Finding Your Tribe

Whether it’s Max Rockatansky, former police officer of the Main Force Patrol, or Eli, former K-Mart staffer, the movies always feature a man traveling the wasteland alone, righting wrongs and accomplishing amazing feats all by himself in a world gone mad.

That’s called FICTION for a reason. The truth of the matter is that alone, you can’t even sleep safely, let alone travel the wasteland, searching for damsels in distress to be rescued. If I was the bad guy in these scenarios, I’d just follow the hero until he laid down to sleep and then dispatch him with my trusty bayonet. Instant loot drop.

The other fallacy the movies present are these “honorable” situations in which the bad guy prefers a one-on-one epic battle or just takes our hero prisoner. The fact is that in a WROL situation, you’re far more likely to just be dropped from 700 meters by a sniper or, in the case of the famous Eli capture, if the bad guy really wanted to see what was in his backpack, he would have just killed Eli as soon as he surrendered.

Why do I bring this up? Because you need a tribe. Call it whatever you want (except the evil M word), you need a group of people who agree to assist each other and cooperate in the areas of security, defense, food production, and water/supply procurement.

As the Ultimate Tactical Handbook says:

Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

Ecclesiastes 4:12

With at least one other person, one can sleep while the other keeps watch. With three, everyone can get more sleep. Sleep is just an example. This applies to any task.

As I keep pointing out, too many in preparedness think they will live some type of idyllic Little House on the Prairie existence, farming quietly and communing with nature. At some point, bad folks (or just plain desperate & hungry ones), will arrive and attempt to take what you have. Even a single family alone will not be able to defend against a horde.

You need to find groups of like minded people to band together and TRAIN with. But, before you rush of and create a new Facebook group, you need to take a look at this warning that is showing in CANNING groups….

Imagine…”becoming too prepared..” Is that even a thing? You can either be prepared or not. You cannot be “TOO PREPARED”.

The point is that the DHS has officially linked preparedness to violent domestic extremism. It’s wrong, it’s untrue, and is unfair, but we have to deal with the world as it is, not how we want it to be.

If you haven’t already found a group, it may indeed be too late. Our freedom to assemble and associate with other now comes with an asterisk, “As long as it is for approved purposes.” I don’t say this to be defeatist, I say it to urge you to action.

Generally, we already associate with like minded people. Start having conversations and building a preparedness community, just don’t use Facebook for any part of it. Remember that Facebook began as a Defense Department project and no amount of them saying “but we dropped it” can change that basic fact.

As you begin building a group, vet potential new members carefully. Review their online persona carefully. See what they are posting and how long the account has been there. Anyone who starts advocating immediately for drastic actions or suggests modifying weapons/building explosives should be immediately & permanently removed. They are either insane or a federal agent (but then I repeat myself) and the response is the same. Never have any contact with them again.

As a side note, if you attend an event with any preparedness group, be immediately suspicious of any acquittances “randomly” reaching out to you right after. I recently attended an even with someone else’s group, and suddenly 3 people who I’ve recently met, none of which were present, reached out to “chat”. Those are likely informants assigned to do research. Be careful.

Look for the skills to complement what your group needs. Begin with a rough outline of what you think is needed. An example is a medical person, an engineer of some variety, a gardening person, people who hunt, and a communications person. With these, you can build a solid preparedness group.

I know, some of you (probably the feds) are going to point out that I didn’t mention security or “shooters”. That’s because security is EVERYONE’S job, and if you are purposefully seeking only shooters, I would ask WHY? Because you’re not really interested in preparedness, you’re interested in LARPing about Red Dawn or The Patriot.

Don’t get me wrong, shooters will be needed and are welcome, but they MUST bring other skill sets to the table. Just being a shooter is an extra mouth to feed that brings no production capability. Are your shooters hunters or vice-versa? Good.

Remember our ultimate goal: SURVIVAL. Build your group around THAT, and it will be capable of anything else (like fighting the Chinese or resisting a tyrant). Never begin with a goal of building a resistance team with a secondary goal of survival, that always ends badly, because it attracts the LARPers. Begin with the goal of long term survival, and the other things will naturally follow.

Require standardization in your group. Everyone should the same type of radio, programmed the same. Everyone should carry the same first aid kit in the same place. Everyone should have a tourniquet in the same spot on their gear. An overlooked point is ammunition standardization. If everyone else has a 5.56mm, and have 300 BLK, they can’t toss you a mag. Standardization also makes resupply and scavenging easier.

Once you have your team set up, meet and train together regularly. Use the training exercising in my Baseline Training Manual and Fieldcraft to build your skills and to develop the ability to work together.

The time to do this is NOW, not post-event. Tensions in this country are at an all time high and it only takes one event to spark very bad things.

The third book in the Tactical Wisdom Series, Defensive Operations, will focus on the skills and techniques that a team can use to defend a location or area. It pre-supposes that you have a team.

Imagine this: Someone approaches your gate. You must respond to the gate to deal with them. If you are alone, you have no security over-watching you, but more importantly, you won’t have anyone watching the rest of your perimeter. Someone approaching the gate may be a distraction. You need a team.

We are 100% fan supported with no sponsors, so if you’d like to support our third book project, please consider a donation below.