Someone asked me about how my military and combat experiences have impacted my planning and preparation regarding potential WSHTF scenarios. Here is a “brief” response.

Beginnings
To begin with, none of my military experience makes sense as it relates to this unless you know where I came from, so we’ll begin at the beginning.


I grew up in the Ozarks of northwest Arkansas in the 1980s. My paternal grandfather moved the “clan” there in 1979 in preparation for the coming collapse. Thirty years later, I’m the only one of 29 grandkids who is still actively preparing, despite the grandparents still bringing the subject up in regular conversation.

Growing up where I did, when I did, was a good experience. My grandfather was an OSS agent during WW2 and later, a Detroit police officer, working a beat in the 1950s, then a plainclothes narcotics routine against the outlaw motorcycle gangs during their heights in the 1960s and 1970s.

My father was an SF soldier after Vietnam, from 1975-1980, and then served in a Reserve Component PSYOP unit until 1985.

Both of my parents are inveterate readers and the bibliophilia carried on to me. I read an average of six full-length books a week. As a kid of seven and eight, I was reading Soldier of Fortune, Gung-Ho, New Breed, Survive, and all the other “gun rag” magazines. I was reading about Army Rangers and Special Forces every month. By the time I was ten, I knew that in order to prepare for what my grandfather was telling me was coming, I needed the training that the Rangers and SF could provide for me. In the meantime, I would prepare as much as possible.

I started judo, at my grandfather’s insistence, when I was 9. I started boxing a couple of years later, also at his insistence. As the oldest of his grandkids, he wanted me prepared to teach the others when he was no longer around (He’s still alive today, of course…).

By eleven, I was spending several weeks each summer on solo backpacking trips. While I was never far from home in reality, at that age, sleeping alone in the woods, wrapped in an old surplus wool army blanket has a formative effect! I read books like Colin Fletcher’s “The Complete Walker.” I would throw some tuna fish and SPAM and some saltine crackers in my used Kelty brand external frame pack that someone gave to me used, along with a Vietnam-era surplus poncho and a couple of the old wool blankets. I would grab a cheap Zebco fishing pole and a Ruger 10/22 and head out for a week or more. My mother didn’t much like it, but my father approved wholeheartedly, even providing me used BDUs and combat boots to wear!

I enlisted in the Delayed Entry Program (DEP) between my junior and senior years of high school, on a Ranger Contract. I shipped for Ft Benning, GA the same night I graduated from High School. I attended Infantry One-Station Unit Training (OSUT), the Basic Airborne Course, and the Ranger Indoctrination Program (RIP) at Ft Benning, before shipping to Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia. I spent three years at 1st Ranger Battalion, before attending the Special Forces Assessment and Selection course at Camp Mackall, N.C. followed by the SF Q-Course and earning the 18Bravo MOS as a Special Forces Weapons Sergeant. I served in Special Forces Command until I ETSd from Active-Duty following a year in Afghanistan during OEF I (I was a stop-loss, although it was completely voluntary on my part  ).

In the course of my military career, I attended a plethora of schools and training opportunities. These included, but were not limited to: Ranger School, SOT/SFAUC, Level C SERE, EMT-P certification, several civilian shooting schools, and several others.

I left the Army and moved to Alaska for several months, working as big-game guide 110 air miles from the nearest town, in a village in the Wrangell Mountains. I left Alaska at the end of the winter and moved to Portland, Oregon where I worked as a personal fitness trainer for almost a year before I got sick of spoiled rich fuckers telling me how hard it was to work out. My usual response was to call them a pussy and ask them if they thought going to war was easier…

1) Tactical Skills:

“FM7-8 The Infantry Rifle Platoon and Squad” is the bible of small unit tactics in the United States Army (prior to the publication of the current manual in 2003, and which I cannot recall the official pub number of…). Every infantry NCO in the Army is expected to know this manual inside and out. If you do not know it, you are a shitty NCO and don’t deserve your rank. As a Ranger NCO, I was expected to know this manual and I did. I could recite entire sections of the manual verbatim. I had that shit cold!

It works remarkably well in conventional warfare and it worked against the Hajjis in Afghanistan. Even if the enemy has read the manual, the doctrine works.

The manual is based on a doctrinally standard nine man rifle squad and a four squad platoon (three rifle squads and a weapons squad comprised of three machine gun crews of three men each). It is not predicated on a 12 man ODA (Operational Detachment Alpha). ODAs don’t use the textbook lessons of FM7-8 in the execution of direct action (DA) missions. ODAs have a different SOP for the conduct of DA missions. While I’m not about to get into specifics of ODA operational techniques, for OPSEC reasons, this is an important factor to remember for WSHTF…unless you have a rifle platoon, with crew-served weapons, rifle platoon tactics aren’t going to work. You have to adapt.

OTOH, every SF NCO knows 7-8. You can’t adapt something you don’t know. You have to know the basics before you can do the high-speed shit. If you don’t know FM7-8, start studying it.

You aren’t going to do a toe-to-toe fight with an organized military force with crew-served weapons and indirect fire weapons and survive if you fight according to 7-8, since you’re not going to have them. All the talk in the world about fighting off the Chinese or the UN, or even U.S. forces is hyperbole, pure and simple. You will die. However, you CAN survive a contact with a numerically superior force, which has indirect fire weapons, even if you don’t. It can be done. You just have to know how.

The biggest issue with most “survivalists” is the “good-ole boy syndrome.” Going to war is not going to deer camp. Too many Americans have never really lived in the hell that is a real war zone, and this includes many soldiers who have been to Iraq and Afghanistan. I’ve slept in a water-filled rut dug into the mud by a passing tank track when it was ten degrees out…with only a poncho liner for warmth. I’ve tied myself to a tree with a sling-rope so I could sleep without falling over into the waist deep water and drowning. I’m not a bad-ass either, these are actually kind of pussy examples.

I hear and read a lot about guys talking about how they’re going to spend the weekend camping with their bug-out gear. Big-Fucking-Deal…Live out of your rucksack for a month, with only local foreign foods like goat meat and rice or hummus, then come talk to me. Give up your steak and potatoes and live on MREs for an entire month, then come talk to me.

Can you go three days with no sleep and still function somewhat normally? That nineteen year old neighbor kid who’s now serving in the 82d Airborne sure as hell can… Can you go six weeks without a shower or brushing your teeth because you’re on the run from hostiles and can’t compromise your position? There are SF, Rangers, Recon Marines and SEALs, all under the age of 30, who do it all the time. Think you’re more prepared for WSHTF than they are? I doubt it.

2) Non-Tactical Living Skills

Possibly the single most important lesson I learned as a SF NCO was this: it’s not combat skills that win wars. (WTF? Did I just say that? What about all the gun porn we love?)

Yes, killing the enemy is pretty important in winning a war. Yes, I believe that Total War is moral and critical. However, what really wins wars in the long run is the ability to win the populace over to your cause.

Help people rebuild schools and hospitals, then teach their kids to read and give them medications to keep them healthy and you will win the war faster. Improve the agriculture of the region so the locals can eat better. Improve the local ability to defend themselves and you will not have to stick around and protect them. They will develop confidence in themselves.

These things are more important than carpet-bombing. Having the ability to build a house or building, pour concrete, raise livestock or crops, maintain vehicles, doctor injuries; all of these are far more important WSHTF than what style of hand-to-gland training you participate in (Yes, I teach combatives and yes, I think it is a critical skill).

It is your ability in these areas that will help bring your community back together following SHTF. You will have much more authority and demand more respect from them when you show up at a town meeting if they know you as the carpenter or rancher than if you show up in multi-cam ACUs, Eagle Plate Carrier and MICH helmet with your M4gry festooned with all the latest tacticool bells and whistles.

3) Clothing

I see a lot of discussion on survival forums about BDUs and ACUs and camouflage. I’ve never understood it. One of the biggest benefits of going SF for me was that I didn’t have to wear BDUs in the field anymore. I’ll let you in on a secret…Camouflage clothing is for amateurs…

I wear blue jeans and I will WSHTF too. They’re comfortable and tough. I stick with Levi’s and Wranglers. I wear Carhartt jackets over North Face and Columbia Sportswear fleece clothing. The only “tacti-cool” clothing that I wear is a couple of pairs of 5.11 pants that were given to me by an SF friend who left the Army and did a couple of rotations as a contractor in Iraq. He’s got more of them than he can wear and I figured I’d try them out. They’re okay, but I’d damned sure not pay for them.

I wear simple mechanic’s style gloves from Home Depot, not the latest BlackHawk! offering. There’s just no point. Camouflage is not a pattern on clothing; camouflage is what you do when you get to where you are going. I wear a ski hat I got from REI and in the summer I wear a baseball cap, unless I’m horseback on the desert, when I’ll wear a felt cowboy hat.

I wear civilian hiking boots from Merrell or Vasque, or Ariat Ropers or Asics running shoes. I wouldn’t wear another pair of Government Issue combat boots if you gave them to me (well, maybe a pair of Danner Acadias, I always did like those!).

4) Tactical Equipment

While camouflage clothing is entirely too over-rated by many in the survivalist movement, load-bearing and tactical equipment is sadly under-rated. Too often I see guys fawning over their newest purchase of equipment that was obsolete when my father was a soldier.

One of the key issues I learned as a SOF soldier was that your gear is a lifeline that can keep you alive. It is a force multiplier for your skill sets. I understand that the Gucci stuff is expensive, but the adage that “you get what you pay for” is entirely true. When you’re betting your life on this stuff, you probably want the best you can get.

When I was at the Ranger Regiment, our TACSOP still mandated the use of ALICE LCE and the “big green tick” rucksacks. The Regiment didn’t start carrying the MOLLE compatible RACK (Ranger Assault Carrying Kit) until I as already at SF. We did have body armor called RBA (Ranger Body Armor) that was the precursor to the Interceptor Vest. We had M4A3s with Trijicon ACOGs. We had A/N PEQ-4s and SureFire lights all as early as 1994. We had some Gucci shit!

When I went to an ODA, suddenly, I could carry what I felt would get the job done in the most efficient manner possible and I could carry it however I wanted.

The first change I made was to buy a Dana Designs mountaineering backpack and quit carrying the big green tick. Then, I started wearing non-military issue boots and clothing on missions. By the time OEF I happened, I was wearing very little in the way of G.I. issue equipment other than my weapon and electronics. Today, I still have LBE and a rucksack and a plate carrier, etc.

I’ll provide generalities on what I carry, without specifics, and a brief explanation as to why I carry it.

a) Helmet…I still keep the 90s era hockey helmets we loved for CQB. I should probably upgrade to a MICH/ACH helmet, but I love my hockey helmet and I’m not as concerned about getting shot in the head as I should be.
b) Plate carrier…I have a MOLLE compatible carrier with PALS webbing all over it. I don’t carry anything attached to that webbing though. It has SAPI plates in it. I trust this vest. I’ve been shot in the plate of a vest and I KNOW it saves lives. If you stockpile combative firearms and don’t have body armor, you’re living in dreamland. Sell several guns and buy armor. Sell a kid and buy armor. Buy some fucking armor!
c) LBE…I carry an old-style three-color desert camouflage RACK harness with modern Coyote Brown MOLLE pouches and pockets on it. While the doctrine for infantry forces says that a basic load is 210 rounds of 5.56NATO, I discovered early on at SF that it wasn’t enough for the SF/Small Unit type of action. I started carrying 12 loaded magazines on my LBE plus one in my weapon. If I could carry more, I would. I still carry 12 magazines on my RACK. The M4 in my truck though has a twenty-round mag and a 30-round mag in a buttstock mounted magazine carrier. I keep an additional 3 magazines for my pistol on my RACK as well. I keep a Blow-Out Kit (BOK) med pouch on my RACK, marked with a large Red Cross patch sewn on. I have an additional medical pouch, sans patch, on the opposite side to hold “pogey-bait” and other assorted extra crap. Behind them, on the very edge of the chest “plate” of the RACK, I carry a Nalgene pound on each side. I have a Kabar knife mounted on the RACK as well. Next to the pistol mag pouches I have a small G.P. pouch that holds a Bruunton orienteering compass.
d) Pistol…I have carried a variety of sidearms over the years, ranging from the Beretta M9, Browning Hi-Power, 1911A1, Sig-SAUER P220 and P226, and a Gen. 1 Glock 17. Today, I’m back to the 1911A1. I carry it in a drop-leg holster attached it to my trouser belt, not my LBE. This way, if I have to dump my other gear, I’m not unarmed. These drop-leg holsters get a lot of flak in the reputable “survivalist” world. James Wesley, Rawles says to leave them to the “mall ninja” crowd. The problem is that people don’t set them up right.
You’re not supposed to hang the damned thing down by your knee! It should be just low enough that it will clear your armor when you draw it. I don’t wear it super-tight when I am afoot. If I was clearing rooms again, I would cinch it up tighter for that purpose. Carrying a kydex holster, like my CCW holster, on the trouser belt, is a PITA when you’re wearing armor. It flat sucks.
I don’t believe in mounting a light on my sidearm. When I do that, I have to point my weapon at shit in order to light it up, even if it turns out to be something that I shouldn’t be pointing a weapon at…
e) Assault Packs and B.O.B/G.H.B…I love my 5.11 Tactical 3-Day pack! I keep the typical BOB crap in there, which will be the subject of a specific post later. Some of it will be familiar to survivalists everywhere, while other things are strictly based on my SOF experience.