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Basic training

GUTTERRATTGUTTERRATT Member Posts: 18 ✭✭
edited October 2009 in US Military Veteran Forum
My oldest son, 42 years old, will graduate from basic at Ft. Knox on 2 Oct. I am going to try and be there but I fly in from AK to Huntsville at noon on the 1st so I am going to have to make tracks to make it.[^]
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  • GUTTERRATTGUTTERRATT Member Posts: 18 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    I watched a movie called tigerland the other day and what I was wondering is if they actually had pow basic training they subjected you guys to before they shipped you out. Was there a real tigerland ? I mean no disrespect to any POWs or any who served I just want to know

    Thanks
    Bob M.
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  • Old-ColtsOld-Colts Member Posts: 22,697 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I've never seen that movie, so I can not comment on it's content or accuracy. However; Pilots, Aircrew, and Special Operations personnel go through Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) School. This school is mandatory for anyone that is subject to capture as a result of flying or performing special operations in a war or combat zone. The final phase of that school is the Compound phase where you are a POW; this phase comes right after the evasion phase where you try to evade your captures and make it to a place called Freedom Village. However, even if you evade you go into the compound. If you are captured on the evasion course you will be subjected to stressful interrogation techniques and in the compound phase you are treated like a POW and subjected to everything you can imagine a POW would be subjected to including stressful interrogation methods. I went through SERE in early 1971 prior to deploying to Vietnam.

    If you can't feel the music; it's only pink noise!

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  • PaddiegruntPaddiegrunt Member Posts: 20 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    In 1967 while at AIT at Fort Gordan before I went to Nam, I had a Class and field exercise on escape and evade, it was very rudamentory.
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  • Jim RauJim Rau Member Posts: 3,550
    edited November -1
    Tigerland was at Ft. Polk. Infantry AIT. I was was at Polk but did not go to 11B AIT. I did do some RVN orentation trainging there though.
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  • 11echo11echo Member Posts: 1,007 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    I had basic at Ft. Ord in 73, and we had a POW training there. I don't remember if it was called "tigerland", but it wasn't fun! As I remember we were out most of the day learning what to do if were captured and then escaped ...how to live off the land, how to hide, best ways to be comfortable in the field ...etc. Then about 5pm (normal time you packed it in to head for the chow line) we were called to formation, but none of the D.I.s were there. After a bit of uneasiness (we had heard all about what was going to happen from other recruits) some big flood light came on an over a P.A. system a voice announced we were "prisoners of war"! They divided us up in about 3 squad size platoons and proceeded to PT the h*ll out of us! Then later had "monitors" asking to sign documents about how we were being abused. I as so remember the D.I.s give names of people that had been give then trouble during basic so they were called out for "special treatment"! *G* Then about 10 pm they drug you out to an open field and turned you loose, me about about 200 other guys. Then we were suppose to evade the enemy and make it back to our "lines". IF you were dumb enough to get captured again they'd PT you to death again ...afew guys got caught. The enemy really didn't try that hard to get you so you had to walk into there arms to be re-captured. We were back in the barracks by 1:30 am . AND that was it. I believe the Army introduced this training back in 68 or so to give the U.S. soldiers an idea of what could happen and how to deal with it, this was stemmed from the Viet Nam war at the time.
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  • joker19joker19 Member Posts: 110 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    Yes Tigerland was at Ft. Polk LA. where all of us Warrant Officer Candidate pilots went for basic. It was fairly realistic and yes survival training was in the cards for us. I was a UH-1C gunship pilot for the 282nd Alleycats (Blackcat) and then for the 48th AHC Joker guns (Bluestars) both in I Corps (Da Nang and Dong Ha)
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  • Eagle_ViewEagle_View Member Posts: 11 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    Fort Lewis Spring '68 11B AIT had a E&E course, a full day of training, PT and moving from place to place. We were then given a general direction to travel through the underbrush of Fort lewis's Backyard to a safe haven. We moved out in small groups as it was getting dark. There were roads crossing our routes and patroled by OPTFORCE units and war dog handlers. They caught most of us and we were then marched to a POW camp paved with large rocks and fenced 8 feet high topped with razor wir. The 2 fences contained guard dogs on patrol. We were made to low crawl around the inside of the inner fense with sandbags on our back. Every once in awhile they would jerk someone out and put them in an interigation room in a weird chair that strap you there while they scream and hit rubber hoses near you. There also was a mud pit that they made some guys crawl through. It was suposed to be filled with blood and guts froma local slaughter house but I did not have to crawl through that. I got the hot seat. One of the DIs thrust a small Garter Snake in my face and i bit it's head off. They took me to the holding bus right after that. It was good training and sure made you want to avoid getting captured and almost any cost.

    Eagle
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  • perry shooterperry shooter Member Posts: 17,105 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I was in 25 Div. in Hawaii when the div got orders to go to Nam Every one got Jungle training this Included Pow Camp and marching on your knees Tiger cages ETC The guards were Oriental . it seemed VERY REAL.
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  • River RatRiver Rat Member Posts: 9,022 ✭
    edited November -1
    I went to a very compressed version of SERE school, north of Mare Island CA. This was in conjunction with the Naval Inshore/Outshore Training Command (NIOTC). Not what I would call stressful, but those were hurried times.
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  • Brownbomber2Brownbomber2 Member Posts: 1 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    Tigerland was the nickname for Ft. Polk, Louisiana. It is where I did A.I.T. (advanced infantry training). For most guys the next stop was Vietnam.
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  • Fighto109Fighto109 Member Posts: 7 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    I had basic at Fort Dix, NJ, AIT at Fort Lewis, had Recondo at Central city Co. - in the Recondo training we had a 26 mile compass course, and escape and evasion. (it had a capture compound and all the frills),got a update on recon in Nam.
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  • 70-10170-101 Member Posts: 1,006 ✭
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by Paddiegrunt
    In 1967 while at AIT at Fort Gordan before I went to Nam, I had a Class and field exercise on escape and evade, it was very rudamentory.


    Camp Crockett no doubt..[8D]
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  • 70-10170-101 Member Posts: 1,006 ✭
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by GUTTERRATT
    I watched a movie called tigerland the other day and what I was wondering is if they actually had pow basic training they subjected you guys to before they shipped you out. Was there a real tigerland ? I mean no disrespect to any POWs or any who served I just want to know

    Thanks
    Bob M.



    They touched on escape and invasion and what to do if captured if you had an 11-B MOS, during AIT; but very little in basic. In Vietnam the 101st., and I'm sure numerous other infantry units had a one week in country referser course that was called Charm School. Which covered most of the crtitical things you'd needed to know to get you through your first few weeks being in the field.

    And additional questions on operational procedures or rules after your training was completed you asked your buddy or squad leader, because some rules varied, according to your CO.[8D]
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  • nc huntrnc huntr Member Posts: 11 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    I went thru the last cycle of basic at Ft Bragg. What trip that was moving racks, wall and foot locker to supply
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