An Cosantóir

www.military.ie the defence forces magazine | 17 With the help of such qualified and experienced person- nel, the syllabus for the 1st Survival Instructors Course was written and the course was successfully conducted in 2007. As the course developed it was renamed the SERE Instructors course and nine have been conducted to date with the tenth due to be conducted in October. SERE training blocks were also added to the three-star, po- tential NCO, standard NCO, sniper, and recce course syllabi. The deployment of Defence Forces personnel to Chad saw the first operational tasking for MTS SERE instructors who conducted a recce to assess the en- vironment in Chad. The School then conducted pre- deployment training for troops during subsequent MREs that included environmental briefs, conduct after capture and rescue signal activation training. The training conducted in the Arctic and recces in Chad led to the awareness that different climates present unique challenges that require specific equipment, techniques and knowledge. J7 facilitated requests from MTS to further the cause by sending instructors on the RAF's jungle survival course in Belize and to the Arizona desert with the US Air Force on a massive exercise called 'Angel Thunder'. The experience and qualifications gained at Angel Thunder developed the focus of our SERE programme towards the 'extraction' element of SERE in the form of joint personnel recovery (JPR), which has since shaped Defence Forces operations overseas. The concept of JPR is to locate personnel identified as isolated, captured or missing and recover and reintegrate them until they return to normal duties. SERE is the founda- tion of any JPR capability and is where troops learn how to facilitate their own extraction. This is achieved by training all our troops how to activate their evasion plan of action; get to a designated location; conduct themselves through- out the rescue; and alert rescue teams, with or without comms, if they have been compromised and are under du- ress, to prevent the rescue team being led into an ambush. The effectiveness and speed of JPR is far greater than conventional means of search and rescue, as there is a focused effort from the isolated person to carry out a rehearsed set of procedures laid down in the evasion plan of action that can be predicted by rescue crews. There is also enhanced safety due to the ability of the person being rescued to use ground-to-air signals to warn an approaching rescue aircraft or Mowag of danger. The MTS continues to develop the Defence Forces' SERE and personnel recovery programme and qualify instructors through the SERE Instructors course and concentrations. This handful of instructors in the small school in the corner of Casement Aerodrome have seen their hobby develop from rubbing sticks together to make fire to shaping cur- rent operations in UNDOF and UNIFIL for the benefit and safety of Defence Forces personnel. This new capability has also raised the profile and relevance of the Air Corps in the planning and training for land-based operations overseas. www.military.ie the defence forces magazine | 17

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