Joint Personnel Recovery Agency

Serving as a Chairman's Controlled Activity, under the direction of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency's (JPRA) Personnel Recovery Academy (PRA) serves potential isolated personnel, Forces, organizations and our international partners by providing specialized Code of Conduct/Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training and subject matter expertise, enabling isolated persons to return with honor. Specialized SERE training meets Joint or Interagency requirements not found in Service or Combatant Command programs by providing unique SERE knowledge and skills to personnel whose missions, positions, or operating environments make their exploitation highly valuable to an adversary. The Academy, located on a 91- acre site called White Bluff, a former NIKE Air Defense site, 10 miles Northeast of Fairchild AFB, has a long history of support to the Personnel Recovery (PR) mission. Established in October 2001, the PRA traces its history back to the government's response to Cold War detention incidents such as pilot Francis Gary Power's 1960 U-2 shoot down over the Soviet Union. In 1961 the Air Force developed training addressing this new captivity environment at Stead Air Force Base, Nevada; the training program moved to Fairchild AFB in 1966. Today the PRA continues to keep pace with national PR training requirements by expanding and adapting both its in-residence and mobile training team training to meet today's emerging threat to our armed forces. The PRA is proud to advocate for "the person on the ground" and ensure that potential isolated personnel receive proper PR education, training, and support enabling their ability to live by the six articles of the Code of Conduct and successfully Return with Honor.


PRA Seal Symbolism: The American bald eagle, an emblem of strength and freedom, has a long association with our country and its military establishment. The "old fashioned" eagle is set over a ring of barbwire representing the dangers and harshness of potential isolation or captivity of personnel while protecting and defending the United States. The gold stars represent the articles of the Code of Conduct- the moral benchmark and guide for all who may find themselves isolated or captured while serving our country. The stars, emblazoned over the barbwire, and the eagle standing forward, symbolize the concept that freedom can never be confined or suppressed. The PRA commits itself to the protection and preservation of individual freedom through support to the warfighter- that they may RETURN WITH HONOR as written in Latin at the base of the seal.


(Current as of July 2013)