical, arctic, or subarctic region, they might find themselves alone in a remote area with little or no personal gear.

In The U.S. Navy SEAL Survival Handbook, decorated Navy SEAL Team Six member and New York Times bestselling author Don Mann provides a definitive survival resource. From basic camp craft and navigation to fear management and strategies for coping with any type of disaster, it is an essential resource. It covers:
  • Water
  • Shelter and fire
  • Food and hunting
  • Weather
  • Navigation
  • Survival medicine
  • Survival kits
  • And much more

Complete with 150 color photographs, this comprehensive guide includes life-saving information for SEALs, for other special operations forces, or for anyone who might fight themselves in a life-threatening situation.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781616085803
Publisher: Skyhorse
Publication date: 08/01/2012
Series: US Army Survival
Pages: 248
Sales rank: 304,614
Product dimensions: 7.30(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Don Mann’s impressive military resume includes being a decorated combat veteran; corpsman; SEAL special operations technician; jungle survival, desert survival, and arctic survival instructor; small arms weapons, foreign weapons, armed and unarmed defense tactics, and advanced hand-to-hand combat instructor; and Survival, Evade, Resistance, and Escape instructor, in addition to other credentials. He lives in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

SEAL/SERE TRAINING

"Return with honor."

SERE school motto

U.S. Navy SEALs

I've spent my adult life as a Navy SEAL, preparing for and dealing with the most dangerous situations imaginable.

From 1962, when the first SEAL teams were commissioned, to the present, SEALs have distinguished themselves as being individually reliable, collectively disciplined, and highly skilled. Because of the dangers inherent in what we do, prospective SEALs go through what is considered by military experts to be the toughest training in the world — Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL Training (BUD/S).

BUD/S is a six-month SEAL training course held at the Naval Special Warfare Training Center in Coronado, California, which starts with five weeks of indoctrination and pre-Training. Following that, all trainees go through three phases of BUD/S. The first phase is by far the toughest and consists of eight weeks of basic conditioning, with a grueling "hell week" in the middle — which is five days and nights of continuous training on a maximum of four hours of sleep.

Hell week is a test of physical endurance, mental tenacity, and team-work. As many of two-thirds of the class are likely to "ring the bell" and call it quits during this phase. Those who grit it out to the finish get to hear the instructors yell, "hell week is secured!" The trainees continue on with a new sense of pride, achievement, and selfconfidence to second phase (eight weeks of diving) and third phase (nine weeks of land warfare).

After BUD/S is completed, all trainees go through three weeks of basic parachute training, followed by eight weeks of SEAL qualification training in mission planning, operations, and tactic, techniques, and procedures.

BUD/S ends with the formal BUD/S class graduation. It was a very proud day for me to stand with my classmates in our dress navy uniforms and listen to our SEAL officers talk about the special group we were about to enter, and the great honor it is to serve as a U.S. Navy SEAL.

BUD/S Phases

Phase 1 — Physical Conditioning (eight weeks)

Soft sand runs

Swimming — up to two miles with/fins in the ocean

Calisthenics Timed obstacle course

Four-mile timed runs in boots Small boat seamanship

Hydrographic surveys and creating charts

Hell week — week 4 of phase 1 — five and one-half days of continuous training on little to no sleep

Phase 2 — Diving (eight weeks)

Step up intensity of the physical training

Focus on combat diving

Open-circuit (compressed air) SCUBA

Closed-circuit (100% oxygen) SCUBA

Long-distance navigation dives

Mission-focused combat swimming and diving techniques

Phase 3 — Land Warfare (nine weeks)

Increasingly strenuous physical training

Weapons training

Demolitions (military explosives)

Small unit tactics

Patrolling techniques

Rappelling and fast rope operations

Marksmanship

All BUD/S graduates then fly out to Kodiak Island, Alaska, for a twenty-eight day winter warfare course, during which they train in snow and freezing wind while often carrying half their body weight in weapons and gear. The course includes cross-country skiing, snow shoe travel, building shelters, procuring food and water, fire building, using specialized survival gear to plot courses in the mountainous and snow-covered terrain, and conducting ice-cold ocean swims, river crossings, and long-range navigation through the mountain wilderness to infiltrate and establish covert surveillance of target sites.

BUD/S and winter warfare training prepares SEAL trainees to become combat-ready warriors. But they don't learn the nitty gritty of survival until they complete SERE School.

SERE Training

As a young Navy SEAL recently graduated from Basic Underwater Demolition School (BUD/S), I was told by a Vietnam-era SEAL that if I were captured during wartime, there was a good chance I'd be beheaded or skinned alive. I immediately volunteered to attend the Navy Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape (SERE) course conducted at Warner Springs, California.

Since I knew that as a SEAL I would likely be deployed overseas behind enemy lines, I took my survival training seriously.

Most of the twenty members in my SERE class were navy pilots and aircrew personnel considered to be at high risk of capture. I was the only SEAL.

The course started with basic lessons in land navigation, poisonous plants, animals and insects, water procurement, fire making, shelter building, and evasion and escape techniques. Then, the twenty of us were dropped off in the desert without food or water and ordered to find our way to a safe area while trying to avoid contact with the "enemy."

We were thirsty and hungry. We drank from the prickly pear cactus and looked for edible plants to eat. I happened to see a small rabbit running under a bush, threw my KA-BAR knife at it, and to my surprise, pinned the rabbit's neck into the ground. I skinned it and made rabbit stew for the team by mixing the rabbit with edible plants. But one little rabbit was hardly enough to feed twenty hungry men.

Eventually, all of us were captured. I was plastic-tie tied, blindfolded, and thrown into a Jeep. The instructors, outfitted in realistic communist-style clothing, played their parts, screaming, barking orders, trying their best to intimidate us.

I played it for real, too. When my captor stepped out of the Jeep, I managed to wrestle my bound hands in front of me, grab his PRC-77 radio, and throw it under the vehicle. I also hid a knife and lighter in my boots.

I was driven to a fenced POW training camp. There I saw enemy guards interrogating other "prisoners," slamming them into walls, humiliating them by having them stand naked while being drilled with questions and slapped in the face.

They started working on us immediately, trying to get us to break. There were hard cell interrogations with guards shouting questions and slapping you, and soft cell sessions, where you were called into a warm office where a pretty woman or friendly guard would offer you coffee, snacks, and warm clothing.

What is SERE Training?

Because of the violent nature of the world we live in, all U.S. military and other government personnel, and even civilians traveling overseas, run the risk of kidnapping, captivity, and exploitation by governmental and non-governmental organizations (including terrorist groups) that ignore the Geneva Convention and/or other human rights conventions. If you travel overseas frequently, especially to areas of conflict, you need to know how to avoid danger, evade capture, and, if captured, survive while waiting for extraction.

NATO countries provide basic level Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape (SERE) training to all their deployable forces.

SERE Training Levels

Level A is initial entry-level training that all military personnel — enlisted and officers — receive upon entering the service. It provides a minimum level of understanding of the code of conduct.

Level B is designed for personnel whose "jobs, specialties or assignments entail moderate risk of capture and exploitation." Department of Defense Policy No. 1300.21 lists as examples "members of ground combat units, security forces for high threat targets and anyone in the immediate vicinity of the forward edge of the battle area or the forward line of troops."

Current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown that practically everyone deployed in theater falls under this category. Consequently, the demand for Level-B training has proliferated exponentially and has become mandatory for most deploying forces. Level B is conducted at the unit level through the use of training/support packets containing a series of standardized lesson plans and videos.

Level C is designed for personnel whose "jobs, specialties or assignments entail a significant or high risk of capture and exploitation." According to military directive AR 350-30, "As a minimum, the following categories of personnel shall receive formal Level-C training at least once in their careers: combat aircrews, special operations forces (e.g., navy special warfare combat swimmers and special boat units — i.e., SEALs, Army Special Forces and Rangers, Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance units, Air Force special tactics teams, and psychological operations units) and military attaché."

SERE C-Level Training

The course spans three weeks with three phases of instruction.

Phase One consists of approximately ten days of academic instruction on the code of conduct and in SERE techniques that incorporate both classroom learning and hands-on field craft.

Phase Two is a five-day field training exercise in which the students practice their survival and evasion skills by procuring food and water, constructing fires and shelters, and evading tracker dogs and aggressor forces for long distances.

Phase Three takes place in the resistance-training laboratory, a mock prisoner-of-war camp, where students are tested on their individual and collective abilities to resist interrogation and exploitation and to properly apply the six articles of the code of conduct in a realistic captivity scenario. The course culminates with a day of debriefings in which the students receive individual and group feedback from the instructors. These critiques help students process everything they have been through to solidify the skills they applied properly and to correct areas that need adjustment.

SERE Training Objectives

Within SERE training, every student is taught to understand and practice techniques in the following procedures:

U.S. Navy SERE training is conducted at the navy's remote training site in Warner Springs, California, and in the mountains of Bath, Maine.

Besides teaching survival, SERE is also an advanced code of conduct course. All military personnel get their initial code of conduct instruction during basic training, where they're taught an American service member's legal responsibilities regarding capture by enemy forces. But SERE training goes far beyond that. Because the school is a combination of courses designed for personnel with jobs that entail greater-than-normal risks of being stranded behind enemy lines or captured by enemy forces, students get a deeper insight into the philosophies behind the code.

Article I

• I am an American fighting in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense.

Article II

• I will never surrender of my own free will. If in command, I will never surrender the members of my command while they still have the means to resist.

Article III

• If I am captured, I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and aid others to escape. I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy.

Article IV

• If I become a prisoner of war I will keep faith with my fellow prisoners. I will give no information or take part in any action which might be harmful to my comrades. If I am senior, I will take command. If not, I will obey the lawful orders of those appointed over me, and will back them up in every way.

Article V

• When questioned, should I become a prisoner of war, I am required to give name, rank, service number and date of birth. I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability. I will make no oral or written statements disloyal to my country and its allies or harmful to their cause.

Article VI

• I will never forget that I am an American, fighting for freedom, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country free. I will trust in my God and in the United States of America.

The instruction starts with classroom work and then focuses on real-world applications of the code of conduct. Following the classroom part of the course, students begin to learn methods of avoiding capture by the enemy. Eventually, they are captured and enter resistance and escape training.

The SERE field instructors are highly motivated, well trained, and possess an immense knowledge of the subject. As instructors, they're part naturalist, part guide, part psychologist, and part mentor. Their expertise includes techniques for surviving in the arctic, desert, open ocean, jungle, and mountain regions, in combat and in captivity.

Much of the training at SERE School contains lessons learned by service members who made it back across enemy lines or spent time as prisoners of war. Their experience makes them highly valued advisors.

During the field phase of the course, students are introduced to specific methods of navigation through hostile territory. The rule regarding navigating is twofold. First, you need to figure out how to get where you're going without being spotted. Second, you have to reach specific locations on schedule. With the clock ticking, caution sometimes has to be sacrificed for speed, which can result in close calls.

Survival lessons are interspersed. These include: fire building, trapping, creating shelters, and finding edible plants.

The SERE School Experience

The following are the impressions of an army soldier who completed SERE training.

"Most of the modesty the students brought with them disappears very quickly. When they sleep, they huddle together to stay warm as the temperature dips into the twenties and frost coats their packs. When they're hiking, they know that everyone else is just as hungry and thirsty as they are. Not knowing what is coming next also bonds them. When surprises occur, they must act as a team. There is a chain of command for each group, as well as the entire class. The leaders are doubly challenged, as they are responsible for ensuring their team acts properly, no matter what comes up. When there are lapses in leadership and issues could have been avoided or resolved in the chain of command, the instructors take the group leaders aside later to advise them on appropriate responses."

In his book, In the Company of Heroes, retired 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment pilot CW4 Mike Durant reflected on the SERE training he received at Camp Mackall in the winter of 1988 and the strength it gave him during his eleven-day captivity in Somalia in October 1993: "I came away (from SERE) with tools that I never believed I would ever really need, but even in those first seconds of capture at the crash site in Mogadishu, those lessons would come rushing back at me. Throughout my captivity, I would summon them nearly every hour … I thanked Nick Rowe [Colonel Rowe developed the rigorous Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training program] silently every day, for the lessons I learned in SERE training. I asked that God bless him, as I tried to plan my next move." (Nick Rowe died in 1989.)

Why Do Some Handle Stress Better Than Others?

Even though SERE School was a "theoretical setting," it taught me that some people are better at dealing with the stresses and strains of life than others. Why?

Dr. Andy Morgan of Yale Medical School set out to find a real-world laboratory where he could watch people under incredible stress in reasonably controlled conditions. He found one in southeastern North Carolina at Fort Bragg, home of the Army's elite Airborne and Special Forces. This is where the Army's renowned survival school (their version of Navy SERE school) is located. It's also where they practice something called stress inoculation. Based on the concept of vaccines, soldiers are exposed to pressure and suffering in training in order to build up their immunity. It's a form of psychological conditioning: the more shocks to your system, the more you're able to withstand.

While soldiers are frightened and worn down with sleep deprivation and lack of food, they're also interrogating them using enemy techniques used during World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. The sessions are known to be extremely tough.

For Morgan, POW school was the perfect place to study survival under acute stress. Even though the soldiers understood that they were in training, and, therefore, not in serious danger, Morgan's findings were revealing. During mock interrogations, prisoners' heart rates skyrocketed to more than 170 beats per minute for more than half an hour, even though they weren't engaged in any physical activity. Meanwhile, their bodies pumped more stress hormones than the amounts measured in aviators landing on aircraft carriers, troops awaiting ambushes in Vietnam, skydivers taking the plunge, or patients awaiting major surgery. The levels of stress hormones measured were sufficient to turn off the immune system and produce a catabolic state, in which the body starts to break down and feed on itself.

Morgan's research (which was the first of its kind) produced some fascinating findings in terms of what types of soldiers most successfully resisted the interrogators and stayed focused. Morgan examined two different groups going throughout this training: regular army troops and elite special forces soldiers, who are known to be especially "stress hardy" or cool under pressure. At the start, the two groups were essentially the same. But once the stress began, he saw significant differences. Specifically, the two groups released very different amounts of a chemical in the brain called neuropeptide Y (NPY). NPY is an amino acid produced by our bodies that helps regulate blood pressure, appetite, learning, and memory. It also works as a natural tranquilizer, controlling anxiety and buffering the effects of stress hormones like norepinephrine — also known as adrenaline. In essence, NPY is used by the brain to block alarm and fear responses and keep the frontal lobe working under stress.

(Continues…)


Excerpted from "The U.S. Navy Seal Survival Handbook"
by .
Copyright © 2012 Don Mann and Ralph Pezzullo.
Excerpted by permission of Skyhorse Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

Introduction,
Chapter One — SEAL/SERE Training,
Chapter Two — The Elements of Survival,
Chapter Three — Jungle Survival,
Chapter Four — Mountain and Arctic Survival,
Chapter Five — Desert Survival,
Chapter Six — Survival at Sea,
Chapter Seven — Basic Survival Tips,
Chapter Eight — Water,
Chapter Nine — Shelter and Fire,
Chapter Ten — Food and Hunting,
Chapter Eleven — Weather,
Chapter Twelve — Navigation,
Chapter Thirteen — Survival Medicine,
Chapter Fourteen — Survival Kits,
Chapter Fifteen — The Mystery of Survival,
Acknowledgments,
Photo Credits,

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