The Corps is streamlining how it prepares deploying Marines in survival skills and evading capture by potential hostile forces in order to reduce a training burden.
Deploying military and Defense Department personnel are required to complete the appropriate level of survival, evasion, resistance and escape, or SERE, and Code of Conduct training before deploying overseas. For many, SERE Level A training meets the minimum threshold for troops to operate in all combatant commands across the globe.
To reduce the burden on the Corps, Marines preparing to deploy can now complete that basic requirement with a new SERE Level A Training Support Package, or TSP, in lieu of the computer-based course that can take upward of six hours to complete, according to a recent MARADMIN posted Wednesday.
The new TSP SERE training “enables deploying units to self-train SERE Level A in an instructor guided group setting,” the MARADMIN reads.
Before, Marines needing to complete this requirement had to finish a lengthy online course called SERE 100.2 that the Corps described in the MARADMIN as “problematic for large units and units with limited home station computer access and limited bandwidth situations.”
To alleviate this training burden Marine Corps Training and Education Command, or TECOM, teamed up with U.S. Army Forces Command and the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency to develop the new SERE TSP.
There are various levels of SERE training and military personnel only need to attend the appropriate level of course based on their potential risk of being captured by hostile forces. Level A is considered basic, while Level C is generally for special operations forces and aviation.
Because TSP is an instructor-driven course, TECOM recommends two instructors, a primary and an assistant to teach the course materials. TECOM also recommends that the instructor be a staff non-commissioned officer or officer with deployment experience and SERE Level C graduate.
“Deploying units can also request instructor support from the Marine Detachments at Navy SERE School East or West,” according to the MARADMIN.
Both SERE 100.2 and SERE TSP are viable options and commanders can choose the choose the best option that supports their unit.
Shawn Snow is the senior reporter for Marine Corps Times and a Marine Corps veteran.
