Mastery of Resilience: SERE Specialists Micah Gillette and Steven Drakes on Surviving and Thriving

Embark on a mission through the tough terrains of mental and physical survival with SERE specialists Micah Gillette and Steven Drakes. Their tales of resilience in the face of adversity guarantee to equip you with an arsenal of strategies for life's most demanding battles. From their gripping narratives of military Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape training to their seamless transition into civilian life, these veterans bestow upon us their hard-earned wisdom. Discover the apps and podcasts they swear by, and get a glimpse into the rigorous seasonal training that shapes the indomitable spirit of our forces.

Join us as we dissect the mental fortitude and fitness regimes that Micah and Steven advocate, vital not only on the battlefield but in our daily lives. Hear them recount the motivations behind their Air Force careers and the satisfaction in preparing others to endure the harshest conditions. They lift the veil on the role of a SEER specialist within an Operational Support Squadron, revealing the intricate balance between mission analysis, risk mitigation, and relationship building to achieve operational success. It's a masterclass in resilience, with our guests bringing the tenacity of the field to the forefront of every discussion.

The episode culminates with a reflection on the role of resilience in the Air Force and beyond, examining how adversity breeds this crucial trait. Micah and Steven share stirring anecdotes from deployments, including their involvement in the Thai soccer team cave rescue, underlining the evolving relevance of SEER training in contemporary warfare. Their experiences echo the sentiment that military training and the virtues of honor and adaptability are imperative not only for those in uniform but for anyone navigating the complexities of modern life.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:32

Thank you, Welcome to the show. This is Mindforce, the podcast for love, life and learning where your mind matters. I'm your host, Nate Shearer, and we'll be discussing SEER. I'm sure a lot of people don't know what it is, don't quite know what it is or have a lot of confusion, so this will be a really fun and good episode. So I have two wonderful people here today. We're going to start with the who, what, why. So we'll start with Micah.

Speaker 2: 1:32

Who are you? What do you do and why are you here? What's up guys. My name is Micah Gillette. I was a SEER specialist for 12 years in the Air Force. I did my first six active duty. Then I switched over to a reserve unit in Florida, Did that for three years and then, as a SEER specialist, started training as a combat aviation advisor. Did that up until the beginning of last year and then made my exit out of the Air Force.

Speaker 1: 1:55

Awesome good stuff Over to you, steven.

Speaker 3: 1:57

Hey, yeah, I'm Steven Drakes. I've been a SEER guy for about 15 years now, did the majority majority of that time active duty and then, like Micah, I jumped ship, joined the bright side and I'm an AGR seer guy out in Langley, virginia, right now and I've been doing that for about four years, loving life. So I'm a winter class, so I'm also class of 0902. So the last hard class, just to make sure we're all setting the standard now. But, yeah, excited to be here.

Speaker 2: 2:28

Awesome.

Speaker 1: 2:28

I'm sure we'll get into it.

Speaker 2: 2:31

That was a summer class, so if we're putting that on the table, it was an easy class, you know for sure.

Speaker 1: 2:38

So for anyone listening, we'll probably get into it later, but the class is held up in the Pacific Northwest and it gets pretty snowy during the winter, so I'd like to get to know both you guys a little bit and have the listeners get in touch with you and understand you in a short amount of time. So I use this icebreaker. How do you use your time? What's one app you're using, one book you recommend and one thing you're either listening or watching to? It's a three-part question. We'll start with Steven.

Speaker 3: 3:04

How do I use my time? Obviously I love to work out. When I can, I try to hit the gym at least five times a week. Maybe it's not the gym every day, but it's running here and there. But in terms of what I'm watching and listening to, I don't watch a lot. I got four kids running around and I'm pretty busy. But in my meantime I do listen and enjoy audio books. And if I was going to suggest an audio book, it's not military related or leadership related or any of that, it's just pure enjoyment. Anything from Brandon Sanderson, so the way of Kings, or the Mistborn series. It's a bit of fantasy and whatnot. It's a little bit out there, but it's a great world building and you can get lost in it pretty quick.

Speaker 2: 3:49

Awesome Over to you, micah. So, similar to Steven, you know I'm trying to stay in the gym and stay active, whether it's through out walking with my dog or I train a little bit of jujitsu. So I do that three to four times a week and just trying to stay busy, keep my body moving. Apps I recommend is there's one called Libby and it is basically gives well for where we're at anyways, gives you free access to library any library books that are in the local library for digital books, and you can also get them a bunch of audio books for free too. So if you don't want to pay for Audible, that's a good way to hopefully get some some free, uh, free books. Sorry, my kid just walked in.

Speaker 2: 4:30

Um, as far as what I recommend, I'm right now I'm actually in the middle of a podcast series by, uh, andrew huberman, so I'm kind of haven't haven't been into books in the last couple, like last two weeks. Um, I'm listening. Just, you know, health as far as body and mind goes. On the huberman podcast books, I'd recommend my uh, my degrees in economics, so I'm always interested in economic stuff and I think one of my favorite books as far as just basic understanding and knowledge and personal growth developments. Probably Rich Dad, poor Dad for finances.

Speaker 1: 5:09

Awesome, that's some good stuff. What belt are you holding? A white belt, yeah yeah, that's awesome. That is burning a lot of calories rolling around on the mat, that's for sure.

Speaker 2: 5:21

It is. It's best because you get to do it with a bunch of guys sweating on each other, so it's the best kind of exercise it's wonderful, so we're gonna move on.

Speaker 1: 5:31

I'd like to hear your favorite seer story. What do you got?

Speaker 2: 5:38

well, yeah I can.

Speaker 3: 5:41

I'll start with one, I guess, um favorite seer story that I can tell on this podcast. Um, caveat well, uh, I was probably a new troop or new-ish troop, carrying my own crews up at fair child. This would have been 13, you know, 12, 13 years ago, and I had a flight nurse. Because they just closed down the brooks medical or the brooks survival school, which is where all the flight docs and flight nurses used to go through their Sears school. They closed that down. They ship them up to Fairchild and say, no, you have to go to the regular survival school like everybody else. And I had this.

Speaker 3: 6:15

I had a student, and bless her heart, you know, 50-ish years old, going through Sears school in the middle of the summer and, as I mean as much snow as in the winter, there's mountains to be climbed in the summer and you know, we forced our students to climb some mountains, that's for sure.

Speaker 3: 6:32

And we get about halfway up this hill and she kind of just like, falls down on her pack and I'm slightly concerned like hey, are you okay? And she just starts going like ow, ow, and every like three seconds she, you know, another ow, like what's going on? She's like I'm being stung by bees and I'm like, well then you need to move. She goes, I'm not moving and she just sat there and like for the next like 30 seconds I just am standing at the top of this hill contemplating, like, do I go down there and get stung by bees and drag her up this hill? Do I motivate her to get herself up up this hill? And eventually it took me and a few of the students to grab her and move her away from. You know this business that was just constantly getting after. But it was just one of those. I'll always look back and just laugh at those moments.

Speaker 1: 7:14

So that's awesome. She was too tired to even move. That's uh, that's rough. Oh yeah, what do you got?

Speaker 2: 7:22

micah. So I had one that was a little darker, but that one actually reminded me of a really funny one. So, uh, I'll go with the funny one. A similar story of a student getting stung by bees. We were out, you know, keeping students up past dark was pretty commonplace and it was rare to have people go to bed before it was dark out. So at night people are out getting bows from trees, uh, setting up their shelter and building the insulation bed and stuff, and I'm hanging out around the fire watching the students get their stuff finalized.

Speaker 2: 7:52

I'm finalizing all my notes for the night before we go to bed and take off and one of the guys in the group starts running around and yelling and slapping his legs and can't really figure out what's going on. You know I get a little concerned to go up ask him what's going on and he's basically starting to get stung by bees. But it's cold and it's dark so it doesn't really make sense. But I shine my light on the back of his boot and he had stood on a ground hive and then they had crawled up his boot so his whole boot was covered in about a hundred bees and then they were up in his pants. So then I just told him like take your pants off, like there's no other solution here than taking your pants off or just wait it out. They'll eventually get bored of stinging you, I guess. But I think he got stung like 26 times all his inner legs and crotch oh that's a rough night.

Speaker 3: 8:42

Yeah, people don't realize there's such a thing as ground bees. So yeah, the bees in the pacific northwest, they make burrows in the ground and so, yeah, it's just something.

Speaker 2: 8:52

It's a bit of a culture shock to some nope, just thought I'll have to keep that in mind well, it's cold, they're not real active, so they won't come out. You know flying crazy but they'll, and I think they crawled and then, as they warmed up from his body, he started getting mad.

Speaker 1: 9:10

Oh, that's rough. So I'm curious. This podcast is focused on mental health and mental fitness and continuously working on ourself and our mind, and hopefully we get to a point where we're able to work on our mind the same way we work on our body, because both of you mentioned going to the gym and things like that. So what do you guys have for a tip, a trick or a personal story to take care of your own personal mental health? What do you got, micah?

Speaker 2: 9:35

I, you know, I really believe that body, mind, soul is all kind of tied into one. Um, if I'm not doing well physically, I'm actually like a little bit under the weather right now, and today's just been a rough day. So I really think kind of keeping taking care of everything and having a purpose, so not only taking care of your body, but like, why am I waking up today? What am I going to go out and do today? If your only answer is work, then you know, I don't know, I don't think that's a great answer. I think you should kind of have something that you're striving for, trying to develop or work on, and, um, it could be anything, it could be family, it could be education. Um, if you own your own business and you're trying to start start a big business, or it could, it could be work, but uh, yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 1: 10:19

It reminds me I saw this thing on. I think it was Benjamin Franklin. He had a notebook and a journal they found later on and he only had two things written on every journal page and it started with what will I work on today? And then at the end of the day it said what did I accomplish? And so I think that's something that's always good. Like, did I work on it? Did I get a little bit better? Did I not accomplish it? And then, why did I not accomplish it? Did I get sidetracked? And maybe I need to work on not getting sidetracked the next day. But simple, those two simple questions are super, super powerful. But, steven, what do you have for tip or trick?

Speaker 3: 10:51

Uh, I don't know if it's a tip or trick, but I like to perceive uh to saying it's be tolerant with others but be strict with yourself. Um, so I guess that's just kind of how I working with people working with airmen across, you know, the Air Force, whether it's officers enlisted, they're within my shop or I'm working with an agency that's outside my shop If I can, if I kind of approach that relationship that way, I tend to get favorable results and it makes my life way less stressful if I'm getting favorable results.

Speaker 1: 11:25

That that makes sense. Okay, now we're going to move into the interview. You should be some pretty easy questions. Since Steven was in last, I'll ask him what's the AFSC and what's the official title.

Speaker 3: 11:37

AFSC is a one T zero X, one that's a Sears specialist, survival, evasion, resistance and escape specialist.

Speaker 1: 11:46

Perfect Um question for both of you. We'll move over to micah. How did you find it or be interested in the field?

Speaker 2: 11:55

so when I initially signed up, I wanted to be gi joe. It was just, you know, I was 19 years old, shooting guns, jumping out of planes. I was like that sounds like the best. I went to the army and the marine recruiter because that's where gi joe comes from, right, army marines um told my mom about it. She was not happy. Um, you know, we were in the middle of iraq, afghanistan, like it was 2009 that I went and talked to the recruiter, so she didn't like that idea.

Speaker 2: 12:25

So then my brother was already in the Navy and I couldn't do the same thing as my brother. So that led me into the Air Force recruiter's office, went and talked to him, kind of told him what I wanted to do. He told me about this really cool thing called pararescue. So I went and started training for that. I signed up for it, did all the evaluations for it and then went and kind of had a heart to heart with a guy who was currently a PJ and he's, like you know, gave me, I guess, just the real talk of like this is what your life is going to look like if you choose to continue down this path and laid out what it looks like as far as their schedule goes, which is rigorous to say the least, and I just wasn't interested in it.

Speaker 2: 13:05

You know, I wasn't interested in the deployment schedule. I wasn't interested in the stress that came along with being in a job where people actively are trying to shoot you, you know, regularly on deployments and that kind of stuff. So I went back to my recruiter at that point was like, okay, what else is there that I can do all the fun stuff and not get shot? And then he played the SEER recruiting video which had dudes scuba diving and jumping out of planes and shooting guns. I was like sign me up, let's do it.

Speaker 1: 13:30

Sounds fun, that's awesome, and that was it, steven.

Speaker 3: 13:39

Yeah, no same. I mean relatively the same. I went down I was going to do the power rescue thing and then, a little bit into that, I was like you know this, I prefer not to be drowned on a regular basis. That was really what it was for me. I can't swim as well as I thought I could. And then I walked over, talked to the SEER guys and the SEER guys were like yeah, let's do this. And here I am 15 years later. So Awesome.

Speaker 3: 14:13

Okay, years later, so awesome okay, micah, can you provide a brief overview of the afsc of seer?

Speaker 2: 14:17

yeah, tough right, yeah so I'll say real briefly I mean, yeah, you know, um, our, our job at its core is to be experts in survival, evasion, resistance and escape and then pass that knowledge on to those who might need it. You know, so, if anyone anywhere in the world gets isolated, how are they going to get all the way back home and kind of teaching them that process?

Speaker 1: 14:42

Awesome, Steven. What would you say are the primary responsibilities and objectives?

Speaker 3: 14:48

Kind of the same thing. Yeah, I think it really depends on who your customer is. Obviously, you know, we have a very broad Air Force with different mission sets. A C-17 crew is going to need different SEER training than an F-22 pilot, versus a PJ unit, versus a SEER guy attached to a JSOC unit, you know. So SEER is a very broad career field. There are lots of niches and lots of green door assignments that get you down certain paths to do certain things. But in general, generally speaking, we are the insurance policy that the Air Force is selling. You know, operators, whether that's air crew or guys on the ground, we need to be able to provide, whether it's the training we're preparing their ISO preps, evasion plans of action, or we're in a deployed location actually supporting the C2, the command and control function of a personal recovery network, so working in an AOC somewhere helping plug rescue forces to the IP themselves or the isolated person themselves.

Speaker 1: 15:57

Makes sense, micah. We kind of touched on the responsibilities and objectives. What would you say is the main challenges?

Speaker 2: 16:04

Yeah, that's really dependent on where you're at. I mean, getting students to listen is probably the biggest challenge. If you're actively trying to teach someone and like, hey, these things are important, you know, whether it's from teaching based SV80, which is combat survival in Washington, to know your ISO prep information, what did you put down? You know what's on your EPA and getting them to take that stuff seriously, epa and getting them to take that stuff seriously, um, I would say you know it's just one of the biggest kind of routine challenges. But being that, you know, as Steven said, it's kind of a um broad career field. It can really change based off of where you're at. Um, whether you're in a specialized assignment. You could be a test parachutist, you know, and all you're doing is jumping all the time. You could be teaching um free fall or a free fall instructor. You could be teaching at a dive school or you could be teaching air crew and getting them prepped up and ready to go. So that's really depends on where you're at.

Speaker 1: 17:04

Yeah, Some of the questions are really tough. I got one for you, Steven Um. Again, this might go down different avenues and whatnot, but can you give us an overview of kind of what training and education looks like From like the very beginning? Yeah, Just kind of a foundation If somebody was going to come into it. What does the beginning look like?

Speaker 3: 17:23

So the beginning I'm not, honestly I'm not super spun up on how the new AFSPEC war process and onboarding looks like, from a basic training to selection to SV80. But 15 years ago and as for the majority of my career, the way it's looked has been you graduate basic training, you go to selection, which is down at I think they call it stock, now SEER specialist orientation course. The cadre there determine whether or not you are a good fit to be a SEER specialist potentially, and what that involves in is everything from physical fitness. They assess your ability to speak in front of others. There's a psych evaluation that's done, along with a bunch of other things. But from there they go to Fairchild and then at Fairchild they have a pre-team course.

Speaker 3: 18:12

I'm not quite familiar what the actual course number is, but there's about three to four months of preparatory training that gets done to kind of help build some of those foundational skills.

Speaker 3: 18:23

Because again, there might be airmen out there that are interested, or civilians out there that are interested in becoming a SEER guy or a SEER gal that have never worn snowshoes, who have never swung an axe, a SEER guy or a SEER gal that have never worn snowshoes, who have never swung an axe, you know, and those are all really, you know, potentially dangerous skills but also things that the better you are at when you step into the actual course, the better you're going to make it through there.

Speaker 3: 18:43

And then the actual tech school. So SV81, which is the SEER specialist training, and that's about a six-month course. We run two a year one in January, it ends in June, and then one that starts in July, that ends in December. After that, I mean, you're going to spend a good portion of your time at Fairchild in the beginning. That's slightly changing so that might look different in the next couple of years. But as of now you're probably going to spend a few years at Fairchild getting your three level and five level and then you're going to from there flush out to the force at operational support squadrons, rescue squadrons, special tactics squadrons or various other assignments where you'll get further follow-on training to obtain your seven level.

Speaker 1: 19:27

Okay, that was a very thorough rundown. Thank you, yeah, micah. What would you say is the most important personality trait someone needs, or personality traits could be?

Speaker 2: 19:40

To become a SEER specialist or in life.

Speaker 1: 19:43

To make it through SEER. You can mention life too.

Speaker 2: 19:48

Yeah, you know, I think just mental and physical flexibility, and when I say physical I don't mean like you can touch your toes, but the ability to adapt and change kind of on the fly.

Speaker 2: 20:00

The whole intent is to understand a survival situation and be able to excel in that and know two are ever going to look the same. So if I am in one location, I might have these resources and be able to do these things, that if I'm somewhere else, you know whether I have different tools or just different resources available to me, so kind of having that flexibility that, hey, food and water are still important. I still have to find these things. I would say that was probably one of the most important to getting through the training itself. As far as once you're in the force, I think it probably shifted a little bit more to self-drive and self-dedication. We're largely unsupervised in SEER, and I don't mean like we don't have a commander, but my deployment I did, you know, in 2019, I did a five month deployment and I was by myself for almost all of it, I mean saying the quiet part out loud myself.

Speaker 3: 20:53

for almost all of it I mean saying the quiet part out loud my gosh. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.

Speaker 2: 20:56

Uh, it's got to be real on this one. Yeah, I was. I. Yeah, I went and I would meet with people, but I was kind of, you know, I was autonomously working. So making sure that you have the drive to actually to work, because you're not going to be supervised that makes sense, steven, since you taught a bunch of classes.

Speaker 1: 21:14

Well, Micah did as well. But was there anything that kind of surprised you where you thought someone would not succeed and they completely blew you away, or anything Going back to the personality traits? They seemed like they wouldn't get it and maybe they did really well.

Speaker 3: 21:30

You mean as a SEER guy or SEER gal? Yeah, instructor, yeah, mean as a SEER guy or SEER gal.

Speaker 1: 21:32

Yeah, instructor.

Speaker 3: 21:34

Yeah, as an instructor there. Yeah, I think it really depends on where you're at in life. You know, micah mentioned flexibility, mental and physical flexibility. When you get head down in that tunnel vision and training where you can only focus on one task and the next task and the next task and the next task without taking a step back and seeing the bigger picture, you get some students who get through team. They show up to the field flights to teach survival school and they're so tunnel vision, they're so goal saturated or task saturated and so focused on what's coming next that they can't relax and take a step back and actually evaluate.

Speaker 3: 22:13

Hey, my students, I need to make sure my students have food, they have water, I need to make sure that their feet are still dry. I know I need to teach a fire lesson coming up, but I need to make sure that their personal and safety needs are being taken care of before that happens. And I mean I'm not going to name names, but there's been multiple individuals I met early on in their field flight days where you know we had to retrain them almost to kind of understand that like, yes, obviously you're a great survival specialist or a SEER specialist, but I need you to be a survival instructor right now, and part of that instructing is being able to take care of your crew, because they're the ones that are relying on you out there in the environment.

Speaker 1: 22:54

Awesome, micah. Before teaching classes and after teaching classes or groups I don't know what they're called. Maybe I'm butchering this, but was there something you learned being an instructor that you never thought you'd learn? Teaching people? What surprised you? The?

Speaker 2: 23:18

most about people.

Speaker 1: 23:18

That they don't listen.

Speaker 2: 23:25

No, that's a good question. I want to give a good answer, but I feel like I also want to think on it a little bit. I don't know. You got anything off the top of your head, Stephen, for that one.

Speaker 3: 23:39

Yeah, I would go resilient.

Speaker 3: 23:42

My initial reaction young and I mean obviously it's relative to where I am now, but young senior airmen.

Speaker 3: 23:45

You know I worked at resistance training, which is a very unique position. As a SEER specialist, you know we're out there doing certain training and applying certain pressures to certain people. But we got to see the students in the beginning when they weren't trained, and then we do all this training, we spend some time with them, we show them some things and all of a sudden you see what that end product looks like. And they come back within a week and they're kicking our butts and I was like like it's awesome, like that was one of the most rewarding pieces of, uh, one of my more rewarding times as a seer specialist at fairchild. But it actually just went to show like how resilient some of our you know, some of our members actually are to be able to be very, you know, put in a position where they're they're not feeling great and then to be able to turn that, flip it around on its head and walk out with their chin held high that's awesome.

Speaker 1: 24:36

You got anything, micah. I feel bad that you're sick.

Speaker 2: 24:39

No, you're good man. Uh no, I mean, I think that kind of hit the nail on the head and that's that's where I was leaning. I just never worked at the resistance portion of training so I didn't. I don't think I saw it that directly.

Speaker 2: 24:51

If anyone has Sierra School coming up the cadence at least it was for the last decade or so. They might have changed it recently the first four or five days you're going to be on base, doing training on base, and then you'll go out to the woods with an instructor and you have the same instructor for that 11-day period. That's how it was when I was down there instructing um and teaching SV80. When you get back from the woods then you go and work with the resistance instructors and the cadence with them is just a little bit different. So I kind of had them, you know, for 11 days straight. So I think that those small changes you just don't see quite as dramatically, um, versus seeing someone having them go train for a week and then have them come back to you and seeing them again.

Speaker 2: 25:42

But yeah, just the resilience piece. I probably saw more directly in the pool. I worked at Water Survival after I taught SV80 and we would have people who couldn't swim a lap, and we would have people who couldn't swim a lap. They were literally not swimming and then by the end of the day, quite literally, they were escaping out of an underwater mock-up fuselage for a helicopter and making it to the side of the pool. It wasn't pretty, but they did it. They finished the school.

Speaker 1: 26:09

It got out there.

Speaker 2: 26:10

That's the important part.

Speaker 1: 26:12

Yep. So, stephen kind of an impossible question, but I have to ask it on the show. Try to get an understanding to our listeners Could you attempt to kind of walk us through what a day, week, month looks like? If there was an average, I'm sure that's not a thing, but if you met someone in an elevator and you needed to give Sear what what a day looks like in you know three minutes or less, what would it look like?

Speaker 3: 26:37

Three minutes or less? Huh, all right, it depends on where you're at. I know we keep saying that situationally dependent that's a term every seer guy likes to throw out there and see okay, but I would say this if you're working on an OSS, an OSS is going to have you working a block training schedule. Typically, you'll have an annual schedule pushed out by your weapons and tactics office OSK shop, and they're going to say I need, you know these many. Maybe once a month I'm going to do CST. Once a month I'm going to do water survival, and maybe a couple of times a month I'm going to teach. You know these courses here and there, so those days are already blocked out. You're teaching the other days. Outside of that, though, you're doing what we call personal recovery, operational support. So PR, ops support is what it is, and I can only encapsulate this as a.

Speaker 3: 27:24

I take a look, and I'll use my unit now as an example. It's an F-22 unit, so I have all of the necessary read-ins and clearances to be able to mission plan with my F-22 fighter pilots, and I know where they're going to be and how they're going to fight in a conflict, and then I do some mission analysis and risk mitigation and I sit there and I go what's the most likely and the most deadly scenario that they're going to end up as an isolated person, based off of where they're going to be at and how they're going to fight. I then take that, distill it down and then I can develop training plans based off of that. So if I know that my pilots are going to go do X, y and Z it's going to put them at risk of maybe, let's just say, an urban environment, more so than a rural environment Then that means I'm going to tailor that combat survival training to an urban environment training setting.

Speaker 3: 28:14

And so the other days of the month I'm prepping, maybe for the training event itself. I'm meeting with maybe local law enforcement that are going to help and assist. We do that here locally. We reach out to the local sheriff's department and they put out a bolo on certain individuals that are dressed in a jumpsuit, looking color a certain jumpsuit, and then they're actually involved in the training. But a lot of that requires time, that requires connections, relationship building. So that's at an OSS level. I'm sure everybody busted my three minutes, but like at an RQS, a rescue squadron, which is somewhere I was also assigned, um that that mission is completely different and not at all the same, and I would need another five minutes to describe what an average day there would look like. So, but for an OSS, I'll give you that that that's your average OSS, or should be at least.

Speaker 1: 29:08

Perfect, that's a great rundown. You know it's always a difficult question, micah, if you have to pick hands down. What's your favorite aspect of the job?

Speaker 2: 29:22

I think probably the opportunities that it presented. Um, throughout my career you know doing 12 years in there was always something cool or exciting that was on the table or available to do it. I mean the the teaching is super rewarding and being able to provide the information to people. But, um, we, we got some really unique experiences. Um, I'm sure Steven could probably talk to that. He's been in a little longer and he's still in, so he's probably done a little bit more than I have. But, um, yeah, Awesome.

Speaker 1: 29:52

Yeah, we'll try to get into deployments and some other stuff later on, uh, but I'm gonna try to keep it as real as we can. So, steven, I got to ask you what are the less desirable things?

Speaker 3: 30:05

You got to ask you.

Speaker 1: 30:05

What are the less desirable things Got to?

Speaker 3: 30:07

highlight the less desirable for the people. Yeah, I think some of the less desirable things, at least that I've experienced, is advocacy. I obviously care a lot about what it is that I do and I care about, you know, the pilots that I'm training, but sometimes other people don't care and that advocacy from leadership is, uh, it's a struggle sometimes. Uh, getting after that that's more of a um, yeah, I don't know, that's probably seeking that. You know, advocacy from leadership is sometimes frustrating. When it's obvious to me, it's frustrating to have to communicate why the things that I'm doing are important to others.

Speaker 1: 30:44

Sometimes, and it seems like it should be obvious. It isn't always, Micah. What would you say sets this AFSC apart from all others?

Speaker 2: 30:59

You know, when I went and talked to the recruiter and he put in the video, he's like, yeah, this is a job where you're like go camping or something, and that, while it, you know, is obviously not what the job is, the job is a lot more than that. It's still probably one of the only ones where we regularly get the opportunity to go out and do camping and do stuff on the ground, other than some of the you know the really high speed jobs without living in the field all the time on the ground, other than some of the you know the really high speed jobs without living in the field all the time. But I think, just the opportunity and I could be wrong here, but I would say the opportunity that we're provided from such a young point in our career field. It was at one point my understanding that you had to be to be considered an official DOD instructor. You had to be at least a NCO.

Speaker 2: 31:45

So E5. I believe and again correct me if I'm wrong, if one of you guys know otherwise but I believe SEER is the only one that allows E3s to be official instructors. So as an E3, you know, we didn't have troops under us, but my responsibility as an E3 was to take a group of six to eight people out in the woods and not only teach them about 70 pages of curriculum, but then teach them, you know, keep them alive, make sure that they're healthy. So it was. It was a lot of instruction and a lot of obviously rigorous work and keeping them alive and stuff like that. So kind of that opportunity that you're given as a really young airman was unique.

Speaker 1: 32:28

That's awesome. Yeah, it reminds me of a story. I love stories. Hopefully it's not too long.

Speaker 1: 32:32

But I remember working in the tower and we had a person visiting from another country and he came up and didn't speak English. So he had a translator and he comes up into the tower cab and he's looking over everything and he just bust out laughing and we're like trying to figure out what's going on, but I have to wait for the translator to translate and so we're kind of just stuck and then he finally translates everything and he said I can't believe you'd let your enlisted control traffic. So in every other country in the world an officer can only tell another officer what to do. And so I always have such a cool and powerful thing we have, you know, young people controlling traffic, aerial refueling, these things, where if something messes up, an aircraft goes down, people die millions of dollars, and so it's cool that we entrust and give that responsibility to someone that's like 18, 19 years old, like right out the gate, you know, obviously with the proper training and whatnot. But it makes me pretty proud to be part of this Air Force.

Speaker 1: 33:28

But I did want to give it over to you, steven. Could you highlight some of the unique opportunities if it's travel or working at the White House or are there like specific slots or things out there for SEER. I think we've touched on some of them, but are there more? Some pretty cool unique opportunities out there for seer?

Speaker 3: 33:45

I think we've touched on some of them, but are there more? Some pretty cool unique opportunities out?

Speaker 3: 33:48

there I mean yeah, I I think mike had to hit it on the head a little bit when he was talking about just the app from an early age, a lot of exposure to things that maybe not other afscs have the opportunity to be exposed to. But, like you know, I've been. I'm a free fall guy. I jumped free fall, I went to halo. I I'm a static line jump master, static line jumper. I have been to thailand, korea, australia, the philippines, iraq, qatar, afghanistan, like I mean the list kind of goes on. There. We get to do a lot. If you, if you're hungry for the work, there's work out there for SEER specialists and you can go see. I mean, I know it sounds corny, but like, yeah, I've got to see the world and you know I'm extremely grateful for the opportunities I've had but I've worked very hard to, you know, get them and be where I am today.

Speaker 1: 34:45

But if you want them, there's definitely lots of things you can do as a seer guy or gal. Sounds a little different than camping. So do you have to maintain all those serves and everything? Do you keep jumping?

Speaker 3: 34:52

Yeah, so I, I do, and we still jump. I jumped down at a Suffolk DZ right now. Well, yeah, not right now, obviously, but that's where me and was Justin Bender, a classmate of yours, micah?

Speaker 2: 35:05

He was just before me, but he was in my flight Just before you yeah.

Speaker 3: 35:08

Yeah yeah, yeah, so me and Justin, we jumped down there at Sussex, so yeah.

Speaker 1: 35:14

So I have a measly 33 jumps, I got my A license. There you go Nice. So, micah, I'd like to ask I mean you kind of touched on it, but I'd like to hear a little bit more from you on common misconceptions. You said it's camping, but can you touch on like what you'd say is the greatest common misconception?

Speaker 2: 35:45

from people who are going to seer school and going to sv80 um, and it specifically has to do with them going to, like you know, the the resistance portion of the training, but even even the field portion of the training. There's just a lot of a lot of stories. They get a lot bigger than they uh, than they actually are. You know, I think people come away from it and they want to. I don't know, I don't know why they tell the stories they, but I've heard a lot of wild stories about things that have happened to people at Sears school. You know, one of the ones in this individual actually ended up getting kicked out of her career field. But she got back, she was having some hip issues and then she went to her commander and told her commander that she had dislocated her hip in the field and two seer specialists held her down and uh and put her hip back in, and justin bender actually might have been one of the people involved in that alleged hip hip reinsertion, by the way, stephen, you gotta ask him about it.

Speaker 2: 36:35

But you know, obviously stuff like that is not happening. We're not doing that kind of stuff. We have medics out in the field, we have all the appropriate IDMTs that are trained to come out and do all the medical stuff they need to do. So I think that's probably one of the biggest misnomers is that, you know, people get these stories that, oh, they broke my foot and made me walk on it, or just just crazy stuff that these people come away with and I, you know, teach their own, I guess. But as far as the career field itself, I don't know that there's a whole lot, at least nothing that comes to mind.

Speaker 1: 37:09

You know, within the career field, as far as, like, what we do, Even from the outside, though I think that's you know what I'm most interested in. Like when people hear Sear like what have you heard?

Speaker 2: 37:24

people think you do. I mean, does it go back to that camping like, oh, you just can't bug eater?

Speaker 3: 37:26

yeah, bug eater is probably one of those, I think, especially when you talk like, uh, in a joint environment, um, the air force is the only you know service that actually dedicates an entire career field or mos to seer. So in the army and the marines and the navy, it's a special duty assignment, um, and so working with you, know, know, our joint partners, you know, sit there and be like, wait, you're serious, so what are you actually, what's your actual job? And you're like, no, no, no, I've done this, my entire career, is all I've done, and I think that's been enlightening. I think that might be a common misconception that this is just something we do on the side, like an additional duty, and we have like some other thing that we're doing on a day-to-day basis so, steven, have you ever been in a meeting or something and someone you know signed you up for something or spoke on your behalf and you're like, I don't even do that?

Speaker 1: 38:14

uh, is everyone pretty aware?

Speaker 3: 38:17

back to what mike has said is we don't have a lot of oversight sometimes, and so I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be found in a meeting where somebody was telling me I was going to do something that I wouldn't have been there for, so I wouldn't have been qualified to do I have.

Speaker 2: 38:30

I have a good one for that, actually, if you want to hear it. Oh, absolutely. So I got to my reserve unit and my new commander. He actually just came in right after me and took command of the unit I was in it was the 919 sauce and, uh, he was talking to me about other options to try and do seer training, refresher training, at a discounted price, because I was standing up a brand new seer program. There was nothing that existed beforehand.

Speaker 2: 38:56

So I was like I mean, I'm willing to try and work a little bit, but we need money for this program. It's just, it's the nature of the beast. The program requires money. And he told me, you know, he wanted to try and do an executive level SEER program, which is not a thing, but he basically, in his mind, anyone with his amount of SEER training or more so, if you had been through refresher training at least five times, which was conveniently how many times he had been through wouldn't have to go through a field portion of training because he didn't want to go through the field. So, uh, I don't know. A week later I bumped into the wing commander, up at my uh, my face, and he told me all about the executive level seer training that I was going to be implementing and wasn't going to have anyone go through field training, just do it all in the classroom, and I was like that's, that's not a.

Speaker 3: 39:48

Thing.

Speaker 2: 39:50

I mean I don't get to, I don't get to sign that paperwork, so good luck.

Speaker 1: 39:55

Oh, that, that is hilarious. I've seen that a couple of different times for TCCC or some other things. It's like the abridged version, or executive or leadership or fill in the blank. That's pretty funny. Not like we all need TCCC. Steven, I'm curious if someone we're trying to find more information on Sear, or they got picked up for it and they were going to start, what's one piece of advice you'd give them? Hey, they're starting out and they're heading out for like training tomorrow or something what would you say to them?

Speaker 3: 40:24

Low is smooth and smooth is fast. I mean, just take one step at a time. Don't get oversaturated. You're going to be thrown a lot of things at you at one time. It's done on purpose. We do tasks. Saturate our students for a reason we want them to be able to prioritize certain things in a certain way. But if take a second, take a breath, take a step back, you know, take, evaluate the situation that you're in and then press forward with a plan. And if you can talk confidently about why it is that you made certain decisions in a certain order, great that's. I want to know that. I want to hear that confidence. But if you sit there and you got a bunch of excuses for this or that or you know, that's just that, isn't. I'm not about that. That's note there. Stop, take a deep breath, did you?

Speaker 1: 41:12

learn anything specifically from SIR that you kind of use in your personal life, to you know, center yourself, or did you kind of learn some of that stuff later on?

Speaker 2: 41:34

I'd say you know, never quit when it's hard. Um, if, if you're going to start something, get through the end of it. If you decide after you're done you don't want to do it, then that's okay, um, but if something's hard like that's, that's not the time to quit, um, you know it's. It's going to stop you from doing a lot of things you want to achieve in life just because you've got some temporary discomfort. So that was probably something that helped me get through tech school and actually graduate that I still continue to use today. And then my second thing would probably just be embrace failure and learn from it.

Speaker 3: 42:08

So I was sorry not to jump in, but Michael was saying about things are going to be hard. You know, just acknowledge that. I think it's Huberman. If you're listening to his podcast I think he has. He goes on something and has a conversation about like we do hard things now, so when adversity pops up, like we can sit there and we can look at it in the face saying like, well, I've already done all this other hard stuff, this isn't going to be that bad. So you'll get that a lot throughout training. And I think most SEER specialists, when you meet them, they just kind of that you should probably you will pick that up about them relatively quick.

Speaker 1: 42:43

That's a good note. I know I've mentioned on the show, but just reemphasize, I think it's super important. We talk about resiliency in the Air Force all the time and it seems to almost be losing its appeal because it's such a buzzword. But I feel like for some reason it feels like, you know, people want it to come easy, but that's the opposite of how it works. You have to go through something difficult and then look back and realize, oh, I could do that.

Speaker 1: 43:10

It sucked for a little bit but I got through and and so it's kind of confusing where people want, uh, things to be easy, cause I think with you know modern technology and we can get food in an instant, and you know Google an answer and find out anything we want, and things come easy. That's kind of where we're at right now and so it seems like that's where it's at. So I'm glad you guys mentioned that's a really good reemphasis and you know I'll say that anytime it comes up like build the resiliency. Resiliency doesn't just fall upon you, it's built from going through those difficult situations. I'm curious, mike, oh go ahead.

Speaker 3: 43:43

No, I was going to say I got to go back to Fairchild next summer or next year. We have to go back every once in a while to reevaluate the program and just kind of see if they've changed anything. It allows us to kind of go back and and touch the stone, if you will. Um, but one of the things that I'll be curious about is now with, especially with this younger generation, and I can it feels weird to say that, but like they go to the woods and they don't have their cell phone, like what does that look like now? Like when I went through the training, like, yeah, my cell phone was there, but it wasn't as important of an object that it is today. I'd be curious to see, though, like those 11 or those seven days out in the woods without any sort of electronic device or cell phone or any of that connection, what does that look like and how is that impacting some of our students, and are we addressing that? I don't know.

Speaker 1: 44:36

I'm almost curious on the other side too, because initially I would think of a member Right, but on the flip side, talk about families, right. People are used to being able to get a hold of someone every day. I wonder, do they become alarmed? Do they start calling you if they find your phone number? Are they going to call the base? That is a good point, I wonder, you know. Hopefully they know where they're at, of course if they're a loved one, but that could be. You know more things than we think, right? Second and third order effects.

Speaker 3: 44:59

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 45:00

Uh, but Micah, I was curious. Um, going through those difficult times, is there a moment that you remember, or did it just kind of build upon, or was it just one night or one day that just really sucked and you were able to push through.

Speaker 2: 45:14

Um, never quit while it's hard was kind of the advice I got before starting. Um which I would say that I got a lot of advice before starting, but that was probably the best piece of advice that helped me get through training. Um training summer class or winter class sucked um, although I will, I will admit winter class is probably harder I.

Speaker 3: 45:37

I didn't have to walk as far. I did not, I'll admit it. Like you guys walk way farther than we ever did.

Speaker 2: 45:42

No, Statistically, the winter class is the class that starts in January and the summer class is the class starts in July. Historically, summer classes graduate two to four times the number of people the winter class does. So it's not that every January you just have a bunch of crappy people signing up. You know it's. It's a harder class and I think mentally too, it's harder when you get out there for day one of training and it's, you know, in the single digits and you're trying to make it is just probably it. As a SEER specialist it wasn't fun, but going through training you're not there yet, it's. It's just that much harder. Um, anyways, to answer your question, um, it's just kind of something that builds. But that, that piece of advice I got that you know, never quit while it's hard, I think was, it was probably the piece of advice that got me through training.

Speaker 2: 46:30

Everyone at some point when they're going through a SV 81. So the SEER specialist uh training course, our tech school has a moment where they think like I'm going to quit. Why am I doing this? This sucks, you know it's. You're cold, you're wet, your feet hurt, your back hurts, you're carrying a heavier ruck. The phase of training that I was in that was probably closest to quitting was mobile, which is learning how to navigate and it's carrying a bunch of weight really far up and down a lot of mountains. So that was just kind of one of those that you know you fall down, can't pick your pack up, you feel like you're failing, you get lost, you don't make a final point whenever it might be, but that's only, you know, truly a failure if you don't learn from it and if you don't grow from it. Otherwise it's just a learning moment and that that was kind of, I would say, something that built through the whole time I was there.

Speaker 1: 47:21

Awesome. So even in the military we use the cutting edge technology, always using the coolest stuff, but being out in the woods, you know, using an axe and whatnot. Does that really apply in this career field? Or is there some cool like tech that goes along with Sierra? Is it all pretty low?

Speaker 3: 47:38

No, it's very rapidly evolving. Accelerate change or lose, right. That's kind of the new thing. Over the last two years, my shop has actually been heavily involved with a lot of innovation projects and to the point where we're actually creating software-defined radios and programs and apps and we're doing a lot of stuff right now. That forced myself to learn how to code. So as a seer guy like, yeah, you obviously have to be able to survive out in the woods. But I've had to learn a ton about FM frequency, radio frequencies, some of the science behind that, and there's a lot of stuff out there, especially when you start talking. I mean, obviously we can't discuss it on this forum, but there's a lot of technology out there and isolated persons or personal recovery. That's a pretty big deal in the eyes of the military big deal in the eyes of the military. So there's a lot of money and a lot of things that get thrown at it, which, again, going back to you know opens up certain doors. Early on in your career. You get to see a lot of cool stuff.

Speaker 1: 48:47

Awesome, that's good stuff. So, micah, I'm curious to paint the picture we kind of talked about in Garrison and things like that. Can you talk about deployments and what that kind of looks like and how often and things like that? Can you talk about deployments and what?

Speaker 2: 48:58

that kind of looks like and how often and things let's go back to it depends on where shop you're in and where you're deploying to.

Speaker 2: 49:03

But uh, I'll talk to my experience and then some of the experience that I would have had had I stayed in the caa unit a little longer. So my experience with deployment was, uh, to go um, help facilitate recovery or develop iso preps and stuff like that if it was needed. So I was able to. I was kind of a hard charger. I didn't want to sit around IUD when I was deployed. So I was there for 30 days and in IUD it was mostly checking ISO preps, making sure people were good to go out the door. We were going out to different units that were on that base, checking their radio capabilities, making sure they had all the correct programming, that kind of stuff. When I was there I had two personal recovery events declared, so two people who were lost, and you know I was actually declared. So I ran both of those. They were both declared when I was in the shop. I worked from midnight to 8 am so kind of helped try and get them back and recovered.

Speaker 2: 50:04

And then I forward deployed from there and I went to Afghanistan. In Afghanistan I was doing the same stuff. I was just a lot more involved with people on the ground. So I bounced around country the whole time. I was in Afghanistan, went and worked with the Germans, went and worked with the Italians developing their personal recovery capability, that kind of stuff. And then I wrapped up my deployment in Iraq as an air advisor. So I went and worked for five weeks with the Iraqi survival school, helping develop their program and getting some continuity there, and then that was it so.

Speaker 2: 50:42

I could have sat around, could have sat around Qatar for the four months. I was actually about five by the time it was said and done. But that's kind of what I was saying earlier too is if you, if you want it and you have a drive to go, do it. There's opportunity. But you know, those going to iraq are not things I had to do.

Speaker 1: 50:58

They were things I chose to do and it was presented with the opportunity it's cool that you mentioned a couple times that you're empowered to be able to go and, you know, control your fate to a certain extent, steven. Uh, do you have any tidbits on deployments or pretty similar?

Speaker 3: 51:13

it depends I mean pretty, yeah, I mean similar. Uh, also, I was deployed within a rescue squadron in afghanistan. Um, the only difference there was, instead of worrying about all the other units that were in the air within the ao, I was more on the end user side where I wanted to make sure that my, my rescue squadron was ready to go recover those other units. So, making sure that you know their comms, whatever comm system that uh, maybe some of our coalition forces were using what could we actually pick up on some of that? Um, so, but just like micah said, like you know, bouncing around between mazhar off sharif and harat and just all over the place, um, outside of combat locations. You know, I spent a couple, more than a couple years out in the pacific. Um, we're working with some of our national, our coalition partners out there, or just allies in general the koreans, the japanese, the australians.

Speaker 3: 52:11

Um, I did a humanitarian disaster relief mission in Thailand during the Operation Wild Boar. So 13 stalker kids go into a cave. They got stuck there. Myself I was deployed. We got tasked to go and actually help facilitate the recovery of those kids. So those are definitely good experiences. I loved all of it. But, as Micah said, if you want it, there's opportunities out there. You just have to be able to be willing to have a clean nose and be ready to go when the opportunity presents itself.

Speaker 1: 52:48

So funny story. I'm watching the documentary with my wife. She did not know the event happened or the history behind it, and so she's on the edge of her seat the whole time and hopefully she does or does not listen to this. I don't know which way I want it to go, but she's like I wonder what happens. I'm like we know what happened, it's history, it already occurred. But she thought it was a fictitional story, she thought it was a made up. So I thought that was pretty hilarious. She was freaking out and just really holding on for those kids. Uh, steven, since you're still in, the final question is what do you see? The future of seer? What's going on? What's coming up?

Speaker 3: 53:26

Uh, the future of seer? Um, I mean that's debated often amongst seer specialists. Uh, I, you know I don't have a crystal ball, I don't have a. You have a. You know I can't read the future. Um, isolated persons are going to be a thing, though. Um aspect war and the air force is. It appears this is steven drake's opinion, not master sergeant drake's opinion, um, but I think it's.

Speaker 3: 53:53

In a future fight we need to have the best aircraft period and dot and fiscal restraints being applied. It makes the most sense to invest in the most lethal aircraft available. That might include the divestment of our human weapon systems. Currently, I might be wrong, I don't know, but what that tells me as a seer specialist is my job is only going to get more important. You know, as we look, you know, even, even, even, like the ngad, the next generation air dominance aircraft that's being talked about, it's not. I mean, there is a human behind that or behind the in that cockpit. That's going to be the one that's putting their lives at risk, and so we need to make sure that those individuals are trained to our utmost to be prepared to recover them or for them to return with honor. You know, that's kind of the. That's the motto for us.

Speaker 3: 54:51

So I definitely don't see SEER going anywhere or going away. It's becoming very relevant and it's kind of flipped, it's on its head. If you look at the. The last 20 years we've been involved in a conflict in the middle east where we've had air dominance, we've had the technological superiority, uh, of our adversary. Like it wasn't easy. Nothing compares to what we're going to be facing in the future. Um, the personal recovery has some big challenges ahead of itself it's being faced with. So it's going to take some creativity and ingenuity to ensure that pilots in a near-peer conflict have the ability to recover or to self-recover or be recovered. And that's going to take SEER guys.

Speaker 1: 55:34

And guys. That's good stuff. I'll try to summarize a little bit. Today we found out that Sear is a little bit more than camping Sounds like. If you're a go-getter and you have the autonomy to get after what you want, you can go and dive and jump and a massive amount of opportunities and really a lot of it, depending from unit to unit. But hopefully you took away some good stuff from the episode today. Please check us out on Facebook, youtube and Buzzsprout. Thank you both for coming out, especially Micah since you're sick, and I thank everyone for listening to AFSC's one through nine. Remember, exploring different career fields is an important step in finding the right path for you. Join us next time as we continue to explore different career paths and the opportunities they offer. If you have any questions or want to share your career story, please contact me. We'll see you next time. I love you all. See you, you.