"Hey Lt. how you doing?"
"Good sir how's the injured cadre?"
"Broken ankle, he's out of action for at least six weeks, remember your first time here after we freed earth?"
"Oh yeah you guys commended me on how I dealt with the injury, but you still rolled me back six weeks to allow me proper healing"
Years earlier
Kerenai was cold, wet and tired, and was also doing a range finding exercise in the driving rain. She didn't know it but the cadre was watching her right when she tripped over a branch
"Stupid branch"
She tried to move her left arm and realized that both the arm and wrist hurt
"Okay situation report time, I'm injured, I'm alone, and if this were real for all I know I could be dealing with enemy forces following me. Right then time to do field medicine and continue on"
The cadre was about to go over to her to see if something was seriously wrong when he noticed her taking off her bag and doing field medicine, which was reduced to her making a sling and putting her left arm in the sling. When she stood up the cadre noticed she did a quick ankle test to see if her ankles were also injured, and when she noticed nothing else was injured she took her weapon, compass and map and continued on her mission. At the end of the exercise she was the only one coming in with obvious injuries, and the cadre commended her publicly about pushing herself even injured
"Okay everyone, as you may notice Kerenai here has her left arm in a sling, she tripped in the rain while doing her mapping and injured herself, she did field medicine and kept pushing as if she was on mission, that's something that's rare and should be commended, but she's still being pushed back for proper medical treatment. she probably imagined her patrol was over and she tripped and hurt herself, but since they were close enough to base she simply requested simple field medicine until she could get further treatment at base"
"Understood cadre, but you're wrong about the scenario I put myself in"
"Oh what scenario did you put yourself in then?"
"I was alone, injured and had possible enemies after me. I don't care what you imagine me dealing with to force me to be alone but that was how I put myself"
"Dang that's what I call an extreme scenario, now then report to the medic who will most likely call for an ambulance and once we know what x-rays say we'll see how long we have to push you back"
As it turned out she was pushed back for six weeks for a broken wrist and a dislocated shoulder
Present
"Alright recruits this is Lt. Kerenai she's replacing Sgt. Macgyver while he's recovering from his broken ankle"
The rest of the time was actually peaceful and just as the current recruits finished training the injured cadre returned and Kerenai was sent to a new unit
"So Lt. what's your skill?"
"I'm what you call an all rounder I can be anything and everything you need. Short a medic? No problem got you covered, need an explosives expert? I can handle it, need someone to take up a gunner position? Tell me. I can handle any position you give me and if something happens and a leader is needed I will step up and take charge of the unit to ensure the completion of the mission"
"How do I know you're telling me the truth?"
"I'll show you the proof you need to know I can handle this"
She turns around and takes off her shirt to reveal her scarred back
"Good grief what happened to you?"
"Three years of torture from when I was fifteen to the age of eighteen. I finally escaped capture and made my way to a Canadian base which told the closest American base once I woke up because my identity needed to be confirmed through a unique blood test. Almost died a few times too but I survived and made it back"
"What about the rest of your team and your original position?"
"I was with a Marine unit at the time on simple patrol, we never finished the patrol naturally and over the first few weeks my unit was killed while I survived for three years being tortured"
"SERE training in full effect?"
"Oh yeah, and that's part of the reason why my torture was so bad at times I never gave them what they wanted and that ticked them off"
"Uh excuse me, I know about SERE training, every recruit has had to go through it but remind me again how that's supposed to help because I haven't had a refresher course in a while"
"Okay what is SERE training supposed to do for you?"
Okay I got this off of Google so it might not be accurate. I apologize to any military, former military or relatives of military officers who read this
"SERE training is for and I quote. 'SERE training is intended, above all, to provide students with the skills needed to live up to the US military code of conduct when in uncertain or hostile environments. It is: One I am an American, fighting in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense. Two I will never surrender of my own free will. If in command, I will never surrender the members of my command while they still have the means to resist. Three If I am captured, I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and to aid others to escape. I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy. Four If I become a prisoner of war, I will keep faith with my fellow prisoners. I will give no information nor take part in any action which might be harmful to my comrades. If I am senior I will take command. If not, I will obey the lawful orders of those appointed over me and will back them up in every way. Five When questioned, should I become a prisoner of war, I am required to give name, rank, service number, and date of birth. I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability, I will make no oral or written statements disloyal to my country and its allies or harmful to their cause. Six I will never forget that I am an American, fighting for freedom, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country free. I will trust in my God and in the United States of America.' End quote, I know that and have been through all of that annually but still I have yet to truly understand all this hype about SERE when I haven't had to put it into action myself"
"Well I have and trust me it was the only thing keeping me going sometimes, I never had anyone else be a prisoner with me and I never saw another prisoner while I was trying to escape but while my unit was with me we did everything we could to make the enemy mad. We inserted random history facts per our orders and added a few others, once I was alone I gave the enemy dummy locations that I knew would lead terrorists to capture or at the very least keep the enemy from gaining valuable intelligence on us and our allies. Once I did something so good it shocked me no one thought it was from me and sent a team to try and find and rescue me"
"What did you do?"
"Not only did I give them the location of a false UN" (United Nations) "Peacekeeping base I also gave them false missile launch codes that when activated would send out an alert world wide that someone was trying to gain access to missiles that were dangerous, the codes would also send out a secondary alert to the White House that I was alive, possibly injured but alive. So when rescue didn't come I was initially surprised and then I figured something must have gone wrong in regards to the rescue unit. I never suspected that until a few days before I woke up or even made it to the Canadian base there was an imposter acting like me"
"Actually I remember hearing a story around the time of your captivity where a UN unit was doing checks and found out that there was someone in their false base. They captured the guys before they even got close to where they could use the launch codes. If those codes had been activated I'm sure the President would have realized what was going on and sent in a rescue unit for you, sorry Kerenai"
"Don't sweat it I know, now come on let's get some sleep and then I think we might want to do some team building exercises so we know how each other reacts to situations and what role I fit in as part of this unit"
They wouldn't get that chance unfortunately because the next day when they all woke up for exercising they were told they had to move in hard and fast on a new target