Living Out Of A Ruck

I spend a lot of time living out of a bag that I have to carry around. First we should discuss the two rather obvious limiting factors. Most significantly is weight. Just before WWI the French, British and Germans all did separate studies on the amount of weight a soldier can carry without being greatly hindered, getting worn out, etc. They all came to the figure of 1/3rd of ones bodyweight. Since soldiers weigh on average around 180 pounds or so that leaves the max weight of a ruck at right about 60 pounds. Do keep in mind that these are young, fit, healthy males. If you are old, unfit or not healthy the amount goes down rapidly. My personal observation ,based upon a reasonable amount of hiking with women, is that generally speaking 1/4 of their body weight is probably the top end. The lesser limitation is space being that you are constricted to whatever the size of your backpack, plus the stuff you can attach to it. I say this is a lesser concern because unless you have a tiny ruck or are trying to carry a bunch of pillows or something weight is usually an issue before size. It is somewhat difficult to come up with a 'standard' packing list though there is some stuff which is always present. Somebody pulling a Doug Carlton who is carrying 400 rounds of .308 as well as a few bricks of .22 is starting with a pretty heavy baseline. Camping in Northern Minessota in the winter or moving through a big chunk of desert where there isn't access to water would have the same effect. You obviously need stuff to keep you warm, changes of socks, t shirts and clothes as well as food, water and some sort of shelter. This is sort of like budgeting. No one thing will sink you but it all adds up. Ounces equal pounds which equal lots ofpounds in a real hurry. To me it is key to identify where you truly need redundancy to avoid carrying unnecessary stuff. Having for example more than one way to make fire or source of light is pretty darn important while, despite owning them and thinking they are cool you do not need 5 knives. For one or two people it is easy enough to eat out of the same pot you cook out of. One quart is a pretty good all around size for a pot. I did a lot of camping with a metal cup, a one quart pot, a spoon and whatever knife I was already carrying. No need for a fork and a dedicated butter/ dinner knife. I don't think that I have every been upset because I brought too many pair of socks.

Keeping stuff relatively waterproof is just a good practice to be in. Fof the cheap and easy types good old black plastic trash bags work well. If you really like spending money or spend a lot of time in and around waterit is probably worth buying some of those heavy duty kayacking type dry bags (or I guess if your worried about a real long term end of the world solution) but otherwise I wouldn't bother. Personally I haven't used a tent in years. Maybe if you are really staying out in some bad weather or are staying in one place for awhile it is worth it but otherwise I would skip it. A bivy around your sleeping bag and a poncho to wrap your ruck/ boots/ etc in is a good solution and it saves pounds and space.

Unless you are young, healthy and really like it do not carry beer or soda. Carry the water you need and have a plan (boil, filter, purify, etc) to get more. If you want alcohol carry liquor in a plastic bottle. A bit of booze, a deck of cards and a fire is a pretty good way to spend an evening.

Guess I have two final thoughts. First always carry a bit heavier sleeping bag and more serious wet/ cold weather clothing than you think you will need. Secondly if you take the amount your realistically think you can carry and subtract 5 or 10 pounds you will probably be good.

Insurgencies

Insurgencies are an interesting thing. The best definition I have ever heard labels insurgencies as 'an armed competition for the support of the populace'. Instead of using votes or the political structure of the place insurgents use force. Sometimes they use force because the political structure does not allow for bottom up change even when a significant percentage of the population desires it (example South Africa under apartheid) or because the majority of the population does not

Getting Along

I do not live in a Communist society or a third world thugocracy or an increadibly courupt place. However I have definitely seen the benefits of being able to establish relationships and shmooze. In life, work and especially large organizations I have difficulty properly emphasizing how much relationships can get you. From a guy at a gunshop who might give you a call when something that is your style comes in to being able to get supplies, speed something up or generally bend the rules a little bit. I'm not talking about ripping anyone off or cheating or anything like that. Just maybe you need approval from an agency that usually takes 4 months and you have 2 weeks. It is amazing how a few kind words and treating someone with dignity can get your stuff shuffled towards the top of the list. If you need something that a store has limited amounts of do you think the guy is going to sell it to someone who has a nice conversation with them regularly or a jerk? A smile can sure do a lot for you.

I also think that using some discretion is important. Even if you have a pretty solid connection with a guy sooner or later it will get burned out if you are always coming to them for a favor. I think of it like I can potentially get a certain amount of help/ favors/ whatever based upon my relationship with someone.  Thus I try to do this sparingly. Also you need to remember that it works both ways.

Helping people whenever you can. Even if you really don't want to and it hurts a bit, in addition to being the right thing to do for a buddy, ensures that when YOU ask for something you will likely get it.

Do What You Can

Sometimes for whatever reason you cannot pursue an area of preparedness. Hard to buy stuff if you are broke, hard to work on your cardio when you just had surgery, etc. We all fact a time where, if just temporarily we have to put the breaks on some of our goals or efforts. This is one of those things that you have got to embrace because you are stuck with it anyway.

I encourage you not just to think about what you cannot do. Think about what you can do and go for it. A twelve hour flight isn't good for much and you could either try to sleep or read a useful book and learn something new. Never know when that knowledge might come in useful and it is certainly more useful than having a few drinks and taking a nap. Instead of wasting time you can do PT.

My point is to constantly be moving to improve your position. Instead of saying 'I am broke' or 'I am busy' look at the what is available in your situation and go for that.

Dealing

Things are not great right now. Our economy is at best floundering and will take several years for a full recovery and at worst, well I hope you have bullets, beans and bandaids. I think it is important to keep a sense of perspective and a positive attitude. First of all Americans, even 'poor' Americans are rich by world standards. If you can turn on a faucet and have all the clean water you want you are rich and most of us can do that (the ones who can't have chosen not to for whatever reason). Seriously we all have our wants and struggles but we have it pretty darn good. Attitude is just so darn important. A person who ends up in a bad situation with a good attitude and the willingness to move forward and deal with the new reality is always better off. There are numerous cases of people who are well prepared and essentially die of giving up and other cases of people who are in horrible situations and get through almost exclusively on good attitude and willingness to do what must be done. For Americans and most likely other folks it is really hard to accept reality and a change in standard of living or life patterns. Unfortunately the idea that you cannot have a 'middle class' lifestyle is tantamount to accepting defeat and failure as a person. I encourage you to ignore what other people think. Other people are poor and have seriously skewed values.

Also I think it is important to remember that broad trends are made up of a very large amount of individuals. I think we are facing an overall drop in quality of life of the American middle class. Call it whatever you want, inflation, market cycles, changes in labor patterns, depression, etc but it seems to be the situation. I urge you to work to either move against this trend or at least mitigate its effects on you and your family. Just because there is an overall 20% decline in standard of living doesn't mean it has to happen to you. Or in a more extreme case if most people lose everything and you just lose something you are better off. I think it makes sense to work along both traditional lines of effort such as good financial choices, increasing your earning power, etc as well as more preparedness oriented ones like tangible stores of wealth, primative and survival skills, alpha stragegy type purchases and the 3 B's. In the real world your finances and other boring stuff are almost surely more important for your ability to deal with realistic situations then the kind of semi automatic rifle you choose, the bullets that are in your handgun or whatever. 

AKs and Glocks

It is interesting to me that people sometimes call the AK-47 the Glock of the Rifle world. I would say it is expressedly the opposite that the Glock is the AK-47 of the pistol world. First of all the AK-47 came first by about 30 years. Secondly there have almost surely (don't have google right now but I would bet a good bottle of Scotch on it) been more AK-47's and direct dissendents (Not even getting into Galil's and Valumet's and Siaga's. I'm talking different makers, folding stock vs fixed, etc) than Glocks. I appreciate both of these guns because they are utterly reliable, rugged, widely distributed and easy to operate. Last and almost best of all they are both, if not cheap, then certainly at a very competitive price point for all of their other great attributes. Also of special significance for those who like to keep a good amount of magazines and spare parts those are affordable too. The difference between a $20 mag and a $50 mag is significant if you plan to purchase 20 of them. The cost of equipping some weapons well with mags and spare parts would be ruinous to all but the biggest budgets. You will not find a gun that has all of their positive attributes at anywhere near the price of the Glock or the AK.

For example I have long been wishing for and am more recently starting to plan (ie save for) an M1A. It is not particularly practical (because of price) and the cost to equip them is quite high. For the cost of an M1A with 20 mags, a few spare parts and a case of ammo I could almost surely have TWO like sets of AK's. I'm not purchasing this gun for a deal (it is the last rifle I REALLY want) but for those who are trying to get equipped on the cheap an AK for you and the Mrs. with plenty of mags and ammo.

A Team Review

I have got a lot of time to kill today. On the bright side there happens to be a laptop with an external hard drive full of DVD's here so at least I have some entertainment. Just got finished watching the A Team. As I am trying to multi task and get some posts written for a future time I am away you are going to get a review. Anyway here we go.

The Good: It was an enjoyable movie. Maybe I am a sucker for action movies but it was entertaining. Plenty of action, some funny lines, explosions and of course a really sweet van. You would probably enjoy it also. I think it also lead to some interesting thoughts. I think people who live certain kinds of lives would be well advised to have some sort of contingency plans. As noted in a previous post sometimes bad things happen to good people. Having a plan is a darn good start. Of course you need to consider what sort of scenario you might fall into. For instance I know a guy who knew a guy that happened to unintentionally (he got ripped off and had their stuff) for a bunch of drugs. He moved a thousand miles the next day and didn't tell anybody. The guys who were unhappy with him would certainly kill him if he came back and was having beers at a local establishment but if he stays gone he is fine. Other situations may be more complicated particularly of the individuals you are making unhappy happen to have access to digital databases and or legitimate legal status. Regardless having a stash of cash would really help the situation. It certainly won't solve all your problems but some greenbacks will help. A bag you would be happy living out of for awhile and a handgun could be sound ideas also. That way you at least have time to make a plan. Someone into some really crazy shit might want to consider some sort of alternate identification though that is illegal and I would never suggest it. If that ID happened to have a vehicle which is properly registered vehicle in it's name that would really be a start. Unless you are the FBI top 10 or some sort of elite paramilitary organization is after you that will probably be sufficient. The idea of moving to a whole different place might be daunting but in some situations it could be the only really valid idea. While it is the basis of many a good action movie killing all sorts of people, blowing things up and redeaming yourself through revengs is a great movie. In real life if you can manage to get clear of things, maybe as John Smith and find a boring job and build a new modest life you are doing great.

Also the movie had Jessica Biel which is always nice.

The Bad: At a few points the movie was downright cheesy and rediculous. I found myself thinking 'this is just stupid' more than once.

The Ugly: Nothing ugly. It is what it is. A fun action movie with some cheesy parts.

Your wife will probably not like it but it is good for a night with the buddies.

4th of July

Well it is the 4th of July. A pretty quiet day here. Obviously we need to maintain security, provide some basic services as well as maintain C2, however on the whole it is as light of a day as possible.No beer or fireworks but there was a pretty good spread of food which I vigerously ate my way through. I've got to hand it to our cooks. They really cook the heck out of what they are given. Having eaten in facilities that are outstanding and others which are horrible I can attest to their knowhow and care of preparation being the difference between something that will (or in extreme cases won't) fill your stomach and fuel you for a few hours and an enjoyable meal that raises your spirits. Those guys work insane hours in probably the least sexy job in the military and deserve more credit than they get. Anyway today leaves me somewhat reflective about a lot of things. I am not going to wax about history or philosophy. Birthday's are a great time for an azmith check. Our country isn't in a substantially different place than a year ago. However we were not in a great place, by any measure, a year ago. The drama in the Eurozone has at a minimum shown a possible direction we could be headed in. We probably have a lot more electronic money floating around than a year ago, but some time back those numbers started sounding like made up ones little kids would use to taunt eachother on the playground so I stopped paying attention. We are getting out of Iraq which is a good thing. I truly hope the best for that nation but the next chapter is going to have to be written by it's own citizens. We are also, at least in theory starting to phase out of Afghanistan. Probably for the best. By this point, a decade into this war, if we have not achieved a desired endstate it is time to take a good hard look at how much more blood and money we are willing to put into meeting our goals. The general concensus is not very much. The hard truth is that the Afghan government is going to have to stand on it's own feet pretty soon. We seem to be involved in Libya and I am not at all sure what to say about that one. Is there a way we can keep a good record of ordinance that is about to go past it's lifespan and just measure that up with a list of countries what have pissed us off? Some logisticial could just allocate the 500 scuds which go bad in a few months toward whomever is currently pissing us off. It would be cheaper than using newer ordinance.

I am concerned about the problems on our border with Mexico. Also the rise of no knock warrants against average people going wrong bothers me a lot. There has got to be some way cops can retain that tool they genuinely need but use enough discretion that normal, fundamentally decent, folks aren't getting killed all the time. If this keeps up a lot of folks may start to reevaluate their stance on cops. Cops might find themselves aweful alone in a big scary world if this keeps up for much longer.

I do not think all is lost. America is a big, strong country with a lot of productive power. Sort of like an exceptionally big/ strong man in a fight, even when we are getting the worst of it a solid punch landed can totally change a fight. A governing body that decided to fuel growth and took some (I'm not talking fixing every entitlement problem over night) reasonable steps to get spending under control could change things in a hurry. That would let us stop borrowing like crazy and be on a more even trading field with China. Businesses having the confidence to spend their on hand cash and people being willing to expand their businesses or start new ventures would radically change the employment situation. These problems could be solidly in our rear view mirror in a few years. I know that outlook is a bit rosy but I want to break us all out of the doom and gloom group think. Anyway I hope you have a good Independence Day

Lazer Brite Tactical Light System

Check out their website https://www.lazerbrite.com/. I got one of these rather randomly. Basically it is a battery powered glow stick. At first I was unimpressed but over the last year I have used it like crazy. It is almost the only flashlight/ light source I use.

 

I really appreciate how it lights up an area instead of a single beam. Also it's green or red settings don't totally screw up your night vision so there isn't the blind after turning off the flashlight effect.

 

They are great for walking around in the dark or finding what you need from a bag or closet. I own a lot of flashlights but just keep using this. Don't know what the cost but it is probably reasonable. They last forever on a set of batteries.

 

I don't have any real quantifiable argument why these are great but I seem to regularly forgo other options and use it.

 

I think those who choose to purchase one will not be disapointed.

 

Top 10 Nonessentials

Nonessential Things I Would Want If...
1. Toilet paper
2. Coffee
3. Chapstick
4. Socks
5. Books (non reference as reference are considered essential)
6. Booze
7. Fingernail Clippers
8. Asprin/ tylenol
9. Sunscreen
10. electronic entertainment (music/ dvd's/ etc)

To My Friends

I have a few friends who for various reasons are in a bad way as of late. Problems with work and money as well as the undefinable "life" are the culprit's. I have a few thoughts which may help them.

On work: It amazes me that some folks seem to spend so little time choosing how to earn a living. Something that takes so much of ones time and shapes so many other things merit's significant deliberate thought. There are a lot of theories on how you should choose to make a living. Some folks say "do what you love and then things will be great" or something like that. Others say you should figure out how much money you want to make and then find something tolerable that will get you there. My idea falls somewhere in the middle. For most of us things we really enjoy doing fail to readily translate into a viable living. I love traveling, blogging, shooting guns, preparedness and scotch. Through a lot of work and a good measure of luck I manage to make a few bucks from blogging. However that will not come anywhere close to providing my family with a viable living. I really do like my job but at the end of the day it is still a job. There is a reason it is called work not "happy fun time". If I stopped being compensated for my work I could sit on the couch or something but more realistically I would go do something else. The reality is that everybody who is not independently wealthy and does not desire to live in some state of squallor needs to have a continual income. Find a job you reasonably enjoy or that makes you enough money to be happy with other things and you are doing better than lots of folks.

On life: First of all despite what we may have seen from a rose colored glasses version of 1946-1990ish America life is in fact hard. If it is any consolation life now is still very easy by historical standards. It has become abundantly clear to me (especially since I am in Afghanistan) that life without some sort of purpose greater than one's self is very important. It could be religion, family, community or whatever. The point is that unless something is driving you it is very easy to be overcome and worn down by life's difficulties. Having something to keep you going when things get bad is just so important.

On money: I think it is important to differentiate between short term and systemic money problems. You get cut back to part time for a bit and the transmission on the family car goes out and that makes for a rough month or two. Become disabled and unable to continue in your previous line of work and that is likely permenant or at least long term. If you are short of money every month that is a long term thing. This is particularly relevant for folks at the breaking point of what we call the middle class. The cultural pressures to be part of this group, or at least have some of it's trappings (owning a home, certain types of vehicles, etc all) is very high. Unfortunately this motivates a high percentage of individuals in this income range to reach just up to (which is never a good thing) or beyond their means. Folks in this range spending a very high (often 40%+) of their income on housing is common. This causes so many problems for these folks. All I can say is that to get out of this trap one needs to either figure out how to live on less and make the choice to do so or figure out how to boost their income. I am aware that cultural pressure here is high and the solution is easy to say but hard to do.

For people of all income ranges who, without a sudden life changing event, perpetually live right up to or beyond their means there are definite psychological factors involved. Suze Orman says that when your finances get out of whack it means you are unhappy with some part of your life and that is probably true.

As for solutions: So much of this stuff muddles together. When you are happy with your relationships and life then living within your means is typically easier.

Career Thoughts

Wifey and I talked recently about our future. We are both, on the whole pretty happy with my job. It looks like I am going to keep doing this for the long haul. I enjoy my job, if not every position I end up in (the good thing about the Army is that you change jobs every year or so and inside every couple years or so there is a total turnover of personnel. So if you don't like a position or person sooner or later things will change) and am pretty happy with things. I certainly don't make a ton of money but plenty to meet all of our needs and a reasonable amount of our desires. What does this mean for our plans? Well it means we will keep movig around to various places. This has significant implications for disaster and contingency planning as well as our ability to accumulate and store gear, food and supplies. Also it really limits the sort of place we will choose to live. Going to the time and expense of developing (small farm type stuff) a piece of land and acquiring all sorts of tools and animals to move to move in a short period of time does not make good sense on any level. A few acres with a garden and some chickens is about the most I can see until we are going to be relatively stationary. This really limits our food production capabilities. 

The good part is that relatively speaking my job is pretty secure. Conventional thought says our Army is going to be getting smaller but I am not so sure. Looking at the trend of our progressive increase in involvement in Africa and the last years events in the Middle East (as well as their likely continuation) I don't see our forces shrinking drastically. To me the hollow Army model of the late 70's and early-mid 80's might be more relevant. Our funding for equipment and training could well decrease with a corresponding change in overall readiness. Suffice to say I am not worried about job security. Pretty much any way you look at it by not being stationary in the inland PNW we are going to be less capable of preparing for some scenarios.

There are however some good parts. At work I do and learn things that are pretty useful. I also have added motivation to stay in shape. My kit is pretty much squared away all the time because I use it for work. I am regularly able to use and evaluate for personal use different gear and products. Also I make a reasonabl decent living which is pretty secure. While most of the countries I travel to happen to suck it is still pretty interesting to go to new places and do new things.

The way forward for our preparedness is heavily shaped by my job. We need transportable, modular capabilities a lot more than someone who is static. Being able to readily reproduce supplies or other objects that are not readily transportable is essential. This runs the gammet of situations/ options and includes making donations of heavy and or bulky household supplies during a PCS (a hundred bucks worth of toilet paper will fill up a large SUV). Being able to keep capabilities and have a minimal regular loss of goods/ equipment is essential. I don't need one nice set of garden planters. I need to be able to reproduce some sort of garden planter every few years without breaking the bank.

I am still not sure what the answers all are but thinking through the potential problems can't hurt.

MOP/MOE

 I have recently been exposed to a formalization of a concept I have long
    used. It is measures of performance and measures of effectiveness.
    Measures of performance are what we do and measures of effectiveness are
    what happens. These are a way to measure what we are doing to reach
    certain goals and how well it is working. Some measures of performance
    might be intermittently buying Wifey flowers or small gifts, listening
    to her tell me about her day even when I don't want to or trying not to
    look like someone out of a cheesy 70's action movie (I have a horrible
    sense of style). The measure of effectiveness would be Wifey being happy
    in our relationship.
   
    Putting thought into MOP/ MOE lets us see if our plans are working
    toward our goals or not. These are particularly useful for being
    intentional in our lives which is a big theme of mine recently. Also I
    think some level of record keeping can be important. Keeping track of
    these in a semi formalized way makes it very easy to really see what our
    measures of performance are. Not as we wish them to be or think they are
    but what actually happens. Example you plan to diet and exercise to lose
    30 pounds of spare tire. It is one thing to plan to eat reasonably and
    work out a few times a week. It is another to know you are consuming
    2,100 calories a day and working out 4x a week doing a 4 mile jog/ walk
    and a program of bodyweight exercises and some weights. When the first
    vague plan does not work you don't know what went wrong and will often
    give up. However if you keep good records it is as easy as dropping to
    1900 calories and adding another run.
    

10 Skills for surviving the Apocalypse

http://www.askmen.com/top_10/celebrity/top-10-skills-for-surviving-the-apocalypse_10.h

Quote of the Day

"A goal without a plan is just a wish."
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Life Update

Well it is the end of the month so it's goal review time.
Strength is cranking and starting to improve my composition.
Been reading more lately. Still working on "The Other Side of the
Mountain".
Restocked the emergency fund. We didn't have an emergency parse but with
all we had going on some things were kind of in a state of flux.

Other than that not much is going on.