pilot / aircrew escape & evasion training

[tom d. friedman]

i'm currently reading a book about a vietnam era cobra chopper pilot's vietnam combat experience. in the book he mentions escape & evasion training. naturally, they dump you in the boondocks, with rudimentary survival aids, that's a no brainer. what really provokes my curiosity is the fact they gave the trainees a live rabbit or chicken to kill while on the exercise, for sustenance, & probably toughen the pilots up to get them to prepare live food. i recently read another book about an f-105 pilot's nam experience too, & he to naturally took escape & evasion training as well. he to mentioned the issue of a chicken or rabbit to kill while training too. my question is, does this facet of training still exist today with current pilot / air crew escape & evasion training??? i'm just wondering because if so i wonder why peta, & other animal rights activists aren't bitching about it. i'm not a tree hugger, & i believe 1st class training for our troops is top priority. these animals, while they are low on the food chain are expendable for this type of thing, & is not an issue for me. but i'd figure if this training facet still exists it draws the ire from plenty of civilians.

[b29flteng]

I went through E&E training with the USAF in January 1990, north of Spokane WA. They put us in the boonies with a live rabbit, some potatos, onions, for a group of 8 or 9 guys, along with 2 MREs apiece, and 2 small very lean steaks for smoking purposes. We were out there for 6 days burning about 5,000 calories a day, I lost about 10-15 pounds. We killed and skinned the rabbit about the third day. Fortunately we had an avid hunter that knew how to cook. We smoked the steaks for about three days, it wasn't very good. I kept the MREs until the last two days before eating them. Throughout the whole training they kept telling us "If you want to get rescued, just kill a baby seal and Greenpeace will be there in about 15 minutes"!!! When we got back to Fairchild AFB, one of our group invited us all over to his house for chilli and his son showed his pet hamster to us and all I could think of was it wasn't much to eat. You get over the revulsion of eating almost anything real quick when your hungry. Not many civilians know about the E&E training. One more thing about it, we were "tortured" worse than any of the terrorists in "Gitmo". All it did was make us angry and not want to "spill the beans".

[tom d. friedman]

who was the poor chump that had to hump around the bunny in the cage??? did you learn from it?? i know you suffered!!! was it worth it??? thanks for relating the experience.

[HogDriver44]

*Slightly descriptive entry. Do not read if you are squeamish*

I also went though the AF survival training at Fairchild AFB, in December 1987. There was a foot of snow on the ground at the time, and for two days, they let us try to catch something ourselves before relenting and giving us a nice little fluffy bunny. We stared at it for about 24 hours before disapatching it and eating it.

During the meal preparation, the enlisted instructor mentioned that he was going to show us a way to increase our salt intake while surviving in the wilderness. Apparently, occular fluid is full of it. He cleaned and ate one of the *ahem* eyeballs, then asked who'd like to try the other. We all tried to become invisible. Perhaps I wasn't as good at being invisible as the others, because I was picked to do it. It was... very salty. I don't recall being given any onions or potatoes to round out the meal, but I do remember trying to make beef jerky out of some pathetic strips of beef. It didn't work out so well, but we ate it anyway.

On Day Four, someone caught a small squirrel. Let me tell you, ten guys crowded around a campfire, looking at a miniscule squirrel-steak and licking their lips, is pretty funny.

I think PETA would have had a difficult time protesting my Air Force survival training group. We would have tried to cook and eat the protesters. We were a hungry lot.

[T33driver]

*Slightly descriptive entry. Do not read if you are squeamish*

I also went though the AF survival training at Fairchild AFB, in December 1987. There was a foot of snow on the ground at the time, and for two days, they let us try to catch something ourselves before relenting and giving us a nice little fluffy bunny. We stared at it for about 24 hours before disapatching it and eating it.

During the meal preparation, the enlisted instructor mentioned that he was going to show us a way to increase our salt intake while surviving in the wilderness. Apparently, occular fluid is full of it. He cleaned and ate one of the *ahem* eyeballs, then asked who'd like to try the other. We all tried to become invisible. Perhaps I wasn't as good at being invisible as the others, because I was picked to do it. It was... very salty. I don't recall being given any onions or potatoes to round out the meal, but I do remember trying to make beef jerky out of some pathetic strips of beef. It didn't work out so well, but we ate it anyway.

On Day Four, someone caught a small squirrel. Let me tell you, ten guys crowded around a campfire, looking at a miniscule squirrel-steak and licking their lips, is pretty funny.

I think PETA would have had a difficult time protesting my Air Force survival training group. We would have tried to cook and eat the protesters. We were a hungry lot.

Thump it and muck it! (kill it and eat it) I was lucky to have squeamish types in my E&E element out in the wilderness at Fairchild's "Beatings 101" so I filled up on grilled bunny and ate whatever they said was edible...got proficient with snowshoes and got any desire to camp outside a 35' RV out of my system.

[Stratofortressflyer]

I went in June of 2005 and not only did we get a rabbit, we got a duck to. We had a young airmen hold onto each one and then we dug holes into the ground to keep them. Then it was a quick whack and some knife work and we had dinner. I would say its pretty important for overcoming what the survival folks call "food aversion" beacuse its usually something we would never eat. For example, eat a few ants, they taste like lemons!

As for cruelty to animals, its the same animals that are killed for meals at a resturant, except its the students that do the killing.

[Craig59]

I went through in January/February of 1984 and yes, we had a rabbit for supper one night. I remember the eyeball mucking too. I was fortunate enough to catch a four inch trout. Man! The little sliver of that fish shared with everyone in the group wasn't much but, it sure was tasty!

[Forgotten Field]

There are going to be some starving soldiers out there if it ever really hits the fan. Because of this, once in a while, the US Army decides that its soldiers need survival training. Tasked to teach it, I was given a rabbit, a chicken, and a goose. I can understand why people are squeamish about killing an animal. I can understand an aversion about touching raw meat that you were squeamish about killing in the first place. But as for knowing anything about anatomy, these people will die before they find something to eat. Only one of the group I had knew the first bit about what parts are inside an animal. I merely wanted them to understand that they needed to pull the humbles out when carrying game meat, as that would rot the meat faster. I surgically dissected the rabbit to show them the ropes (of intestines- I'm so funny) and then asked them to do the same with the chicken and goose. You would have thought I told them to construct an atomic bomb. Only a few of them figured it out. I think too many people in the US are eating pre-prepared food. Maybe there's a reason they call them "Hungry Man."

I did the class back in the day when women would have mounds of stuffed animals in the rear deck of their car. The one African-American female E-5 in the class had that car. I managed to walk up next to her car and gave this leering look into the back seat. She didn't miss a beat, and said "Don't touch any of them, you sicko." I guess biting the head off the chicken made its impression.

All that said, I am not a hunter and love animals. But I think training like this is absolutely necessary for military personnel, and should be given once a year, with instruction courses for NCO's and officers mandatory.