The National Ground Search and Rescue School, held annually at Camp Atterbury, Indiana, is an experience that will tax your mind and body, or at least it did mine. Before we go further there's something you should know -- NGSAR is not a great school, it's not even a good school, no, it's an outstanding school! (You may notice while reading this that I expound often on the virtues of NGSAR, this is because I bought stock in them and feel obligated to do a little advertising.)

First, a quick description of the terrain and weather at Camp Atterbury: the terrain is flat and about half woods and half open. The woods are deciduous ('Deciduous', not 'delicious' you knuckleheads - Ed.) and the fields are thick with weeds as high as your chest. This year the weather was all over. Some days it was clear outside, other days it was rainy; some were cold, some hot. Be prepared for a variety of weather.

Each day you are assigned "knowledgebase" tasks such as hot and cold weather injury prevention and treatment, conducting an individual refit, or missing person search clues. The field training is extensive and includes:

• Compass After navigating a simple course on the putting-green quality grass of the Cantonment Area (the open space between the barracks), you will be expected to find your way to three points in the woods of Two Bravo in less than 45 minutes. You are given the distance between the points and the bearing. That coupled with your pace count is adequate to find your way. At night your team will seek out three points in the dark.


• L-Per Again, you will practice in the Cantonment Area before heading to Two Bravo. You will have 30 minutes to find the ELT and take down the required information.


• Search methods After sitting through a PowerPoint presentation, it's off to, yup, Two Bravo (you starting to see a pattern yet?) where you'll apply what you learned in class to several scenarios. At night you'll be doing a missing person search.


• Scene management This is probably the highest-stress training of the week. On arriving on the scene of an accident, your team must care for the injured and set a perimeter. There will be and onslaught of nosy reporters, irate landowners, pesky hikers, family of the victims, and who knows what else.

It is at this time in my tale when I feel that you should be informed of Camp Atterbury's amenities, or lack thereof. We were lucky to get barracks with sinks, toilets that only overflowed twice, and a shower room. On the subject of showers - shower often and well. Your only chance to shower is at night, and believe me, you will want to shower. After a day of sweating and slogging through mud there is nothing like a nice shower. The shower-room is small and you will get to know your neighbors well. With over forty people to get through the shower in the male barracks, each person has limited time to shower.

The food was totally not home-cooked. The portions were very small, so I suggest snagging a box of cereal to stow in your 24-hour gear for later use. Also the Nestle cocoa mix makes for a nice shot of sugar when you are feeling tired. When in the field you will partake of that culinary delight, the MRE; A.K.A.: Meals Rejected by Everyone (Sorry, I couldn't resist.). Save all the extra stuff like the crackers, beverage powder, cookies and such for later, because you will be hungry again. Also, other students are always willing to trade, so keep that Minestrone Soup -- who knows, maybe someone will actually be willing to trade for it.

Free time will mostly be spent studying your task guides and sleeping. At the end of the week, if the school has performed to the commander's expectations, you may be rewarded with canteen time, where you can buy candy (finally), talk to other students in an informal setting, and catch a movie.

You may be asking yourself, "Just what do I get out of this?" What more could you want besides two NESA T-shirts? Oh, that blue badge on your chest? Upon successful completion of NGSAR you will have all of the requirements for GTM 3 except Basic First Aid or equivalent. Before NHQ created three levels of GTM, upon graduation you would have received full GTM, now it is only GTM3. To get GTM 1 and 2, you'll have to attend the Advanced course. Two notes: 1) During the Basic school, many of your GTM1 tasks will be signed off in addition to those for GTM3. 2) Any prior tasks you have signed off do not count towards your graduation from NGSAR.

Okay, here are some tips in no particular order:

• Make sure your boots fit. Blisters are not cool when you are on your feet 14 hours a day. If you can, bring two pairs so that the wet ones can dry out.


• Get your Basic First Aid. Though not a requirement to attend NGSAR, it's helpful to be able to do something more than twiddle your thumbs when you stumble upon a crash site.


• Eat well. No matter how bad that MRE is, choke it down. You'll wish you had later.


• Don't tick off your teammates. You'll be with them all day every day and it won't be pretty if you don't get along.


• Take small bills and quarters. At canteen call all that is accepted is ones and quarters. Don't do what I did and take some twenties and two ones.


• Beware -- if you lose any of your gear you will be punished. If Lt. Bos is there you will be made to do Star Jumpies...don't ask, you don't want to know.


• Bring enough clothes for the entire week. You will not have an opportunity to do laundry until graduation day.


• Sleep whenever you can. If you don't, you'll be wishing you had by the end of the week.


• Commander Induced Drills are common at NGSAR. Maj. Long is fond of severing students from their teams and watching how long it takes for the Team Leader to notice. So if you notice that your buddy is gone, don't just gawk, tell your Team Leader.


• Maintain a sense of humor. When you're standing in mud and it's raining cats and dogs you've just got to laugh about it. Without a good sense of humor you also won't have all the fun you are entitled to.

(CadetStuff.org ran a profile on AGSAR a couple years ago. Check it out.. - Ed.)