11/04/2025
SERE Association Newsletter October 2025
Dear SERE Association Members,
The weather is turning, the training area is soaked, colder and the pack carriers are digging out their snowshoes. We are dedicated to keeping you informed about our community's ongoing initiatives, and upcoming events. Together, we strive to honor the memory of our fallen heroes, support members and their families, and foster a spirit of unity within our community.
22 TRS Holiday Party
The association is getting involved in the 22TRS holiday party and we'd love to have you! As details come out, we will post them on our social media for tickets, times, and fun. We hope to see the community out with us.
Volunteer Opportunities
We have some exciting opportunities out there to help the community. Please contact any council member or use our FB page to ask tom help.
- Chuck Flight is gearing up for a springtime cleaning and rededication of the Lauterbach memorial site and we have his cross being constructed
- Volunteers are wanted to help hang our portraits in the Arthur Zozaya gym and help fundraise to create more portraits of our brothers.
- Volunteers are wanted from the retiree and veteran community to come and talk to our young SERE specialists. Imparting stories, histories, and mentorship to them for future generations.
-Opportunity ideas are always welcome as well, not just for our active-duty members, but also our retiree and veteran community.
The Ghost Who Might’ve Been Ours
Every community has its legends. Ours just happens to have hijacked a 727. He boarded in Portland. Wearing a business suit, tie, holding a bourbon and soda in hand. Once onboard he passed a note to the flight attendant. Calm voice. No panic. No guns. Just a quiet professional making demands that made perfect sense to anyone who’s ever taught survival for a living. “$200,000 in cash. Three parachutes. A flight south.” Later that night, somewhere between the Columbia River and the Cascades, he dropped the aft stairs and vanished into the storm.
The world called him D.B. Cooper.
But around Fairchild, the whispers had another tone. “The FBI questioned a few of us,” one of the old instructors remembered. “Survival guys. A couple of PJs, too. No one said a word. But there were rumors. Always rumors.” Cooper’s precision was hard to ignore. He asked for multiple chutes to keep the crew honest. He chose an altitude that didn’t need oxygen but bought him time. He kept his cool when everyone else in the plane was losing theirs. The kind of composure you don’t fake. The kind you teach.
Some said he had to be one of ours. Maybe he was a Fairchild instructor who decided to run the ultimate field problem. The timeline fits. Late ’60s. Plenty of combat vets cycled through the schoolhouse. Men who’d jumped into worse weather, with less gear, for no money at all. He was courteous, professional and almost proud of the craft.
“He never hurt anyone,” the story goes. “Maybe pretended to have a gun, but that’s it. Hell, I’d say he was a pretty good pirate.” Maybe that’s what he was: a sky pirate cut from SERE cloth. A man who knew his trade so well, he walked off the ramp of a 727 into darkness and left nothing but a legend.
To the rest of the world, D.B. Cooper is a mystery, but to those who’ve stood on the Fairchild tarmac at sunrise, smelling jet fuel and pine, he’s something else entirely. A reminder that the line between training and doing can be thin and that sometimes, the best evasion story ever told… started right here, at Fairchild.
Trophy of The Quarter
Starting January the Association will begin and event called trophy of the quarter. Post your harvest on the SERE Sportsman page and each quarter, the first being October to December will receive a gift from the association after a community vote.
More details will be revealed but our first prize will be sponsored
by a local business and will include a gift from the association, as well as a spot of honor in the newsletter.
Happy hunting, Bubbas!
Council Meeting Details
Our next meeting will be earlier due to the holiday.
See details below
Planned Minutes
Shirt designs and ordering
Trophy of the quarter sponsorship
Holiday Party
Non-profit Updates
Get Involved
- Have a story to share or an idea to contribute? We'd love to hear from you! Contact us at [email protected], USAF SERE Association FB page, or use our QR code to get involved. We genuinely appreciate ideas on how to improve, fun events you and your family would be interested in and make this association better for us and those who will be here when we are gone.
As we move forward, let us remember that it is through our collective efforts that we can continue to preserve our history, support our fallen heroes' families, and foster a strong sense of community.
Thank you for your unwavering dedication to the SERE Association. Together, we make a difference.
To us and those like us, damn few left.
-SERE Association Council
Ways to Get Involved
- Drop a line or show up to a meeting. (4th Thursday of every month)
- Donate to the Association on our website (link below) or by mail at:
THE SERE ASSOCIATION
7642 A Washington Ave
Fairchild AFB, 99011
- Know someone who isn't getting our newsletter? Have them send a message to [email protected]
Check out our event on Thursday, Nov 13, 2025.
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