When Tiffany Zaloudek walked into a recruiter’s office, she was ready to deal with the overt sexism of being told that becoming a SERE Specialist in the Air Force was too hard for a woman.
She was not expecting to be waved off because she had a pet rabbit.
“I didn’t look like the type who would do this job because I was so feminine,” Zaldoudek said. “Well, that and because I had previously owned a pet rabbit.”
The rabbit excuse, she would soon learn, was actually kind of legit. SERE specialists — expert instructors in the skills of Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape — routinely teach aircrew and special operators how to catch, kill, prepare and eat animals in the wild. Rabbits, which can be caught with simple snares, are often on the menu.
Thinking of them as a pet would only get in the way.
But the too-hard-for-a-girl argument was not one Zaloudek was going to listen to.
“As the recruiter started explaining a lot the jobs, once I saw the SERE brochure — and he wiped the dust off it — the only thing he told me was that he knew it was a very difficult job to get, it was very physically demanding and barely any females made it,” Zaldoudek said in a video interview with Air Force recruiting officials.
“I was like, ‘this is my job.’”
Last month, after 17 years in SERE, Zaloudek was promoted to chief master sergeant, becoming the first woman to reach the Air Force’s highest enlisted rank as a SERE specialist, which falls in the service’s special warfare community. In an Air Force release around her promotion and several video interviews from earlier in her career, Zaloudek talked about how her childhood in St. Louis, Missouri, led her toward one of the service’s most rugged jobs.
“Grew up a little bit outdoorsy, we did camping — but like traditional camping, like tents and marshmallows, not like something you deal with in SERE,” Zaloudek said. “I was my dad’s shadow. We would do everything together. [My parents] taught me to never quit or be afraid of hard work.”
After basic training, she attended SERE specialist selection, one of the service’s most grueling courses. Just to qualify for entry into the training, candidates have to complete a physical fitness test of eight pull-ups, 48 sit-ups and 40 push-ups in two minutes each and a 1.5-mile run in less than 11 minutes.
Once in the school, the physical standards — and constant demands — go up.
“You’re constantly ran into the ground, PTing non-stop, you’re eating insects, you’re doing navigation, shelter craft and you’ve never done anything like this before,” she said.
After making it though selection, she attended the six-month SERE specialist training program, which covers survival and evasion skills across a full range of environments, from the Arctic to jungles to deserts. SERE specialists are also trained in the secretive techniques of detention resistance, skills that aircrew and special operators are taught in case they end up as prisoners of war or other detainees.
During training, Zaloudek said her goal was to not only meet but exceed every standard. She was determined to be judged on her capabilities rather than her gender. When she finally earned the SERE specialist’s beret, the instructors recognized her as one of the class’ top performers.
The ‘Combat Barbie’ stigma
The role of SERE specialists in the Air Force has evolved in recent years, and most flying units and special ops squadrons have SERE personnel assigned for ongoing training. But at the heart of the job is teaching SERE courses at the Air Force’s primary aircrew survival school at Fairchild Air Force Base outside Spokane, Washington (a detachment of SERE instructors also teach the service’s Arctic Survival School during winters at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska.) Nearly all Air Force flyers spend close to a month at the base learning the basics of surviving in the wild and how to evade toward rescue forces. SERE instructors also operate an Evasion and Conduct After Capture school in San Antonio, Texas, to “prepare Air Force members to survive the rigors of isolation and return with honor” teaching urban evasion and captivity training in academic classes, a role-play laboratory and a hostage resistance training laboratory.
As a field instructor, Zaloudek wore what she called a “bleach blonde” ponytail and acrylic nails, she said in the release. As a woman in the small careerfield, she said, her extroverted and “bubbly” personality was sometimes taken for weakness. Some would call her “combat barbie.”
Snapping into what she called ‘survival mode,’ she switched to being “stoic and introverted,” which she told the Air Force, she has found to be a common experience among women in other male-dominated career fields.
“At first, it felt almost natural to downplay parts of myself as a protective shield, especially when society has such firm ideas on how successful women should look and act,” Zaloudek said. But her reputation for hard work and dedication grew. “My leaders, colleagues and Airmen saw me giving my all every day.”
Outside of field work, she became the first woman in SERE to qualify as a military free fall jumpmaster — an advanced qualification generally held only by senior team leaders in special operations units — and a test parachutist. She also said she helped write a report sent ot Congress on integrating women into special warfare career fields.
“To all the women out there, please know that strength and femininity go hand-in-hand,” Zaloudek said. “You don’t have to act or look a particular way to do well in a career dominated by men. I personally like wearing makeup and doing my hair; that doesn’t make me less of a SERE specialist. And for those who prefer not to wear makeup or do their hair, that doesn’t make them any less of a woman.”
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