Preparing Without Panicking

  Do not panic!  I know it's hard.  The elections, war all over, high prices, things in disarray, it seems a good time to freak out.  But do not.  When I was in combat, the worst thing you could do was panic!  It's difficult when everything in your head says "run" and what you need to do is stay.  But staying is the scariest thing you've ever done.  Preparedness is similar. First and foremost, don't give into the normalcy bias.

Normalcy bias is a cognitive bias which leads people to disbelieve or minimize threat warnings. Consequently, individuals underestimate the likelihood of a disaster or violence, when it might affect them, and its potential adverse effects.  It’s the “it can’t happen here” syndrome so we don’t need to prepare for it.  The problem is, “it” does happen.

Take heart, all is not lost.  You start to prepare in small ways.  Assess the likely problems that may come your way.  If you live near the ocean maybe a hurricane is in your future.  If you live near a river maybe flooding would be likely.  We are all susceptible to high prices and the effects of economy.  As you realistically think about this and discuss it write down these events.  Then for each perceived event write down solutions.  Then write down priorities of what needs to be done.  It’s important to understand that training is more valuable than gear.  It’s often more important to have medical training than to have medical gear.  Things can be improvised.  It’s great to have both, but I believe training trumps gear. 

Not to toot my own horn, but I will.  I’ve had the opportunity to grow up in a prepared home.  I had the familiar yellow Walton Feed bags of grain under my bed.  Walton Feed is a big feed store (I’ve never actually been there) in Idaho.  They have expanded into Rainy Day Foods and still do bulk orders.  When I got married my young wife brought in wheat buckets to our closet starting over 40 years of gathering, storing, and cooking with food storage.  When we left the military we did what is called a DITY move where you are paid to do it yourself.  According to rank, you have a certain amount of weight that the military will pay for.  We loaded up our food storage, and we quickly met our limit.  At least the military paid us to move our food storage!  But we have been living with preparedness for a long time.  We know what works for us and what does not.  I notice that things change also.  We used to store our water in drums.  We did that for decades.  We have just switched to tanks.  Those 400 gallon cubes in a cage?  You know the ones.  That seems to work better at this time.  So your preparedness evolves as your needs and situations change.  We have one cube in our tree and garden area close to the planting we do and chicken coup.  We have stored water for our animals as well as our garden.  We also have a water catchment system that keeps the cube filled.

Start with your priority list.  When I have taught preparedness I teach the ASWiFS acronym to prioritize prepping.  Air, Shelter, Water, Food, Fire, Security.  It’s a starting point.  Often water is a good place to start.  Most of us have shelter and air under control.  For air you may want masks or air purifiers.  Maybe even gas masks. But you have to decide what is a priority. Do some research on whatever you do.  Find a competent source.

There are many ways to prepare but by all means, don’t go into debt!  Preparing happens a little at a time.  It adds up quickly.  Food for instance can be just a few extra cans of whatever you eat or use to cook.  Water can be stored in many containers but make sure the containers you choose are not plastic that contained toxic or smelly things.  We got ahold of several pickle containers that we could not get the smell of pickles out of.  Be creative where you store your items.  Food should be in a temperature-controlled space, flammable liquids or gas should be stored away from your residence.  These and many other details can be learned from competent sources.

Survival skills are good to know, but self sufficiency and preparedness is not necessarily survival.

When getting prepared look for sales and bulk especially concerning food.  You can be creative in where you store your preps.

“If ye are prepared ye shall not fear” says the D&C.  Start now and you’ll be surprised how it all adds up fast.

Many countries are urging their citizens to prepare.  The military is testing their preparedness.  The Church has been asking their members since 1936.  It’s time.  Get started.

Semper Paratus

Check 6

Burn

Learning To Live With Guns

 This is a portion of an article by an Army Lieutenant

I’ve felt this for years as a military small arms instructor. 

 

Many years ago, while attending The US Army Command and General Staff College at Ft Leavenworth, KS, I submitted a paper entitled, “Living With Guns”. In it, I described my sometimes exasperating experiences as an infantry second lieutenant, platoon commander in Vietnam in 1968. I observed that, during that War, although we all had been theoretically trained to operate small arms, nobody had ever taught us how to actually live with them!
I submitted that individual soldiers need experiences that prepare them, not only to operate, but to actually live with, loaded guns during prolonged periods of intermittent (and sometimes continuous) fighting. One may argue that such training is dangerous, but without it I contended, our soldiers will continue to accidentally shoot themselves and each other with distressing frequency the moment they enter an area of active fighting.

 

"In Country, I had personally observed many cases of careless gun handling, several of which resulted in NDs, and, as is the case currently in Iraq, there was no shortage of incidents where an ND caused a serious injury or death to one of our own people. However, despite the fact that such catastrophes were scandalously common, they usually elicited little more than a sarcastic chuckle (or a yawn) from battalion-level brass. They seemed to write off such episodes as “inevitable”. They would remark, “These people have been trained in safe gun-handling. It shouldn’t happen”.
But it kept happening, and it struck me that sterile, abstract training in “safe gun-handling” did not suffice to prevent it.
In Stateside training, individual soldiers were rarely provided with experiences that prepared them for when they would have loaded and ready-to-fire rifles and pistols with them constantly. It was not enough, I contended, to merely train people how to operate small arms, then hysterically snatch the guns away and lock them up in a vault the other ninety-nine percent of the time.
In training, for example, we never actually carried loaded weapons. We handled them, but they were always empty except on those rare occasions where we actually fired live ammunition on a range. But, even on the range, circumstances were stilted, artificial, and largely theoretical.
However, the moment I arrived in Vietnam, we not only carried loaded firearms, but we slept with them, ate with them, went to the head with them, flew on aircraft with them, etc. Your small arms were your constant companions, and they were always loaded and ready to fire. All that we had to learn on the fly! None of it was ever even mentioned during our Stateside “training.”
We learned the hard way that is does not suffice merely to train people how to operate guns. We have to make them into professional gunmen, not just gun-operators, but gunmen! Anyway, if you’re familiar with USMC and US Army bureaucracy, you can imagine how far my ideas got. Even today, this issue has still not been addressed in any meaningful way. Soldiers today are instructed to be (on rare occasions) warriors, and naive sheep the rest of the time.
In short, incompetent small-arms training was, and still is, “condition-based.” It is predicated on the false notion that unloaded guns are safe, and loaded guns are dangerous. Within this mendacious system of thinking, “safe” guns are routinely handled carelessly (no matter what you try to say to the contrary), and “dangerous” guns (on those rare occasions when they are actually handled at all), are apprehensively treated as if they were coated with poison. The rest of the time, we carry sterile guns and pretend to be armed.
Conversely, competent small-arms training is “system-based.” There is only one system for handling guns, as all guns are considered dangerous, all the time. All guns are handled the same way, regardless of their ostensible condition. In other words, a gun’s suppositional “condition” has no bearing on the way it is handled. We have no safe guns! We carry loaded guns on our person at every opportunity, taking full advantage of every chance to experience “being armed” (not just pretending).
In exactly the say way, sharp knives are not only more useful than dull ones, but they are also actually safer, once people learn to handle them correctly.
This fearless and audacious system of gun-handling, combined with good judgement, and common sense will enable you to live with loaded guns daily and never experience even your first accident. Professional gunmen are distinguished from pretenders by four main points.
(1) We’re always armed. Yes, we really live it.
(1) We don’t have accidents with guns.
(2) We don’t hesitate
(3) We don’t miss.
Unfortunately, Western Civilization, even its armies, is rapidly deteriorating from a proud foundation of logic, reason and courage to an unenlightened state of nescient fear and ignorant mysticism, truly a recipe for chaos. Details may differ slightly, but the philosophy is indistinguishable from the Dark Ages.
As HL Mencken put it, “I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. Of course, this makes me forever ineligible for public office.”
… and, it would seem, promotion!
 

Be safe and learn to live with guns!

Semper Paratus

Check 6

Burn