SurvivalBlog.com

Rabbits

On the evening of the first night of being in the instructional phase of our USMC Mountain Survival Course, we were handed a pet shop rabbit. The Marine Corps had bought a batch of larger farm raised rabbits, only to find out they carried the nasty Tularemia (rabbit fever). They discovered the disease after looking at the first rabbit’s liver, which was spotted white/yellow and/or swollen. They weren’t willing to accept the risk of disease transmission. So, they searched all the nearby pet shops and bought up all the pet bunnies they could find. Those bunnies were small and cute instead of large and fluffy and full of meat. Mine was black and white. I had always wanted a pet rabbit. Just the same, I didn’t bother naming him since he looked tasty.

Butchering a Rabbit

Using one as an example, the instructors showed how to kill, skin, and butcher them. A large portion of the class had never hunted anything except humans. Therefore, eating what they killed was new to them.

The instructors taught us the “broomstick” method for killing the rabbits. First, we pet the rabbit to calm it. Then, we put our boot on its head and snapped the spine with a clean jerk. This looked easy when they showed us and seemed easy in theory. I tried it. Mine just got really scared and angry. I couldn’t get it to hold still enough to put my boot back over its head to try again, so I used my Tanto. There was a lot of neck breaking failure going on around me. It seems brutal. But it is much more humane than how animals die in the wilderness– eaten alive.

Continue reading“USMC Mountain Survival Course- Part 2, by E.T.”

Preparations For Mountain Survival

I spent June of 2014 in Bridgeport, California at the USMC’s School of Mountain Warfare undergoing the grand reopening of their Mountain Survival Course. Over the span of 13 days, I lost 31 pounds while in training. Here’s my story and lessons learned.

I left an elevation of 3,300 feet in the mountains of North Carolina for Bridgeport, which is at 6,500 feet. The first morning we ran our PFT with less than 12 hours of acclimation to the new elevation. We were required to score a First Class PFT before continuing the course. We had one Marine fail to achieve first class score twice and was shipped back to his unit. That left 26 students with three instructors. Our class consisted of all NCO’s, with a 1st Lieutenant and a Captain thrown in. We were a handful of Scout/Snipers, a Polish Commando, a Headquarters guy filling an empty slot, a Navy Corpsman, a Navy Doctor, a ROTC officer, and a handful of infantry grunts, like myself, who looking for fun and adventure.

Classroom Preparation

We spent a total of five days in a classroom setting going over wilderness survival basics. In class we learned to read the weather, learn shelter types, and identify edible plants, critters, and insects, as well as develop skills in signaling, fire starting, fishing, trapping, hunting, land navigation, path finding, and traversing mountains and rivers. Essentially we covered everything you can hit fast and hard. The smart ones studied at night and practiced starting fires with a bow and drill. Being a former Boy Scout, a hunter, fisher, and someone who grew up in the woods playing with fire and building forts, I had a good base knowledge to build upon.

Continue reading“USMC Mountain Survival Course- Part 1, by E.T.”