By John K. Wiley
Associated Press
COLVILLE NATIONAL FOREST – First Lt. Mike Gommel could soon be flying a U.S. Air Force B-1 bomber 30,000 feet above Afghanistan, but for now, he’s got more down-to-earth concerns.
“Yesterday, we had a worm. It wasn’t too bad,” the 26-year-old co-pilot said as he and four others built a shelter using logs and a parachute in the Colville National Forest of eastern Washington.
Gommel is among 72 officers and air crew members going through a 17-day Air Force Survival School course that teaches them what to do when things go wrong.
Many of the pilots flying missions for the war in Afghanistan are graduates of the program, which is frequently required to qualify to fly combat aircraft.
The course duplicates what a downed pilot or crewmember might expect to find after bailing out of a crippled aircraft. The menu is sparse, but varied for the six days students are out in the mountains of the Colville and Kaniksu national forests.
“We’ve eaten some worms. I understand there’s some good stuff coming up, like rabbit tonight,” said Gommel, a Las Vegas native. “Worms taste like dirt. Ants taste like lemon drops, and termites are kind of bitter.”
Instructors teach troops how to find drinkable water, edible plants and animals, build shelters and fires.
The survival school at Fairchild Air Force Base – about 70 miles south of this wet and dark forest – trains 3,500 air crew members a year, mostly from the Air Force.
Former Air Force Capt. Scott O’Grady is a successful graduate. When his F-16 fighter was shot down in Bosnia in 1995, he used what he learned – including eating bugs – to evade capture for six days before he was rescued.
Students also learn what to do if they are captured.
Course graduate Capt. Dale Storr, a prisoner of Iraqi forces for more than a month after his A10-A “Warthog” was shot down during Operation Desert Storm in 1991, has returned to brief survival school instructors on what pilots could expect as POWs.
The resistance and escape portions of the course are classified, but Col. Craig Jensen, survival school commander, said World War II prisoners of war have come to the school to see the mock POW camp and to share their experiences.
The Fairchild school – the 336th Training Group – also has detachments in Alaska, for Arctic survival training, and in Florida, for tropical training and for pilots and crew members of ejection seat aircraft.
Because airborne surveillance planes and satellites can pinpoint downed planes, most downed crews can expect just a short period of discomfort before being rescued, Tech. Sgt. Peter Kordelski tells a group of about 50 students before they board a mock-up of a transport plane to be dunked in the swimming pool.
“This is the new millennium,” he said. “I’m thinking, if you’ve been out there for 24 hours, then you’ve been out there too long, or we lost the war.”
Still, the classes stress techniques for surviving long-term periods away from base.
Much of the outdoor segment is dedicated to finding their way around and evading enemy forces using tactics such as rolling across railroad tracks and crawling through culverts to avoid detection.
“We take what the mountain men and the voyageurs all used and adapt that to modern times,” Sgt. Chip Willman, supervisor of training, said.
Established at Fairchild in 1966 after previous combat crew schools closed in Colorado and Nevada, the survival school gives students skills they may never have to use.
“I’ve had students who have never seen a tree before, other than in Central Park,” said Sgt. Tom Bonsant, who runs the outdoor school. “What we’re trying to do is to give them the confidence that, should it be needed, they’ll say, ‘I’ve done this before,’ “
Gommel will return to Dyess AFB in Texas where he will qualify to fly combat missions after his course ends next week. He could be deployed to Afghanistan, so what he learns here is meaningful, Gommel said.
“It’s something you want to do well, but you hope you never have to use it,” Gommel said.
Copyright ©2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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