Video Duration: seven minutes and two seconds
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SERE prepares special operation soldiers for rapid, high-risk, complex missions, deep in enemy territory. We're going to sneak into these buildings right here. Come on. We're going to have to retrieve a package and then move to extraction. Great job. This is awesome. It amazed me, just similarities with military service and football. I love the brotherhood, the teamwork that it takes to fight for the men and women. This is left and right of you. This is "I Could Do That." SERE Edition, presented by USAA.
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I'm Lane Johnson, all pro right tackle. Today, we're outside Philadelphia. I'm here with a bunch of Army veterans about to get a taste of SERE training.
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What's going on? Hey, Lane. Good to meet you. Nice to meet you. Think you can handle some military SERE training? I can do that. Let's go. SERE stands for survival, evasion, resistance, and escape. Today, what I have prepared for Lane is an abbreviated version of the SERE experience. And then we're going to put it all together in our culmination exercise. So first thing Jason taught me was land navigation. So I had to learn how to use my compass and go from location A to location B. We're working on a technique called dead reckoning to get a direction of travel. So dial in 10. And then establishing a pace count so we know how far we've walked over land through thick terrain.
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We moved on to urban evasion, how enemy's movements dictate his movement, use of cover and concealment to keep from being seen or detected. All right, Lane. We have an urban area in front of us here. And if you kind of scan this area, you kind of see some combatants out here. These are the bad guys. This is my cover on the outside. And I have these buildings through here. I'm going to lay out here in this last cover and conceal position and look at the most advantageous route. If I got a guy in a tower here, I'm not going to want to enter there, correct? So I'm going to want to look for those gaps where you can actually exploit the enemy's movement. We are flanking.
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That's right, flanking. There's going to be a package you're going to have to retrieve kind of in the center of an urban environment and then move to a rescue site.
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All right, Lane. The whole intention behind GTAS or Ground to Air Signal is to build a fire to let the overhead bird know your exact location for rescue. So we're going to start with larger pieces of wood as a base. The next thing we want to get on there is tinder. It's our smallest making material, light, airy, easily ignitable. Now I'm going to go kindling. Pencil size to toothpick size pieces of wood. Snap when they break, so I know they're dry. Place some tinder on top of that. So at this point, I'm teaching Lane one of the oldest forms of creating fire. Another more reliable means using the ferrocerium rod and striker. There it is. Yep, upside down on it. Place it in our hole we made. Feed the straw grass in. Once this starts to get established, we have some smoke here but not enough to really signal. So now we need to take our greens and put those on. We're going to throw those right on top.
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Look at that smoke. I've been camping. I've been hunting, so I'll spend a lot of time in the woods. But never got to officially make a fire. This is really cool. Jason is obviously very knowledgeable. He's a great teacher. So let's hope that I accumulate all these skills and I can use it in our last challenge.
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Lane certainly has the discipline and grit to take the training today and be successful at whatever I throw at him. All right, Lane, this is your culmination exercise. You got separated from your unit, enemy composition, unknown amount of enemy, disposition. It's a militia force. Use everything you did today, the navigation, the movement through urban area, and your ground air signal for rescue. Put it all together now to accomplish your mission on your own. OK. I'll put my skills to the test. 60 degrees, 50 meter.
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During the navigation, Lane is going to have to negotiate through a wooded environment to find the initial cache.
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His pace count was spot on. OK. So we got to our first point. Let's see what's in there. He retrieved that initial cache quite quickly. OK, this is the map. Looked at the strip map, figured out his next move. Container village.
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Hidden within that urban area, there's going to be a cache, and inside that cache, it's going to be in the makings to build his ground air signal. Start the fire and signal for rescue. Some of the things that Lane Johnson is going to have to face, Op 4, which is the opposition forces, that's going to be roaming in the area. So he has to be able to adapt and adjust. Op 4, opposition forces, main objective is to keep Lane from achieving his objective. Try to throw Lane off a little bit. I can hear them, so I'm going to try to be as quiet as I can. We're going to the bridge on this map. Across the bridge, away from the guy in the tower. So here we go.
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I've had multiple family members serve in the Army and Navy. It amazed me, just the similarities with military service of football. Got to get low.
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Got in the tower.
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The hardest part, being a professional football player, it's just mentally coming in each day, willing to attack whatever you have in front of you. We're out here. We're going to sneak in two of these buildings right here, figure out what's our next move. Lane did fantastic today. Very impressed with just his rapid decision making.
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There are goals to get to that container. There's a tower. He's going in and out. Whenever he goes back in or turns his back, we'll all last across the road. Lane formulated a plan. He figured out quite quickly the route he wanted to take. You could see his intelligence as he exploited the enemy's movements.
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The cache is here, so we are over here. I don't want to go and try to sneak through the main entrance. There's too many guards.
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Come on.
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As we select people into special forces, those are the people we're looking for with that level of mental toughness that seek out hard days to become callous towards situations that would break normal people.
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So now we have our tools to make a fire. Let's go.
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Fire starting spots here, so let's make a base.
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Can you elevate it off the ground in case it is a little bit moist?
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He was able to get his fire started, establish fire, and then send up dark smoke, which gave contrast to the terrain that he was in. All right, let's put the greens on here and make this smoke. Make sure I create enough smoke to alert airplanes, helicopters, overhead where my location is.
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Great job. Yes, sir. Awesome. It felt like I conquered Mount Everest today. Good signal. Good signal. Black smoke, birds inbound. Jason, you name it, he's done it. Green Beret, Army Ranger. I was very proud to have him teach me a thing or two today. Probably the biggest honor I've had as a player. I was a 2024 nominee for the USAA Salute to Service Award. Military, men and women. It amazed me just how they served with honor, the friendships they made, and the lives that they chose. Could Lane make it in the military? 110%. Could he make it through a SERE experience? No doubt in my mind. He could do that.
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