SERE Training
Prisoner Interrogation Program provides a realistic and authentic military interrogation experience -- a blend of what US Special Forces and pilots undergo in SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) training and what enemy Prisoners of War can expect at the hands of Military Intelligence. This is a tough and challenging experience. The Training Team will use all of their considerable skills to extract information from captives. Whether you break or not, and most soldiers going through similar training do eventually break, you should come through the program with not only an extremely memorable experience, but with a better understanding of yourself and of your abilities to persevere through an extremely arduous and challenging ordeal. Nature of the Program: It is important that the Team does not communicate very much detail about what will occur during this program. At the same time it is also important to understand the nature of this program prior to committing to it. Specifically: The duration of the programm can vary between 24 hours and 7 days. Participants will get little or no sleep. Participants will be extremely uncomfortable. Participants will be under great emotional and physical stress. Participants will be pushed to their individual physical and psychological limits. Interrogation techniques will be both mental/psychological and physical and can be expected to be "human" as well as "inhuman". The primary push for information will be psychological. Physical techniques (pain) will be employed as required, but are not be the major focus of the interrogation. While painful, physical techniques will not cause remaining fysical damage. Remaining fysical damage is understood to be severe damage that remains visable longer then 10 days. Degrees of physical interrogation will be experienced. However, the degree of physical interrogation will also be influenced by each participant's cooperation during the program. The less a prisoner cooperates with Team, the more physical pain compliance that prisoner can expect. Because of the above, participants are in decent medical and physical shape prior to attending this program. Interrogation Information: Prior to the start of the program each captive will be provided with the specific information that Team will be seeking to learn. To make things interesting, each man will contribute $100 to a pot. In order to earn this pot, Team will have to obtain the entire information from each man. If, by the conclusion of the program, they are unable to extract this information from one or more men, the pot will be split by all men who have not broken -- who have not provided Team with the information that they are seeking. Participants who have provided Team with accurate information are ineligible to receive a portion of the pot. Only Team's manager will have the information that the interrogators are trying to learn. If Team has extracted what they believe to be accurate information from all men, they will present that information to the manager. The manager will only inform them as to whether or not the information is 100% correct. Team will not be informed as to which participants have provided inaccurate information and which portion(s) of the information is incorrect. This means Team may continue to interrogate a man even if he has provided accurate information. Team will not know for sure who has/has not supplied the correct information. Rules of Engagement Team wants to extract specific information from you. You do not want to provide that information. The Rules of Engagement are simple: The Universal Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Convention articles pertaining to Prisoner of War treatment and interrogation are NOT in effect. As long as the program runs you are a captive. Guards are god in this hell hole. Captives better learn to live with this fact. Guards control (either directly or indirectly, through other inmates) every activity outside your cell and a lot inside your cell. Here are the rules of staying on the better side of your god. There is one important rule for captives: You are NOTHING. You own NOTHING. Everything is Military property. Upon this rule all other rules and regulations exist. Rule number 2: You don't communicate, unless given permission. Rule number 3: You don't look at a guard, unless given permission. Rule number 4: When in your cell and a guard enters the cellblock, AT ALL TIMES YOU ARE STANDING and face the wall, unless told otherwise. Subjects will be interrogated in great detail on their personal lives. Team can threaten anything. Both psychological and physical (painful) interrogation techniques can be employed at the option of Team. Physical techniques will be painful but will leave no long-lasting marks. Resistance, while futile, is encouraged. In the event that a subject feels he can no longer participate in the program, or if a subject feels he needs to regroup or has a major concern with some activity, he can and should request to speak with the Senior Interrogator. At that point, action for that participant will be paused and he will be escorted to meet with the Senior Interrogator. This is a last resort option, but should be exercised if the subject believes it is necessary. The subject will be give the option of continuing with the full program or dropping out of the program. The Senior Interrogator can decide the captive should be put in isolation. The captive is not informed about the duration of the isolation. There is no refund of any fees if the subject elects to leave the program. Interrogation Strategy: One strategy to resisting interrogation is to not provide any information at all, because once you start to give up information, even about minor unrelated topics, it is hard to stop and easier to give up important information. Another strategy is to provide minimum information, as little as possible, but enough to ease, at least temporarily, the interrogation process. An additional strategy is to attempt to take control of the interrogation. Answer questions with questions. Probe for an interrogator's weak points and hone in on them. A final strategy is to provide disinformation. At some point in the interrogation process, you begin to seem to cooperate, but provide inaccurate information. While this can effectively confuse the interrogation team, you run the risk of suffering harsher treatment once/if the team learns that the information which you provided is inaccurate. Additional information: Most information concerning this details of this program is classified and will not be communicated.
Special Infiltration Training
This elite corps is established for infiltrating into all kinds of prisons, native and oversea, in order to collect information on the actual situation behind walls. Sometimes a SIF has to infiltrate as an agent into a private prison, a Juvenile Correctional Facility within the USA or an obscure prison overseas. In many cases this is initiated in cooperation between Amnesty International, other charity institutions, the UN, or a government of a particular individual country. In all cases the aim is to verify information and to report on abuse of power, harrasment of prisoners and to check on the general conditions behind hermetic walls. They are well paid, always after completion of their mission. Each SIF has to sign a contract that he is aware of the importance of the organization policy. To be able to keep this Force secret a SIF may not ever speak about the existence of the SIF Project or reveal he is a SIF, let alone betray his identity while on a mission. As you can imagine a SIF is expected to endure hardships. Only a few tough men who have mostly already been trained as a marine, a navy seal, another Special Force and in matial arts come in the picture for this. Rumors have it these men are also secretly genetically and biochemically modified. The training program of a SIF includes: # How to secretely test the regime # How to provoke any special punishments # How to deal with indoor aggression both from other prisoner and from guards # How to survive extreme circumstances, aggression and abuse, physical, emotional and sexual. Mission Guidelines: 1. The SIF project and any mission by SIF's always are and always stay top secret. 2. This means that you are not allowed to reveal you are on an inspection mission EVER. 4. The USA, Amnesty International or any contract party will never recognize the existence of a SIF mission, let alone an individual SIF. Sanctions: If you violate these rules You will loose your status as an agent and any further connection to the SIF Organization will be impossible To avoid any suspicion a SIF will only get inside the subjected facility by regular procedure. The organization assist him to commit a felony, mostly the possession of hard drugs, for which he will be arrested, convicted and jailed for a period from a few months to a year. Of course from the moment a mission has started there will be no contact between the organizaion and the SIF. For example a SIF may be arrested for cocaine possession. Regular procedures take place and the SIF has to serve jail time, without the officials knowing he is a SIF. The Special Infiltration Project is always recruiting men (from age 16, as the latter are also able to infiltrate within a juvenile correctional facility). So if you like some action... THE BELOW MENTIONED STORY IS A TRUE LIFE ACCOUNT OF A SPECIAL INFILTRATION FORCE (SIF) DURING HIS FIRST TWO WEEKS IN TRAINING. I, Peter Coham SIF 53546788Z of 1st SPECIAL INFILTRATION FORCE (SIF) IN TRAINING have the below mentioned to report. I was accepted as a recruit into the SIF on 15 January 1997. I had successfully completed my Navy Seal training before. At that point and time, I was the only SIF trainee in an entire Company / intake of 241 soldiers. The following training happened in 1998 while I went through SIF training in 1st Commando Battalion 2nd Company Platoon 4, Section 1. The below mentioned happened to me as part of my individual SIF training. The rest of the 241 men were treated in normal ways except for me, who had to undergo the following. Officially and on the records I was called "Number 3". I was singled out to test if I had it in me to become a SIF. When I was shouted to by officials, the d.i.'s or the medical staff my name was simply "scum". And that's what I was called soon by the other soldiers too. For 15 days, I was deprived of sleep. No sleep at all. I was watched over by all the trainers and they ensured that I had totally no sleep. When training was over, the entire 240 men were allowed to bathe and rest and change into T-shirts and shorts and running shoes, but I for those 15 days had to wear my helmet, my camouflage shorts, my boots, SBO / webbing ( 6kgs )all filled with equipment , my rifle (4kgs )and my field pack (30kgs) filled with both my equipment and stones/rocks. Throughout the 15 days I went everywhere, did everything with everything mentioned above on. In short, everything mentioned above would have for the next 15 days be an integrated part of me. Every night at about 12.30 am, I was asked to take the entire Platoon’s boots into 6 duffel bags ( EB bags ) and was made to run carrying the entire load for 6 rounds about the soccer field. There were moments when I fell and asked to be let off, but I was besides being verbally abused, was pushed, kicked and punched/slapped by the instructors and made to carry on. After 6 rounds of dragging, I would be very tired. The entire 6 rounds took about 1 ˝ hours. It would be about 2am then. I would then be asked to take my helmet ( including everything mentioned above ) and kneel down in front of the instructors. I would be forced to eat 14 nightsnack cakes and drink 6 liters of water. As we all know that it was not humanely possible to consume all, I promptly vommitted after a couple of cakes and water. I was forced to vomit into my helmet and drink back my own vomit and I would then vomit again but this went on and on until I finished up all my vomit and the cakes and water. After which I would be asked to carry everything mentioned above again and run around the soccer field for 10 rounds. After the run, I would be asked to kneel in front of an instructor again but this time, I had to carry my field pack (30kg ) overhead with my arms fully outstretched for 1 hour and listen to the instructor tell stories and talk nonsense. If my arms at anytime so much as bend my arms under the weight, which would be normal, I was pushed punched or kicked by the instructor/s again. I would have fallen onto the ground, but had to promptly get up and continue with arms fully outstretched again, promptly. All these would usually stop at 5.30am. Every night at this time for the 15 days, I would be asked to complete a 3 foolscap paper long report on the soldier’s morale and I had to have 10 duplicates and that makes it some 30 pages in ˝ hour which was quite impossible. I would most of the time be so tired by then that I would be drawing illegible patterns on the papers. Having constantly failed at some thing which could never be completed in the limited time, I would then face further punishment like pushups or ranger jumps. At about 6.20am – 6.30 am, I would then be made to join the rest for the normal training which included 5km run. The rest did their runs in T-shirts and shorts, but I was made to do it in shorts with Rifle, webbing and field pack included. It did tax my physical limits then but I had to not finish last because if I did, I would be in for more punishment. Some tried to run slowly to help me, but that didn’t help much as I was already very tired. And it became more painful as the days went on by. Everyday, before lunch, at about 12pm, I would be whisked off to the SOC (standard obstacle course) ground/area and was made to clear the obstacle course 3 times just in my shorts. I fell many times from about 5 – 6 meters in water (it was an obstacle that resembled a high ramp) and I was kicked and beaten again and forced to complete it. If I looked like I was going to faint, I would be assigned 4 men to follow me through, but I was never given any rest. I still had to complete it. During these 15 days, I was checked by medics while drill instructors were present. They said that I was not really injured and that I wanted to skive. Being always watched over by one instructor at least round the clock, there was no way to secretly see a doctor then. All this while, I was suffering the physical attacks with cuts bruises and at times bleeding, but was always find in order by medics. In addition to the medical check up I was tied and had to go through some experimental 'electro tests' by military personnel. Sometimes, I wondered how much longer I could have held on. Before every meal, without fail, I had to do either (my choice) 150 pushups or 150 jumping jacks/ranger jumps all in full battle order = helmet, shorts, rifle, field pack and boots plus some rocks and stones added to make my entire load heavier. Upon finishing, I would have my food poured on to the ground, sometimes, it landed in the sand/mud and I was made to lie down on my front and eat up the food like a dog without using my hands, just my mouth. All these went on for 15 days and not once in these 15 days was I humanely treated. There were occasional times when I was deprived of water and the thirst got pretty unbearable ( this didn’t happen very often though ). Once, I was made to make myself all wet (spray water on myself ) and roll in the sand till I was covered all with sand. Then I had to leopard crawl 600m to and from down the 300m rifle range ( like a worm crawl with every bit of the body in contact with the grass and thorns ) while I was constantly subjected to kicks either in the head, face, ribs or given blows by a helmet on various parts of the body. Again I was denied medical treatment. Whenever the entire 240 men marched from one place to another ( usually an average distance of 4 – 6 km in twos, a line of about 100m, imagine the length ) I would have to in full battle order run around the entire 100m of marching men from end to front and back to end again. This denoted once. I was then allowed to march for 1 minute ( rest ) and then I had to do it all over again. I estimated I had to run some 58 times on average around the men before we reached our destination. If I fell due to my muscles giving up, I would be beaten again and forced to carry on. Whenever the men rested upon reaching the destination, I was made to kneel on the sand with my field pack overhead arms outstretched again. Same treatment as above. I might have probably knelt for hours in a row. Whenever I had to urinate, I would never be allowed to go to the toilet and I was told to piss in my own pants. Imagine wearing a pissed stained slacks for 15 days. I was not given a chance to bathe or change whatsoever same everything since day 1 all trough day 15. Well, I was allowed to shit though, but how often could I say that I wanted to shit? Truth was, I was scared shitless. They made me observe malicious fighting dogs in a cage. I had to listen to their sound and was told I would be put in that cage. I was also blindfolded then, tied up in various stress positions, and left where there were these malicious dogs, the kind that had real big pincers with teeth larger than their eyes, and was bitten all over. Mind you, I could not see and did not know how well I was protected. It seems that all this time, their attempts were to make me begging to end these punishments. The trainers played psychological games to the extreme. Knowing that I was mentally and physically weakened to the extreme, they constantly and consistently challenged me to "surrender" if I couldn’t take the torture/stress. They pointed to a hole above one training shed and said that another SIF trainee had shot himself committing suicide then in the exact shed. I was told that I could do the same. It was through sheer determination that I held on. Sometimes I would never know and like all the rest of the men, they never knew what made me hold on. On another occasion, I was standing in front of d.i.'s when one jumped off his bench and gave me a flying kick to the chest throwing me off my feet. This, was committed in the presence of the entire platoon. At another time, I was in full battle order and had a pretty heavy “broad jump mat” added over my shoulders and had my hands tied, and was told to hold on to a toggle rope attached to a Land Rover. The vehicle moved slowly and I was ordered to run following the vehicle. When I fell and let go of the rope, I was forcefully dragged along the ground by instructors for some distances before they let me go. Even after the 15 days when we returned to Mainland, back in 1st Commando Battalion, I was not spared. For a couple of days, the 2LT would have me awaken every 2 hours starting at 11pm and was told to go to the toilet and drench myself in water and stand facing the wall in “attention” position and listen to him blabber more unrelated bullshit and small talk for about an hour, before I was allowed to go back to sleep all wet. 2 hours later, the entire harassment episode would be repeated till the next morning. Another point I would like to bring up is that I was confined in camp for 4 entire months. They always seemed to find a way to get me confined and I was not allowed to go out, to make calls or to even see the outside world for 4 whole months. It was all verbal instructions and being a SIF recruit, I did not dare to question the orders any further. Was it to prevent me from complaining or to prevent ordinary soldiers from seeing my injuries? I had to face the wall when a guard approaches. I had to use my hands to wipe my ass. The guard told me once I must have had to much to eat since I shit in my cell. I had to eat it before I would get any food. Family wise, both my parents did not even know I signed on. Moreover both my parents are divorced and I have a very free rein on my own life. That is why no one queried when I did not return home for months in a row. The instructors were aware of this point. I brought out this authentic report. The above was written to serve further study and development of the SIF Training program. As a final word I like to say the program worked for me and did not cause any permanent insurmountable damage. 1999, February 20 Peter Coham.
