Originally Posted by Mike Brewer

The life vest may have actually been what kept you in the rip. By not being able to get underwater, you were at the mercy of the surface current. Now, before anyone advocates ditching your life vest, let me clarify:
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Originally Posted by Mike Brewer

You really ought to be a strong swimmer going in, which is why my unit did a full SOF certification combat swim course every six months - full battle rattle, multiple scenarios, both keeping weapons and gear as well as ditching weapons and gear. When the first two tests were finished (a year after the policy was put into effect), every soldier in the unit could complete a 1000 meter swim in BDU's and boots with 2 ten pound weights in his cargo pockets. Twenty pounds doesn't sound like much, but try it. It's tough. If this kind of training/testing was official policy for non SOF soldiers, I believe a lot of lives would be saved.

Originally Posted by BoarSpear

The USS Indianapolis!! Can you say Karma? thats a story the navy doesnt like to talk about...just a question hardball where were you swimmimg and Why a life vest? I live in FL and every year Yankee tourist come down in droves and feed the sharks/drown. We often see pasty white overweight tourist in speedos and water wings/ life vest...if you cant swim ...go to the tide pools at disney... if you even remotely suspect you need a life preserver ...stay out of the ocean. the lifevest is great if you fall overboard in big water but in the shallows it just helps the current drag you around. We have multiple DAILY(during tourist season) rescues due to poeple with no experience going for a swim... it is normal to see tourist twice as far out in the water as locals, people seem to go on vacation and assume this means nothing is important...IM ON VACATION!

Originally Posted by Mike Brewer

They quite literally throw you into the pool with all your gear on, and rescue the ones who can't swim. I am not making this up. People who can't swim get a one-day class with one of the designated "strong swimmers" and then they get to try again. If they fail, they receive a counseling and have no positive actions (promotions, awards, etc.) until they get it right. Fail for a year (two tries), and you're out of the unit.

The course we did consisted of seven major events. They were:

1. Walk blindfolded off of a 3m (9+ feet) platform into deep water (usually 12' or so) wearing BDU's, boots, and load-bearing equipment including filled canteens (no empty ones, cause they float). We'd also be carrying a weapon. Objective was to swim to the side retaining the weapon and all gear.

2. Same as #1, except sink all the way to the bottom, lay the weapon down, ditch all load-bearing gear, remove the blindfold, recover the weapon, and swim to the side.

3. Same as #1, except sink to the bottom, ditch all gear, and recover to the side.

4. Walk off platform (3m) and tread water for 15 minutes wearing BDU's, boots, and carrying a weapon.

5. Walk off platform and begin treading water. Remove BDU pants and make a flotation jacket out of them by tying off the legs and scooping them full of air (hard as hell when trying to keep all your gear). Float for a minute or two to prove it worked.

6. 1000m swim in BDU's, boots, and load-bearing gear

7. 200m swim dragging a buddy, also in all of his gear.

The real key to swimming in all that damned gear is to just relax and be "okay" with going really slow. All the clothing and whatnot does is adds drag, which will slow you down. It doesn't really make you sink. In fact, most boots float due to the foam insoles and midsoles, so after a while, your back and neck hurt from arching so much. Make no mistake, the LBV abd weapon will both sink like rocks, but if you sidestroke and keep the weapon along side your body, it doesn't add anything. When I got real tired, I'd even flip over and backstroke, using the weapon as an oar! It was more as a joke, because it didn't work very well, but it broke up the monotony of the 1000m swim.

Another helpful hint was to carry the weapon by the pistol grip and a "palm-down" grip over the fore end. If not, the impact of the water rushing up to meet you can smack it clean out of your grip and into the next available protuberance, which is ordinarily your chin and mouth. Two guys lost teeth on this part of the exercise.

I was lucky, in that I have always trained swimming. I love it, and I'm strong at it. My best friend also spent time in the PJ's, and could probably outswim any SEAL I've ever met. He put me through some of their indoctrination and training swim drills, and that taught me a lot about staying calm in the water. Those drills are serious business, and I passed out at least once underwater, requiring him to "bring me back" before kicking me back in the water to finish the course. He says it's common to have people pass out two and three times underwater during this training. When they do, their buddies perform the necessary aid and then they throw everyone back in the water to finish up. Tough Stuff!! It was that training, though, that convinced my commander to allow Brad to come out and train the unit in combat swimming. We had two "non-swimmers" who had to walk on the bottom of the pool and jump up for breaths now and then during the 1000m swim portion, and Brad's course got them up to snuff in just over a month!

Originally Posted by eXcessiveForce

I had a friend who was in the special forces. The had then get all loaded up with their fear and get on a plane. they flew for a long time. (this was during the Panama thing) so they thought they were on there way to panama.

The parachuted into the ocean. They were to tread water until morning 6 hours then swim in to shore and hit their mark. I believe the swim was 3 to 5 miles but my memory fails me a bit. When they hit the beach they had to be in 1000 yards of the mark. If not they were picked up by boat and taken back out and needed to swim in again.

He told me they didn't know it but their were SEALs in the water below them who would rescue any that went under.

The whole time until they hit shore they did not know they were not entering Panama.

That's some crazy stuff there.

I once swam a mile and determined I never wanted to do that again. It took me several hours and I was exhausted afterwards.

Originally Posted by Hardball

I was just igonorant to ocean water swimming. I was wearing a vest because It was available. I completed advanced swimming in college but it was no help in the ocean. I was in kill devil hills north carolina.

Originally Posted by BoarSpear

Sounds like you learned the hard way. My daughter used to be a life gaurd here in Daytona bch. She was of the opinion that vest and rafts or flotation devices in general that are sold/rented to tourist cause most of the incidents due to causing overconfidence. Much more education is needed to inform people your pool or lake back home DO NOT prepare you for ocean swimming. but that might limit tourist spending...cant have that...

Originally Posted by Hardball

Are you at Liberty to say what unit this was? If it is top secret, I understand. Sounds like Seals or recon marines.

Originally Posted by Mike Brewer

Congrats, Hardball!

This is the first thread in the tactical forum to hit two pages! Start more, and maybe make them threads that don't involve you risking your life to come up with a topic!