Introduction to the Code of Conduct

Heads up: This section discusses isolation, captivity, coercion, interrogation, and rescue under combat conditions. Some readers may find the imagery difficult.

An isolated person is any military person who becomes separated from friendly control. Whether cut off during a combat operation and forced to evade capture, a prisoner of war (POW), kidnapped by terrorists, or detained by a foreign government during operations other than war, the isolated person's mission is to "Survive and Return with Honor."

Could you become isolated during your Air Force career? Absolutely.

In the past, AF members other than aircrew and special-ops personnel were considered at low risk of isolation. Not so today — the nature of AF operations and the tactics employed by our enemies have changed things. We are all at risk of isolation.

Purpose

The Code of Conduct (CoC) for U.S. Military Personnel specifically addresses how you are to behave if isolated. The CoC provides moral guidance (Integrity First) for:

• Surviving the hardships of isolation
• Evading capture by the enemy
• Resisting exploitation by a captor

The AF provides Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) training in support of the CoC. During your career, you'll receive SERE training appropriate to your specialty's risk of isolation. The information in this section — and the lessons you'll receive during BMT — are the foundation of SERE training. We'll add to this foundation throughout your career.

The Code of Conduct

To live up to the CoC's moral standard, you must know not only its words but the ideas and principles behind them. In six brief articles, the CoC provides a standard you can use if isolated to develop appropriate responses and adapt behavior.

Article 1

"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."

You have the duty at all times and under all circumstances to oppose the enemies of the U.S. and support its national interests. In training or in combat, alone or with others, while evading capture or enduring captivity, this duty is shared by each American defending our nation regardless of circumstances.

Past isolated personnel have cited a high degree of personal dedication and motivation as essential to their success. Such qualities require knowledge of and a strong belief in:

• America's democratic institutions and concepts
• America and a conviction that America's causes are just
• Loyalty to fellow isolated personnel
• One's own religious or spiritual convictions

Article 2

"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."

As an individual, you may never voluntarily surrender. Even when isolated and no longer able to inflict casualties, it is your duty to evade capture and rejoin friendly forces.

The means to resist may be considered exhausted only when:

• Evasion is impossible, AND
• Further fighting would lead only to your death with no significant loss to the enemy.

With all reasonable means of resistance exhausted, with certain death the only alternative, capture does not imply dishonor.

The responsibility and authority of a commander never extends to the surrender of a command. Even when isolated, cut off, or surrounded, a unit must continue to fight until relieved or able to rejoin friendly forces.

Article 3

"If I am captured I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and aid others to escape. I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy."

You have a duty to resist by all means available even if captured. Contrary to international law, enemies of the U.S. have treated POW facilities as extensions of the battlefield and treated POWs as combatants — using such pressures as:

• Physical and mental harassment
• General mistreatment and torture
• Medical neglect
• Political indoctrination

If detained by a foreign government during peacetime operations or by hostage takers, you can also expect exploitation attempts.

No special favors. No parole.

Captors have tempted American POWs to accept special favors or privileges not given to other captives in return for statements, information, or a pledge not to escape.

American POWs will not accept special privileges or treatment alone or at the expense of other captives.

Parole is a promise by a POW to a captor to fulfill certain conditions — such as agreeing not to escape or not to fight again once released — in return for favors like relief from physical bondage, improved food, or repatriation ahead of others. You may never accept parole.

International law recognizes that captives' countries may impose regulations requiring them to escape and captives may attempt to escape. Under the guidance of the senior ranking US military person, captives are expected to:

• Think escape
• Plan to escape
• Aid others to escape

Article 4

"If I become a prisoner of war, I will keep faith with my fellow prisoners. I will give no information or 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."

Keep communicating

Maintaining communication is one of the most important ways POWs can help each other. Communication helps by breaking the barriers of isolation an enemy may attempt to construct and helps to strengthen the will to resist.

When captured, each captive will attempt to make contact with fellow American captives by any means available — and will continue to communicate and participate as part of the captive organization.

Never inform on other captives

Informing on other captives is detrimental to all captives and is expressly forbidden. Captives must avoid aiding the enemy in identifying Americans who may have knowledge or other value to the enemy's cause.

A volunteer informer may be considered a traitor to the U.S. and to fellow captives — upon release, an informer is subject to punishment under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).

Senior takes command

Strong leadership is essential to discipline; without discipline, captive organization, resistance, and even survival are jeopardized. Officers and NCOs continue to carry out their responsibility to lead and exercise their authority in captivity.

The senior ranking U.S. officer, regardless of branch, will take command — this duty and accountability cannot be disregarded.

The responsibility of subordinates to obey lawful orders of ranking American military personnel remains unchanged in captivity. Failure to do so may result in charges under the UCMJ after release.

Article 5

"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."

International law does not extend the right to captors to force captives to provide information. Captives are required to provide:

• Name
• Rank
• Service number
• Date of birth

Captives may communicate with captors on matters of health and welfare, but must take great care not to provide information or statements that will further the enemy's cause.

What captors will try to extract

Take caution not to provide the captor with:

• Oral or written confessions
• Questionnaires
• Personal history statements
• Propaganda recordings
• Appeals for surrender
• Any statement harmful to the U.S., its allies, the armed forces, or fellow captives

Any confession signed or statement made may be used as an accusation by the enemy that the captive is a criminal. In wartime, a confession may remove protections POWs receive under international law; during peacetime it subjects the captive to the laws of the detaining nation.

The best way for a prisoner to keep faith with country, fellow prisoners, and self is to provide the enemy with as little information as possible.

Article 6

"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."

As a member of the armed forces, you remain responsible and can be held legally accountable for personal actions at all times. Upon return from captivity, a member may be subject to review for the circumstances that led to capture and for conduct in captivity.

The purpose of such a review is to:

• Recognize meritorious performance.
• Garner lessons learned.
• Investigate possible misconduct.

Reviews are conducted with due regard for the rights of the individual and consideration for the conditions of captivity.

Pay, benefits, and family

Both captives and dependents will be taken care of by the AF. The member's pay and allowances, eligibility, procedures for promotion, and benefits for dependents continue while the captive is detained.

Keep your personal affairs and family matters current — through discussion, counseling, or filing of documents — prior to being exposed to risk of isolation. Failure to do so has resulted in an almost overwhelming sense of guilt on the part of past POWs and undue hardship on family members.

Evasion

If you become separated from your unit and are in a situation requiring you to evade capture, initially consider:

• Take action to protect yourself.
• Seek a concealed site initially to take stock of your situation.
• Assess your medical condition and treat as necessary.
• Sanitize your clothing of potentially compromising information.
• Sanitize the area around you. Hide equipment, trash, etc.
• Apply personal camouflage if required.
• Use the terrain to your advantage for both communication and concealment.
• Locate a hole-up site carefully. Use the BLISS acronym:

BLISS: Blend in — Low silhouette — Irregular shape — Small — Secluded.

When moving during evasion:

• Travel slowly and deliberately: stop, look, listen, and smell often.
• Do not leave evidence of travel: use noise and light discipline.
• Stay away from roads, paths, trails in rural areas. Avoid congested streets in urban settings unless you can blend in with locals.
• Move from one concealed area to another.
• Mask movement using wind, rain, and natural cover.
• Know the adversary's patrols, travel restrictions, and checkpoints.

Personnel Recovery

Personnel recovery is the sum of military, diplomatic, and civil efforts to prepare for and execute recovery and reintegration of isolated personnel. Each theater has a plan for conducting recovery operations — be familiar with the basics of that plan.

The five personnel recovery tasks:

1. Report
2. Locate
3. Support
4. Recover
5. Reintegrate

Recovery sites and signaling

As an evader or escaper, your primary goal is to arrive at a recovery site if possible. A recovery site needs to be:

• Large enough to accommodate a recovery vehicle.
• Affording rescue with as little risk as possible to enemy fire and exposure.
• Providing ample opportunity for escape in case something goes wrong.

Be ready to contact recovery forces once they arrive — even if it requires improvising a signal. Once you've made contact, follow their instructions exactly.

Examples of signaling devices: strobes, beacons, radios, ground-to-air signals. Account for environmental factors when deciding how to signal — haze, clouds, fog, rain, smoke, and snow all reduce visibility.

Captivity

Spectrum of Captivity

The nature of captivity has changed. We now face diverse and complex operating environments, which may place any U.S. service member into a captivity environment that may not be well defined.

The two ends of the Spectrum of Captivity:

• Constrained captor — usually governments. Held accountable to national and international laws and pressured by world opinion. A constrained captor's goal is to exploit a captive's activity or mission for political propaganda and to influence the U.S. Government and its allies.
• Unconstrained captor — terrorist groups, criminals. Not accountable to laws and much less likely to respond to international pressures. Goals may be to gain strategic objectives such as embarrassing the U.S. Government, spreading fear, and gaining concessions such as the release of political prisoners.

Situational Awareness — PAID+E

In the captivity environment, Situational Awareness (SA) is the captive's adaptive ability to understand themselves, the captor, and the environment. By applying judgment, the captive can make decisions corresponding to the CoC.

SA is what you use to make good decisions, form possible actions, and execute them.

The PAID+E acronym provides a step-by-step method for identifying a captivity environment:

Psychological aspects of captivity

A captor can gain control of your body through torture and external deprivations — but ultimately wants control of your mind. The captor's ultimate goal is to make you cooperate.

A captive's most important tool is psychological composure. A captor can manipulate the external environment almost at will — but only the captive has control of the internal process.

The Seven Enemies of Survival

Coping methods

Brief list of coping methods to overcome various stressors:

• Conviction of Purpose — believe in your military mission and your country.
• Prepare — have your life in order: finances, legal, personal, medical, etc.
• Have Faith — establish and "keep the faith" with yourself, family, Service, fellow captives, Nation, and God.
• Keep a Positive Mental Attitude — be stubbornly optimistic. Keep an image in your mind of positive outcomes.
• Be Engaged — an engaged captive is not a passive recipient. Passiveness leads to hopelessness, helplessness, compliance, or despair. Engaged captives make some mistakes, but they learn and bounce back.

Communications in captivity

Communications between captives are required by DoD directives and have been described by past captives as the "life blood" of captivity. Communications can be the key to survival.

Captive communications don't have to follow any set standard. Any method is acceptable as long as it satisfies the captives' needs and adheres to these basic principles:

• Keep it simple.
• Keep it versatile.
• Keep it brief.
• Keep it secure.

Efforts to communicate beyond the captivity environment — to the outside world — may be essential when held by an unconstrained group, especially if the group is known to kill captives. There is always a way to communicate — be creative.

Security is key: if captors discover communication attempts, they are likely to retaliate.

Organization in captivity — SCORE

The rules of leadership and followership that apply in daily military routine continue to apply in captivity — and become even more important. Strong organization improves morale and productivity.

Every service member must be prepared to assume a leadership role or actively support the senior military person.

The SCORE acronym is a tool to determine goals:

Captive exploitation

Exploitation is the use of captives to advance a captor's cause — a process designed to render captives manageable. The captor wants exploitation in the shortest time possible and begins from the moment of capture. Exploitation may be overt or masked by deception.

Recognizing a captor's attempts at exploitation is the first step in resisting their objectives.

Traditional exploitation methods:

• Forced Labor — captives may be used as a source of free or cheap labor. Captives may volunteer for labor that benefits captives (cooking, cleaning) — but it's a captive's duty to resist forced exploitive labor that solely benefits the captor.
• Indoctrination — a captor attempts to modify the captive's beliefs, using truths, half-truths, and outright lies.
• Information — interrogation is the act of extracting useable, reliable information.
• Propaganda — any doctrine, idea, argument, fact, or allegation spread by deliberate effort. Captors have used captives to make propaganda products to influence opinions.
• Legal Justification — the captor frequently wants an admission of guilt. If successful, it justifies the arrest, captivity, and any future actions.
• Concessions — the captor may use the captive as leverage to force concessions from the U.S. or allied governments.

Coercive manipulation

Coercive manipulation is the skillful management of captives using force or intimidation to bring about compliance. The captor can employ more than one method at a time — and the combination puts the greatest pressure on the captive.

Expect enemy attempts at coercive manipulation, identify the attempts for what they are, and communicate appropriately.

Interrogation

The interrogator's goal is to obtain useful, reliable, and reproducible information. To be successful, information must be obtained in a timely manner — for example, tactical information must be extracted within 24–48 hours after capture or it will likely be of less tactical value.

Tactical interrogations are usually performed immediately upon capture and are likely to be more physical. Tactical interrogators generally have little knowledge of interrogation methods other than brute force and threats.

Captives should control their emotions and use techniques to survive the initial capture.

The interrogator uses three phases to gain information and plan future exploitation: research, selection, and extraction.

Resisting Exploitation

There are no absolute solutions to the problems faced in captivity. Every event is unique. Captives must remain flexible and use their best judgment based on the situation.

A key to resisting is the captive's ability to recognize when something is not working as planned and the ability to adapt.

Resistance posture

Resistance posture is the integration of demeanor, actions, and words. Effectively integrating these will limit the captor's ability to exploit you.

U.S. military members are presumed innocent of wrongdoing; a captive's actions should reflect that reality.

An effective mindset: "I have done nothing wrong or illegal and I am innocent." This combined with resistance strategies will enable a captive to do and say the correct things to achieve innocence and personal dignity.

To be effective, a resistance posture must be plausible, consistent, and persistent:

The greatest pitfall of resistance is attempting to outwit the captor. Captives who try to out-talk and out-think their captors are at great risk of being exploited.

Characteristics of a successful resistance posture

• Be Professional
• Listen Carefully
• Stall
• Bounce Back

Authorized communication

Information you are allowed to communicate with captors falls into four areas:

1. Captive Identification
2. Seeking Assistance
3. Captive's health and welfare, rapport building, letters home, and capture cards
4. Innocent Circumstances

Resistance techniques are based on tactics that have proven most successful and least dangerous. When held by an unconstrained captor, chances of surviving are increased if the captive proactively displays appropriate behaviors.

Captivity Resolution

Escape

Captives should never forget their responsibilities to escape. The process of thinking about and planning escape can do a tremendous amount for your well-being.

Constrained captor (armed conflict)

The CoC, international law, and the UCMJ all support and recognize the right and responsibility of military members to escape. American military tradition supports the idea that escape from the enemy is a duty.

Operations other than war

Generally, escape is not recommended except under unique or life-threatening circumstances. If captives feel their lives are truly in danger, guidance allows for escape.

Any escape attempt interferes with their claim of innocent circumstances.

Unconstrained captor

Hostages should always be escape-minded. A failed attempt may have serious consequences. The decision to escape should be made if the group holding the hostage is known to kill hostages or the captive believes they are planning to kill them.

Escape-mindedness is an attitude and mindset that allows a captive to use SA to think, prepare, and plan for escape. The escape-minded captive is a "prisoner at war" — and will reject the most reprehensible of conditions: captivity.

Release from Captivity

In order to obtain the return of all captives with honor — without jeopardizing the safety of others or national security — certain policies must be followed.

Release will be in legitimate order with approval or on order of the senior ranking officer (SRO). The SRO should strive for all captives to be released together.

If the SRO authorizes releases, the order of release is:

1. Sick (mentally, physically, and emotionally), wounded, and longtime captives. Of these, those needing the most immediate medical attention are released first.
2. Enlisted personnel and civilians.
3. Warrant officers and commissioned officers.
4. SRO accepts release last.

Under all conditions and if there are no strings attached, a captive is authorized and encouraged to accept an offer of release. Before accepting, make all possible attempts to contact the SRO.

Do not try to become involved in negotiations for release — that must be left to the U.S. Government to resolve. Captives best assist by continuing to give captors the clear message that they will not cooperate with the captors' demands.

Rescue

The U.S. Government goes to great lengths — including rescue operations — to recover its personnel held captive. The isolated person facilitates a rescue mission by knowing what to expect:

• Avoid doors, windows, and open areas. When sounds or activities indicate an imminent rescue, head for a "safe" area.
• If a safe area cannot be reached, drop to the floor with hands visible and remain motionless.
• Do not attempt to "help" rescue forces by jumping up or pointing out terrorists — sudden movements could have deadly consequences.
• Follow all instructions exactly from the rescuers and expect rough handling until authentication is accomplished.
• Only after authentication should information about other captives and captors be relayed to the recovery force.

Reintegration

Reintegration is a critical, straightforward task designed to protect returned personnel and their families and to allow DoD to gather information. It protects the health and well-being of returned personnel and allows emotionally and physically healthy individuals to return to duty as soon as possible.

The process includes:

• Medical screening
• Decompression
• Intelligence and SERE debriefing
• Support for the returnee

A SERE Psychologist oversees decompression, ensuring the optimum balance between decompression and debrief. Decompression gives a returnee time to cope with the ordeal. Intelligence and SERE debriefs collect mission-essential, isolation, and captivity information — and serve a decompression function as well.

SERE debrief information is analyzed for lessons learned and disseminated to SERE schools and Personnel Recovery planners.

Summary

Any member of the AF is at risk of becoming an isolated person. If you ever become an isolated person, your mission is to "Survive and Return with Honor."

Follow the guidance from the CoC — it addresses how you are to behave if isolated and provides moral guidance for surviving the hardships of isolation, evading capture by the enemy, and resisting exploitation by a captor.

The AF provides SERE training in support of the CoC. This section is your initial SERE training — you'll receive additional SERE training dependent upon your AF specialty and assigned mission throughout your career.