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Survival training prepares Travis Airmen

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Timothy Boyer
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  Mission success has been the norm at Travis over the past several years. With excellent ratings in exercises and award-winning teams in nearly every squadron, Travis is known for providing top-notch global mobility. However, a piece of being successful is preparing for when things do not go right.

Several Travis aircrew members received survival training Tuesday at an undisclosed location.

The survival training is one piece of the Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape program, and is focused on preparing survival students for if and when an isolating event occurs, said one survival instructor.

"The ultimate goal is to prepare them for any situation so they can survive it and return with honor," said another instructor.

Every Airman is a valuable asset to the Air Force, and our job is to help protect them by equipping them with the knowledge and skills they need for survival, the first instructor said. The skills can also be valuable in their personal lives too.

"When I was snow boarding, I used the survival techniques to stabilize someone's broken hip," the second instructor said. "I increased his layers for warmth and monitored his vitals until ski patrol came."

The survival training included self-defense techniques such as where to strike an opponent and how to avoid injury.

The training also included specialized training to teach the students to survive if they have to ditch in the ocean, an instructor said.

They used a training pool to practice climbing into a large life raft. Once in the raft, an instructor reviewed the survival tools available on the raft, catching food and finding shade with what are available.

The water training included unclipping a parachute safely and getting out from under it when they land in the water.

"We need to practice getting out from under a parachute," one instructor said. "People often panic when one lands on them because it tends to stick to their face."

This training is very important because real situations happen every day, and when they do, we want to be prepared, said a survival training student.

"The water training is really important to Travis because we do a lot of flying over the Pacific," he said.