U.S. Navy SERE School (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) where you’re taught how to survive and escape enemy territory

The USN Center for Security Forces (CENSECFOR) of the Naval Education and Training Command (NETC) at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek–Fort Story promulgates the Navy’s SERE training.

SERE training is where you learn how to survive in enemy territory and how to escape if captured.

The major Navy SERE schools and courses include:

1. The Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) School (A-2D-4635 or E-2D-0039) at CENSECFOR Detachment SERE East, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, New Hampshire offers several SERE courses including the outdoor/field course at the Navy Remote Training Site, Kittery, Maine, a “Risk of Isolation Brief” course, and the SERE Instructor Under Training course. The school employs approximately 100 military and civilian personnel and trains an average of 1,200 students per year.
2. Cold Weather Environmental Survival Training (CWEST) at Rangeley, Maine – the US Navy’s only cold weather survival school.
3. The Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) School (A-2D-4635 or E-2D-0039) at CENSECFOR Detachment SERE West, Naval Air Station North Island, California provides all levels of “Code of Conduct” training for Recon Marines, Marine Corps Scout Snipers, MARSOC Marines, Navy SEALs, enlisted Navy and Marine aircrewmen, Naval Aviators, Naval Flight Officers, Naval Flight Surgeons, Navy EOD, and Navy SWCC. The school operates the Navy Remote Training Site at Warner Springs where soldiers learn basic skills necessary for worldwide survival, facilitating search and rescue efforts, and evading capture by hostile forces. Additional Level C Code of Conduct training includes a five-day Peacetime Detention and Hostage Survival (PDAHS) course providing skills to survive captivity by a hostile government or terrorist cell during peacetime.
4. Recruit Training Command’s Water Survival Division at Naval Station Great Lakes (NAVSTA Great Lakes), Illinois offers introductory survival training including: basic sea survival training; lifeboat organization, survival kit contents and usage, abandon ship procedures, and swim qualification (3rd class).
5. Naval Special Warfare (NSW) SERE (K-431-0400), Naval Special Warfare Center, Coronado, California (mostly classified personnel recovery TTPs).
6. Naval Aviation Survival Training Centers: The Navy operates 8 water survival training centers for its aviators (Miramar, Jacksonville, Norfolk, Cherry Point, Pensacola, Patuxent River, Lemorre, and Whidbey Island). NASTC “provides and meets the aviation survival and safety requirements of all Naval Aviation and DoD activities. Through didactic classroom or squadron lectures, simulator devices and a curriculum that emphasizes hands-on exposure to survival skills, we offer the best survival training available to the Fleet.”
7. Naval Special Warfare Advanced Training Command (NSWATC) courses (4) providing advanced training related to SERE and Personnel Recovery (PR) to Naval Special Warfare (NSW) trainees (SEAL/Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewman pipeline students and Combat Support/Combat Service Support (CS/CSS) personnel) and other select groups at Kodiak, Alaska and Virginia Beach, Virginia.