Month: July 2022

Right after Basic Training I got shuttled off to another section of Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio, TX. It was here I began the long road to become an instructor for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, & Escape, or SERE.

Of course, right after Basic, you’re not much good for anything aside from doing what you’re told. It’s nothing personal…you just don’t know anything yet. You have to hang around for awhile and learn how things are done (sadly, the thing that makes the most sense isn’t commonly done). Our first week or so after arriving at SERE was spent doing what we call “in-processing,” which in our case consisted of some paperwork and sitting around listening to lots of briefings. We didn’t interact with the SERE instructors during that week other than to say “hi, we’re here;” we did our in-processing en masse with administrative troops that did it full time.

One day, probably the week after we finished all our in-processing, I think our instructors had some stuff they had to take care of at the school building, so they sent us back to our dorms to do our details…where we cleaned up and were supposed to make the place shine. One thing that’s important to understand…this was in early 2004; we were in the midst of two wars and the military infrastructure to support them was crying uncle in some places. Rumor had it that the dorms we were staying in had been condemned, but had been pressed back into service for the war effort. We could do our details for weeks, but it was only going to make the place look so nice, you know? Sending students to do details in the dorms was just a way of keeping them out of our instructors’ closely cropped hair for awhile.

Now I was still pretty new to this, but apparently we didn’t get sent back to the dorms to do details very often, and when we did, it was seen as a great opportunity to goof off. The training was pretty intense, so having some free time was a nice thing to have, because we were all wound up pretty tight.

I guess I happened to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. One of the more senior students pointed at me and said “You, you’re on Sergeant watch.” He sat me by a window where I could see the main entrance to our building. If I saw anybody that wasn’t a student approaching the entrance, especially any of the SERE instructors, I was supposed to raise the alarm.

I have no idea what everyone else was doing, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t what we were supposed to be doing. If one of our instructors had snuck in the back door and caught us, we would have paid pretty dearly for it. I was still young enough in my Air Force career not to know it, but punishment through physical exercise was something you come to embrace in SERE Indoctrination. Uniform look like garbage? Get down and start doing flutter kicks. Is your hair too long? That’s a set of pushups for each hair that’s touching one of your ears. Suffer an egregious lapse in judgment during the weekend? Heaven help you.

After staring hard out the window for awhile, one of our SERE instructors rounded the corner of the building, heading toward our door. I was still so new that I didn’t even know the guy’s name. “It’s Sergeant…one of the sergeants is walking up the path!”

One of the more senior students rushed to the window to get a better look, and sure enough, he saw Joe walking toward the front door. With a muttered curse, he ran out of the room and down the hallway, letting everyone know they needed to look busy…now. About 10 seconds later, guys were mopping the halls, vacuuming the Day Room, washing windows, dusting stuff that didn’t have a speck of dust on it, and scrubbing stuff you never even thought about scrubbing.

Joe wasn’t a sadistic dude, but if he had caught us goofing off, he would have dropped the hammer on us! It would have been one of those “everybody do pushups until I get tired” moments. Then after hearing us struggle for awhile he would have said “are you getting tired?” When we said yes, he would have said “okay, roll over on your backs and start doing flutter kicks.”

I wouldn’t say we performed our duty in an honorable way that day, but it provides a different bit of context to a famous Bible verse about being watchful. First Peter 5:8 says Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

I don’t think Joe came there to try to catch us doing something we weren’t supposed to be doing. He was probably just coming to the dorms to say “okay, we’re ready for you to come back now,” but if he had seen what we were actually doing, you can bet he would have devoured every last one of us. Whether he was intentionally trying to catch us or if he caught us as targets of opportunity, the result would have been the same: we’d be toast.

The devil is the same way. Constantly on the prowl, he’s looking for believers to devour. I don’t think he bothers too much with nonbelievers…he already owns them, so why would he waste effort on them? He’s looking for enemies to pick off. Sometimes he’s targeting a firmly planted Christian through an ongoing campaign against them, and other times he comes across a Christian that’s teetering on the edge of something they’re not supposed to be doing. If he sees that, he’ll put his campaign on pause and pounce on the target of opportunity. Enticing that believer to sin enables a whole host of tools that can be used against them to cripple their effectiveness as the hands and feet of God (guilt, shame, desensitizing of sin, fear, doubt, follow-on consequences, etc.).

Therefore, as Peter says, be on your guard and on high alert, because your enemy’s looking for an opening where he can nail you. Don’t give him the opportunity.