After doing CST, I realized I am very interested in being a SERE Specialist and I feel like it is what I am built for. However, after doing research, it seems as though it is only enlisted people. Is this true, and if so, would it be crazy to drop out of usafa to enlist to potentially become one?
SERE Program
- Thread starter Falcon134
- Start date
Yes. It be
I would encourage you to consider working to become an officer that could work with SERE specialists. I believe they work closely with Combat Rescue Officers(i.e. that's who there flight or squadron commander) would be. You could get in touch with one of the CROs at USAFA and look into that further. Feel free to send me a pm and I can get you in touch with one of them.
Agree with talking to officers at USAFA. They can provide info on the best paths to getting stationed at SERE. Even as a CRO you wouldn’t spend your career at one of these schools, but would spend a good part of your career around it. These schools definitely need and have officers, so there are opportunities to be stationed at them.
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Do you want to be a leader (strategic planning, decision-making, team-building, big picture, risk management, analytical thinking, etc.) or a technical expert (hands-on, deep tech expertise in the field, small group leadership, valued member of a team before eventually gaining larger leadership roles, problem-solver, field expertise, etc.)? In the best, high-performing military organizations, officers and enlisted personnel work in complementary ways that produce a synergistic effect, rooted in mutual respect and appreciation for the other’s role. Both groups are critical to operational success; neither is “lesser.” The officer is accountable and responsible for his or her people, gear and overall mission performance, and expected to move upward in rank with increasing responsibility. Enlisted personnel become masters of their professional specialty, and become leaders, as we say in the Navy, at the deckplate level. Both are honorable and valuable ways to serve.
I’m thinking you are drawn to the action-oriented nature of the SERE Specialty. Think about who you are and what you want in the long run. Do you want to start at the lowest rung of the ladder and be the technical expert or lead teams of those people?
As for practical matters, go to the DFAS website and look up the pay tables for O-1 officer under 2 years of service and E-1 to E-3 under 2 years of service, monthly base pay. Look at the monthly BAH rates. Your budget, for many years, would be extremely tight. As another poster pointed out, there is no guarantee you would get this field, unless your enlistment contract specified it AND you met all the criteria. You have been at USAFA long enough to know the needs of the Air Force drive all. If they are short of airplane mechanics, and have a fat pipeline of incoming SERE specialists, all those STEM strengths that got you into USAFA will be highly valued in other specialties, and you’ll be placed where needed. As for college education, you are essentially stalling your undergraduate degree until you can restart it via one of the AF’s many fine programs for enlisted education. You may not be able to pick up on that again for awhile, and then it may be distance learning or after-hours night classes. You will not have a USAFA degree glowing on your wall. Look way down the road to where you would be a civilian again - it happens to all of us - and how you see yourself in the private sector. Difficult, I know, but choices today have secondary, tertiary and lifelong impacts.
I had a HS friend whose year-younger brother was a very smart, capable guy, could easily have gone to a top college, especially a top tech school, but he had grown up around small boats, with a dad who was a small arms instructor at the local FLETC compound as well as a champion skeet shooter, who was a record-setter on the HS swim team, and loved to go camping and hiking and scuba diving - did the Appalachian Trail in sections with his dad. He enlisted in the Navy, became a SEAL and retired as a highly decorated Navy Master Chief (E-9). Somewhere along the way, he completed his degree and then used his VA educational benefits to gain a Master’s, and is now working for a 3-letter federal agency. He knew who he was and how he wanted to spend his working life, understanding there would be trade-offs that would impact his life. Do you know who you are? Do your research, think 360 degrees around this, and find your path.
I’m thinking you are drawn to the action-oriented nature of the SERE Specialty. Think about who you are and what you want in the long run. Do you want to start at the lowest rung of the ladder and be the technical expert or lead teams of those people?
As for practical matters, go to the DFAS website and look up the pay tables for O-1 officer under 2 years of service and E-1 to E-3 under 2 years of service, monthly base pay. Look at the monthly BAH rates. Your budget, for many years, would be extremely tight. As another poster pointed out, there is no guarantee you would get this field, unless your enlistment contract specified it AND you met all the criteria. You have been at USAFA long enough to know the needs of the Air Force drive all. If they are short of airplane mechanics, and have a fat pipeline of incoming SERE specialists, all those STEM strengths that got you into USAFA will be highly valued in other specialties, and you’ll be placed where needed. As for college education, you are essentially stalling your undergraduate degree until you can restart it via one of the AF’s many fine programs for enlisted education. You may not be able to pick up on that again for awhile, and then it may be distance learning or after-hours night classes. You will not have a USAFA degree glowing on your wall. Look way down the road to where you would be a civilian again - it happens to all of us - and how you see yourself in the private sector. Difficult, I know, but choices today have secondary, tertiary and lifelong impacts.
I had a HS friend whose year-younger brother was a very smart, capable guy, could easily have gone to a top college, especially a top tech school, but he had grown up around small boats, with a dad who was a small arms instructor at the local FLETC compound as well as a champion skeet shooter, who was a record-setter on the HS swim team, and loved to go camping and hiking and scuba diving - did the Appalachian Trail in sections with his dad. He enlisted in the Navy, became a SEAL and retired as a highly decorated Navy Master Chief (E-9). Somewhere along the way, he completed his degree and then used his VA educational benefits to gain a Master’s, and is now working for a 3-letter federal agency. He knew who he was and how he wanted to spend his working life, understanding there would be trade-offs that would impact his life. Do you know who you are? Do your research, think 360 degrees around this, and find your path.
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Thank you, shipmate.
It has been awhile, but as a squadron intel officer (with AFSOC) back in the day, I was fortunate to work with our in-house SERE experts pretty often. We devised training scenarios for the aircrew - to include collecting them after a training flight and depositing them in the jungle for SERE training (think survival and evasion practice). I was scheduled to go to SERE school before I separated and passed the slot on to my replacement (I regret not getting that experience). So, maybe consider an intel assignment and go into with a SERE mindset to incorporate that training into your day-to-day aircrew interactions. You may not be able to teach them how to eat bugs and snakes, but there are a lot of SERE aspects to the squadron-level intel job. Also, request AFSOC on your dream sheet and you can work with the CCT/Special Warfare community as well.