Survivalism in our age represents a gamut of knowledge in diverse subject areas. Expertise in a specific subject area can be a rare and valuable find. But anyone who claims to be a “general expert” is an oxymoron at best.
I have been serving in the Army Reserve and National Guard as a medic for seven years now; and I am an OIF veteran. That makes me an expert in a very limited area of combat medicine. It also makes me generally knowledgeable in areas of basic soldiering.
Based on these experiences, I believe I knowledge and skills that could prove useful to the prepper reading this blog. But take what I have to say with a grain of salt. With the good also comes the bad.
Debate in the survival literature regarding which weapon would best serve a survivor in a TEOTWAWKI situation is wide ranging and often conflicting. Personally, I have experience with weapons ranging from the .22 LR to the .308. And I know some of the readers are familiar with everything between the .17 HMR to the 50 BMG. While no one will ever agree regarding which one of the rounds falling in this range “best,” I think the most experienced shooters of us can agree that each caliber with its corresponding platform has its respective virtues. At the end of the day, it’s not about who has the “best” gun; it’s about who has the right gun to do the job at hand.
This is where situational awareness becomes particularly relevant. A prepper living in the city has different needs and requirements in a weapon than a prepper living in the suburbs, or a prepper in a rural area for that matter. Different blogs and literature are devoted to each of these areas and the reader would be advised to consult with the relevant resource.
One common denominator is the old combat axiom: “the first to die on the battlefield is your plan.” We may live in the cities, but we should be prepared to have to fight our way to the suburbs, into rural areas, and so on. Similarly, we may have a stronghold in the densest of wilderness yet find it necessary to fight our way back into a populated center. In the final analysis, what we want is a weapon system that is adaptive not only to the situation immediately at hand but also for the situation that we cannot anticipate.
This is why it is important to choose a weapon system involving more than one weapon. Historically, this means carrying both a long gun and a short gun. In the Old West, this meant a carbine/revolver combination. The contemporary military variation of this concept is the M4 carbine and M9 pistol. A shotgun can also supplement the short or long-gun role, depending on the prepper’s particular needs and abilities. Regardless of which weapon you choose for each role, this is the basic dual weapon concept.
When choosing which weapons to carry, the prepper must take into consideration two paradoxical factors affecting the choice of weapons: ensuring redundancy and maximizing range of use. By redundancy, I mean that if one weapon fails or is inaccessible, the other weapon will be able to supplement that weapon and fall into that role. An example of this scenario is the classic cowboy .45 Colt dual weapon configuration, lever action carbine and single action revolver. If my camp gets overrun with brown bears and I reach for my carbine and it jams, I can reach for my revolver and likely be able to stop the bear with that weapon. Additionally, I only need to carry one caliber of ammunition, making my total carrying load much lighter. A .22 LR carbine/pistol combination is probably one of the best examples of using the same caliber for both weapons in order to maximize combat load while minimizing weight in the dual weapon configuration. Obvious from these examples are the limitations of orienting your dual carry weapon system towards complete redundancy. In both cases of the .45 Colt and .22 LR dual weapon system, it is obvious that these calibers are inherently limited in their potential uses. The .45 Colt is essentially a pistol round, with very limited terminal ballistics. While it would be an excellent choice at short range, an individual preparing for the unexpected will probably anticipate the need for longer shots. I want to note, however, that for some individuals, the terminal ballistics of .45 Colt is within their maximum expected shooting range and, therefore an excellent choice for a dual carry system. A look at the 22 LR dual carry system yields similar observations. For some individuals, particularly inexperienced shooters and children, the .22 LR could deliver the optimum performance for what the shooter at short distances would expect to shoot. In such a case, the .22 LR would make an excellent choice as a dual carry system.
More experienced/skilled shooters may want to expand the field of uses for their dual carry systems. This usually means choosing a long and short gun of different calibers, with different purposes. The side effect of this is having to carry more than one caliber at a time. The corollary benefit is that in an environment of scarcity, the prepper will have a higher likelihood of finding the correct caliber of ammunition (assuming he is not chambered for “exotic” rounds) for at least one of his guns. Therefore it is important to consider how common each caliber is of the guns you intend to carry.
In rural, lightly populated areas, the dual weapon concept may entail a long gun in .270 or .308 for long distance game and/or personnel and a short gun in .357 or .44 magnum for personal defense and small or large game. For urban areas, it might make more sense for the prepper to carry a .223 long gun and a short gun in either 9mm or .45 because of the unpredictability within a dense population setting, the greater load carrying capacity, the likelihood of shorter fighting distances, and smaller concern for hunting wild game. Generally, the urban prepper will lean towards smaller, light-weight rounds with larger combat loads; the rural prepper will want at least one weapon in high-powered .30 caliber or larger, but may choose between either a large caliber or a small caliber round for the second weapon. In either case, the rural survivor must be prepared to use his dual weapon system in an urban setting and vice-a-versa.
While ideally, we would be able to carry our weapons collections with us and use each weapon for its specific purpose, in reality, if we find ourselves displaced from our homes, we will probably have to make a quick decision about which weapons we choose to carry. Because it is unfeasible to carry more than three weapons (two is probably more reasonable), we should be prepared to take into account our present situation and be ready to adapt to a situation that is not immediately foreseeable.
Medicine:
Again, the paradox lies in the problem of specific versus general application. In combat, I was faced with the choice of carrying numerous items with specific applications or carrying general first aid items that may not be able to fix a specific problem I could have been faced with.
Generally, when procuring medical supplies, the prepper should consider the spectrum of medical scenarios. In military terminology, this spectrum can be described as everything between sick call and a Mass Casualty (MASCAL) event.
Sick call is mainly preventative and is essential to the functioning of a unit. Assessing and treating problems at the sick call phase often prevents a small medical problem from becoming a larger one that could endanger the health and well being of the entire unit. While often overlooked by preppers, the most frequent type of medical care people require in the field is preventative.
For sick call, the medical personnel should carry a small First Aid pouch. That is everything from cough drops to Band-Aids, to Tylenol. Many medics pass these types of items off as unnecessary, because they are focusing on the potential MASCAL situation. What they forget is the effect these little comforts have on enhancing morale and preventing small boo-boos from becoming big problems.
Please don’t get the idea that all I carried for sick call were cough drops, Band-Aids, and Tylenol. In addition to these essential products, I carried treatments for blisters, antibiotics, pain killers, ice packs, ace bandages, thermometer, blood pressure gauge, Benadryl, saline, diphenhydramine (an antihistamine), and more. But, I say again, my purpose here is not to get into specifics about what to pack. I am not trying to espouse a list of the “right stuff,” that a cookie-cutter prepper needs to buy; rather I want to express a coherent framework for choosing the items that you, exercising personal judgment, ought to consider taking when weight, space, and time are of the essence.
There is abundant literature regarding preparing for MASCAL scenarios. In particular I would refer you to one of the copies of the Ranger Medic Handbook floating around on the Internet.
MASCAL is the worst-case scenario; it occurs when multiple members of your party or friendly parties are injured. In large-scale scenarios, MASCAL includes triage, treatment, and evacuation of patients.
Suppose you and members of your group are convoying from point A to point B for whatever reason. After many miles, one of the drivers falls asleep, swerves, and rolls the vehicle into an embankment. As the senior medical personnel in your group, it is your job to decide who can be saved and who cannot. This is the first step in triage. You then must arrange your patients into categories based on the amount of care they need. In a small accident, formal triage is not so essential so I won’t get into those categories here.
What is essential is determining who can live and who will die at that particular moment and then treating those most severely injured who still have a chance at surviving. While taking responsibility for those needing immediate care, you must simultaneously direct those who are capable, including the walking wounded, to provide care to those other patients who you have determined can survive though you are too tied up to treat immediately. This is where the Combat Life Saver training becomes critical in survival preparations. The better trained the members of your group, the better they will be able to fall into supporting roles in a medical emergency. The Combat Life Saver curriculum can be found online.
The most common acronym you will hear in emergency medicine is “ABC,” standing for “airway, breathing, and circulation.” In some military circles, the order has been changed to “CAB,” in order to stress hemorrhagic bleeding over airway concerns. Rather than engaging in a debate regarding which one is correct, I recommend leaving it up to the senior medical personnel to decide the order of treatment and establish that standard within the group. In any event, after you determine the casualty’s level of consciousness, the first step in treatment involves addressing the patient’s ABCs.
Every member of your group should be taught the proper way to open a patient’s airway, whether it is the jaw-thrust, for suspected trauma, or the head-tilt-chin-lift for all other cases. They should also know how to insert either a nasopharyngeal airway or an oral pharyngeal airway. The steps for these tasks can be found in the Combat Life Saver manual. Additionally, you should teach your members basic CPR. Though the CLS course is designed for active fire scenarios, in which CPR could create more battlefield losses, in most situations requiring emergency medical care on the battlefield, knowledge of CPR would be more beneficial than harmful. Anyone seriously interested in survival should take it upon himself or herself to receive CPR training.
Every member of your group should also know how to identify and stop arterial bleeding. They should understand the progression from applying manual pressure, to applying pressure dressings, and finally applying a tourniquet. They should also know when the situation dictates that they go directly to the tourniquet.
The last step to emergency care treatments not covered in the CLS curriculum, which any practical adherent to emergency medicine ought to recognize, is the treatment of fractures and most importantly, the appropriate treatment of potential cervical-spine injuries. The old CLS curriculum disregarded the potential adverse effects improper movement of a patient with a c-spine injury could have on the patient, including paralysis or death. When cervical-spine/neck injury is expected, special care must be given to the patient, immobilizing his head, before and during transport.
There are plenty of products available for patenting the airway, providing rescue breathing, stopping arterial bleeding, splinting fractures, and stabilizing c-spine injuries. I would advise you to familiarize yourself with these products and use them in training scenarios in order to better utilize them should the need occur.
When preparing my aid-bag, I am anticipating having to address everything between sick call and MASCAL. I know that to focus on any area at the detriment of another would be folly. In addition to the sick-call items, mentioned above, I carry a non-rebreather mask, nasopharyngeal airways, combi-tubes, e-tubes, CAT tourniquets, QuickClot Gauze, Israeli Bandages, to mention just a few things. But remember that none of these things are useful if you don’t know how to use them. The important thing to remember is that as a survivor, you will probably be faced with having to assist someone who can’t breathe, someone who is bleeding out, or someone whose neck is broken. Take what you can and be as prepared as possible, but also be prepared to use what you have around you when the situation arises; you may not end up in the situation you expected, and you may just have to improvise a solution.
One of the most common and useful training scenarios I have experienced is the direct fire drill. It may be conducted mounted (in vehicle or on foot). What the drill does is train the group to function as a unit. In each direct fire drill, simulate being on patrol and being attacked. The unit must react to the attack, thus familiarizing themselves with tactics and weapons. In each of these scenarios, a member of the group should be designated as a combat casualty. The group will then have to function as a unit to suppress the attackers, triage, treat, and evacuate the casualty. Thus your combat training will involve a deeper dimension than simple react-to-fire drill; your unit will learn how to fight through a worst-case scenario.
Please don’t leave this article thinking this is in any way an exhaustive list. If lists were the end-all to survival, preparing would be easy. It is not. Whatever you do will reflect your personal knowledge base, your needs, wants, and those of the members in your group. Rather than thinking about survival in terms of things you need for what you expect, think about survival in terms of maintaining flexibility in the face of uncertainty.