Yeah it fucking sucked. I don’t necessarily disagree with how or why they did it though.
It taught you that no matter how tough you are, everyone breaks. Nobody made it through that scenario without saying whatever they told you to say. You are to resist as much as you can but it is not worth your life.
So as a tool to demonstrate that everyone has a breaking point, it was very effective. But as a method for actual intelligence gathering, torture has and always will be notoriously unreliable, and in my opinion, not worth the ethical sacrifice.
I thought the Army had their own version of SERE.
You’ll like this story. I was a helicopter crewman off the Kitty Hawk when 911 happened.
They kicked off most of the airwing. The kept a few of us helos, some hornets, and some S-3’s (for refueling).
Then we took on a bunch of Rangers and Delta, and turned us into an Army Carrier. Then straight to hanging out just barely in international waters outside of Iran/Pakistan.
It was 75% Chinooks and Blackhawks. No rotor brakes or folding rotor heads. No real carrier landing quals, and half the hand signal were different. But we made it work.
We had to give up our Ready Room and some other “primo” spaces to “Task Force Sword”, but post 9/11, there was zero inter service rivalry. It was all, “what does the mission require.” and “What do you need from us?”
Our Aircrew shop was next to the Ready Room and it only took a day for a couple of the operators to realize we had Unreal Tournament. So our shop became a common rest stop between missions.
I’m fully aware everyone can be broken. It has caused me a few hypothetical crises of conscience thinking about if there’s even any point to trying to resist.
The Army has their own SERE school, but my unit didn’t send me there. I spent my whole time in the Army at peace, so I was never deployed. I got a Desert Storm ribbon because we were technically still there, but not really. That was just a freebie for me.
I actually received activation for wartime duty orders because of 9/11, but I had ETS’ed the prior month. Their activation system wasn’t up-to-date with their ETS system, so they just called it a computer glitch and I didn’t deploy or anything. I was already honorably discharged anyways. I honestly thought about re-enlisting after that, because you know we were all pretty ready for some payback (whatever that meant back then), but I had a new baby, so I decided against it. My hearing was shit by then anyways, so I probably wouldn’t have made it past the MEPS.
Anyways, I had a good time in the Army, and enjoyed working on helicopters.
Ha! That guy was a genuine badass, and they didn’t know how to deal with it.
I was a helicopter crewman too, but they never sent me through anything like that. I was Army though.
Is water boarding as bad as they say it is in the news?
Yeah it fucking sucked. I don’t necessarily disagree with how or why they did it though.
It taught you that no matter how tough you are, everyone breaks. Nobody made it through that scenario without saying whatever they told you to say. You are to resist as much as you can but it is not worth your life.
So as a tool to demonstrate that everyone has a breaking point, it was very effective. But as a method for actual intelligence gathering, torture has and always will be notoriously unreliable, and in my opinion, not worth the ethical sacrifice.
I thought the Army had their own version of SERE.
You’ll like this story. I was a helicopter crewman off the Kitty Hawk when 911 happened.
They kicked off most of the airwing. The kept a few of us helos, some hornets, and some S-3’s (for refueling).
Then we took on a bunch of Rangers and Delta, and turned us into an Army Carrier. Then straight to hanging out just barely in international waters outside of Iran/Pakistan.
It was 75% Chinooks and Blackhawks. No rotor brakes or folding rotor heads. No real carrier landing quals, and half the hand signal were different. But we made it work.
We had to give up our Ready Room and some other “primo” spaces to “Task Force Sword”, but post 9/11, there was zero inter service rivalry. It was all, “what does the mission require.” and “What do you need from us?”
Our Aircrew shop was next to the Ready Room and it only took a day for a couple of the operators to realize we had Unreal Tournament. So our shop became a common rest stop between missions.
Man that was a crazy deployment.
That sounds like a wild adventure!
I’m fully aware everyone can be broken. It has caused me a few hypothetical crises of conscience thinking about if there’s even any point to trying to resist.
The Army has their own SERE school, but my unit didn’t send me there. I spent my whole time in the Army at peace, so I was never deployed. I got a Desert Storm ribbon because we were technically still there, but not really. That was just a freebie for me.
I actually received activation for wartime duty orders because of 9/11, but I had ETS’ed the prior month. Their activation system wasn’t up-to-date with their ETS system, so they just called it a computer glitch and I didn’t deploy or anything. I was already honorably discharged anyways. I honestly thought about re-enlisting after that, because you know we were all pretty ready for some payback (whatever that meant back then), but I had a new baby, so I decided against it. My hearing was shit by then anyways, so I probably wouldn’t have made it past the MEPS.
Anyways, I had a good time in the Army, and enjoyed working on helicopters.