On March 23rd, 1775, Patrick Henry gave a speech at St John’s Church in Richmond Virginia. He concluded that speech with a phrase that has echoed throughout history as a battle cry and a guiding principle, “Give me Liberty, or give me Death!”.

He wasn’t just saying empty words, either. He would go on to lead a militia force in the Gunpowder Incident the next month. The British Royal Marines seized a large cache of gunpowder and attempted to move it to a ship. Henry quickly took command of a local Militia and marched on the British Headquarters in Williamsburg. While a negotiated settlement was reached, it was acknowledged that Henry could have taken Williamsburg if he had wanted to.

I bring this up, because I want to discuss a few more parts of that speech that are lesser known, but equally applicable to the situation we find ourselves in today.

I ask you consider this in the context of the two pieces of Tactical Wisdom from the Ultimate Tactical Handbook that I’m going to share today. The first is among my favorites:

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. 

Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Galatians 5:1

Before I move back into Patrick Henry, let’s be clear: Forced medical procedures are SLAVERY. Forced home detention for not accepting said forced medical procedures is SLAVERY. Not protesting because the authorities have frightened you out of it is SLAVERY. Clear? Clear.

Back to Patrick Henry:

…It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against the painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts.

This concept is repeated in the Declaration of Independence. We are apt to pretend that somehow things will just get better if we don’t make waves. That if we just “go along to get along” somehow they won’t really force us to do what we don’t want to do.

In our present situation, too many are guilty of this wishful thinking. This also encompasses those who think that some magic “they” is going to ride in on a golden stallion and save the day so that they won’t have to.

…we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated….

Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne.

Man, does any of this sound familiar? President Biden’s speech about national mandates, where he said his patience was wearing thin, was us all being spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne.

Our petitions & remonstrances, namely attempting to exercise our right to petition the government for the redress of grievances by gathering to protest, has indeed produced additional violence and insult in that over 600 people have now been arrested and transported, in some cases, thousands of miles to face trial. For the record, that same behavior is listed in the Declaration.

It’s gotten to the point where the right cannot even attend a protest without hundreds of federal agents descending on the event, intimidating people back onto the couch to watch Netflix.

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary.

Stop me if you’ve hear this one….the left says it all day every day.

But when shall we be stronger? Will it be next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house?

And here comes the part I really wanted to share:

Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance, by laying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?

Here it is….our own shame. Our lives have grown so soft and so comfortable, that the truth is that all the keyboard warriors who say “Well, when they come to my street, I’ll resist”, are really never going to. They’re going to choose Netflix over Liberty.

It’s what gives rise to the Hopium that Donald Trump, or Gen Flynn, or some audit, or the Tooth Fairy is going to magically push the auto-win button and fix everything, so that we don’t have stop binge-watching the next dystopian series on Netflix and take action ourselves.

Patrick Henry told us all those years ago where choosing to remain comfortable leads…to being bound hand and foot and not being able to resist once you finally decide to. In the Warsaw Ghetto, the Jews finally rose up when they realized that they were going to die anyway. While they put up a valiant fight, they lost in the end because they waited until they were totally disarmed and completely surrounded to fight. We need to stop teaching this as a good story of resistance and start teaching it as a cautionary tale about waiting too long.

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?

As winter approaches, most will tempted to not resist or protest at all, because it’s too cold. I even had one guy tell me “fighting season is over”, as if we are foot-mobile only Afghan goat herders with no way through the mountain passes. No, we’re just too comfy and lazy. I’d like that guy to learn about the Battle of the Bulge and the Battle of Stalingrad.

Why are we so comfortable? Because Netflix (Barack Obama sits on their board, BTW) has turned every show into soft porn to keep you on the couch. We’d rather sit in our living rooms and indulge in a little guilty pleasure than get out and do what is right. That leads us to our second piece of Tactical Wisdom:

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh…

Galatians 5:13a

Bad things are on the horizon. Pretending they aren’t or hoping they’ll just go away are not viable strategies.

Very soon, you will have to decide: Give me Liberty, or Give me Netflix.

I’ll take my lead from Patrick Henry:

I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

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Whatever your reason is for preparing, a second or third order effect is going to lead to the unavailability of gasoline. If you’re preparing for an EMP, then vehicles are already off the table. I know, everyone likes to say “But I’ve got a 1984 Chevy”. Cool story. How will you get gasoline without electricity?

I know, I’ve mentioned gas siphon pumps and the like, but the cold hard truth is that in any prolonged crisis or collapse, even the SOUND of a motor vehicle will draw unwanted attention, making the use of the 1984 truck and siphon pump risky at best. For the record, that goes for all of you “I’ll just bug in and use my generator to run my freezer” types. In the quiet world, a running generator will draw hungry people like roaches, but I digress.

The biggest skill and ability area we all need for post-WROL living is the one most of us neglect…the ability to move a great distance on foot, carrying a load, and potentially under hostile observation. The skills in TW-02, Fieldcraft will help in this area, but I want to talk about something you can do today.

Urban Scouting is something I do a couple of times a week, to develop my awareness, build on my Area Study, and improve my ability to walk distances, while also gathering important data. Yes, it’s rucking, but it’s rucking with a secondary purpose. It’s just like doing burpees (or as Marines used to call them bend and thrusts)…burpees improve cardio and body strength, while also improving your ability to get down and to get up from the ground quickly.

Before we get into how, let’s discuss the why. The Ultimate Tactical Handbook tells us why we need to scout out the city before disaster strikes:

Destructive forces are at work in the city;
    threats and lies never leave its streets.

Psalms 55:11

With this advice, it’s solid Tactical Wisdom to scout out these areas as soon as possible. This also ties in well with my tactical guidance in Fieldcraft and down below here, telling you to stay off the street whenever possible.

The first step is always proper preparation. Get a quality backpack, preferably the one you use as your Get Home Bag. The best urban color is black, because it’s very common and it blends into the urban environment. The bag should be stocked as shown in the Base Line Training Manual, but for this exercise we definitely want it to have some type of rain gear, water, some type of food, and some type of note-taking equipment. Personally, I use my BattleBoard Scout and Rite-In-The-Rain notebook.

Go to a location that you frequent. Lately, I’ve been going to retail shopping areas that I frequent, as I’ve done places along the route home from various client locations already. When I get there, I gear up and then begin walking a few miles, wearing the backpack, but it’s not just walking.

I take the back alley behind the businesses. I do this to scout out what could be useful. There are many things to learn in the back alleys, from a preparedness standpoint.

You’ll find hidden trails from residential areas into the commercial shopping area. Funny thing about trails is that they work both ways. Once I’ve found a trial, learned where it goes, and recorded it into my area study, I now have another escape route. In the future, if I find myself shopping at that location & a disorder happens, and I can’t get to my car, I now know that there is a foot path out of the area around the back and I’m on my way to safety.

On my last trip a few days ago, I found not only trails to three different neighborhoods, but I found wild grapes, blackberries, and black raspberries. I also found an abundance of rabbits that most people won’t know about about. Finding hidden sources of food is a matter of life and death.

Other knowledge you can chart for later emergency use is which businesses store old pallets outside (source of firewood), who has a generator behind the building (source of fuel), and where there is roof access from the rear alley (potential use as an Observation Post). Also, note the location of sillcock faucets you find, for later water access.

Look at trails also from an approach perspective. Learn where you could hide along those trails to observe the alley, before stepping into it, or to where you could observe looting, from a community safety perspective. It would be good to know when looters are leaving a commercial area and if they are then heading towards your neighborhood.

The important secondary skill we are developing here is the habit and ability to navigate in an urban area without walking along the streets.

Above, I used a screen grab from The Book of Eli, and there’s a reason. The mistake Eli made when he went to leave the village that fateful day was that he walked right down the street after leaving the shop where he got his battery charged. I know, it’s a movie, but he could have avoided the entire gun battle (and saved his scarce ammo), by going out the back door of the shop and navigating out via the alley behind the business. But then, the movie would have been boring.

I know, I’m saying that tongue-in-cheek, but it’s a serious point that I made in Fieldcraft; in a WROL situation, walking down the street is how you become a loot drop for someone else. Forget these fantasies about an honorable showdown between you and the evil leader of the biker gang; reality is that you will never even hear the sniper’s shot before you fall, and they rush out to divide up your stuff.

A word about weather: If it starts raining or snowing, or is too hot or too cold, DO IT ANYWAY. We are training for the real world and when the time comes, you won’t get to pick the weather.

I hope this helps you in your readiness and training.

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I can’t imagine my life without my dogs, one of which is Miss Lucy above. In that photo, I think she was waiting not-very-patiently for me to put the laptop down.

Also, I have a cat, and he’s the ultimate “Chad Cat” of all Chad-Cats. He stages items along the very edge of the kitchen island, so that he can ambush the dogs from above with his dead-fall traps. He’s definitely a tactical war-kitty, for sure. He dominates the high ground (maintaining an OP from the cupboard above the fridge) and spends his days patrolling the house stealthily, setting ambushes for everyone, human or dog, he doesn’t care and he gives no quarter.

So, naturally, when it comes to preparedness, they are 100 percent included in my preparedness plans. Pets are family. I’m angered and saddened when I hear stories of people who evacuated without their pets and are now looking for them. This was preventable.

Before we begin, as we alway do, let’s check the Ultimate Tactical Handbook for guidance on preparedness for pets. What? You don’t think it’s in there? Oh, ye of little faith…Have I not taught you? Everything you need to know is.

The righteous care for the needs of their animals,
    but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel.

Proverbs 12:10

There it is. You care for animals, and the “kindest act of the wicked” of letting the pet fend for itself is cruel.

This very point is our first preparedness tip for pets. You do NOT just let them out of the house and hope for the best. Would you do that for your toddler? Teenager? They will be stressed out and don’t understand the danger or why you left. You accepted responsibility for them, act like it.

You hear all the time about “just let the cats out; they’ll fend for themselves”. That’s FALSE. It’s based on the belief that cats don’t really need people. Whoever said that has never met Lynx, my cat. If he can’t see his people (and his dogs, even though he denies it), he is stressed out and can’t deal. While cats CAN fend for themselves, they’ll be stressed and don’t exactly watch the news to be aware of danger.

Another negative side effect of letting pets out is that dogs will then form packs and become feral, which is dangerous to everyone’s long-term survival. Dogs that become feral do not then go back to being tame.

Dogs and cats have been man’s companions for millenia, and they didn’t have modern conveniences like prepared dog and cat food, until relatively recently. You can do this in an austere environment, without modern conveniences.

Whenever you make evacuation plans, include the animals. For cats, a carrier is needed. For dogs, some type of harness and leash with a long lead is needed. All animals, in an emergency, need some type of tag with your name and contact information on it. I know, in a full WROL (Without Rule of Law) situation, they won’t be able to reach you, but it will establish ownership.

Another item you need in your important papers is a photo of you with each pet you have. This will help establish ownership, in case you get separated and there is ever any dispute as to ownership. A PRINTED photo, not on your phone. Also include any pet immunization records and registration documents, if you bent the knee to the state and registered them.

While animals will drink from ground water, get a collapsible bowl and you can share the water that you gather and purify with them. The collapsible bowls above have a carabiner so that you can attach it to your pack, or the dogs harness, to dry.

Pack and store about a weeks worth of pet food, plus a few cans if they eat wet food, in a waterproof and airtight package, and remember to rotate it. My program is to put enough food for one day in a ziplock bag, and those bags got into a larger bag, just for the pets, along with the collapsible water bowls. Side Note: Dogs and cats don’t care if the food is on the ground, on the floor, or in a bowl. Use the bowls only for water to keep them clean. Also, in a true emergency, cans or pouches of tuna/salmon make good substitutes for pet food.

Another vital item you need is a pet first aid kit, built for and dedicated to pets. They are widely available and relatively low cost. They contain supplies for treating pet-specific injuries. Consider taking a pet-specific first aid and CPR class. Yes, pet CPR classes exist, I’ve taken one. The Red Cross and several other agencies offer them, including online courses.

For weather and other short-term emergencies, you should scout now for hotels outside your area that would allow you to bring your pets. Some sites recommend boarding your pets while you evacuate, but if conditions require an evacuation, your pets should evacuate with you. If you just can’t find any hotels or friends that will take in you and your pets, camping is always an option.

In a full-WROL situation, dogs are a SOLID security asset. Humans and dogs paired together thousands of years ago in a mutually beneficial agreement: the dogs will help hunt, herd, and provide security in exchange for humans sharing their food. Keep dogs for security. It’s important though, while tempted not to, keep the dogs on a leash. You don’t want them running off when startled.

Cats should be kept in a carrier until you get to either a temporary or permanent location. They don’t work well with leashes and run when startled.

You also have to consider pet sanitation as well. Just as I always talk about not allowing any humans to eliminate bodily waste inside or near your campsite, don’t let pets do it either. Walk them away from the campsite. While it’s equally important for health reasons, with dogs, it’s even more important from a security standpoint, because the smell of dog urine is very strong TO DOGS and it ALWAYS attracts MORE DOGS. You don’t need that. For cats, some type of portable litter arrangement is needed.

A good way to do this is that after you’ve set up the camp, take a quick patrol about 50 meters out from your campsite with the dog or dogs, and make a quick circle at that distance.

I hope these few ideas help. I know, I didn’t discuss parakeets, or lizards, or whatever, because I really don’t know how you’d pull that off. If that’s what you have, most of these guidelines will still work, to some extent.

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We’ve all got a tent, and a sleeping bag, and the supplies we think we need to live in the field, should we need to. Some people plan on living a permanent mobile existence in a WROL situation, which isn’t actually realistic, and some are planning on bugging in.

No matter what you envision, are you really prepared for WROL living? This what the Ultimate Tactical Handbook says will happen:

Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains.

Revelation 6:15

Sure, from a theoretical standpoint, we’ll all say we are. But, are you really? When was the last time you lived in the field for 3 weeks straight? When was the last time, even for deployed veterans who did live in the field, that you went 3 weeks without any electricity at all? How about running water?

Even when military forces are in the field, eventually a field shower truck and a field laundry unit arrives. What if they aren’t coming? Are you prepared for that? When was the last time you TRAINED that way. Be honest, the last time you trained, you checked your phone several times in the middle of it, didn’t you?

These ideas and skills are all found in the Tactical Wisdom Series Volume 2 – Fieldcraft.

First, how will you handle personal hygiene? In a WROL situation, hygiene will be a killer. Being clean also keeps you safe, because let’s be honest, dirty bodies STINK. To help with this, baby wipes or wet wipes of some variety are your friend in the short term. Using bio-degradable products, like flushable wipes, to clean the parts of the body that sweat gathers (I’ll let you figure that out) can stave off illness and odor. Hand sanitizer and wipes before meals are vital.

For a longer-term solution, a camp shower is a good idea, as long as you can find a source of water. Essentially, you fill it with water and hang it in the sun while you do other tasks. This heats the water. When you turn it on, warm water comes out and you can take a quick shower.

For a more permanent solution, you can build a “gravity shower”, as long as you have a way to get water into the system (buckets). Basically, the water is carried up and poured into a black container of some type (plastic or metal). Once the water warms up from the sun, turn on the shower head and take a shower. You could build an outdoor enclosure around it.

All field soldiers know about freshening clothes in the field. Crush them up, then shake them out a few times, and let them sit in the sun for a couple of hours. This could be done by attaching them to your pack while moving, or hanging them up in camp.

That gets you through a short field operation, but eventually you’ll need to actually wash your clothes. Having a washing board is a good idea, and has worked for hundreds of years. Another option is Fels-Naptha. This is a solid bar of laundry soap. You can treat stains by wetting the cloth and rubbing the bar on it. You could also put your dirty clothes in a mesh laundry bag with shaved off pieces of Fels-Naptha inside and vigorously agitate the bag in water (that’s the same way your washing machine works). As a side note, Fels-Naptha can also treat poison ivy/poison oak.

The next issue to consider is water. Forget the idea of storing enough water. You need to develop the ability to procure & purify water. The good news is that humans have been doing that for all of history. If you are at some type of permanent site, having an outdoor fire pit with a grate/grill and a large pot will enable you to be boiling water almost continuously. Despite our advanced technologies, boiling water at rolling boil for at least one minute remains the very best way to treat water and make it safe to drink in a primitive setting.

Filters and chemical treatment options should be considered as tools for temporary use or for use while on the move. There are plenty of options here, so pick what works best for you. My personal option is a Sawyer Mini, because it can placed directly on my Camelback tube, so that if I am in a hurry, I can filter as I drink, rather than stopping and taking a long time to filter as I fill the Camelback. I also carry chemical tabs, which can be tossed into either canteens or a Camelback (the exact dosage is in Fieldcraft). You need the ability to be able to fill up all of you water containers and be treating or filtering on the move, because movement is life and staying near a water source means other people will eventually show up.

Honestly evaluate your comfort level with life in the field. When was the last time you camped for more than 2 nights? Start getting comfortable with this now by training for it.

These problems aren’t only for people bugging out. If you are bugging in, when was the last time you went a week without using the water, electricity, or gas? How acclimated are you to the heat and cold? We live most of our lives in an artificially maintained climate. Can you tolerate the heat in the summer and the cold in the winter? Do you have a plan to heat your house that doesn’t rely on the outside world?

If you are planning on bugging in, try to train by spending a week without using any of the outside services. Doing this will give you some ideas on what you need to work on to improve your preparations and your post-event quality of life.

Remember that in all of your training, you need make security a priority. In a true WROL, your security is going to be AT RISK. As I’m writing this, video is emerging of “Rooftop Arabs” defending their stores from looters in New Orleans. You’ll need that level of security. Here’s a tip from the Son of Man himself:

When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe.

Luke 11:21

As you prepare, don’t just be a collector. Get out and train and see what your life will actually be like. Just collecting gear is NOT preparedness.

I hope this helps spur your thinking leads to you taking some training action.

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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.

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My preparedness philosophy revolves around the idea that at any given point in time, you are no more than 72 hours from a complete and total collapse. This may seem extreme, but let me give a historical context.

The most recent example is Afghanistan. We spent years training their new military and they fell within 72 hours. I know what you’re thinking, “But they were at war”. Yes, the tribal areas were, but in Kabul, life was pretty much normal. 72 hours later, it was overrun and widespread violence is on-going.

For a better example, let’s examine life in Gori, Georgia on August 8th, 2008. Life was normal, the power was on, water was flowing, and everyone was working. Sure, there was an autonomous zone to their north, but those issues never interrupted the daily routine in Gori, a modern western city with a lively nightlife. 72 hours later, there was no power or water, the police were retreating from Russian armor and infantry, and ethnic Russian militias were operating in the city. The city was receiving constant shelling and severe air attacks, despite the city not being defended by the Georgian Army. 72 hours.

In the Ukraine in 2014, protestors gathered daily in the capitol to protest the President and his alleged ties to Russia (boy, doesn’t that sound familiar?). For the rest of the country, though, it was business as usual. In fact, in Kyiv, outside of a 12 block area, life went on as normal. On the 19th, more protestors arrived including the Right Sektor, whose flag bears a striking resemblance to ANTIFA’s (because they have the same funding).

Between the 19th and 22nd, 130 people were killed, including 18 police officers. Again, this 72 hour period affected only a few blocks of the capitol city, but in the end, the government had been overthrown. 72 hours.

Now, the first 72 hour period was bad enough, and life in the capitol had seen a complete collapse from a modern western city to a complete war zone in just 72 hours, but it wasn’t over. In the countryside, people woke up on the 22nd realizing that the government had been overthrown by force. These groups quickly formed their own militias and declared their independence. Immediately, fighting broke out and Russian forces invaded.

In another 72 hours, the rest of the Ukraine devolved from a modern western society into a war zone without consistent power or water, and it’s residents having to flee from fighting and dodge enemy checkpoints. It remains in conflict to this day. An entire province was annexed directly into Russia proper.

These are extreme examples, but we see the same thing here during social unrest or natural disasters. Within 72 hours of the George Floyd incident, Minneapolis and several other cities were in complete “Without Rule of Law” situations. After Hurricane Katrina, in less than 72 hours, New Orleans became a total WROL zone complete with gang Warlords and federal gun confiscations, as well as forced relocations.

The Colonial Pipeline Cyberattack was another great example. Residents of the affected area found that within 72 hours, there was no gasoline to get to work or the grocery store, or anywhere. This led to food shortages and unrest. Had it gone on any longer, full on civil disorder would have resulted.

As people interested in preparedness, we need to understand this dynamic and be prepared to go from normal operations to full WROL operations in less than 72 hours at any given moment. There may not be time to prepare later. We tend to put things off, but we need to be ready.

The first two things to go in a crisis will be communications and fuel, and if the power is out, they’ll both go at the same time. Have a radio communications plan (license free is great for local comms) and a plan to get gas or refuel from stored supplies. Two important items are a good handheld radio and a siphon pump.

Ensure that all your bags are packed and ready, with seasonably appropriate items. Keep a 14 day supply of PORTABLE food, as you may need to leave. Always keep a method to procure and purify water with you, as water is too bulky to store and too heavy to carry.

Remember always that the most important rule learned from 20th century conflict is that “movement is life”. If you tie yourself to one location, it may become your grave. While bugging in is a good plan for some, never be so tied to that idea that you sacrifice yourself. Bug in until you have to bug out, then bug out.

In fact, it’s so important that the Ultimate Tactical Handbook advises it:

Gather up your belongings to leave the land, you who live under siege.

Jeremiah 10:17

The number one fitness thing anyone in preparedness can do is WALK. Start walking, TODAY. After getting used to walking, start carrying a load. I don’t mean put weights in a backpack, I mean start rucking carrying the gear you will need. This, more than any other fitness activity, will get your body prepared.

I hope this discussion has opened your eyes to the 72 Hour principle and the need to always be ready for a crisis with no warning. It can happen fast, and we tend to deny that it is happening. Be ready.

Give portions to seven or even to eight,

for you don’t know what disaster may happen on earth.

Ecclesiastes 11:2

We are hard at work on Volume 3 of Tactical Wisdom, Defensive Operations. This Volume will be a bit thicker with more graphics and concepts, as we work from the basics to more advanced concepts.

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I have long said that the government views people into preparedness (“preppers”) as a threat. Many people point at the FEMA website http://www.ready.gov and say “See, you’re wrong. They want you prepared.” Have you really looked at their guidance?

Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of great information on that site. However, that site is geared at preparing you to wait for government assistance. They make no mention of long term storage, survival, or growing foods. They give a good 7-14 day supply list, intended for you to wait until they come to the rescue, and register you for their handouts. That’s not self-sufficiency.

They frequently say on their site “evacuation plan”….by that they mean evacuation to a FEMA shelter. They mention “listen to local authorities”, meaning “do what you’re told”.

This is the same FEMA who forcibly moved people into the stadium in New Orleans where there were rapes, robberies, and murders. Where dead bodies piled up until they were a health risk. The same FEMA who sent troops door to door to seize lawfully owned guns, while gangsters shot up neighborhoods. People had to fight to get their guns back.

No, I don’t think I’ll rely on FEMA.

People call me paranoid, but I frequently point out that federal agencies look at preparedness as a sign of potential extremism. It’s not extreme at all, but they view it that way. They do NOT want people who are interested in taking care of themselves.

This evening, as Kabul falls completely, myself and every other veteran in America received an email from the Veteran’s Administration, expressing concern about our mental state after the fall of Kabul. I want to share with you an excerpt that CONFIRMS that the government thinks preparedness is sign of extremism. Among the harmful coping behaviors it mentioned was this gem:

Mind you, they are straight up saying that feeling a need to be prepared for what may happen in the future is a BAD THING. They would rather that you not be prepared. Being unprepared leads to dependency.

Later on in the email, it says that if you feel this way, you should call the VA Hotline and report yourself. Yes, really.

Brothers and sisters, I don’t care which side of the political spectrum you line up on, but I BEG YOU, tighten up your Operational Security around your preparedness plans. People are taking note of your posts and comments. Remember my warnings about the Defense Production Act.

So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, 

but let us be awake and sober.

1 Thessalonians 5:6

This piece of Tactical Wisdom just that, don’t let yourselves be lulled into reliance on anyone but yourself. Let us also be awake & sober in knowing that some people don’t like the idea of us being self-reliant.

Some practical tips:

1. Stop sharing your preparedness plans on Facebook, even in private groups. FB hates you, and keeps track of these.
2. Understand that anything you put on the internet you no longer have a privacy interest in. Your posts and messages belong to the website, service, or provider.
3. Don’t trust too heavily on “secure messaging services”…the FBI currently has hundreds of cases using allegedly secure messages as evidence. I know…we’re not doing anything wrong, but they don’t care.
4. Have a communications plan that doesn’t rely on the internet or any service provided by someone else (not cell phones). Radio is really a lifesaver and if you get licensed, you can literally talk across the world, without any middleman.
5. Never allow anyone, not even Nest or Ring, access or permission to access your home camera system.
6. Be mindful on Zoom/Web Conferencing of what is visible around you. Again, you may be talking to your friends, but the PROVIDER can record you.
7. Be especially mindful of where your children have online classes. Many activist teachers are reporting all kinds of silly things, because you let them see it. I recommend a corner with a blank wall.
8. Talk to your children about what their teachers are asking them about their home lives. It’s a REAL problem.
9. Never talk about preparedness at work or with people you just met. Especially with people a friend introduces you too.
10. Realize that neighbors who are your friends today, may be tempted to turn in your stash of food after they haven’t eaten for a few days and they are offered extra food rations to report who has extra food. This has happened in other countries. European ones, not third world.
11. Be aware that there are people who are distrustful of the preparedness community and will play Nancy Drew, feigning interest, just to find out what you have and report it.
12. Lastly, understand that denying that a problem exists, doesn’t mean that the problem doesn’t exist. I showed you real-time evidence above. They really think that people into preparedness should be monitored.

In closing, please be careful in disclosing your preparedness, we live in dangerous times.

On a side note, production has begun on Volume 3 of Tactical Wisdom, Defensive Operations. This book will be geared to building a defense for your home, neighborhood, bug out locations, or anywhere really, and on building an information network.

If you would like to help us in our efforts, please consider a donation below, or you can PayPal us directly at joedolio12@gmail.com.

In these days of government over-reach and open militia groups on both the left and the right, it’s time to discuss a sensitive topic. Counter-Surveillance is a key tool in preparedness.

Every time I start talking about stuff like this, people say, “If you aren’t doing anything wrong, why worry?”. Don’t fall into that trap; it’s nonsensical and irrelevant. The fact is, I shouldn’t be subjected to law enforcement or private surveillance if I’m not doing anything wrong. See the difference? It’s subtle but vital.

I base my philosophy on this, and nearly every other topic, on the Ultimate Tactical Handbook. While several verses apply, this one applies to directly to the “Why Worry” naysayers:

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. 

Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Galatians 5:1

Allowing yourself willingly to be subjected to surveillance when you aren’t doing anything wrong is slavery. Freedom involves freedom of not just movement, but UNOBSERVED & UNDOCUMENTED movement.

On the other hand, it’s naive to assume that you can live a life in our modern society without being subjected to near constant surveillance. What we seek to do is to strike a balance.

We do that by focusing on what we will term “hostile surveillance”. Hostile surveillance is surveillance by anyone, whether they be corporate agents, government agents, or private citizen groups (militias), that intend on using their surveillance findings against your interests in any way.

A note: Law Enforcement surveillance is NEVER benevolent towards the subject of the surveillance. The same is not true in the executive protection world. Sometimes, we are placed on a protective services mission, and the protected party doesn’t know (someone sends people to watch over someone else on a trip, at a meeting, etc).

But, why should I, as a person interested in preparedness, think about counter-surveillance? For good or bad, the federal government views people who are interested in self-sufficiency, preparedness, and Constitutional rights as a danger. They even list these traits in their training materials on domestic violent extremism. I don’t agree with that view and neither do you, but we must accept reality as it IS, not as we want it to be.

The other reason is that left-wing militias (ANTIFA is a left wing militia) have strong surveillance and intelligence gathering arms. Right wing militias also have intelligence & surveillance teams, but they aren’t anywhere near as active, except when targeting left wing militias. Make no mistake, there is a serious cold war running between right and left wing militias and we need to be aware of it to keep from being caught in the middle.

The first step is looking at your home (and your workplace) from the perspective of hostile surveillance. In other words, walk around and view your home/workplace from the perspective of someone wanting to observe you or who comes & goes. Sketch your house and neighborhood and mark the best locations to watch from.

Begin with those locations as your focal points. Begin maintaining an awareness of what goes on in those locations and be aware of what vehicles are there. For that matter, become familiar with the vehicles that are normally in the area, so that you can spot an out-of-place vehicle.

A great resource for this process is Jonathan Gilliam’s “Sheep No More” book and workbooks. I use the workbook pages professionally for every protection detail and every surveillance detail. There is an Amazon Affiliate link here (I may make a few pennies on this, fair notice):

The next step is remaining aware at the critical times. In Executive Protection, we teach that there are two places every person can be found every day, and that’s where attacks or surveillance can happen. Their workplace and their home. This applies equally to temporary workplaces (work travel) and temporary homes (hotels). Every day, the average person generally goes to both of those places. Increase your awareness when entering and leaving these two areas and most hostile surveillance can be spotted. We call these “Arrivals & Departures” and in EP, they are the most dangerous times.

Incorporate “Surveillance Detection Routes” (SDR) into your day. The time to check for surveillance isn’t when you think you’re being followed, it’s beforehand, because to be honest, if a federal level surveillance team is following you, an SDR is the only way you’ll ever know. An SDR is pattern of movement that seems completely random to an outside observer, but if another person or vehicle followed the exact same route, it could not be written off as chance.

For example, what are the odds that the car behind me also makes 4 right turns to end up right where we started? What are the odds that the car behind me also passed behind the row of shops in a strip mall, and then right through the same apartment complex parking lot, back onto the main road?

If you analyze your routes, you’ll find plenty of opportunities. Is there a park? Pull into a park, park you car and open the door, just to close it and immediately drive back out the same entrance. Anyone following you would either have to be obvious or stop following you. Is there a corner gas station? Pull in & stop at a pump, get out and lift the handle from the pump. Put it right back, get into your car, and drive out. Again, anyone who does the same will be obvious.

Yes, a truly exceptional team will not fall for these tricks, but counter surveillance is an odds game. You aren’t exactly Carlos the Jackal running terror operations on 3 continents, so you won’t be up against the varsity. We are talking about casual surveillance by amateur militia-type teams. If you need to worry about a top-tier FBI counterintelligence surveillance team, I don’t want to help you.

When talking counter-surveillance, it’s important to mention phones. Your phone is a surveillance device that pretends to be a convenience for you. Google and Apple make BILLIONS tracking your every move and selling that information to whoever wants to pay for it. Yes, that’s scary, but as I always say, see things as they are, not as you want them to be.

Walk with the wise and become wise,
    for a companion of fools suffers harm.

Proverbs 13:20

Buy a Faraday bag to store your phone in if you don’t want to be tracked. You can also build Faraday cages from old cookie tins by lining them with foam or cardboard and they work great. When using a Faraday bag, you have to remember that a phone will track it’s last known position and the first position when you took it out of the bag. What this means is that you need to secure it a LONG way from where you don’t want to be tracked to. Do this logically as well, because phones don’t just lose signal driving down the road in an urban area for 2 hours at a time. A more believable scenario would be to pull into an office building lot, put the phone in the Faraday bag, then go to your meeting or whatever, returning to the exact same lot before taking the phone out. Now, it looks like you were inside a building that blocked your signal that whole time.

Another point to consider is radio interception. Surveillance teams use radio to communicate, because it’s better for group communication and will work without a cell network. Having a scanner or a Baofeng radio set to scan certain frequencies can help. I recently was working with a reporter at an event and I used a Baofeng to quickly locate ANTIFA running counter-surveillance and intelligence groups via radio. A practical exercise would be to have a radio scan the FRS/GMRS/MURS frequencies around your location. Since radios work on line-of-sight, any radio traffic you can hear can generally see where you are standing. It’s a good indicator of potential hostile surveillance.

I used this principle once working inside a BLM/ANTIFA protest. I heard them describing ME over the radio (no worries, full mask/hat/sunglasses, not my first rodeo). Since I knew I was under surveillance I was able to listen to their teams try to find me as I did a break contact drill (Not in this article – maybe in a book). After I broke contact, rather than going directly to the vehicle, I continued listening while conducting a foot SDR (exactly the same as in a car, but you can use alleys and front & back doors of businesses), before heading to the car.

Other key aspects of counter-surveillance are having different hats and shirts/jackets to swap out, completing a “profile change” when you know you aren’t being observed.

A key point, though, is that once you detect surveillance, do nothing OVERT to break contact. You don’t want a surveillance team knowing that you know. Sometimes, letting them see you do a bunch of boring and routine things ends the surveillance. If you decide to break contact (which is ANTI-surveillance rather than counter-surveillance), do so in a way that leaves doubt in their mind as to whether you broke contact on purpose.

Again, I don’t present this because you or I are doing anything wrong. I present it because criminal groups and both left & right wing militias use surveillance.

You have a right to go about your life without being surveilled, ESPECIALLY if you aren’t doing anything wrong.

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A little while ago, I met with a guy for the first time. Before meeting him, I arrived early and conducted a counter-surveillance sweep, as I often do, to make sure that ANTIFA isn’t setting me up. While I watched the area, I saw another vehicle make the same sweep I did, and I can only assume it was with the folks I was going to meet. After the meeting, I ran a surveillance detection route before heading home.

What was being discussed that both parties took such steps? Well, we talked about our families, my books, the current political environment, our Constitutional rights, and how best to defend our own properties against looters. Then why take such steps, you ask? Because in the current environment, such a conversation labels us as potentially violent extremists, despite not talking about anything illegal.

Contrast that with some other meetings. Some groups are holding open recruitment events where they discuss the violent overthrow of the government, burning down federal buildings, and killing those who disagree with them. Does that get them labeled as potentially violent extremists? No, they are peaceful protestors defending against fascism.

We spend a lot time talking about a Without Rule of Situation and how we will conduct ourselves, but we currently find ourselves in a “Different Rule of Law” situation. That refers to a time when society is mostly functioning, by the enforcement of laws and treatment of groups is vastly disproportional.

For example, in Portland, groups spent nearly 200 days trying to burn down an *OCCUPIED* federal building. Very few arrests were made, and those that were arrested were released immediately with no charges filed. In Washington DC, for contrast, the Capitol Police opened doors and people walked in. Every person who simply walked into that building has been or will be arrested. They are being denied bond and held in solitary confinement. There are allegations of mistreatment by the guards. And just 2 days ago, US Representatives were denied access to view the conditions they are being held under.

Different Rule of Law.

Across the country, we are seeing situations in which protestors and rioters assault and harass people, yet when anyone resists, THEY are arrested. We saw this at the Wi Spa just a couple of weeks ago.

Whenever I point this out, people say “But they didn’t charge the guy, they just arrested him”. Yes, that’s EXACTLY the problem. You are still getting arrested for LAWFUL self-defense. And the other side is not getting arrested for UNLAWFUL assaults. Different Rule of Law.

But what does that mean for us? A lot.

We are learning that doing nothing illegal is no longer a bar to arrest or to be being branded as a violent extremist. The word “Patriot” has officially been labeled as extreme.

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

Isaiah 5:20

The first thing we can do is to acknowledge the situation as it is, rather than as we want it to be. We want to believe that lawful self-defense will be honored by the courts and prosecutors, but that’s just not true. We want to believe that Justice always wins, but that’s just not true anymore. That’s step one.

Step two is that once we’ve acknowledged that, we have to make a decision as to whether we will still defend ourselves and how. Make that decision today, understanding the new consequences. The law is no longer on your side.

Apply the new rules whenever you are out. Yes, I still protect journalists out among the protestors, but I have changed my entire defensive approach. I made that change the day that an ANTIFA person committed a felony assault on me directly in front of a Michigan State Police Trooper and the Trooper refused to take action. You need to adjust your approach.

It might seem like wisdom to just lay low and stop being vocal. You can’t be labeled an extremist if you stop standing up for your rights, right? That’s what they are counting on you doing. By labeling patriots as extremists, they are hoping you shut up about the things they are trying to do, so that they can carry on with their plans. It’s the oldest play in the book. They want to silence you. Let me give you a piece of Tactical Wisdom about that:

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Romans 12:21

In other words, don’t be afraid of the label. Don’t say outlandish things, but speak out in defense of the Constitution and your rights. If you don’t, they’ll take them away.

The last thing we can do ties directly back to the first…Once we accept the situation for what it is, rather than hoping for some magic “back to normal” button, we should PREPARE. If the powers that be continue on this path, it will only get worse and conflict will result.

By the way, by staying under the radar and staying complaint, you aren’t keeping the inevitable violence from happening; you’re actually speeding up the process. Compliant people will get sent to the camps first.

Be smart, be aware, be vocal, but most of all, be READY.

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Remember the 70s? Ok, me neither. But, I do remember that my Dad used to have a CB radio. So did all of my uncles and all of their friends. Back then, everyone had to have a license. CB was so wildly popular that movies were made about it and an entire Pop Culture rose up around it, complete with it’s own lexicon and lifestyle.

Then, cellular phones arrived. Radio enthusiasts drifted away from CB and into the Amateur bands as more interesting parts of the radio frequency spectrum were opened to civilian use. The popularity of CB waned and it nearly died. Nearly.

Today, CB is still very popular in the transportation sector, with truck drivers still using the traditional Channel 19 for the majority of their conversations. The intelligence you can gather just from Channel 19 is a good enough reason to have a CB included in your preparedness supplies. The fact that it no longer requires a license is another plus.

Listening to truck drivers, you will hear about road conditions, accidents, police activity, and weather. Maintaining a listening watch on Channel 19 is good start to a Signals Intelligence program and you’ll be surprised at all the information you will gather.

That brings us to today’s Tactical Wisdom, from Matthew:

Whoever has ears, let them hear.

Matthew 11:15

Yes, I know Matthew was talking about listening to God, but it applies. You have ears to hear, and listening to communications is a great way to gather information.

CB is a great medium for preparedness, as long as it is part of a larger communications plan. For example, CB is HF, which means that it is very susceptible to interference and doesn’t penetrate structures very well, so it would not be a good medium in an urban area. However, range will increase when traveling outside an urban area.

As far as range, CB is limited to 4 watts, whether vehicle mounted, base station, or handheld. In open terrain, range is typically 4-5 miles, with about 1 mile being common in urban areas.

SSB or “Single Side Band” is an operating mode that pushes all the energy to either the upper or lower end of the frequency, allowing you to get better range. SSB can typically get up to 3 times the normal range. Any vehicle CB radio you get should have SSB capability. I use the Bearcat 980, linked below.

The features you want in a vehicle or base station CB are SSB operation and a scan function. In a WROL situation, having a CB scanning all frequencies will result in you developing great information, and that’s without even broadcasting.

Consider this: If the internet and cell phones go down, thousands and thousands of people will dust off old CB units stored in garages and start trying to find others and share information. Tap into that.

Another consideration is that the AMRRON Channel 3 Project covers CB. Monitor CB channel 3 at the top of every hour to listen for calls from other preparedness-minded people. You can also reach others for information and assistance that way. Anyone who is aware of the Channel 3 Project is someone who would be willing to render aid or assistance to another preparedness group.

My recommendation is to use CB radio for your group when moving in a vehicle convoy. CB is uniquely positioned for exactly this use. Your team members will each have their own VHF/UHF radio, while each vehicle will have an SSB-capable CB for convoy operations. I recommend always using SSB, for security purposes. No, it’s not secure, but it will prevent anyone who doesn’t have an SSB-capable radio from receiving you. It’s a numbers game.

Each vehicle should also have a CB handheld unit. The reason is that if you approach something like a bridge, or other chokepoint, you can send out a small foot team to recon the chokepoint. They will use their VHF/UHF radios to communicate with each other, but will call back to the convoy on the handheld.

The only issue with this is that handhelds that operate SSB are virtually non-existent, so you would have to make sure to switch to regular AM mode for this. After checking the obstacle, the foot team would adopt a security posture and wait for the vehicles to move up to them.

As far as handhelds, the Midland 75-822 is an excellent option because it allows you to scan and add 5 memory channels for quick access. It also receives the NOAA weather channels, but I doubt those will see much traffic post-WROL. When buying any handheld CB, immediately buy a longer and better antenna (research on the inter-webs).

A lot of concerns I hear from people are that “just anyone can use it”. That’s true, but virtually no one is. I drove around Metro Detroit the other day scanning. I heard highway traffic on 19, as expected, and local truck yard operations on 7, 14, and 30. That’s 4 channels, out of 40. That leaves 36 other channels with NO TRAFFIC. In a WROL situation, those truck yards won’t be running. I imagine outside of a major metro area, there will be even less traffic.

Every once in a while, you’ll find some weirdo who just rambles on, taking up the airwaves. Now, it’s just an annoyance. Post-WROL, though, those types won’t be around very long to be a problem. For now, make a note of their areas and channels, and just plan around them.

To recap, CB radios should absolutely be a part of your communication plan, at the very least as a medium to gather information.

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The Defense Production Act is something that the preparedness community overlooks, and it can come back to bite us in this age of social media surveillance and Big Brother.

Passed in 1950, the original intent of the Defense Production Act was to ensure that in the event of another all-out war (most likely at that time with the USSR), the US Defense Department would be able to function, and get the supplies it needed. Seem innocuous and benevolent enough, right?

Well, fast forward to 2020, when people were panicking in regards to the new Coronovirus Pandemic. Masks and gloves were in short supply and President Donald Trump invoked the DPA.

Now, when the President issues a declaration that they are invoking the DPA, a few things happen that can DIRECTLY impact us, as people into preparedness. The President can declare certain items as “critical to national defense”. In this case it was masks, ventilators, and gloves.

The first thing done under the DPA this time around was the immediate forcing of General Motors to switch their production on a few lines from cars to ventilators. I know, the media said that GM decided to “assist”. They made that decision when the government ORDERED THEM TO. Remember that.

Next, it told 3M that they had to issue a Force Majeure notice to cancel all mask sales that were not to the United States. 3M resisted, maintaining that they had plenty of production to meet all orders. Within 24 hours, on April 3, a ship bound for Germany was boarded and 200,000 masks from 3M were seized and re-directed to the US. 3M immediately denied that the masks were 3M masks, but Attorney General Barr said that they were.

But, what does any of this have to do with preparedness? Well, let’s continue…

The next thing done was that the Attorney General established a “Hoarding Task Force”. Under 50 USC 4512, “Hoarding of Designated Scarce Materials”, you can be arrested and imprisoned for 1 year or fined $10,000 for having any quantity “in excess of reasonable person or home consumption” OR “for sale in excess of market value”. It’s important to note the word “OR”.

While the AG announced “dozens” of hoarding investigations, only one arrest was made public. A man had lawfully purchased 192,00 N95 masks, 130,000 surgical masks, and 598,000 pairs of gloves. The FBI declared him a “hoarder” and arrested him on April 2, seizing the masks. They issued a statement that he was going to sell them “above market value” as a price gouger, but it’s important to note that market value was skyrocketing anyway, because of the market. They never produced any proof of their claim.

This important to us because the President can declare any “commodity” scarce and critical. Food is a commodity. This means that they can seize your food preps if the local FEMA manager decides that you have an amount in excess of reasonable personal or home use.

Imagine, in an emergency, you’ve loaded up your car with a few months of food, and several extra cans of gas. As you are leaving the city with riots behind you, you pull up to a joint State Police/Homeland Security checkpoint (yes, that’s a real thing). The Troopers call over the DHS guys, and they decide that your food and gas stocks are “in excess of personal or home use”. How’s that going to work out?

We have seen over the last few weeks a drama play out about the federal government scouring social media for “vaccine mis-information”. How hard would it be to look for photos or discussions about food storage, food supplies, or food preparation? If you’ve talked about these things, you may have put your supplies at risk. I highly recommend using OPSEC here.

Here’s a piece of Tactical Wisdom that applies:

Divide your portions to seven, or even to eight,

For you do not know what disaster may come upon the Land.

Ecclesiates 11:2

Spread your supplies out among several locations, so that if one is seized or revealed, you aren’t giving up everything. This is reinforced also in 1 Kings 18:4, when Obediah hid 100 priests with food & water, split between 2 caves. While he was forced to reveal one group, the other half survived.

The most important thing is that for them to determine how much you have stored up, they have to either execute a search or ask you. If only 1/8th of your supplies are found on a search, they can’t declare you a hoarder. They would need to get you to incriminate yourself. Refuse to answer their questions, as is your right under the 5th Amendment, even in an emergency. Refuse to cooperate with a search as well, your actions in showing them the “hidden wall of cans” is admissible and you can’t be compelled to do it. No, Feds, I’m not saying I have a wall of cans.

Another important distinction is that they can also declare items listed on the International Trafficking in Arms Regulations (ITAR) as critical, and also subject to seizure. Those include things like handheld GPS units and radios. How many radios are needed for personal/home use? That’s a very subjective question and the FEMA manager gets to decide. I can tell you that they will say that you need ZERO GPS units for home use, since your house hasn’t moved.

While the DPA specifically prohibits the President from rationing gasoline (widely unpopular during WW2), it does specifically allow the President to “allocate energy use”. In other words, the President can decide that residential areas don’t get electricity or gasoline at all. It’s not rationing if you can’t get it at all.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, “This is all far-fetched, no President would order the limiting of gasoline to civilians”. Sure, and the government would never order you to remain in your homes unless you had a specific, approved reason to go out either. There is literally no basis for governments at any level to order businesses to just close, yet they did. These items at least have a solid basis in law.

The important side note is that effective January 3, 2016, and re-authorized on Jan 3, 2017, the President (Obama at the time) delegated the authority to make all decisions after an initial declaration, to FEMA. FEMA once ordered the confiscation of guns door to door, so they would certainly order the restriction of gasoline sales. Get a siphon pump.

I certainly don’t mean this to be alarmist, but it’s an issue that anyone involved in preparedness needs to consider and plan for to reduce their risk. After all, preparedness is nothing more than managing our risk.

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Stay safe, stay prepared.

The current situation in South Africa should be a learning tool for anyone interested in preparedness. The state of KwaZulu Natal is in a true Without-Rule-Of-Law situation.

But first, here’s the Tactical Wisdom that applies here:

 “then if anyone hears the trumpet but does not heed the warning and the sword comes and takes their life, their blood will be on their own head.  Since they heard the sound of the trumpet but did not heed the warning, their blood will be on their own head. If they had heeded the warning, they would have saved themselves.“

Ezekiel 33:4-5

Sure, they’ll tell you that as of earlier today 1,470 people were arrested for looting. The truth is that during the early morning hours, while the rioters were sleeping off another night of looting and destruction, the South African Police Service (SAPS) made a sweep and arrested people for “possession of looted items”. That’s not the same thing.

Essentially, based upon multiple reports, there is a period of semi-lawfulness early in the day, before the rioters get up, when the police try and re-establish control. As the days wear on, the rioters push the police back off the streets and more looting occurs.

The truth heard from a few private security companies is even worse. At night, police are showing up at their facilities begging for ammunition. Does your current preparedness plan account for “mutual-aid ammo”? It would be very easy on it’s face to tell the police to pound sand, you need your ammo. But, what will happen when you need the police? They will remember that you refused to help them.

Another lesson for us in preparedness is the involvement of the SAPS in the rioting. Several citizen groups have manned their own checkpoints and have discovered and detained several SAPS officers with cars full of stolen merchandise.

There have been several incidences of men in SAPS uniforms raiding homes or robbing people at check points.

Lesson: In a WROL situation, a badge and a uniform mean NOTHING. Do not rely on outward appearances. If you find yourself in a true WROL situation, understand that police may not be police. Don’t let them in by virtue of the uniform alone.

You should also apply this lesson to checkpoints, as I mentioned in the Baseline Training Manual, and avoid them. At best, the police may confiscate your stuff under the Defense Production Act (we’ll cover that in an article over the weekend). At worse, it’s not really an authorized checkpoint and you’ll be robbed or killed. Avoid them at every opportunity.

Another issue is that now 1,000,000 rounds of small arms ammunition that was in the custody of the SAPS has gone missing. I would assume that it was taken by SAPS members to defend their homes, but that’s really just the best-case scenario. The worst case is that looters took it.

The lesson from this is that you need to consider what types of arms and ammunition is available to looters in your local area for your own situational awareness. Plot gun stores, police stations, and guard & reserve armories. Those will be places to avoid in a crisis event and something to be aware of. You might be thinking that an armory is well guarded. It isn’t. There are indeed physical security standards for arms rooms, but as a former Military Policeman I know that those standards include the words “Chicken Wire”, so it’s not exactly impenetrable.

Something else we’re learning from first hand reports is that the amount of ammunition you need is “MORE”. One of the security companies, who donated ammo to the police to keep the station from being overrun, arranged for aerial resupply by bush plane, which is common in South Africa, by having them land a plane full of ammunition on a farm. Once the ammo was landed, the security team mounted a support column and went to the police station to help defend it.

The lesson there is exactly as I spell it out in my two books: Secure your family and supplies FIRST. Then, if you are able and can spare the fighting bodies, a stand should be made to attempt to assist in restoring LAWFUL order.

Yes, I said LAWFUL. Here in the United States, that means the CONSTITUTION, not necessarily the government.

Reading social media posts details farm and suburban life during a WROL situation. Many are reporting that the men and boys are manning 18 hour shifts on checkpoints or static observation posts to defend farms or neighborhoods. They are averaging 5 hours of sleep in the last 3 nights. Loss of life, while the official count is at 91, is massive. That 91 is deaths at the hospital….most aren’t making it that far.

The lesson for us is again exactly what I’ve been teaching. In a WROL situation, most of your time will be spent pulling security and working defense, while also searching for food. To do this, you need arms, ammunition, and optics, to include night vision.

The first commodity to vanish was gasoline, followed almost immediately by food. The lesson here is that at the first hint of unrest, fill all vehicles and gas cans. If you got it and didn’t need it, you’ll use it eventually, but if you waited, you might never get it.

Another big lesson learned is the need for pre-planned communications. Having radios and a defense group all already set up with common frequencies will help.

What we are seeing in South Africa is small, 8-10 man neighborhood security teams. Those teams are banding together into larger units as needed. That’s the perfect model, rather than trying to build a larger organization. People can buy into defending their neighborhood, and then joining the next neighborhood over in setting up a roadblock to turn looters away. Asking people from 20-30 miles away to do it won’t get the same commitment or agreement.

It doesn’t matter what the initial spark was that touched off the violence (the arrest of former President Zuma), what matters are the immediate effects, and the second and third order effects. Simmering racial tensions, political disputes, and class conflicts all flew to the surface and got acted upon the minute that the SAPS lost control. There is huge lesson there for us as this nation is a powder keg awaiting a spark.

I frequently say that you are never more than 72 hours from a total collapse. The last 72 hours in KwaZulu Natal prove that point.

Watch the events in the Republic of South Africa and take notes. Adjust your preparedness to the lessons being paid for in blood in Africa.

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A couple of weeks ago, I posed the question “how ready are you at any given moment”. Since then, things have gotten progressively worse in this country and we’re now seeing armed groups openly preparing for conflict and having armed confrontations with police. They’ve been resolved peacefully so far, but that won’t last.

Regardless of your political leanings, if you don’t think we’re sitting on a powder keg, headed for a violent conflict, you are either not paying attention or relying on hope. Neither is a good strategy.

With all of this going on, what can we do? First, we must assess if we are truly ready, or not.

That reminds me of a piece of Tactical Wisdom:

Therefore be ready, because you do not know the day or the hour.

Matthew 25:13

Just as applicable today.

We all have piles and cases and bags of gear, but what state is it in? What could you actually walk out the door with in 5 minutes? 30 minutes? 3 hours?

It’s one thing to gather supplies, it’s quite another to have them in a ready to move format or to be able to find a particular piece of gear. Many people into preparedness have so much stuff, that they wouldn’t be able to find a particular piece of kit if they needed it RIGHT NOW.

If you’ve read my books, you’ll know that I don’t advocate giant food or gear stashes. I advocate having the skills and gear to PRODUCE food and be MOBILE, if needed. Having giant stashes means that if you are forced to flee, you have to decide what to take. And face it, even if you plan to bug in, you may very well be forced to move by local conditions.

With this in mind, I thought I would share my system, and hopefully it will help some of you.

My first bag is the Patrol/EDC bag. The bag in the photo above is actually my Get Home Bag, but it’s the same size. The is the “Walking out the door right now bag”. This bag contains the essentials to live and survive in the field for 72 hours.

In it, I have a poncho that can be used as a shelter, like a tarp. It also has a ranger roll (a poncho liner wrapped in another poncho) for sleeping. It has a few other survival items, and a radio attached. It also has enough food for 3 days. With this bag I could survive for about 3 days, as long as I also took my Belt Kit.

Yes, we all have a chest rig or belt kit, but how do you keep it stored? Mine has all the pouches full and ready, with full magazines, my bayonet/combat knife sheathed on it, and both canteens full at all times. Each canteen pouch also has purification tablets and there is a Sawyer Mini on the belt kit. I can resupply water indefinitely.

If you don’t have at least these two sets, the Patrol/EDC bag and the Belt/Chest Rig Kit fully stocked and ready to go on a moment’s notice, then you aren’t “ready”. You’re a hoarder, not a prepper. (Lighten up, it’s a joke)

The next bag is the “Full Ruck”. With about 30 minutes notice, I can have this pack ready with about 7 days worth of food, which I could stretch out to 14 if I had to. The remainder of the pack is fully ready to go.

In this one I keep a couple of USMC tarps, that could be made into a fairly large tent, along with stakes and cordage. It also has a couple of sets of camouflage utilities, a hygiene kit, and cooking gear. I keep this bag full and ready, and the only thing I’d need to add is outerwear and food.

The reason I use the ILBE system is because the Assault Pack, which I use for my Patrol/EDC bag, attaches directly to the main ruck, and can be made into one large system. I could sustain myself indefinitely with this system and a firearm.

These concepts are explained in my first book, The Base Line Training Manual, available here under the “Books” tab. How to actually move and set up a secure site is in my second book, Fieldcraft, also available here.

Take the time, be READY, instead of just “PREPARING”.

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Overnight, a group calling itself the Moorish American Arms was stopped while refueling vehicles on the freeway in Massachusetts. This led to a standoff in which 11 men were arrested.

Because it was a black supremacist Muslim group, many applauded the MA State Police. I hold a different position, because until this group breaks the law, they have the same rights the rest of us do. For the record, 18 USC 926A makes their actions last night as far as firearms transport LEGAL, despite what Massachusetts law says.

If you truly think that the Constitution is inviolable, then you have to believe it is that way for people you don’t like. You can’t demand your Second Amendment right, while also cheering on police violating that same right for the Moorish American Arms. You can’t demand your right to march with firearms, and at the same time say that Black Lives Matter shouldn’t be able to.

But that’s not the point of this preparedness article. Bear with me. The point is that they were on their way to train for a coming struggle.

A week ago, Othal Wallace shot a Daytona officer in the face. Wallace belongs to the NFAC and espouses the same Moorish/Black Hebrew Israelite ideology that the Moorish American Arms group did. Wallace’s case is significant, because the New Black Panthers and the NFAC hid him in a network of safe houses and transportation assets until he was caught.

As I write this, ANTIFA is outside the Wi Spa, assaulting people with impunity for protesting against a man who exposed himself to children. The police are just standing by watching. When one Asian man resisted an assault and used lawful self-defense, the police swooped in and hauled him away.

Also this week, the US Army soldier who shot Garrett Foster last year is charged with homicide, despite it being a clear-cut case of self defense.

So, what’s the point of all this? The point is that we all need to make a decision. Most people interested in preparedness, are also interested in self-defense. The two go hand-in-hand.

You have to decide right now if you are willing to risk your freedom, your job, and your 401k in defense of yourself or others. We are seeing the unequal application of the law and you need to consider this.

This stems from a discussion I had earlier today on Twitter where a guy said that we’ve already lost and we just have to adjust our lives. Adjust our lives to what? Allowing a lawless mob to assault and rob us? Allowing the police to abdicate their responsibility and let the mob rule? I’m sorry, I just can’t do that. I swore an Oath.

A piece of preparedness that no one considers is this exact thing. Are you prepared to stand by your principles and do what is right, no matter the consequences? If the consequences are too great for you, then you are not into preparedness at all, and you might as well stop pretending and just surrender.

The other decision is that if you are going to support rights, you have to support them for all. Even an extremist group that is opposed to your existence. Until they ACTUALLY break the law, we should be supporting their exercise of the same rights that you demand.

Also, if every other group around you is preparing for war, shouldn’t you?

But, what can we as people into preparedness do?

First, practice Don’t-Be-There-Jitsu. You can’t be drawn into a situation if you aren’t there. Remember our ultimate goal….Survival.

Second, buy and wear a body camera. The same guy said, “If we have to wear a camera everywhere we go, then we’ve already lost”. First, not wearing a camera isn’t going to stop them from attacking, so that response makes no sense. Second, these groups selectively edit video, so you need to have your own unedited video. And lastly, just like a first aid kit, if you intend to carry a firearm, you should carry a camera in case you need to use the firearm. Video is the best evidence you can have.

I guess the biggest takeaway from this rant of mine is that just because you don’t want a civil conflict in the US, that doesn’t mean one isn’t happening anyway. Pretending it’s not coming is not preparedness. We prepare for the worst case. Complete surrender won’t end the random street violence, it will EMBOLDEN it.

You don’t have to pick a side and fight, but you do have to realize that it is indeed happening and can affect your preparedness. It can affect your family, whether you want it to or not. Someone intent on harming you isn’t going to stop just because you don’t fight back.

You got into preparedness for a reason, ACT LIKE IT. Here’s a quote from the Ultimate Tactical Handbook to reinforce this:

Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.

1 Corninthians 16:13

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There is no doubt that we are in a pre-conflict stage in the US at this point. No one wants a conflict (except apparently the far left extremists and maybe some extreme far-right ones). But, what can we in the center do to prepare ourselves for civil unrest, intentional damage to the power grid, or a complete collapse?

We can plan. We can prepare. We can scout out our local area for ways in which we can either escape, hide, or gather food and water to survive.

Before I get into the details of an urban recon I did the other day, let me share an Ultimate Tactical Handbook story. In 1 Samuel 19, David, a leader in the Military, wasn’t trusted by the King (Man, does that sound familiar, or what), so the king sent agents to put David’s house under surveillance, with the goal of branding David as an extremist and killing him, much like we are seeing right now. But David and his wife had planned. She let him out a window by rope and hid a dummy in his bed.

By the time the agents (think FBI/DHS) raided their house, David was long gone.

There is a lesson in that story. Have an escape plan.

I recently also told the modern story of the Jewish woman from Lod, who got along great with her Muslim neighbors, right up until the night there was a riot, and her “friends” immediately pointed out her house to the rioters as where “the Jews live”, and she barely escaped with her life.

Keep your preparations secret and have a plan.

To that end, I conducted a recon this week to find a way to traverse a suburban business district that I would need to get past to get home. The area is very built up and highly populated, but in a crisis, the main road or near the front of the businesses is not where I would want to be.

I began by walking the alley way and parking lots one block behind the main road. What I found was a series of small lots with a waist high masonry decorative border. While it’s nice to look at now, it’s cover from incoming fire in a crisis, and if needed, I could high crawl or just lay down behind it. As an added bonus, every so often, it had an open spot, which would allow me to observe or fire from below the top of the wall. My second book, Fieldcraft, which is due out in just a few days, talks about exactly this.

Behind another block, I found a foot trail system. That would be a much safer way to traverse the business district than walking straight down the road. I do recommend not walking directly on the path, but just off it.

Beside the trail was a river, and along it there were wild grapes and blackberries growing. Fruits growing also mean rabbits and other game animals. This one trail system could sustain me if needed.

In it, I also found a manhole cover with all of the bolts removed. Also in the new book, I discuss that the miles and miles of storm systems are an effective way of moving without being detected in an urban environment. Just don’t be in the storm sewer in the rain. You just need tools to open things like this outlet:

A good item for traversing trail systems in an urban area is a tactical walking stick. It is sturdy metal and could be used to lift the manhole cover. Mine has attachments for a knife blade, a spear point, a screwdriver, and saw blade. It also has a compass, a whistle, and fire steel. It doubles as a striking weapon nicely.

Many of these trail systems have been long forgotten and are overgrown, but to me thats a feature, not a bug. This particular one had several sets of stairs leading back up to the business district. For me, these would be great places to slip up and observe local activity & conditions, if I felt the need, before dropping back down onto the trail.

The lesson to be learned is get out NOW, while it’s relatively safe and wander a bit, finding alternate foot routes through congested areas, in case you eventually need them. The time to start scouting is not once an incident happens.

For me, this was scouting for a ‘Get Home Route’. It’s a significant distance from where I live, but this is the most congested local area I’d have to traverse if I had to walk home in an emergency. It only made sense to scout out it during a relatively safe period, before I had to do it for real.

I hope this gives you a few ideas.

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This is an epic battle story and a classic study of tactics that directly applies to us as people interested in preparedness. It highlights some pieces of Tactical Wisdom that are vital to our plans for a WROL situation, and happens to be a pretty cool story.

If anyone wants to follow along, the full tale can be found in 1 Samuel 27-30.

For a little historical context, before he became King of Israel, David was much like us. He joined his Nation’s army and fought for them, killing one of it’s great enemies. But, much like the purge we are seeing in our military and the targeting of our veteran’s, as soon as the war was over, the King turned on David, labeled him an extremist and hunted him down.

In fact, drawing yet another parallel to today, the King invited him into the palace, then tried to kill him, and sent agents to raid his house, but he escaped out a window.

David was then branded as a rebel, a resistance fighter. He eventually formed his own militia and they spent their avoiding the government agents, while still protecting their country. Does that sound familiar?

Today’s story begins when David has founded a private military company with his 600 men. They are called “mercenaries” in 1 Samuel 27, but their job was securing the borders for the Phillistine King. King Achish named David his “bodyguard for life”.

King Achish decides to go to war against Israel, and David accompanies him. Here, we see some parallels to today that we have to face. David does NOT want to fight against his own country, but he feels he needs to be near the fighting to try and slow down the decline. David loved his Nation, but the leader had turned from the path of the country and was imposing his own will on the people, rather than following tradition. Does that sound familiar?

At this point, David knew that the leadership had to go, but he didn’t want to destroy the Nation. Here are the truths we know and need to consider:

1. It’s possible to love your Nation, but know that the leadership is leading it to destruction.
2. When that happens, you have to consider what is worse….the short term pain of action, or the long term consequence of doing nothing.
3. Readiness is key – David kept his 600 men ready by training and engaging in operations that didn’t directly oppose his nation, but kept his Warriors on the edge they needed.
4. Avoiding conflict can help, but it won’t solve it – David and his force spent 3-4 years before these events evading and avoiding contact with government forces. Nothing improved.

Back to the tale at hand…

As the Phillistine (Palestinian) forces began to invade Israel (a lot of that going on even today), they brought their entire army out, leaving no one behind. The other generals were freaked out by an Israelite private military company in their midst, and they were so worried that they demanded the King send David home.

So the King went to David and said “Listen, I know you’ve served me well, fighting a counter-insurgency on my borders, but I can’t have a radical like you around.” And he sent David home. David and his Warriors were livid. They had fought in two different wars successfully, and were now being branded as extremists, and a security risk. They turned around and headed home.

Lessons here:

1. Alienating trained and effective warriors who have served you well is DANGEROUS.
2. If David and his men weren’t radicalized yet, their treatment by the new government certainly did radicalize them. (Hmm….)

As the men neared their compound, they found it burning. Everything they had left behind was stolen, including their wives and children. A few more towns nearby had also been sacked and they received information that it was the people they had been fighting before. David and his men took off in pursuit. Of course, David first asked God for guidance, and God told him to go, essentially saying “What are you waiting for?”

1. Leaving your rear area unguarded and your base of operations undefended will lead to disaster EVERY SINGLE TIME.
2. The way of life at the time is how we envision WROL life to be. Our base of operations will be where our food is produced, our livestock will be, and where are our families will be. It must be guarded.

David and his men gave pursuit, but carrying their supplies was wearing them out and slowing them down. David detailed 200 of his men to stay with the supplies, while the other 400 rushed ahead.

Soon, they found a straggler from the enemy force wandering in the desert. They fed him and asked for information. It turned out that he was a slave who had escaped. In exchange for protection and food, the slave led them to the enemy camp.

David and his men assaulted the camp and after a 2 day battle, they had destroyed most of the enemy force, and the rest was fleeing headlong back to Egypt. They had rescued all their family members, and gained not only their own property back, but the raiding force’s extra supplies and plunder from other towns.

On the way back, they met up with the logistical tail, and David’s 400 didn’t want to share to any of the plunder or extra supplies with the 200 that guarded the supply trains. David pointed out that the entire chain of events was a lesson. That lesson was that guarding your supply chain was every bit as vital as winning the battle against the enemy and he ordered that the security troops be given a full share.

Lessons in the end:

1. You cannot succeed without securing your logistics.
2. Supplies need to be guarded by a substantial force.
3. Security is the most important task.
4. Never leave your base (and food and families) undefended by an effective force.
5. Attempt to gather intelligence from everyone you meet (the wandering slave).

I hope this history lesson and the few lessons from it help you prepare and put you on the right path. Stories like this are where the entire idea of Tactical Wisdom was born.

The most important lesson here is that Warriors who love their Nation and fought for it should never be neglected or treated as extremists. They can love their Nation and hate it’s leadership. That never leads to a good place.

The other lesson is that we need to focus on securing our families and supplies first, then worry about other objectives, which is a concept I mention in both of the Tactical Wisdom books.

We are down to only 2 chapters left to write in Volume 2, Fieldcraft. As always, if you’d like to help us finish production, please donate below.

We prepare for all sorts of situations, and presently most of us are worried about a potential hack taking down the electrical grid or some type of mass civil disorder, right up to a potential second civil war. You know I frequently talk about second and third order effects, and the potential for a fire without fire department support is a third order effect.

We all need to consider fire-fighting preparations, particularly those who intend to bug in and remain in their urban homes. You can take all kinds of fire prevention precautions, but if a civil disturbance comes along, one Molotov cocktail through a window puts an end to prevention.

Even the Ultimate Tactical Handbook warns about fire:

“Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire?

Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?”

Isaiah 33:14b

For civil disorder preparedness, you can attach wire mesh to 2×4’s (who can afford those??), to be mounted over the outside of your windows in high risk periods. This would prevent thrown objects from entering the windows. Also, just keeping your yard clear of combustibles is vital. Have you considered how you store the gasoline for your lawnmower? That, too, needs to be secured.

Certainly, the old adage about filling all tubs and sinks with water applies here. Additionally, you could stage buckets throughout the house full of water, as well as staging fire extinguishers.

For that matter, you should consider having a fire extinguisher in each car for general preparedness anyway. I came across a car fire just the other day, and having an extinguisher can be a great help.

Smoke inhalation is a cause of many fire deaths. A full respirator can help reduce the damage, for short periods. Having one on hand is not a bad idea. Even an NBC surplus mask can help.

Check all your first aid kits and make sure that they all contain burn treatment options. It’s frequently overlooked and if the fire and rescue teams are overwhelmed, you will need to treat these injuries yourself. Having proper burn supplies can help prevent secondary injuries and infections as well.

As long as you have water service, have your outdoor hose attached and ready. An adjustable nozzle with a fog setting is helpful.

Consider buying at least one fire blanket. They have become very affordable and it could be staged in your kitchen for daily preparedness, and staged where you need it in the event of civil disorder, like whatever room you’re in. Keeping one in your car is never a bad idea either.

Understand where all of your shutoff’s are for your house as well. Being able to quickly shut off the electricity and gas service can keep a bad situation from getting worse. If service becomes sporadic, turn off at least the gas, to reduce the risk of explosion.

Staging shovels and axes for fire fighting is a good idea as well.

If a neighbor’s house catches fire, immediately begin wetting down your house to prevent it from spreading. If you have more than one adult, one of you could assist the neighbor with evacuation, while the other wets down the outside and roof of your house.

In a full collapse, your entire neighborhood will need to develop a neighborhood fire-fighting plan, because one fire can wipe out the whole neighborhood, and if the fire department can’t come or will be significantly delayed, you’ll need to do something. That’s exactly the way it was throughout the world until relatively recently; everyone in town banded together to fight a fire.

Keep in mind also that you will need to maintain a separate fire-fighting water supply that is not used for anything else. Consider also staging some outside around the house. Seriously, you can never have too many buckets or barrels of water around, can you?

To recap, no matter what your are preparing for, fire is going to be a serious threat if there is no fire department responding and you need to plan for it. You also need to develop a neighborhood response plan.

Book Series Update

We are down to the final 3-4 chapters of TW-02 Fieldcraft. They are longer chapters, but the plan is to have them written by the end of the week. Then editing will wrap up a few days after that. If you’d like to help us finish up production, please consider donating below.

Last night, I had a conversation with a long-time corrections officer and he mentioned training to shoot in Nitrile or Latex gloves, due to the current pandemic and other scenarios. Anyone who has ever tried to accomplish anything in nitrile/latex gloves instantly knows what the issues will be.

For context, the source I spoke to used to transport sick or injured inmates from the State Prison of Southern Michigan (coincidentally the largest walled prison in the world) to a local hospital. During the entire transport they wore nitrile gloves, which made every task a degree of difficulty harder. This included not just firearms, but car keys, driving, handcuff manipulation, radio use, everything.

Training in leather gloves isn’t the same…latex and nitrile gloves aren’t as smooth as leather and will try to grab everything.

Why should we train in nitrile/latex gloves? The answer is in the Ultimate Tactical Handbook:

Therefore keep watch,

because you do not know the day or the hour.

Matthew 25:13

That’s right, we don’t know when a situation is going to occur.

For our purposes, imagine we are shopping, and an active shooter occurs. As you spring into action to treat a casualty, with your gloves on, the shooter re-appears. Securing a proper grip and drawing the gun is already going to a problem. The gloves, unlike leather gloves, are going to try and grip everything, maybe entangling with clothing. The grip will feel different, and it’s important that we train on this.

These kinds of gloves will cause an inability to properly feel and manipulate both the pistol grip and your holster for a clean draw. Conducting dry fire drills wearing nitrile/latex gloves on the draw and safety manipulation can help.

There is chance that the shot will break early, because you won’t feel the movement like you normally would, and, on the back end, you may not normally feel the trigger reset, leading to excessive trigger movement. Again, some dry fire and live fire training can help.

Another big issue is the potential for the gloves to be caught in the slide or slide release mechanism, or caught while changing magazines. Training at the range will help reduce this, but the chance exists. Imagine trying to clear a malfunction that involves a small piece of latex trapped somewhere in the slide.

That brings us to another point, the gloves getting caught and jammed in the mechanism while clearing a malfunction. Of particular concern is when trying to clear a stovepipe by sweeping the hand down the slide. Dry training is again the answer, but it can still happen.

You also will need to train on manipulating magazines from the pouch or pocket while wearing gloves. If you don’t think this is an issue, put on a nitrile glove and try to put your hand fully in your pocket. It’s HARD because the glove grips on both sides.

For that matter, you need to practice opening zippers, snaps, and pouches on all your gear, particularly your first aid gear, while wearing latex/nitrile gloves, because it’s entirely different. A good training idea is to spend half a day wearing the gloves while doing daily tasks. It will be very enlightening.

As I always point out, buying the gloves (gear) isn’t enough. You need to develop skill in using that gear. I assure you that when facing the active shooter closing on you while you are in gloves treating a casualty is NOT the time to “figure it out”.

The US Military makes trainees shoot while wearing full NBC gear (gloves and mask) for this very reason. You should, too.

Volume 2 of the Tactical Wisdom Series is coming along nicely, and should be available soon. The book will cover Fieldcraft, or the skills needed to move in the field safely and to live in the field. It is NOT the same as Bushcraft, because Fieldcraft views it from a tactical standpoint. The skill sets are complementary to each other.

If you’d to help us produce the book, please consider donating below.

Earlier this week, I mentioned that you need to take yourself from Condition Yellow to Condition Orange. I had an incident occur this morning where that condition kept a workplace violence threat from expanding into actual violence. I want to share the story, not for accolades, I get paid to do this, but to point out how you need to raise your awareness.

I’m a security consultant, specializing in fraud investigations and personal protection for executives and media figures. Today, one of my clients needed some on-site security reviews done at several retail locations. OK, I’ll take the easy money, too, it spends just as well as the hard job money.

I did all of my morning situational awareness tasks. I checked the Book of Face pages of the local protest groups and main agitators, and saw no threats. I checked out the daily “Early Warning” update from Forward Observer (www.forwardobserver.com) and the only thing for Detroit wasn’t until the evening. Cool.

As I checked my schedule, I noticed that I was headed to a suburb that is well known for it’s violence and it’s racial tensions with literally everyone. I also knew that I had never been to this store before. There was a note that the local District Manager may need my help with “an issue” there. All of these factors put me at Condition ORANGE, rather than my normal Condition Yellow.

As I arrived, I noticed two local police cars tucked in behind the building next door. Another indicator of trouble.

As soon as I stepped in, I looked for doors. In addition to the door behind me, there was an emergency exit at the rear of the building and a door to an office section. I needed to go to the counter to introduce myself and show an authorization letter, but because of the Condition Orange status, rather than walking directly to the counter and standing right next to the one door I didn’t know what was behind, I stepped over against the wall, facing the unknown door, and had the two other doors in my peripheral vision.

Note that this analysis happened automatically after a long career and took less than 3 seconds.

As I handed the manager my letter and began to explain why I was there, the office door burst open and a male yelled “Imma blow you the fuck out, bitch”. Now, if you live anywhere but Detroit, that might mean make fun of you. In Detroit, it’s a threat to shoot you. The District Manager saw me as she was talking to 911 and she shouted to me that in the office he had threatened to blow her brains out.

He attempted to go behind the counter, and since I didn’t know what he had there and I didn’t want him between me and the two women employees, I prevented him from doing that and put myself between him and the women. I “escorted” (draw whatever conclusions you wish) him to the local officers rushing in from where they had been waiting for him to leave.

Did he have a gun? No. But could he have? Yes. Could this incident have gone much, much worse if I had merely been in Condition Yellow, or God forbid, WHITE? Absolutely. I would have been within arms reach if I had gone to the counter like most people.

It made me think…what if the nice elderly couple who came in just after the incident had been there when he busted out of the office, threatening to shoot people?

We need to be in Condition ORANGE from here on out. Orange enabled me to go immediately to RED without any delay or hesitation. If I’d been in White, I would have gone immediately to Black. Was I surprised? Yes, but, my awareness to potential danger allowed me to skip the freeze response and immediately present myself to this guy as a prepared and skilled male, of not insignificant size, ready to fight if that’s what he choose. That alone is most likely what prevented this situation from getting any worse.

This Condition Orange doesn’t just cover physical violence. No one in Puerto Rico yesterday expected the power to suddenly go out when the power plant suffered an “unexpected explosion and fire” (are there expected ones?), yet it happened. No one ever expects to be in an active shooter situation, but if you are and you don’t have a first aid kit nearby, you’re in trouble.

In his outstanding book, Mongol Moon, Mark Sibley has a character who is an old Marine (probably based on me) who is very much into preparedness. However, when the power goes out from an EMP blast, the guy is in his upstairs office, which has no flashlight. Well, a tragedy occurs and all his preparations are for nothing (read the book to find out) because he wasn’t ready AT THAT MOMENT.

We in the preparedness community are always preparing for something, but are you PREPARED? You should be prepared for ANYTHING that could happen today. Regardless of your reason for preparing, you should be ready to respond TODAY, RIGHT NOW.

We seem to believe that there will always be some lead time, some advance warning. The very nature of emergencies dictates that there most likely won’t be.

That’s where the idea for the Tactical Wisdom Series came from. A series of topic-specific book that bring you to state of readiness to react RIGHT NOW. The current volume, Base Line Training Manual is designed to get you to a base-line for any situation.

The second volume, Fieldcraft, will enable you to be able to move in an environment with armed bad people nearby and no law enforcement to help you, as well as how to move and live in the field if you had to. No matter how you envision things, you WILL want to avoid being shot. One guy said “I don’t want to play soldier-boy, I just want to be prepared”. Well, you don’t get to pick the situation, so you had BETTER be ready to play soldier-boy, if that turns out to be the game. You can’t play checkers while the other person plays Monopoly.

As a side note: No matter what causes the WROL situation, it ALWAYS ends in “playing soldier-boy”. Not wanting or not being able to fight back when the fight comes to you ends in you being either a slave or dead. After Katrina, there were open gun battles all over the place. The looters and rioters don’t care what you want to do.

Anyway, I hope this tale from today helps spark your thinking and moves you to ORANGE.

As always, if you’d like to support our work & help produce the Tactical Wisdom Series, please consider a donation.

If you read my book or have followed this blog for any appreciable amount of time, you know I talk about Cooper’s Color Codes and remaining in Condition Yellow as much as possible. Today, I’m saying that if you aren’t in Condition Orange when interacting with others outside your household, you aren’t safe.

Monday night, I was listening to Nick August’s “Boomer Crypto Jazz Hour” (don’t ask me, I didn’t name it) and for “Mil-Spec Monday”, he had on “Skip Collapsitarian” (not his real name), who I’ve been on a few shows with and consider a knowledgeable friend. Not that Nick isn’t either, but I digress. Skip mentioned that in our current environment, if you aren’t already in Condition Orange, you are in danger and at risk.

I decided to spend a couple of days researching the points Skip and Nick made, and then make a decision. For the record, you can find them both on Twitter: @thenickaugust and @thefreerifleman.

I reviewed some information from Forward Observer (www.forwardobserver.com), and if you aren’t a member there, you aren’t really prepared. Mike and his team produce a daily intelligence brief and get it into your email by 9 am every day reviewing all of the risks that are facing us today, including some information on planned protests and insurgency information.

The first thing that jumped out at me on Forward Observer was the announcement by Portland ANITFA that they wanted to “Make Portland Little Beirut Again”. This is a reference to 1991, when there were violent clashes with police related to a visit by George HW Bush (I served on his detail in Grand Rapids once and met him in the middle of the night). FO also has a copy of an internal ANTIFA document calling for a summer more violent than last year. I coupled that with the fact that just a few weeks ago, we had ANTIFA running armed checkpoints, stopping vehicles at gunpoint all over the country, with some ending in violence in Portland and Seattle.

Another note from FO was that it has now been officially declared that a crude oil train derailment in December was sabotage, most likely by ANTIFA.

A check of the internet showed a woman assaulted completely at random, apparently for the color of her skin, while pumping gas, and another woman violently assaulted by an Amazon driver for asking about a package, apparently also for the color of her skin, since the driver was shouting about white privilege. Nearly everyday, we are seeing random racially motivated attacks.

This is NOT a political statement, it’s an objective review of available data. You need to increase your risk level and act accordingly.

Over the weekend, Matt Bracken reminded us all of the event last summer where a veteran’s farm equipment was set on fire and his livestock killed by unknown parties, but ANTIFA claimed responsibility. That incident prompted Clay Martin to write Prairie Fire, one of our favorites….in fact, Amazon recommends it when you buy my book.

These incidents should tell you that the situation in America is in a downward spiral. There will not be a “magic moment” where things just suddenly go back to normal. Agitators on both the left and the right are ramping up their rhetoric every single day. Us in the center, who just want to survive, have no choice but to take notice and prepare accordingly.

I’ve had some in the preparedness community accuse me of fear-mongering or vilifying the left. I’m not, I’m objectively reporting the facts and giving preparedness advice based on those facts. I’m sorry if the fact is that one side is doing most of the violence and it’s not the one the media & government warns about. I can’t help that.

Pretending that this isn’t happening won’t help anyone. Neither will trying to “stay under the radar” or “going along to get along”. If you think it will, I recommend watching Doctor Zhivago.

This bring us to today’s Tactical Wisdom, which I’ve shared before:

then if anyone hears the trumpet but does not heed the warning and the sword comes and takes their life, their blood will be on their own head.

Ezekiel 33:4

Try to warn people, but if they don’t listen, it’s on them. Do what you can to help your family and your tribe.

But what can we do? With the threat of more and more damaging cyber attacks and random but targeted violence, we can do a few things:

1. Develop a personal protection plan that may include a firearm and other options.
2. ENSURE YOU ALWAYS HAVE A FULLY STOCKED FIRST AID KIT WITH YOU.
3. Keep your vehicles topped off every day. Our friends in the East learned this lesson the hard way when hackers shut off the fuel supply.
4. Buy and freeze extra meat products. The hack is over, but the supply chain issues that were already in place before the hack have not been resolved and are in fact worse now.
5. In light of the cell phone and internet outages this week, update your communication plans and keep a UHF/VHF or CB/HF radio with you at all times with planned contacts.
6. Subscribe to the Forward Observer service (it’s cheap and no, Mike doesn’t give me a penny, I just believe in it) at http://www.forwardobserver.com.
7. Check open sources like Facebook and Twitter for planned protest activity every day.
8. Keep a Get Home Bag and a change of clothes in your car at all times.
9. Increase your alert level to Orange.

If you’d like to help us produce great content and our second book, Fieldcraft, please donate to our blog.

The other day, I shared an article of mine that appeared over at http://www.survivalblog.com (great website by James Wesley Rawles, BTW). In that article, I discussed some training exercises that are listed in my Base Line Training Manual, available at the Amazon affiliate link below. The exercises involved conducting safe movement, avoiding others, and setting a secure campsite for yourself in a post-WROL (Without Rule of Law) situation. This is, not coincidentally, the topic of Tactical Wisdom Volume 2, Fieldcraft.

The point I made in the article was that you will need to do things in a secure and somewhat “militant” way, in order to prevent others from preying on you in a post-WROL situation.

A guy on the Book of Faces read it, and in true “Fudd” fashion, left a scathing reply that “This is where you lost me. I want to be prepared, not be a soldier-boy.”. He said that, as if you could be prepared without becoming somewhat of a “soldier-boy”. Our friend must have skipped over the part where I pointed out that the best way to avoid fighting and being robbed in a post-WROL situation is to NOT LET OTHERS SEE YOU. Most of you know that I frequently say that our role is SURVIVAL, not COMBAT.

This lead to a little soul-searching, because maybe I was wrong. I did a little research, starting of course with this gem from the Ultimate Tactical Handbook:

Gather up your belongings to leave the land,

All you who live under siege.

Jeremiah 10:17

That verse is the foundation of Chapter 9 of the Base Line Training Manual & it is SOLID ADVICE. A WROL situation is indeed living under siege and you need to be able to quickly and quietly move out and remain undetected at a moment’s notice.

Among the best examples of what a Without Rule of Law situation in America would look like is found in the Balkan Conflict. The basis for the wars and revolutions there is the same thing we are facing now, ethnic groups and political factions at each other’s throats and willing to use violence to fight each other.

Yugoslavia was a modern western nation, with a functioning economy and very diverse ethnic makeup. The even exported one of the most popular cars at the time, the Yugo. Sarajevo had just hosted the Olympics. This was not some backwater country.

First, they had political protests because of alleged police brutality against minorities. Then, they had contested elections, followed immediately by groups setting up “autonomous zones”. Once the protests and autonomous zones overwhelmed law enforcement to the point that they couldn’t respond, open warfare, banditry, and ethnic cleansing began, and killed tens of thousands. Does any of that sound familiar?

The nation of Yugoslavia never recovered and does not exist any longer. Several new nations exist in her place.

After years of warfare, NATO forcibly intervened and stopped at least the ethnic-based killing and set up safe zones. Do you think any nation has the capability to forcibly put forces inside the US to “enforce domestic peace” on us? In other words, once a WROL situation begins in the US, it will be absolutely unstoppable. Bad actor nations around the globe will then be free to do whatever we’ve held them back from.

When you read about daily life in the Balkans during this time, it was exactly what most of us think. If you even had water or electricity, it was very intermittent. Hungry people attacked long time neighbors over food. Even walking out to get water or gather firewood required taking a team of people for security reasons, to prevent being attacked or robbed.

Checkpoints didn’t mean law and order; they were a means of ethnic cleansing and robbery. Various forces, factions, and criminal groups set up checkpoints to seize food & water, identify people from targeted ethnic groups, or to generally harass the civilians in an area. They were something to be avoided, by using stealth and field skills, you know, like a “soldier-boy”.

Life on the farm isn’t what our friend from above pictured either. Soldiers, bandits, or just hungry people raided farms frequently. You had the choice of defending your farm, or fleeing to hide. There was no “I’ll just stay here and let them take food, I’ll grow more”. These groups KILLED the people they came across, no questions asked, no remorse.

We know from witness accounts that if people went out for food or water, they carried a bag, like the Patrol/EDC bag I discuss in my book, because they might have to evade a warring party, local thugs, or roving bandits and had no idea when they would be able to get home.

So, the point is, those who think that they can just store a little extra food, set aside some water, and just be left alone are NOT actually preparing. They are setting themselves up for failure, which I hate to see. They are planning with this idyllic idea that it’ll be like Little House on the Prairie. You can’t change their minds, so stop trying. Just understand that preparedness is different than that.

I liken it to the “Militant Farmer” concept of the American Frontiersman. He pushed out past civilization, banded together with his neighbors and lived off the land. BUT, he also understood that there were Native War Parties, parties of soldiers from France, Spain, and other places raiding farms, and generally bandits on the road. He maintained a standard of “Skill At Arms” as it was called back then, by training with his neighbors.

They ran joint patrols. They worked together to staff observation posts overlooking the “avenues of approach” and “key terrain” (if you don’t already know what these are, my Fieldcraft manual will help you). They set up “bug out” plans to all flee into the woods together for safety if a larger armed party approached, which is what my article was about, and they could only know about these approaching parties by setting up the OPs and watching the roads. They didn’t rely on the government, nor did they hope for the good will of others.

If you think that just food and water, or having a farm and maybe a gun is preparedness, you are relying on the good will of strangers.

What keeps our society from falling apart right now, under the tension we currently have? Fear of a law enforcement response; that’s all. What will happen the minute that goes away? For an example, as states around the country are announcing that they will no longer prosecute shoplifting, what’s happening? Shoplifting is SKYROCKETING. As law enforcement disengages in the larger cities, what is happening to the murder and robbery rates? Skyrocketing. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Lastly, don’t think living in a rural area removes this risk. It just pushes it farther down the calendar, and not by much. Once Rule of Law completely vanishes, the cities will burn out in under 3 months. Where will all the refugees and bandits go? Into the countryside, seeking opportunity and victims.

We’re not trying to be all doom and gloom, but we have to see things as they are and as they will be, not how we want them to be or would prefer.

Thanks for listening and I hope this pushes a few more people to get realistic in their preparations and more importantly, their training.

As always, if you’d like to help us produce more content and books, please donate below (we haven’t gotten any royalty checks yet).

Everyone has a different opinion of what a collapse will look like, and that spurs a lot of conversations. Hollywood has given us a false sense of what a societal collapse looks like. In the movies, it’s a sudden event where we go from order to chaos in less than a day.

What if, in actuality, the collapse is a slow slide into anarchy? Let’s look at some events, then discuss a little history.

In the last 24 hours, the western suburbs of Detroit have seen four homicides. That’s practically unheard of. In the quiet city of Livonia, at 5:20 AM, a man was crossing a major intersection, when he encountered 2 other men. Without warning, one of them stabbed the man, killing him. In Inkster, events began when a woman was shot. Once she was taken to the hospital and the police cleared the scene, the shooter returned to the exact same scene and killed her husband. A few hours later, two men were killed and two others wounded in a shooting at a basketball court a couple of blocks away.

In Elizabeth City, NC, where protests against a police shooting are ongoing, a vehicle was stopped at an intersection, and protestors surrounded the vehicle and beat on it. The driver drove through the protestors. The video is clear, and there were no major injuries, but the driver is under arrest for several felony charges and the prosecutor is considering hate crime enhancements. Now, I don’t know anything about the driver, but the video shows clearly that the crowd initiated contact and struck the vehicle, so it appears to have been self defense. Again, you can no longer rely on traditional self defense laws.

Earlier today, as events began at George Floyd Plaza, where police are no longer allowed to patrol, over 30 shots were fired in an exchange of gunfire and at least one man was wounded.

We are seeing protests and armed roadblocks by revolutionary communist groups every single day in various areas.

The Yugoslav Wars, which ran from 1991 to 2001, began from large scale ethnic tensions. Slobodan Milosevic was elected on a platform denouncing the abuse and brutality of the largely ethnic Albanian police against ethnic Serbians. His speeches denouncing the police fanned the flames of ethnic tension. Does this sound familiar?

As the first large-scale ethnic clashes began, the Yugoslav National Army was deployed in an attempt to preserve the larger nation. This deployment of federal troops only made the situation worse, and caused the creation of several “autonomous zones” protected by local ethnic militias. Again, does this sound familiar?

Once the zones were created, ethnic warfare began and each individual ethnic group tried to either force out or completely eliminate the other ethnicities from their enclaves. It took the intervention of NATO forces to stop the killing on a large scale.

In the end, the nation of Yugoslavia was no more and there were six independent nations left in its place, based on ethnicity. There are still clashes and ethnic violence, and most infrastructure is destroyed. Electricity and water service are inconsistent at best.

When we look at our current situation, and compare it to the most relevant historical example, it’s clear that we are already within a slow-moving societal collapse. We are seeing widespread political violence. We are seeing ethnic-based attacks. We see police refusing to engage with armed militias, who are openly running illegal roadblocks.

From a preparedness standpoint, what can we do?

First, remember that our main concern is survival and avoiding the main conflict. Staying out of it costs you nothing.

Second, pay attention to planned events around you. Monitor social media and local news outlets, looking for planned events. Knowing where events are planned can help you avoid them. You can set up a Google alert using local protest group hashtags, and let Big Tech do the heavy lifting.

Third, understand that protests can happen anywhere with no warning. Earlier today, I met with another guy over lunch and discussed the situation in Detroit. I told him that the part of town he was headed to later with his family was probably low risk. He got there and found a protest ongoing literally right where we discussed. Out of nowhere. Have a plan to practice “Don’t-Be-There-Jitsu” and get out of the area. Consider buying and wearing a body camera.

Fourth, remember that if you find yourself trapped in a protest and surrounded, the best thing to do is just go along with their demands to raise your fist. You can’t rely on police protection, and if you resist them with lawful self-defense, it’s highly likely that you are going to be the one arrested. You CANNOT rely on our system to protect you. It means nothing if you shout black lives matter, and are then able to leave the protest safely. Swallow your pride. As the Ultimate Tactical Handbook says:

Pride goes before destruction,

A haughty spirit before a fall.

Proverbs 16:18

Finally, look out for your tribe. You will a network to survive a Without Rule of Law situation. In the meantime, build that team and check in with each other. Exchange contact information. Establish communication plans and check in times. When this thing kicks off, you won’t have time to make plans on the fly.

We are at the one month anniversary of the publication of Tactical Wisdom Volume 1, the Base Line Training Manual (available below – click the photo) and we’ve sold just under 300 copies. We are currently just short of halfway through preparing Volume 2, Fieldcraft, which covers individual movement, field skills, observation, and other basic outdoor/tactical field skills. Remember, skills are better than stuff. If you’d like to help us produce the book and this site, please consider a donation below.

In their training manual on Fieldcraft, the Canadian Forces define Fieldcraft like this:

“Fieldcraft is made up of the individual skills and techniques used by soldiers in the field, which include movement, use of ground and camouflage in conditions of reduced visibility.  These skills and techniques enable soldiers to maintain their own security while gaining advantage over the enemy.”

                        -Fieldcraft, Canadian National Defense

In a preparedness sense, it’s something we overlook a lot. Sure, groups get together and train, but what do they train on when they get together? Shooting. First Aid. But never something as simple as how to walk to quietly in the woods or in a team formation.

Be honest with yourselves, when is the last time you practiced low crawling 100 meters? Back crawling under a fence? How about the proper method of crossing a wall?

The truth of the matter is we don’t train in these areas. There are a number of reasons for this. The biggest reason is that everyone thinks that reading the Warrior Skills Handbook or FM 7-8 (Infantry Rifle Platoon & Squad) is enough. It isn’t. You don’t learn physical skills by reading.

Another reason is “I learned that back in boot camp”. You sure did. When was the last time you tried to do it, though? The low crawl uses some very specific muscle groups that you don’t use every day. Like any physical skill, the minute you don’t train on it, the muscles get weaker.

Another problem emerges as people in your group come together from different training backgrounds. Different services do things differently. One persons idea of a low crawl is actually a high crawl (we’re looking at you, Air Force peeps).

What we are doing at Tactical Wisdom is developing a common training manual, that your team can all train from, standardizing several basic individual movement techniques. We are drawing the best techniques from the US Army, the USMC, the Canadian Forces, the British Armed Forces, and the ANZAC’s and putting them in one manual.

Our Fieldcraft Manual will cover Survival mindset, individual movement techniques, some basic team movement, observations skills, how to set up a secure and sanitary overnight location, how to analyze terrain, basic urban tactics (including limited gray man skills), individual fighting positions, and other “fieldcraft” skills for your team or for you individually to train on. The ultimate in gray man is to never be seen at all, and fieldcraft helps with that.

Why is it important that everyone on your team know the same individual movement techniques? Well, imagine that you are moving and trying to avoid contact and you send someone to check out the other side of a wall. If they haven’t learned the proper way, they’ll alert anyone around to your presence. Also, if I tell someone to low crawl, but they actually high crawl, they are at risk of being seen, or even of being hit by friendly fire if you are suppressing over their heads.

A standardized manual for your team’s training is the answer. Even without the manual, just getting together and training regularly on the same technique will help.

Fieldcraft is also about how to establish a secure overnight position. It will do you no good to spend you day evading other groups in a WROL situation, only to have a sloppy campsite at night and get wiped out when someone stumbles into the site and you aren’t prepared. The answer is training.

Fieldcraft involves other skills, like field sanitation. If you don’t properly set up your overnight site, you can contaminate your site. This will lead to illness and in a WROL situation, that can be deadly. When was the last time your preparedness group discussed field sanitation?

“But if I’m bugging in, why would I want to study fieldcraft?”. No matter how you envision the WROL situation, there will be times when you need to leave your own perimeter. You may have to get water or food. You will certainly want to patrol the local area, so that you can detect threats before they are at your front door.

There may even come a time when the safest course is for you to bug out temporarily with your gear, to avoid contact. You may leave for a few days until a threat group leaves the area.

The next time your group gets together, spend some time on individual movement techniques and movement as a team. Practice setting up observation posts and fighting positions. Practice getting into a hasty ambush position in case someone was following you.

These skills will be infinitely more important than shooting skills or the CQB that everyone loves to train on. Yes, you need those skills, but these skills will be used every single day, and we don’t train on them on now. Start working on it.

As the above quote from the Ultimate Tactical Handbook shows, even Nehemiah used Fieldcraft. He had half of his people working, and the other half pulling security duty. Thousands of years old, but still solid preparedness advice today. In fact, every modern Western Military force still uses Nehemiah’s standard.

Check out http://www.survivalblog.com for a lot of great survival information. I’m a regular contributor over there as well, and I have a few articles scheduled there in the next few days.

As always, if you’d like to help us produce more great content, including helping us produce the Fieldcraft Manual to assist with your group training, please donate.

And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.

See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.

Matthew 24:6

As I sit here watching the situation unfold in Israel, I can’t help but wonder if it’s a preview of things to come here. Now, I’m not referring to the rocket attacks by an external party, but the other thing that the US media isn’t covering, because it paints their darlings the poor, oppressed Palestinians in a bad light. The ethnic riots.

The Mayor of the city of Lod, after a night of violent rioting by Arab citizens targeting Jewish citizens, declared that he had lost control of the city and that a civil war was raging there. He compared the ethnic attacks to the Kristallnacht event in Nazi Germany.

I know that it sounds extreme, but BBC spoke to a woman named Michal Abraham, who lives in Lod. Her family lives in a mixed-ethnicity neighborhood, as most of Lod does. Her family and their Arab Muslim neighbors got along just fine, and worked together to see each other be successful, before the rioting. As soon as the angry mob got on their block, though, the Arab neighbors ran to the agitators and quickly pointed out where the Abraham family lived and where their cars were parked. Both of their cars were destroyed by fire during the night. Abraham reported that despite multiple calls, the police and fire departments never showed up.

Is there a preparedness lesson there? There sure is. However nice your neighbors are today, they may be VERY different when the mob gets to your block. In our current environment, they may point out that you had a certain political sign in your yard or you normally fly a US flag, in an attempt to make the mob attack any house but their own.

Post-WROL, they may point out that you are the only person in the neighborhood not losing weight, and that they never see you go out foraging for food. That will at the very least get the hungry mob knocking on your door. They will be looking for your cool 10 year food supply, to “re-distribute” it.

Another point of concern is that Netanyahu is considering authorizing the use of “administrative detention” by executive order. This is an arrest without charge or court authority of people who, based on history and social media activity, “may” commit a crime at some later time. Yes, may at a later time. There is evidentiary standard to meet and no time limit on the detention.

You may think, “but we have a Constitution that guarantees due process”. We also have Extreme Risk Protection Orders that set aside the Constitution that the President wants to make national. Think about how people who attended the January 6th event are being treated (beaten by corrections staff and solitary confinement for TRESPASSING charges), and the rhetoric of Attorney General Garland. We aren’t that far off.

The root of the problem is an entire generation of ethnic Arabs growing up & being told by the media, their teachers, and religious leaders that they can’t succeed because of another ethnic group. Does that sound familiar? It’s the exact same as Critical Race Theory. The only possible end result of this type of education is violence.

Take, for example, the claims that the West Bank and Gaza are “occupied” by Israel. They are not. They are part of Israel and have been since it’s founding. You can’t “occupy” territory that is already yours. We see the same terminology used here when BLM claims that police “occupy” their neighborhoods.

The West Bank and Gaza have become autonomous zones by force. A general uprising led to Hamas and Hezbollah seizing that territory during riots and then declaring it “autonomous”. That’s exactly what we are seeing with the Seattle CHAZ, the Minneapolis George Floyd Zone, and the attempted Zones in both Atlanta and Detroit. Israel is just farther along the path than we are.

America is on a trajectory towards the same path as Israel, and to a large extent, the Balkans. We are headed for more racial & ethnic strife as we approach “George Floyd Week” (May 22-29), and we risk an actual civil war and Balkanization.

What can we do, as preparedness-minded people? We can ensure that we have a 2 week supply of portable food & water, we can remain aware, keep our cars filled with gas, and have a plan to avoid the conflict however we can. Ensure that you have a meeting plan for your loved ones and preparedness group, as well as a communications plan.

Most importantly, we can stop pretending that this isn’t happening. If you look at the root causes, the situation in Israel is EXACTLY the same path that we are on.

Prepare and train like it.

If you’d to help support our work here, including Volume 2 of the Tactical Wisdom Series, Fieldcraft, please donate below.

As we approach Mid-May, the weather is getting warmer. On Monday, I decided to do a seasonal changeover on all of my bags. As I was finishing, I thought it would be a good idea to share with you all my thinking and methodology.

By now, you should all have ordered a copy of the Base Line Training Manual, where I describe each of the bags, but in case you haven’t here’s a review. You should have a Vehicle Bag (always kept in the car), a Get Home Bag, an EDC/Patrol Bag, and a Full Ruck. You can order the book here, where I fully describe each bag’s contents:

For the Vehicle Bag, I removed a heavy fleece liner for my field jacket and replaced it with a lighter weight jacket, as the temperature won’t be as cold at night as it has been. I left the GoreTex outer layer in the bag. The GoreTex in this bag is plain black, so that it’s more Gray Man. I double checked the contents of the survival kits, to be sure that they were still fully stocked. I also checked all the expiration dates on food in the bag, and double checked the batteries in the lights.

I keep two full US 2 quart canteens in the back of my SUV in case of emergency and the seasonal change over is a great time to replace the water in them.

In the Get Home Bag, I swapped out a hoodie for a long sleeve t-shirt. This lets me retain the ability to change appearance quickly, yet not be too warm for movement. I also replaced a knit cap with a baseball cap for quick profile changes. I double-checked and re-stocked the first aid kit. I also checked all batteries in this bag.

I made similar changes in the EDC/Patrol bag. In this one, however, I left a watch-cap in it for night-time warmth. I took out heavy winter gloves and left lightweight liner gloves in their place. I double-checked the dates on the MRE’s and verified that the first aid kit was complete. I keep an extra Swedish M84 canteen on the side of this bag, so I rotated the water in the canteen.

The Full Ruck had some more serious changes. I took out the full sleeping bag, since it’s now warm enough to just use a Ranger-Roll. I took out the heavy-weight snivel gear (long underwear for you non-Marines) and replaced it with silk-weight Under-Armor gear. I replaced the two sets of camouflage uniforms in the Ruck as well. Since I live in Michigan, the browns and tans of USMC Desert MARPAT and British Desert DPM worked perfectly for fall and winter. Now that the foliage has grown back, I put in two sets of USMC MARPAT Woodland and one set of All-Terrain Tiger (I had room after removing the sleeping bag for an extra set). I left the UMSC “Wooly-Pully” sweater in the Ruck just in case.

I doubled checked the dates on the MRE’s in the Full Ruck, and also inventoried the camp gear in it. I added a 10mm black yoga mat to the outside of my Ruck on the opposite side as my backpacking tent for use as a sleeping pad.

The final check of the Full Ruck was to attach the Patrol Bag and wear both to test the weight and make sure it was still balanced, not too heavy, and that it was still quiet.

You should conduct a changeover like this at least every six months, and preferably every season. An emergency is not the time to find out if you gear is still all set or seasonally appropriate. Preparing your bags is an ongoing exercise, not a one-time event.

If you’d to like help us continue to produce content, inlcuding Tactical Wisdom Volume 2, Fieldcraft, please donate below.

Whenever existing prepper groups train as a group, one of two things happen. They either spend the entire weekend shooting and doing unrealistic tactics like practicing urban combat, or it just becomes a family camping trip, where a good time is had, but no actual training occurs.

As the law & order situation in the US continues to deteriorate at an increasing rate, you and your team can’t afford to waste valuable training time with unfocused training or training on things that actually won’t be used. Let’s begin there.

Let’s talk first about things we WON’T actually be doing:

1. Conducting building clearing: While this is always fun training, it’s not very practical from a preparedness standpoint. Your objective is DEFENSE, not OFFENSE. If you need to force entry to one of your own buildings and re-take it, you’ve already lost and it’s time to move.
2. Doing “camp-out” things: If you are living in a campsite in a WROL situation, you won’t be sitting around bonfires and singing camp songs, because those compromise your security and attract mouths to feed or fend off.
3. Doing a lot of shooting: While possessing firearm skills is important, you shouldn’t be preparing to fight pitched battles, except as an absolute last resort.

Now that we’ve covered that, what’s a better use of our limited training time?

1. Individual and team movement skills: In a WROL situation, you will spend a lot of time MOVING on foot. Knowing techniques to do that quietly, safely, and securely, both at the individual and team level, will be a great help. Like any physical skills, they are lost without practice. Tactical Wisdom Volume 2, “Fieldcraft” will cover these techniques in detail.
2. Site Security: When you are in a static location, whether you are bugging in, at your bug out location, or at a temporary campsite, you will need people conducting security tasks, like manning an observation/listening post, manning an Entry Control Point, or just keeping watch over their own sector.
3. Vehicle Movement: With any luck, you’ll be able to move as group in vehicles, rather than just solely on foot. Secure vehicle movement and convoy operations are a very specific skill set that require training and practice.

As discussed in my Base Line Training Manual, a great way to incorporate all of these things is in a weekend readiness exercise with your group.

First, you should plan on an overall scenario for the weekend. It doesn’t matter what it is, just make it something realistic, not far-fetched. It could be as simple as saying the power has been out for a few days and local riots are occurring, so the group is planning to temporarily bug out until the rioting ends.

Set a time and location for the group to meet. This could be a public park or something similar, but make sure it’s large enough to stage all the vehicles. As team members arrive, don’t let them just hang out and talk, like a regular camping trip. Immediately stage vehicles into a convoy for movement, and have the vehicle crews form a perimeter, watching outboard. We are going for real-world training.

Once everyone has arrived, conduct a radio check and move out, using an actual emergency route, rather than just driving the freeway. In an emergency, the freeway will attract bad people and traffic. Maintain radio disciple as the team travels, maintaining good distance between vehicles.

The parking area you arrive at should be some distance from where you are going to camp, to allow for foot movement and you would never just camp right next to your vehicles anyway. As you arrive, have half the vehicle crews pull security, while the other half unloads, then switch.

From there, move out on foot, in a good formation, and ruck tactically to the planned camp location. Ensure that the site is good, then have the team occupy the site, but do so securely. First, establish security sectors for each sub unit, and have them move to their own areas. Next, set up a watch schedule and ensure everyone sticks to it.

Ensure that everything done is done with TRAINING in mind. Have half the team eat while the other half pulls security, then switch. Do that same with setting up sleeping positions or tents.

In the morning, take down the tents or sleeping gear first, as you would in a real situation. Then have everyone eat, and conduct whatever training your have planned. You could do first aid in the morning, which is often overlooked, and then patrolling in the afternoon, which is more foot movement.

Use the same evening and morning routine, rounding out the weekend by having everyone move back to the vehicles tactically, and moving back to the original meeting area as a convoy.

As you can see, you can fit a lot of real-world training into a weekend, have fun with it, and keep it realistic with just a small amount of planning. This type of event is discussed in my Base Line Training Manual, available at the link below.

If you’d like to help us produce our second manual, Fieldcraft, please donate below.

Be safe, be aware, and get training.

I watch a lot of the “Prepper” movies, to see how realistic they are, and to see how the principles I discuss would have helped the heroes in the movie.  SPOILER ALERT…if you haven’t seen “The Road”, with Vigo Mortensen, there are a few spoilers in here, but I’ll try to limit them.

Before we get started, I wanted to announce that my first book, “The Base Line Training Manual” is out and available on Amazon in both eBook and paperback.  I personally recommend paperback, because it’s designed to be a pocket reference.  We’re already working on book two, “Fieldcraft”.  These two books will cover all the issues we discuss here.

First, the movie is fairly good, but the back and forth between flashbacks and current time gets a little confusing.  It was fairly realistic, but it was definitely not perfect in it’s depiction.

The first lesson is that when we see the flashback scenes, the “Man” (Vigo) was caught up in a normalcy bias before being forced to flee, and the belief that things would “work out” or somehow “get better”, while the “Woman” was a realist.  Understand that in a WROL situation hoping for things to get better is not a successful strategy.  Never be so tied to a location that you can’t walk out on virtually no notice.

Next, throughout the movie, they kept approaching houses, barns, and vehicles for shelter.  Before approaching these structures, they usually hid their supplies before approaching on foot.  That’s a great tactic and is certainly always a good idea. 

The problem is that by approaching structures meant for humans, you will frequently encounter humans.  In a WROL/Collapse scenario, that’s something to be avoided if you can do it.  While the movie showed him using binoculars to scope locations before approaching, it was always a quick peek.  I realize that it’s a movie, but if we are going to approach a structure like that, we would be better served by establishing a concealed observation post and watching the structure for at least a few HOURS beforehand. 

In the movie, sure enough, nearly every time that they entered a structure like that, other humans, nearly always intent on harm, found them in short order.

Avoid areas where other humans will gather if you are trying to remain undetected, which will usually be our goal.

                                             The prudent see danger and take refuge;

But the simple keep going and pay the penalty.

Proverbs 22:3

Another issue is that they frequently traveled and camped along roads.  As I’ve pointed out before, roads and trails are what military units call “natural lines of drift”, and along with rivers and cleared areas, mean places that people like refugees will gather and travel.  Traveling via any of these lines of drift increases the chance of an encounter.

A better way is to “hand-rail” them.  Move in cover along the feature, so that you can follow it, without using it.  Yes, it would be much easier traveling on the road, especially with a shopping cart, like they had, but we aren’t looking for easy, we’re looking for safe.

They frequently camped inside vehicles directly on the road, which in a WROL situation is DANGEROUS.  Sure enough, a large armed force came rolling up the road one morning and they had to run and hide.  Because they had left their cart right next to the vehicle they slept in, the bad guys took all their gear, leaving them with two empty backpacks and they had to start over.

Gather up your belongings to leave the land,

You who live under siege.

Jeremiah 10:17

As I point out on this blog and in my book, before settling in for the night, you should hide your gear, except for what you are sleeping in.  Your backpack should remain packed, except for what you are using as shelter while you sleep.  That way, if you have to run, you leave behind a bare minimum of gear.  If your main supplies had been stashed, you could come back later and retrieve them.

The other point I regularly make is that you should always move about 100 meters away from your main line of march before setting up a camp.  This way, if you were near the road, people on the road wouldn’t see you and anyone following you wouldn’t stumble into the camp.

Another point I took issue with in the movie was that they had a fire every single night.  Fires should only be used before dark, unless you are CERTAIN that you are in a secure location.

At one point, they encounter a fully stocked, but vacant underground shelter.  They occupied it, and the Man made sure to camouflage the entrances, particularly the emergency exit hatch.  The issue is that they became complacent, staying there longer that they should have, and sure enough, someone found them. 

I will stand at my watch

And station myself on the ramparts.

Habakkuk 2:1

The issue wasn’t with being found; that’s a given in that it was a manmade structure, and we’ve already discussed that risk, it’s that they were caught by surprise, because they neglected security.  In a WROL situation, you must be obsessive about security.  It must become a state of mind.  You must always consider how other people might approach your position, and then address the risk.

At another point, the Man left the Boy for a bit, and the Boy was supposed to keep watch.  Sure enough, he fell asleep and a thief came along, and stole all of their gear.  As I said before, in a WROL situation, security is a matter of life and death.

As the movie comes to a close, you find that the Man and the Boy have been followed the entire way by another group.  As I’ve mentioned before, it’s important to occasionally check to see if you are being followed.  Making a 90 degree turn, moving 30 meters off your route and setting up a hasty ambush watching the area you just traveled is a simple and secure way to see if you are being followed. 

Fortunately for the Boy, the party following them was friendly, and not hostile.

Sometimes it’s fun to watch these movies and consider how you would have done it and how the characters could have improved.

Sure, the mistakes they made are intentional, so that’s not a boring movie of two people camping, but some people watch these and conflate them with real-world applications.

I hope these ideas help you in your planning.

If you’d to help us continue to produce content and further volumes of our training manual series, please donate below.

Just when you thought this place couldn’t get any crazier, the last 2 weeks have thrown us for an even bigger loop.  Today, we’re going to talk about the declining self-defense situation, the revelation of the lie that this was all about George Floyd, I’ll offer some practical tips, and throw out a few items of Tactical Wisdom.

First, the only thing left to do on the book is the cover and then we’ll go live.  The Tactical Wisdom Series will begin with the “Base Line Training Manual”, in a convenient pocket size to carry with you while training.  Further volumes are rapidly being developed to move you beyond the Base Line.  This first book is a set of bare-minimum standards for gear and training, and then we’ll add on as we move forward.  It will be available on Amazon.  As usual, if you’d like to contribute a few coins to the production, use the donate link at the bottom.

 On Tuesday, we all saw the video of a police officer arriving and a young lady attempt to murder someone in his presence.  He immediately engaged, killing the attacker.  And the world went absolutely insane.  Thankfully, he was wearing a body camera and the footage should fully exonerate him.

Meanwhile, LeBron James directly threatened the life of the officer.  Now, I know, he claims that he was just talking about court accountability when he said “YOU’RE NEXT”, but millions hang on every word he utters as if he’s a leader.  Someone is going to take action, because King James told him to.

The entire situation reminds me of a situation in southeast Michigan last year, as all this nonsense was starting.  A couple was out to dinner and got into an altercation with a couple of black females, and the wife drew her lawfully carried firearm to defend herself and extricate themselves.  The world went nuts, drawing national attention, demanding that the couple both be arrested.

When the video first came out, I said “wait…there’s a lot more to this story”.  Sure enough, after a few days, the police released the rest of the video and it showed that the black women instigated the entire contact and tried to prevent the couple from leaving, thereby making the self-defense lawful.

Last week, we saw the selectively edited video of the Staff Sergeant ordering the young man off his property and the young trying to walk on it anyway.  Again, the police responded, took no action because the Sergeant’s actions were lawful defense of his property, but because of the mob madness, the Sheriff ordered him arrested.

So this brings us to my first piece of advice, and one I’ve mentioned before.  Buy a small, wearable camera, today, and keep it with you.  Having your own video is vital.  No, don’t rely on your cell phone, because that ties up your hands.  I have the one below, it looks like a pen in your pocket and activates with a tap.  It takes high quality video and places a date/time stamp on the video.

If you carry a firearm for personal defense, spending $40-$50 on a wearable camera is vital legal self defense.  It should be with you if your gun is with you, just like a first aid kit should be.  If you never use it, good.  But if you need it, and don’t have it, you could be putting yourself at the mercy of the mob, who may edit their video.

A couple of weeks ago, ANTIFA surrounded a house in Lansing, Michigan, and this weekend they surrounded the Sergeant’s house.  Wouldn’t a body worn camera, showing what is happening from your perspective, help you defend your actions in court, if you were forced to take action?  Wouldn’t it have helped the McCloskey’s?

Immediately after getting the verdict they demanded on the Chauvin case, BLM & ANTIFA revealed that getting the conviction was the first step, and only a complete and total abolition of the criminal justice system will do. They’re winning; have you considered what life will be like if you cannot call the police for help and there are no penalties for criminal acts?

We saw on Tuesday night the crowds returning to the habit of rushing restaurants and harassing guests.  The police follow along, not to protect you, but in all honesty, to arrest anyone who disagrees.  If you don’t believe me, just go review the video; it’s happened time and again.

The next piece of advice comes as result of seeing the mob returning to the restaurant harassment.  Every time you go somewhere, stop and locate every possible exit in the building and remain aware of where they are in relation to you.  If the mob enters one door, go out another.  In the current climate, Don’t -Be-There-Jitsu is a good option.  I can’t star in their next viral video if I’m not there.

When a strong man, fully armed,

Guards his own house, his possessions are safe.

Luke 11:21

Now, last week I said make yourself and your house Gray Man, and I got a comment that someone said he’d never do that and I was wrong to even suggest it.  Fair enough; I’m not a leftist who tells people that their OPINION is wrong.  However, for all the things this guy said he’d do to ANTIFA, I have yet to see him out there with me and my associates when we are out among ANTIFA, counteracting them by gathering intelligence, protecting speakers at events, and getting information out to you all.   I meant my Oath, and I’m taking action.  

We also saw on Tuesday a large number of cars getting trapped inside the protests that developed the evening that the verdict was read, and this one is really silly.  I can’t imagine why on earth anyone was anywhere near the Hennepin County Government Center once deliberations began.  We even saw the crowd attempt to stop and forcibly remove a truck driver from his truck.

From a preparedness perspective, pay attention to local news.  The minute they announced deliberations, I would have been canceling anything that I had to do downtown.  I live in Detroit and as soon as I heard that the verdict was going to be announced, I packed up what I was doing and headed to the homestead, so that if things went sideways, I wasn’t trapped in a public place or on the roads.

Learn your local protest groups and monitor their social media plans.  This can keep you from getting caught up in a planned protest.

The last issue is one that I already discussed, but once again, we need to have in the front of our minds. A man, trying to get home, encountered a BLM roadblock at the end of his street.  He got out of the car, and got shoved.  When he pushed back, he was detained by the police.  

In all honesty, the police are afraid of the negative backlash of resisting the mob.  Here in Metro Detroit, I’ve seen suburban departments turn around and drive away when they see a BLM march.

The prudent see danger & take refuge,

But the simple keep going & pay the price.

Proverbs 22:3

When this happened, someone replied to me on Twitter, saying “That’s Stillwater, Minnesota, that’s not going to go well for BLM”.  Yes, it did.  The police prevented the local people from resisting BLM, so it went just fine.  People keep thinking these are normal times, AND THEY ARE NOT.  A violent Marxist revolution is underway, and you need to realize that.

I was asked what I would have done, and I honestly would have driven around the roadblock, on lawns if needed, and into my driveway. As long as I didn’t damage any property, I doubt any action would be taken. We are not living in normal times.

For us, from a preparedness perspective, it’s time to realize that for the most part, the Without Rule of Law situation that we have been preparing for is HERE, it’s just not at scale, yet.  With racial tensions at an all time high, an impending Russian invasion of the Ukraine, and open conflict brewing between Iran and Israel, we don’t have much time left in this strange twilight.

Up your awareness, keep a body camera on you, and remain totally aware of your surroundings.  This place can go from the weird semi-normality we’re in to full-WROL in a matter of minutes and you will have to start with what you have.  Make sure that what you have will enable you to get back to the rest of your supplies.

Understand that the self defense climate has changed. Knowing and acting within the law is no longer enough to prevent you from being arrested. Be careful, and wear a camera to document everything.

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As civil disturbances are increasing and we approach the deliberations phase of the Derek Chauvin trial, I thought it would be a good time to discuss civil disturbance planning.  There are things you can do to reduce the impact of civil disturbances on your life.

First, let’s come to an agreement that politics plays NO role in planning for civil disturbances.  In fact, as we learn from the Ultimate Tactical Handbook, not even the rioters agree on the reason for the protests:

The assembly was in confusion:

Some were shouting one thing, some another.

Acts 19:32

When groups come together for a protest and it turns violent, there is no reasoning with them, so don’t even try.  Attempting to reason with them is how people get hurt.

The best thing we can do, is make our homes and ourselves as anonymous as possible.  That’s right, not just Gray Man, but Gray HOUSE.

First, don’t wear clothing that broadcasts your political beliefs for either side.  I’m not saying give up your ideology, I’m saying don’t be so vocal or apparent that you make yourself a target needlessly.  Our goal is SURVIVAL.  On a side note, I gather a lot of information by attending protests and counter-protests in gray man gear and it’s all helpful.    Try your best to be nondescript.  Guys:  Wearing your tacti-cool pants (I have a large collection) and your Blackhawk shirt (I have a stupid number of these because they’re ridiculously comfortable) with  your Under Armour boots is NOT Gray Man in the least.  It has it’s place, but this isn’t it.

Second, let’s address the house situation.  If there are protests in your area, remove your flags and any political signage.  Again, we aren’t doing this out of fear, but practicality.  We’ve seen time and again that they target houses displaying these things.  For the record, many times a homeowner has been arrested for lawfully asserting their right to defend their home.  You CANNOT count on the police to help you.  Here are two stories from just last week:

1. A man gets informed of a guy in his neighborhood inappropriately touching women.  He approaches the male, asks him to leave the area, and tells him to not approach his house.  The male approaches the house and the homeowner pushes the male off his property.  The homeowner and his wife make a police report and the police leave.  A short time later, a highly-edited video goes viral, and under public pressure, the Sheriff sends deputies to arrest the male for his lawful self-defense.  A crowd then surrounded the man’s home.
2. A man in Minnesota went to turn onto his own block and encountered a Black Lives Matter roadblock.  He got out of the car, and told them he lived on the block and they told him to go away, and pushed him.  When he pushed back, the police, who had been sitting a few car lengths away, swooped in and arrested him.

So, then, what’s the answer?  I can’t answer that for YOU.  We each have to make our own plans.

When it comes to mass unrest, we really have two choices:

1. Leave the area.
2. Bunker down at home.

As a general rule, we all know that I advocate the martial art of “Don’t-Be-There-Jitsu”, of which I’m Grand Master.  You can’t be targeted and trapped if you aren’t there when it happens. 

This also applies to not going to counter-protest.  As my friend, South African Author Charles Marais puts it: “Don’t go to stupid places with stupid people at stupid hours and do stupid things”.

If you decide to leave the area before anything happens, you can just come back after a few days if nothing bad happens.  The opposite is not true.  If you stay home, and things get bad, you may not be able to leave the area after trouble begins.

In the COVID era of “work from home”, a good majority of us can leave and work from a remote location with no issues.  Some of us can’t and may not be able to leave for other reasons.

If you have to stay, there are some steps you can take at home in addition to taking down flags and signs.

1. Ensure that all fire extinguishers are up to date & fully charged.
2. Buy an extra fire extinguisher or two.
3. If your yard if fenced, close the gates.  I know it’s not a positive bar to entry, but under the law, if they have to open a gate, they’ve committed burglary and you are now on much safer legal ground.  Open gates could be construed by courts as “invitation”.
4. Ensure that all exterior lighting is functional.
5. If you have a camera system, ensure that it is recording and functioning.
6. Close and lock all out buildings (garages/sheds/etc.).
7. Close and lock the door from the adjoining garage into the house.
8. Keep all windows closed and locked.
9. Keep all doors closed and locked.
10. Keep a garden hose hooked up to the water supply in case there are fires set nearby.  It’s better to get out and wet down your house before a fire spreads than to be searching for the house in the shed as your house burns.
11. Secure all tools in a shed or garage.
12. Remove any toys or yard decorations that normally sit in the yard.  They could become projectiles.

Gather up your belongings to leave the land,

You who live under siege.

Jeremiah 10:17

Jeremiah laid down some seriously good tactical advice, didn’t he?  If you are remaining home, don’t be so tied to it that you can’t run away if you have to.

Have a bag packed with essential supplies and clothing to leave if you absolutely have to; as we said before, you can always come back.  Be ready to leave at a moment’s notice if you have to.

Before the later part of the week gets here, plan 3 or 4 routes out of your area by vehicle, and 3 or 4 routes on foot.  It will only take an hour or so and could well save your life.  Make sure that your routes avoid major roads, areas where rioters will gather (shopping areas, government facilities, and hospitals), and provide some degree of safety.

Understand this:  There is no shame in not fighting on their terms.  We aren’t saying NEVER fight, but you should choose the time and place, not anyone else.  A mass riot against one family is a losing proposition, and we all know that riots are very real danger right now.

That’s the same reason that we recommend if you get caught in a spontaneous protest and they demand that you raise the fist or chant some slogan, go ahead and do it.  It means nothing and being attacked by a mob isn’t a virtue.  It’s a different thing if they demand kneeling, and that’s your own decision to make – I know mine.

Understand also that assuming that this will all just go away is deadly.  It’s not going away, and eventually, as a nation, we’ll have to do something to put an end to it, but it’s going to worse before it gets better.  By making ourselves and our homes not stand out, we’re preserving our ability to fight back later.

When making these preparations, also take a look at your vehicle.  The gun stickers, Trump stickers, Thin Blue Line Stickers, and giant American flag on the tailgate all make you a target.  ANTIFA has been known to follow people home or run license plates.  Either remove that stuff, cover it, or park your vehicle so that it can’t be seen from the street.

We are in for a rough couple of weeks, so prepare and be safe.

UPDATE:  The last step of the book is being finished, the cover design.  It should be up on Amazon very soon.  If you’d like to help us with that project, donate below.

I know, I talk about this a lot.  You want to know why?  Because people still have a normalcy bias.

But first, an update.  The first book in our Training Manual Series, The Base Line Training Manual is being edited and will be wrapped up in the next few days.  If you’d like to help support that, please donate at the bottom of page.

Normalcy Bias is the tendency to believe that unusual events are not actually happening.  Let’s talk about some objective facts and then we’ll analyze them.

Police Shootings/Rioting

This week, there have been riots in various cities throughout the US because of the Duante Wright case.  There has been violence and widespread damage and losses.  The level of conflict has not gone down, and there are planned protests for the foreseeable future.

Yesterday, news came out of police shooting in Chicago that happened last month of a 13 year old.  There are already protests being planned throughout the weekend over this shooting.

The reality is that protests are expanding, so the risk level is high.  The protesters, based on personal observation, are shouting about it being a “REVOLUTION”, not protests.

In Dallas, where a BLM supporter once killed 5 police officers, last night an armed BLM militia seized a shopping mall.

In Michigan, there are protests planned throughout the state all weekend.

Derek Chauvin Trial

The Chauvin trial will be ending Monday and sent for deliberations.  This is going to lead to more rioting either way.  Yes, either way.  First, if he’s acquitted, we all know what will happen, and the case has fallen apart.  Second, if he’s found guilty, it will be seen as proving that police are just attacking minorities, leading to rioting.

Law Enforcement/Prosecutorial Response

In Minnesota, we saw that police weren’t able to respond anywhere but the police station.

Prosecutors across the country are stating that they will no longer prosecute certain crimes, and are dropping all charges against rioters.  We are even seeing people charged with murder being offered some type of diversion (SF and DC), in the name of social justice. Coincidentally, in both of these cases, the victims were Asian, #StopAsianHate, right?

At the same time, we are seeing police take action against anyone who defends themselves against these actions.

In South Carolina, residents approached an Army Sergeant who lived in a neighborhood and told him about a suspicious man in the neighborhood who had put his hands down a girls pants.  When the sergeant told the man to leave, the man tried to approach the sergeant’s wife on their property, & the sergeant pushed the man away and told him to leave.  The Richland County Sheriff ordered his deputies to arrest the sergeant, who was completely within his rights.

The next night, a massive crowd surrounded the sergeant’s house, threatening him, standing on his lawn, and NOT ONE ARREST WAS MADE.

Mass Shootings

Yet another mass shooting occurred last night.

World Economic Forum

Without drifting off into conspiracy facts, the WEF famously predicted the COVID 19 pandemic about 3 months before it started.

They are now predicting a massive cyber attack that disrupts the electrical grid.

ANTIFA Intelligence

Last week, I reported that ANTIFA is seeking more violent protests and an actual violent revolution, ending in the abolition of the United States.

So what?

What does this mean for us in preparedness?

This environment is absolutely unsustainable.  When people know that they won’t be prosecuted for violence and damage done during protests or in some cases, at all, violence escalates.  Last year we saw cities with 600% increases in violent crime.

The potential for riots worse than last year’s George Floyd riots is at 100%.  We are seeing the hardcore Pacific Northwest rioters being embedded with groups throughout the country.

We are ALREADY in a societal collapse, and these events will just hasten it, along with accelerationist groups agitating it.

Regardless of your views on the events leading to the protests, you need to take action to prepare for them.

The most important takeaway: IT’S NOT GOING TO GET BETTER, IT’S GOING TO GET WORSE.

As people into preparedness, we need to take the same actions we took before, and remain highly aware:

1. Identify your local protest groups and monitor their social media to be aware of where planned protests are taking place.  I keep this in a notebook indexed by date.
2. Keep your car full of gas – When a riot is declared, the local government usually orders that the sale of gasoline be stopped to prevent arson.  You also don’t want to run out of gas while trying to escape a riot zone.
3. Have a weeks worth of food & water at a minimum in the house, most of which is non-perishable.
4. Carry and maintain a first aid kit, EVERYWHERE YOU GO.
5. Keep a “Get Home Bag” with essential supplies in your car.  I recommend keeping a change of clothing in the car as well, if you wear business clothes to work or a uniform.  A good pair of boots is a good thing to keep in the car as well.
6. Have a Communications Plan – Know where the people you care about are going to be over the next few days.  Have a plan for if communications go down.  We are currently seeing that inside the protest areas, so many people are on their phones that the systems are overloaded.  If you plan on using radios, keep them with you.
7. Decide now what you will do to defend yourself and make your plans.  I’ll offer no advice here, you make your own decisions.
8. Ensure that your fire extinguishers are fully charged and accessible. If you don’t have one in the car, put one there.
9. Never be so tied to a location that you can’t walk out the door on minimal notice.  You can leave before things get really bad and then come back, but if you wait too long, you may never get out.
10. STOP THINKING THAT THIS IS JUST GOING TO GO AWAY.

Let me leave you with one quote from the Ultimate Tactical Handbook:

Since they heard the sound of the trumpet

But did not heed the warning,

Their blood will be on their own head.

If they had heeded the warning,

They would have saved themselves.

Ezekiel 33:5

Be ready, be safe.

A great opportunity for preparedness is the ability to gather and analyze information, so that you can make informed decisions based upon that information.  In the military realm, that’s called gathering intelligence.  When the information is gathered from information freely available, it’s called “Open Source” intelligence or “OSINT”.

In the beginning, OSINT wasn’t considered as important as other methods, because it consisted mainly of seeking out newspaper articles or academic thesis papers.  The arrival of the internet and the explosion of social media has now thrust OSINT to the forefront of intelligence gathering, and there is an entire multi-million dollar industry centered around the gathering of OSINT.

One of the first steps you should do in preparedness, is conduct an area study.  Area studies rely heavily on OSINT.  For example, most local police departments post crime data maps on the internet.  Using that to study crime trends is OSINT.  

Another OSINT tool is researching your local news website archives for gang, drug, or criminal stories in your area.

Check local, county, and state government websites and you’ll be amazed at how much OSINT information is available from land use to court records to voter registrations, governments are putting more and more information in the public realm, as long as you know how to find it.

Social media is where the OSINT gold is, for day-to-day information gathering.  Individuals and groups post an insane amount of activity about their daily lives and plans for anyone to see.  We all have that one friend or relative, you know who you are, who posts every minute detail of their life on social media.

It’s important, from a security standpoint, to understand where social media came from and it’s original (and, if we’re honest, current) purpose.  The Defense Advance Research Projects Activity began Project LIFELOG in 2003, which sought to gather and store all of a persons activities, relationships, movements, travels, credit card purchases, phone calls, and emails, so that they could predict future behavior or build a picture of anyone.  They claim to have shut the project down in 2004, citing a libertarian backlash, but do you think that really happened?  Ask yourself, when did social media begin?

All that happened was they moved the project from the public sector to the private sector.  This allows them to have third parties collect the data, which they then buy.

My friend Sam Culper at www.forwardobserver.com coined a phrase once during a podcast that has stuck with me:  “We should farm social media, but never plant”.  What this means is that while we are using Social Media to gather OSINT, we should be incredibly careful about what we post, or allow others to post about us.  

The Ultimate Tactical Handbook of Life also says this same thing:

Buy the truth and do not sell it.

Proverbs 23:23a

For our purposes of being prepared in our current environment of protests and unrest, how can we use OSINT to our advantage?  Well, groups organize protests on social media.  Learn what groups are most active in your area and begin daily monitoring of their planned events.   Knowing that a protest is planned in your area could alter your daily plans.

Another area is gathering OSINT for longer term planning and preparedness.   A membership at Forward Observer (I get nothing for this from Sam, other than his thanks) will get you a daily email with information on planned protest activity and potential world conflict flare-ups.  It’s well worth the minimal cost.

Another way to gather to gather long term intelligence is gathering information that groups put out.  Knowing what they are doing long term can help you plan.

Again, our Ultimate Tactical Handbook has advice:

By their fruit you will recognize them. 

Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?

Matthew 7:16

In other words, people will tell you what they are going to do.

In my research, I came across an e-zine titled “Anarchy In The Burbs”, put out by a collective of left wing protest groups in California.  This crossed my desk because national-level organizers are pushing the manual as a how-to for the rest of the country. 

Here are a few takeaways for our preparedness, that we only got through OSINT by reading their material:

• They complain that last year’s protest were NOT VIOLENT ENOUGH.  That’s right.  
• They state that non-violence accomplishes nothing, because no one listens unless there is violence.
• They admit that they made a mistake in targeting downtown areas and economically depressed areas, as these areas don’t contain the people the want to target.
• They want to adopt the right-wing tactic of car caravans, because they can disrupt a larger area at one time.
• They want to take the fight to the suburbs, where people live, and target shopping centers and warehouses.  
  • The targeting of warehouses, either with strikes or arson, they feel, will slow the movement of goods and raise the impact.
• They feel that suburbs also have fewer law enforcement resources like armored vehicles and helicopters to counter them.
• Rather than joining large groups, the manual suggests organizing in smaller, trust-based groups to prevent law enforcement infiltration.  These smaller groups can then band together for larger actions.
• One central theme throughout is to never submit to mediation or negotiation.  They intend to stage a violent insurgency resulting in the complete abolition of government.  They do not want reforms.
• They are encouraging increasingly violent attacks, rather than just protests.
• They point out that “democrats” are not far left enough and should be treated the same as right-wing people.
• They are seeking safe houses for militants to stay in when pursued.
• They are becoming obsessed with security and demand their members stop recording on their phones or live-streaming.
• They recommend people commit acts of sabotage, roadblocks, squatting in businesses, and other violent direct actions

There is a lot more in the document, but the point is that without gathering the information, you wouldn’t know that an even worse summer of violence is being planned, regardless of the outcome of the Chauvin trial.

The best thing you can be doing now is gathering OSINT on the agitators and groups in your area; not so that you can take action against them, but so that you can be aware of their plans and thereby avoid getting caught up in any of it.

Stay safe by staying informed and staying away.

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