Teaching Tech/Desert Survival

I think that our next training phase was teaching techniques. I didn’t care much for that. It was pretty boring. On base we had to research a list of survival topics and write lesson plans. It took a long time because it seemed that the lesson plans were never good enough. Then we practice taught to our classmates then went to the woods with the regular survival students and taught some classes while in the woods. I think that the most memorable thing for me during teaching tech. occurred in the field. One of the lessons that I did was food procurement. I talked about plant foods, traps and snares and fishing techniques then showed the students some fishing techniques for small rivers and streams and told them to take two hours and go fishing. Then I sat around and talked with Pete Kummerfledt, the main instructor of the crew. One of the students came back and said he had caught a fish and he showed it to me. It was a pretty nice fish. He asked me what he should do with it now and I told him to clean it. He stood there for a short while then said “how”. That is when I realized that just because you know something because of your life experiences, doesn’t mean that everyone else knows the same thing. As it turned out he was a city kid and had never been fishing before. Thank goodness teaching tech. was finally over.
The last phase we had was desert survival. On base we had the academic portion where we learned the ins and outs of desert survival and made the improvised gear that we would need for the field. The field portion was conducted out around Moses Lake somewhere. This was the first part of June 1968. Weather conditions have changed quite a bit since then. It was hot out there. We built shade shelters, solar stills, did some navigation work and laid around a lot during the day. Most of the work was done at night.
Hurray, it was finally graduation day. We had guest speakers and all received diplomas and told what flight we were assigned to. Then it was over. Just about everyone took leave and went home. I went home for a week. It was very nice being home after six months of intense training.