Posted on 01/21/2013 2:32:21 PM PST by Kartographer
These days, it is easy to go about our business of survival and preparedness without stopping to think about the rules of engagement. For most of us, these rules are not written and are not spoken, but are just something that has evolved over a period of time.
As I have expressed many times in the past, the burden of knowledge – or perhaps I should say the burden of truth – can be a huge weight to bear. That, coupled with the crazy busy task of life during these hard times, can be overwhelming. Getting up each day, going to work, doing chores, balancing the checkbook, taking care of family members – it is all a big job but add prepping and learning survival skills to the mix and you have a recipe for exhaustion and perhaps even a bit of depression and gloom.
To help overcome my own dizzying sense of having too much too do and too much to prepare for, I sat down a couple of nights ago and attempted to put my own rules for survival in to words. I am calling them the 10 commandments of survival and they bring focus and meaning to preparing for hard times
(Excerpt) Read more at survivalandbeyond.net ...
This goes without saying. When chaos reigns the land or a natural disaster strikes, we need to do our darnedest to take care of ourselves. We need to have our own food, our own source of clean, purified water, our own medical supplies and most important, a robust skill set that will allow us to live quite comfortably without electricity or petroleum products.
There will still be a need for government assistance but that assistance should go to those that are truly needy through no fault of their own. That includes the wounded, the sick, the working poor, the elderly and the disabled. This may be a pipe dream but in my sense of right and wrong, taking care of the truly needy is something that governments should do provided that these same people have gone as far as they can to take of themselves.
Preppers’ PING!!
Preppers’ PING!!
Preppers’ PING!!
Is there anything that can be done to protect yourself and your family from biological warfare, or to be prepared to survive it?
Butter, my FRiend, we have not spoken in a while.
Here is a free book on surviving germ warfare:
http://www.uhuh.com/reports/harris/book.htm
Hit the feed store with your antibiotic shopping list. Order a 55 gal drum of sodium hypochlorite (bleach). BTW, you can dilute this 4 to one and have a lifetime supply of laundry bleach.
Turn off anything that is bringing in outside air, tape the windows, doors and vents over with plastic, duct tape up places where outside air is coming in.. and that is all you can do. If you come into contact with a bio-hazard- use copious amounts of water to wash.
You can’t out run it.
Thanks. I’ll give it a look.
There are several comments I would like to make about these.
1) “Have the will to live no matter what”. Vince Lombardi observed that “fatigue makes cowards of us all”. However, fatigue is just a subset of what can be called “indulging”, wasting your strength in fussing over petty irritations, some of which can be *very* irritating, and can add up.
Indulgence is the enemy of will.
US Green Berets in Vietnam would have to march for dozens of miles through jungle, with trench foot, crotch rot, insect bites, cuts and scrapes, etc. So while not authorized to do so, they carried a few emergency Percodan pills (Oxycodone + Aspirin). Just one of these pills would give them an extra 20 miles when they just wanted to lay down and quit.
The lesson of this is first of all, do not indulge in petty stuff, make the extra effort to ignore it. And second, realize when you have reached your limit of tolerance, and have some relief handy.
3) “Seek knowledge as a solution to problems.” True, but it is also true that you need to have references with you as well. Even master cooks refer to cookbooks to make sure they’re doing it right. So when you learn something, write it down. In pencil, because ink runs when the paper gets wet.
5) “Embrace decisiveness as a core value.” Decisiveness is best when you both use the (military version) Decision Making Process, then plan what to do with the Operations Order originally devised by Sun Tzu (and still unsurpassed today). People train with this by using it to plan for ordinary things, like going to the grocery. Practice makes good, if not perfect.
The original Sun Tzu plan only had five major sections, and the Russians added a sixth which is a worthy addition. Not bad for an idea first crafted in about 350 B.C.
What is the situation, who are our friend and enemies (enemies include terrain and weather/illumination.)
What is the mission, what are we intending to do?
How are we going to do it, including different routes there and back. This is the most complex section.
What supplies, weapons and tools, fuel and rations do we need, and where can we get more?
Command, controls, communications and signals to be used.
(the Russian addition) Obscuration and deception. Except for those who need to know, others should think you are doing something other than what you are doing.
(my favorite version of the Sun Tzu plan is in the US Army Ranger Handbook (Patrol Order), 1980 edition, as the latest versions have a lot of extraneous information.)
My husband is a pastor. If his parishioners are dying from stuff he’ll be out there burying them. He’s sick right now from a bug he probably got from someone he visited last Thursday.
Maybe we all need to decide how we would rather die, and what we’ll spend our last days doing.
The feeling of inevitability is palpable. Our government is our enemy, working to arm the people sworn to kill us and using legal maneuvers to make sure they have easy access to all of us. And there is nobody willing to defend us.
This country’s stupidity is going to be its total, absolute death, and my gut says it won’t be long in coming.
I’ve been preparing for many years and used those preps when hurricanes would come through. At one time, I lived near a national forest and every time a storm came it took down national forest trees and power went out and that lasted from one to three days every time. It happened in summer and winter. I had preps to get through either season.
Why do we need to prep now when our parents or grandparents didn’t? Because in those days their natural way of living was to grow food and can it and they had food animals and cows for milk, chickens for eggs, etc.. We moved away from that style of living when grocery stores became plentiful with everything we needed in food. Now, we have to consciously store to equal what our forefathers did naturally.
Then, some stupid idiot called people who did that, tin foil “survivalists” who want everyone to die except them. These “survivalists” had guns to hunt for meat (just like their forefathers) and for self defense. Now, this has evolved into another word, “prepper” which is the same as “survivalist”. And, enter the government who worry about people prepping and we get called possible “domestic terrorists”. All because we are imitating our forefathers who had to do this to stay alive.
In an emergency, we have no grocery stores open so we store food just like our ancestors did. There are those who doubt an emergency could happen to them, so they don’t see the need to store. That is fine except they don’t want anyone else to store. Say, what? Why is it anyone’s business that some people store? Communication is such these days that information travels like wild fire so segments of the population know about other segments and they judge each other. I don’t care what other segments of the population do – they are free people to do as they wish. Verbally attacking someone because they store is nonproductive. Store if you want, don’t store if you don’t want to – simple.
CLOCKS:
It dawned on me a few days ago that every clock in my house required a battery or plug in the wall. How did I miss that? In an emergency, such as a hurricane I may have this year, I don’t want to waste a battery to make a clock work and I have no idea when I last put a battery in a clock. So, I researched wind up clocks and found they are now made in China and are junk. Name a brand and it’s plastic made in China and it’s insides will shortly stop working. Darn. They are cheap, from $7.00 to the mid 20s and they are throw away clocks when they stop and you buy another one.
I wanted a wind up clock that would work – one I could depend on working in an emergency. One must leave China to find a reliable clock. I found one and I ordered it today. The name is Sternreiter wind up alarm clock. I paid $54.95 with free shipping from Amazon for this clock and can hand it down to my grandchildren because it will still work. It is metal inside and out. You can also find them on the web for sale. Here is info. from the Sternreiter website:
“Mechanical brass movement, made in Europe
Mechanism features solid brass plates, brass gears, and steel shafts and pivots
Loud alarm bells
Offset seconds and alarm dials
Easy-to-read Arabic numerals
These traditional pieces are all metal, with a high-quality mechanism. The loud alarm will wake even the deepest sleeper.
The Sternreiter alarm clocks are sought after worldwide for their quality mechanisms. Most clockmakers stopped using these quality materials 50 years ago because it was too expensive in a competitive market. Sternreiter alarm clocks are inexpensive and can be maintained and passed on to your grandchildren.”
This clock has a tick sound that is not quiet. If it bothers your sleep, place it across the room – even put something over it if it bothers you. In an emergency situation, you may have it in your living area for time telling and the tick sound wouldn’t bother you. Some customers say the tick sound helps them go to sleep, so this is a personal choice to deal with the tick. The alarm is loud and will surely wake you up. If you don’t have to get up at a specific time, don’t set it to come on because it will wake you up. With this clock, you will have “time” without plug in or battery.
Valentine’s day is coming up – give this clock to your spouse. It will last and roses or candy won’t (but buy the candy anyway along with the clock). In case you alive alone like I do – buy yourself a Valentine present, which I did.
"This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be."
There isn’t anyone who can defend us, except for God. We know that this is all God’s plan. This is all in prophecy. My faith in God is not lessened, even though I wish our country was going in a different direction.
This is our temporary home... but I will die trying to make sure my children live to see another day.
There are step to take that will help us survive a disaster and be part of the 1/3 of the world left to carry on.
But honestly- if the Lord wants to take us, we will be better off. Either way, we are ready to face what comes, right?
Just get your Bible. :) Every knee is going to bow.
Yes. What you said.
Also on Sunday, Leavitt's civil attorney, Kirby Wells, said his client had no idea that a co-defendant in the highly publicized case, Larry Wayne Harris, 46, was once a member of the Aryan Nations with mail fraud convictions relating to the possession of bubonic plague toxins in Ohio.
Harris, a microbiologist, also wrote 'Bacteriological Warfare, A Major Threat to North America: What You and Your Family Can Do Defensively -- Before and After: A Civil Defense Manual.'
self-ping
Military grade surplus bio suits can be brought as well as anti-biologicals like Cipro for Anthrax.There are even a number of air filtering systems that remove biologicals you could use if you sealed yourself up.
There is a section in my Preparedness Manual titled:
Biological and Chemical Agent Dispersion-by Kenneth B. Moravec
Which can give you more information and suggestions.
The manual can be download for free at:
http://tomeaker.com/kart/Preparedness1j.pdf
“This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”
I remember his saying that and he added that prisoners died because they didn’t have the discipline to deal with the reality of how bad it was - that thinking all the time they would prevail killed them because they couldn’t move - we would call that the “Normalcy bias” these days - staying stuck and not taking action.
Great post.
Too many suggest that faith is all that is needed, but I believe that God expects you to strive against adversity. You must act you must fight for life and against evil, even to what might be a bitter end. Better the death of Masada than the death of Dachau.
One of my favorite lines from “Lord of the Rings” was when too few had come to help fight Mordor on behalf of Gondor. Theoden’s advisor said, “Too few have come. We cannot win.” And Theoden’s response was, “No. We cannot win. But we will meet them in battle nonetheless.”
And when Denethor the steward of Gondor sent out Faramir to confront Mordo at Osgiliath, and Gandalf pleaded with him not to go, not to throw his life away - Faramir said something like, “How better should I spend my life than in defending my people?”
We need to be ready so we can help our kids, and our neighbors if we can.
I’ll look at what everybody suggested; I think my husband would prefer to die without knowing it was even coming, so it’s a little bit of an uphill battle for me but I don’t relish the thought of being helpless to help my kids when the awful time comes.
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