Post Isolation Support Activities (PISA) is a 10-day optional program offered by

United States Army South United States Army South is an Army service component command of United States Southern Command whose area of responsibility includes 31 countries and 15 areas of special sovereignty in Central and South America and the Caribbean. It is headquar ...

at the

Brooke Army Medical Center Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC) is the United States Army's premier medical institution. Located on Fort Sam Houston, BAMC is a 425-bed academic medical center, and is the Department of Defense's largest facility and only Level 1 trauma center ...

San Antonio, Texas San Antonio ( ; Spanish for "Anthony of Padua, Saint Anthony") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in Greater San Antonio. San Antonio is the List of Texas metropolitan areas, third-largest metropolitan area in Texa ...

, designed to aid wrongfully detained and imprisoned Americans in decompressing from their experiences and readjusting to civilian life. The program includes initial physical and psychological evaluations, followed by therapeutic decompression led by SERE-trained doctors.

Description

Post Isolation Support Activities (PISA) is a 10-day optional program run by

of the

U.S. Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, t ...

(DoD) at the

at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, that helps wrongful detained and imprisoned Americans decompress from their detention and readjust to regular life after being freed. Former hostages and their families usually fly to PISA shortly after arriving back in the United States. On the first day, ex-captives undergo a battery of physical, then psychological tests and evaluations in a restricted area of the base's hospital. They then start decompression with doctors trained in

Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) is a training concept originally developed by the British during World War II. It is best known by its military acronym and prepares a range of Western forces to survive when evading or b ...

(SERE) training. Staff and doctors start to give the former hostages predictability and control, which they lacked in captivity. At the end of the 10 days, attendees share their experiences with the program's doctors to capture lessons learned. They are not required to attend the full 10 days, and may also elect to undergo a follow-on 10-day program in North Carolina. PISA began as a nascent program at a DoD facility in Germany.

Notable program attendees

* Citgo 6 *

Evan Gershkovich Evan Gershkovich (born October26, 1991) is an American journalist and reporter at ''The Wall Street Journal'' covering Russia. Gershkovich graduated from Bowdoin College, majoring in philosophy and English and writing in student newspapers. He m ...

Paul Whelan Paul Nicholas Whelan (born March 5, 1970) is a Canadian-born former United States Marine with U.S., British, Irish, and Canadian citizenship. Whelan left the Marines in 2008 with a bad conduct discharge after being convicted on multiple counts " ...

Alsu Kurmasheva Alsu Khamidovna Kurmasheva (, ; born ) is a Russian and American journalist with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Tatar language, Tatar-Bashkir language, Bashkir Service. Kurmasheva was arrested in Kazan, Russia on October 18, 2023, and charged ...

Brittney Griner Brittney Yvette Griner (; born October 18, 1990) is an American professional basketball player for the Atlanta Dream of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). She is a three-time Olympic gold medalist with the U.S. women's natio ...

* Trevor Reed

References

{{reflist Joint Base San Antonio United States Department of Defense Imprisonment and detention in the United States