“That going off into the world to make war is the mother of many skills.”
I never saw combat (between wars) but my Army years are still applicable to my everyday life, that’s for sure! Mainly by being organized, thinking a few steps ahead, still getting up at 4am - but these days, that’s just to pee, LOL!
My (now adult) boys can grow food and hunt and fish, but they’re lacking in many other skills, IMHO.
But, that’s just MY opinion. If the next war is strictly a cyber-war? They’re all over that, LOL!
To acknowledge those who did not get to serve, I should have added how surviving the want and scarcity of the Great Depression was a great teacher to many as well. My mother, when still in her 80s, would still collect good string and add it to her ball of string to use again. I threw away a number of them a decade ago not wanting to haul them many miles to my garage.
Weird as it may sound, when in Jr HS in L.A. we had to take an agricultue course in 7th grade. Grew radishes of huge size (gag) and carrots.
I still remember old Caperton teaching us about double row seed beds at Orville Wright Jr HS..
Aside from survival skills, there’s just basic housekeeping skills.
Many years ago one of the neighborhood girls, about 6 at the time, was watching me make mashed potatoes (through the kitchen door, and as I was at the stove doing them, she asked me what I was doing.
I told her I was making mashed potatoes.
Then she asked me, innocent as could be, with all sincerity, (quote) “Why don’t you make them the homemade way, in the microwave?” (I can still see this in my mind’s eye) and I said to her, “This is just a different kind of homemade way.”
And this had to be 20 years ago, easily.
So many kids these days lack any kind of skill in putting up food.
I learned to can and freeze from my mom and kept it up. Now I do canning and pressure canning and freeze what doesn’t can well.
Whenever we have turkey, I make soup out of the carcass and pressure can the meat and broth. It keeps way better than freezing it, don’t have to worry about power loss and losing the food. And any time someone wants a meal of turkey soup, I can grab a can off the shelf and throw in some veggies and *instant* fresh soup.
We could live months on what I have in my basement.
But when I tell people that I pressure can, their reaction is mostly *You can DO that?*