DIY survival watch for about $20 – P.S.
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Military exercise that sparked fears in Texas of ‘hostile government takeover’ ends – JBG
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What’s in a refugee’s bag? – P.S.
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I normally try to stay out of politics, but this exchange profiled on Bill Whittle’s Trifecta is refreshing. If only all politics were like this! – MtH
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Acetic acid, found in vinegar, shown to be effective against bacteria found in burn wounds – A.D.
“We are powerfully imprisoned in these Dark Ages simply by the terms in which we have been conditioned to think.” – Buckminster Fuller
Today, September 17th, we celebrate Constitution Day in these United States.
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I just noticed that my third novel “Founders“, is now available in Spanish, in trade paperback: Fundadores. – JWR
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Today, we present another entry for Round 60 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The $10,000 worth of prizes for this round include:
First Prize:
Second Prize:
Third Prize:
Round 60 ends on September 30th, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.
Well, my decision to stay put in the next crisis brings me to the title of this article. The word “occupy” is very powerful, and that’s why the U.S. Army has been using this term for as long as there has been a U.S. Army. For example, when a platoon is establishing a defensive posture, it’s called “occupying an assembly area.” This is just a fancy way of saying “this is mine, and if you want it, come and take it!”. Did you know that you always have a 3:1 advantage by staying put and defending what you have? I don’t have a bug-out bag, because I don’t have anywhere better to go than my own castle.
Your neighborhood is your “assembly area,” and you “occupy” it by controlling it. This is where you assemble what you’ve got, in order to plan and prepare for any number of potential future actions or moves. You know the entry and exit routes like the back of your hand. You know the high points and the low points. You know the names of your neighbors, and you have an idea about what they’re good at (and not so good at). You know where the high-speed approach routes are and the best places to erect obstacles. You know where that river leads, and you know the boundaries of those woods. In a SHTF emergency, there is no longer such a thing as my house, the city park, your front yard, or the convenience store parking lot. It is all yours (the organized community’s) now, and you need to own it, control it, use it, defend it, and occupy all of it.
In the Army, the key to performing the task of occupying an assembly area correctly (for example, so that the platoon isn’t wiped out immediately by an ambush) is establishing a Priority of Work. The Priority of Work principle is a never-ending process that will successfully guide your community from preparation to execution. Notice how I said “your community”? That’s because you’re not doing this alone. To put it in context, let’s think about the worst case scenario: a total society collapse with many others wanting what you have.
Priorities of Work is not a laundry list of tasks to be completed; to be effective, Priorities of Work must consist of a task, a given time, and a measurable performance standard. (Ref: US Army Ranger Handbook)
When it’s time to occupy your neighborhood, then using the Priority of Work will synergize your community’s efforts. Security will dictate that Joe gives up his deer rifle to Bill who’s taking an overwatch shift in Betty’s attic because that’s the highest ground on the block. The withdrawal plan may dictate the use of Jim’s 40 gallons of gasoline in his garage for Bob’s tractor trailer to quickly relocate the group’s prepositioned important supplies to an alternate site. The need for a clear field of view may dictate the demolition of Susan’s house, and she may end up sleeping with all of the group’s children in the warm and secure basement of Jennifer’s house. Once you get through the Priority of Work, you start the process all over again and improve them. Using the collective resources of the group by priority (and in a never-ending process of continual improvement) will help ensure the tribe’s survival.
Strangers are always presumed to be attackers, no matter what “official” or sorry stories they come up with. The survival of the tribe depends on it. The enemy will employ deception at every opportunity to exploit weaknesses and discover a way in. War is hell. Welcome to your survival situation.
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For those of you who think you are tough enough to make it on your own, you are probably calling me some sort of hippie at this point. I am calling for sharing resources with the next-door neighbors who you have never even cared enough to meet. You don’t care about that old lady living alone or that weird guy across the street? You don’t want to be burdened with that dead weight, right? They didn’t bother to prepare, and you’re good. All you need to do is either hit the road to get to your pre-stocked Garden of Eden, or outlast them, and take whatever’s left when the buzzards start circling their house. Either way, you couldn’t be more wrong.
Remember that I said you had a 3:1 advantage in a defensive position? What this also means is that you need a 3:1 ratio of attackers to defenders to at least have a 50:50 chance of success in a raid (attacking someone else who is on the defense). This ratio has been proven so many times throughout history that you can count on it as a given. Whether you are attacking or defending, you can’t do it alone, because centuries of statistics don’t support it.
Furthermore, if you plan to just “bug out” to your lost-in-the-woods hideout, you better be able to get there before society breaks down, because when it does, you’re going to be considered an attacker coming by my neighborhood along the way. We’ll be ambushing you on the road, and we’ll have a fortified defense by following the Priority of Work. Most likely, you’ll just die of dehydration while you’re stuck in a traffic jam on the side of the highway. If you do manage to get there by some miracle, chances are that you’ll have to fight your way in. According to the 3:1 ratio, you’d better arrive in force, because there are six waiting for you, and they really like your place. You’ll need 18 attackers to be equal in force.
Yes, you can be a loner and just hang out in your well-stocked house and not help anyone around you, but once again, you’re going to make a real nice target. The sooner someone takes you out, the more supplies they can acquire before you consume them. They might employ the element of surprise and attack you with overwhelming firepower when you least expect it.
On the other hand, our group has families to feed. We’ll have no patience for your lazy, dead weight taking up valuable space and resources on just yourself.
Know when to hold them. Know when to fold them. Know when to walk away, and know when to run!
My suggestion is hold them for as long as possible. Don’t give in to fear. If you have to walk away, take your gun, ammo, gasoline, water, and stuffed animal for the kids. If you need to run, also take a copy of this:
STANDING ORDERS ROGERS RANGERS (from U.S. Army Ranger Handbook)
~Major Robert Rogers, 1759
HJL,
I wanted to make a comment about this great letter. I think it may bear mentioning that in an emergency situation the weak point in the fence is the concrete. Having watched one get hit and seen many more that were hit, I can say that the concrete set post will give way before the cable. This being said I can’t for sure say the best way to knock one over but bumper up to it at a 90 degree angle and the post should give way then the slack between the posts should allow you to drive over the cable. The saw would be the best, but if you can’t exit your vehicle for any reason, hitting a post or two once or twice should allow you to get to the other side. Like the writer said, it is illegal to tamper with them, so testing this out would not be recommended, but if all else fails… – J.
Attacks on Internet Fiber Optic Cables Ongoing. – T.A.
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Video: How to Make a $1500 Sandwich in Only 6 Months – W.A.
A heavy dose of reality for those who think that they can just change their lifestyle after SHTF. Start now! Practice! Remember, it’s not practice that makes perfect but perfect practice. – HJL
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Kid Takes Homemade Clock to School to Impress Teacher; They Arrest Him for “Making a Hoax Bomb” – D.S.
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Freeze And Seize—-Not Conspiracy Theory: Legislative Fact Harder, more logistically improvident, is the prospect of seizing the people’s wealth after it’s been taken out of its tronic form and turned into cans of food, tools, seeds, ammo, and held, not in centralized accounts awaiting the push of but a Pharaohnic button but rather in a sprawling unregistered delta of barns and basements, root-cellars and attics and even caches…
(…because an armed and competent people in control of their own food supply are a prickly people to conquer and tyrannize….a unified and deeply-faithful people, all but indomitable…)
But just because it is improvident doesn’t mean it won’t be done, or at least—savagely—attempted. If we reflect on the sudden purchasing of legions’ worths of black rifles for the IRS, of an overwhelmingly debt-ladened administration nonetheless unprecedentedly purchasing enough hollow-point ammunition for its Internal State Security Forces to kill every man, woman, and child several times over, of its unconstitutional federalization of state, local, and electorally-answerable police forces—with their screenings, reported to me by more than one LEO friend, to insure that these de facto Stormtroopers are willing to confiscate arms from the electorate—and its conversion of many of these to, essentially, anti-public light-armored-urban-occupation-brigades, we may be drawn to further reflect that the improvidence of an undertaking has never been dissuasive to Big Government, in general, and to this administration, in cruel particular.
And if reflect, instead, on all the examples of how this administration has been constrained by ethical boundaries—of the magnum efforts to divide people into racial and ideological warring camps, of the mocking and leeringly public abandonment of the Rule Of Law, of the Soviet stratagem (as noted and commented-upon by, inter alia, East Germans under occupation) of breaking marriages, families, culture, by flooding a society with cheap porn, booze, and soul-numbing pharmaceuticals—we cannot but shudder, or perhaps weep in condign repentance, for all that our forefathers bequeathed and entrusted, to us, now failed and lost…
…but then we steel ourselves, and begin to prepare our bodies and our minds and our souls…
…and perhaps also we pray. – GJM
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“The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.” – David Friedman
September 16th is the birthday of “Mad Jack” Churchill (1906-1996), who was a true eccentric. He went to war in WWII armed with a broadsword and a longbow. (The latter was successfully used to dispatch several German soldiers.) He later became a devoted surfer. What a guy.
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Today, we present another entry for Round 60 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The $10,000 worth of prizes for this round include:
First Prize:
Second Prize:
Third Prize:
Round 60 ends on September 30th, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.
Let’s face it folks, this past decade has been chalk full of so many major disasters affecting the world, that it’s hard to keep up. From one day to the next, we are bombarded by stories about hurricanes, earthquakes, terrorists, radiation, shootings, market turmoil, droughts, wildfires, tornados, meteors, and you name it! Throw in government corruption and nonsensical rules encroaching on your family’s well-being and freedom, and you’ve got the recipe for a well-founded case of narcissism or worse!
Why do we worry so much about all these events that not only can we not control but don’t even directly affect us at all or just causes minor inconveniences at the most?
For many people, like myself, folks had been on the edge of their seats in anticipation of “something” that might affect their family for a long time after 9/11. Those events were just so shocking and traumatic that it really made you start thinking about personal survival here in the United States. The illusion of a safe and secure cocoon had been shattered, and we realized the government wasn’t as able to protect us as many assumed.
Years later, I would be hesitant to turn on the news, but was drawn to it like an addiction. I kept looking for little clues that I could possibly piece together to be one step ahead in my planning and preparation. Even if it amounted to mere minutes, then hopefully those would’ve been the precious few that I needed to beat traffic home before the story really broke out and I instead found myself stranded on the great highway-parking lot.
Many preppers have experienced a trigger in their lives; Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were my wake-up calls. Hurricane Katrina once again confirmed that the government was powerless, and then I found myself affected by Rita. Today, I wanted to tell you about a certain mindset that I’ve developed after recounting a personal experience.
Yes, let’s start by talking about my first mistake. This is how I learned that it is better to rely on a group than yourself, it’s better to remain in familiar surroundings until you’re forced out, and it’s better to be disciplined in your approach by following a plan than to follow a haphazard path of fear of the unknown, like I did previously.
It was Wednesday afternoon, September 7, 2005, in Houston, when I got off work. The radio announcer was talking about how Hurricane Ike was going to hit the city just as hard as Katrina hit New Orleans two weeks before. I noticed cars were lining up at the pumps at every station I passed. I thought about getting gas, but I had a little more than a half tank and just wanted to get home. There was no way I was going to sit and wait for 15-20 minutes to top off. I thought, “I’m good” and kept on driving.
That evening, I sat on my back porch in the Southwest side of Houston smoking a cigarette. A stream of ambulances and fire trucks were headed out of the city in convoy on the road behind my house, and I stopped counting when I reached 100 vehicles. Images of Katrina were flashing across the television screen on the news, and that’s when I started thinking that maybe we should evacuate. My wife agreed when I told
her about what I saw. That was my first mistake. I created tension in the house and unnecessarily added to the fear. We were not in a designated evacuation zone; we were 100’ above sea level and probably a hundred miles from the coast.
Stop, think for yourself, and do not trust your gut, because the only thing your gut knows is fight or flight, which is an animal instinct. You are not an animal. You are a logical, rational, human being capable of doing a risk assessment and weighing the big picture. For that matter, I am not saying that you should trust the government blindly either. There will always be those who stand patiently in line for their turn in the gas chamber, and that is not what I am saying you should do. People who blindly follow orders are not people; they’re sheeple headed to the slaughter!
What am I saying? I’m saying you should always think about staying put first. It’s going to be the easiest thing to do anyway. Your last choice should be to leave.
Our alarm clocks woke us up at 3 a.m. on Thursday, September 8. The truck was already packed the night before and ready to go. We turned the corner out of our neighborhood and immediately got in line on the highway, joining the entire coast of Texas trying to get out, all driven by fear.
We sat. It was pitch black, and my wife turned on some children’s songs. The kids were perfectly happy in the back singing along. It was like any other happy outing. Hours later, the sun began to rise, and we sat. We had moved a couple hundred feet, so at least we were making progress. I needed to smoke, so I got out of the truck. I finally realized that while the lane we were sitting in on the two-lane highway was full, the oncoming lane was wide-open and each side of the shoulders were open. What a waste of space, I thought!
I was also getting down to below half a tank, and I decided that I wasn’t going to wait in this line any more. I got back in, and started driving down the right-side shoulder. People were not happy, and they were throwing things out of the window at us. I saw in the rear-view mirror that other cars began to peel off out of line and follow us. Before you knew it, cars began to peel off onto the shoulder in front of us and then into the oncoming lane when they saw me approaching in their mirror and weren’t able to cut onto the right shoulder because cars behind them were already there, led by yours truly.
Watch a flock of pigeons sitting on a telephone wire sometime. For whatever reason, one pigeon will take off. It could be that he feels bad, the wind hit him a little differently on his tail feathers, he heard a different noise or just woke up from a bad cat dream, or whatever. Within seconds, the entire flock will take off, even though they were all perfectly content and had no reason to fly before they saw another pigeon freak out for some reason. I was the first pigeon to make a break, and before I knew it chaos instantly ensued all over the place.
The right side shoulder quickly became congested ahead of us. I was frustrated because the cars heading onto oncoming traffic were moving, so I tried to cut across from the right-shoulder through the right-side lane. I cut in front of the wrong guy as this big truck pushed up and trapped me. A big, bald-headed guy got out with a baseball bat. He had tattoos all over his arms, neck, and face. He was yelling and waving the bat all around when he approached my window and not in the least bit cordially asked me to get out of my vehicle. I politely asked him to quit cussing because I had kids in the back. He told me to get out and make him. Nothing good was going to come out of this situation, and I had no weapon to speak of. Luckily for me, his girlfriend got out of the truck, yelled at him, and chilled him out enough to get him back inside. I seized the opportunity to get into the oncoming, high-speed, low-drag, contra-flow lane. We almost went a whole mile.
Then, there was nowhere else to go. There were no little, side roads. There were no more shoulders and no more contra-flow. There was a deep, water-filled ditch on each side of the road and a barbed wire fence above it. As we sat on Hwy 90, the sun kept rising in the sky, and the gas tank continued to dwindle with the A/C on. I turned the engine off. All the cars on the road had their engines off. Little kids and babies were crying in the cars around us with our windows open. The temperature gauge read 116 degrees Fahrenheit as we sat on the blacktop. In between the cries, you could hear grasshoppers flying free in the fields. Women got out of the cars ahead of us and urinated in the middle of the road. Some men were taking empty water bottles to adjacent homes on the side of the road to fill them up with garden hoses. Up ahead, the heat coming off of the asphalt made everything blurry. Still, we sat, and then we sat some more.
At 3 p.m., we reached a little town called Eagle Lake. By some miracle, we had gone 38 miles in 12 hours on a half of a tank of gas. Don’t laugh! It was truly divine intervention that we made it that far and did so safely. We made it to a gas station and then spent the weekend at Marble Falls at my wife’s uncle’s house. On Sunday, we drove back. The hurricane had turned way up north towards Port Arthur at the last minute, and Houston was not affected at all. We came home to chirping birds and the lush green lawns of our subdivision, like nothing even happened. That’s because nothing did!
There are only two choices, when you are faced with a potential character-building event: fight or flight. If you allow fear to enter your body, you will make mistakes. Sometimes they will be forgiven, but most times they won’t be. In a survival situation, even the smallest mistake could become a life-threatening ordeal. So, when your adrenaline is pumping and you just want to run away is not the time to be making big mistakes. Fear and hesitation gets you killed; so, I will fight and defend what is mine. That is the decision I make today for tomorrow, and it’s not driven by adrenaline today.
I was lucky that I didn’t get my skull fractured by a baseball bat that day on the highway, but that scenario had never occurred to me when I was getting all rallied up by the evening news about the “impending doom”. So, what does it mean to choose to fight in practice? It doesn’t mean running with a bigger baseball bat than the other rats who might be running in the same direction!
HJL,
A caution to readers about the fences found between roadways. Some are under tremendous tension, and cutting them can lead to catastrophic consequences. I am a professional firefighter and have had some experience with accidents involving these fences. I would HIGHLY caution against cutting, unless you know what you are dealing with. – BR
Interest Rates and the Debt Saturated Global Economy – A.L.
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Hewlett-Packard to Cut Up to 30,000 More Jobs in Restructuring – GJM
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Items from Mr. Econocobas:
This Is Why Americans Will Pay More For Gasoline If U.S Export Ban Is Lifted – Interesting article
Price Tag of Bernie Sanders’ Proposals: $18 Trillion – For some comic relief… Suppose if he wasn’t serious
Why the Fed Is Likely to Stand Pat This Week – It boggles my mind how these folks don’t know (or pretend to not) that the entirety of the global “recovery” is built on ZIRP (zero percent interest rate policy) and expansion of debt and to take that away is to take the “recovery” away…
Trichet to Fed: Ignore the IMF, World Bank – Again no one is surprised, the Fed has bantered about raising rates for over a year… The issue isn’t surprise, it’s that the entire recovery is built on ZIRP and increased debt.. Take away the punch bowl and raise the cost to service the ginormous amount of debt and the party is over… This isn’t rocket science…
As ships at sea represent a majority of the attributes of a Bugout, Offgrid Retreat, long-term self-sufficient vessel we all aspire to mimic day to day, I thought it prudent to pass along one of the required shipboard medical books all large ships carry.
The Ships Captain Medical Guide – C.H.
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Long Knife by James Alexander Thom. It is a story of a relatively unknown American hero, George Rogers Clark. He led expeditions against the allied British and Indians in the Northwest Territory during the American Revolution. His force of less than 200 recruits conquered vast areas in Kentucky and neighboring territories. – G.S.
Worth A Thousand Words… Satellite image of Russian troops and hardware in Syria Proxy Wars: 25% less-filling than declared wars with the same levels of casualties. – GJM
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Obama Issues Executive Order for Use of Behavioral Data – G.P.
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The Caliphate Growing at the Feet of Obama – MtH [Warning: – disturbing photo]
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SCOTUS Justice Breyer likes to rely on the laws of other countries – G.P.
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Marine General actually said: “Whichever way you stand on the Second Amendment“? One can’t help but wonder what Jeff Cooper, Joe Foss, and Carlos Hathcock might have to say concerning a MARINE Lt. General unwilling to verbally side with the 2nd amendment. – T.P.
HJL adds: This would be one of the primary reasons why I am very hesitant about arming military personnel on our home soil. As I’ve stated before: Arm them to the teeth when on foreign soil but not at home. This is a long standing tradition with deep roots by people who understand that it never works out well for freedom when the military is armed on the home soil.
“I have thought that a man of tolerable abilities may work great changes if he first forms a good plan and makes the execution of that same plan his whole study and business.” – Benjamin Franklin