TRIAGE OF SURVIVALISM

I am not in the mood to write this morning. The only thing that has stimulated my brain cells was a line on Survival Acres about triage. Triage is a medical term that stems from medical people having to deal with large numbers of injured people. Say, for instance, a war zone.

In a war zone you can run into huge casualties and your emergency medical system can get pushed to the limit or beyond. So the medical folks devised a method of categorizing the wounded into three groups. The bottom group is the people who will most likely not live no matter what you do. They are the hopeless cases. The next group is the people who will probably make it if they are treated properly. The last group is those who will make it pretty much no matter what you do.

You can put survivalists in a triage analysis also. When the hard times come there are those who will not make it no matter what you do or what anyone else can do. They will not prepare and disdain those who do. They will run out of food and water and fuel very quickly and fall victim to whoever or whatever comes along that might be lethal. But they have recourse to the same news that the rest of us do and they have chosen their belief system according to what they feel. They think the government will care for them and see to their safety. Mr. Mayberry over on Keep It Simple Survival has an article about the people who have set this thing up and stand to rule it, if they can. I think he has it narrowed down to 445 individuals and the blame is quite obvious. They will not give a shit about the condition you are in. They set the condition up, as a matter of fact. You are expendable. You are the masses, made to be enslaved and ruled. And really, I think a lot of people fall into this category. In poor countries they are known as Basket Whores. Give 'em a basket of food and you can do what you want with them. Pull their undies down and have at it! And this will happen. In my lifetime it has happened all over the world to millions upon millions of people and it is now our turn to go through the jungle. The killings and rapes and robberies will be without precedence in our country. The disease and pestilence have no place in our culture, in our background of thinking. For the most part we are totally unprepared. These are the people who die. Nothing can be done to save them, so don't even try. You will be taking on a lost cause. A cause you cannot win.

The middle ground of our triage analysis are the people who know it might happen but underestimate the severity of the situation, the speed with which it will come, and the awful limits of their being able to do anything about it. They just cannot imagine the power going out and the water being shut off and there not being food to buy and no fuel to put in their tank all at once. They may have a place to go, if they can get there. They might have some food, but not for a sustained amount of time. They might have a gun but not enough ammo. What these people have is what I call coming short of the mark. They can be saved with a little help and a little luck.

The third group is the preppers. These are the folks who are ready for the S to HTF. They have their retreat and their supplies. They have their friends all together and are just going to live no matter what. They have seen the coming days in their minds and are going to do what it takes to live. Their kids will eat, their mate will eat, their friends will eat. They will have water and beans and rice and a bunch of other stuff. They will have guns and plenty of ammo. They will have medical supplies. They will have clothing to protect them from cold. They will know where they are and what they can do. You will not fool them on the availability of game and fish in the area. They will know the weather patterns. They will have gardens growing to replenish their food supply. Their retreat population will perform security for all of it's inhabitants. You will not steal their food. At least not without drawing fire. They will make it, barring a nuclear event. They are ready for most anything else and some are ready for that.

So there you have the principle of Triage as it applies to survivalism.

Stay alive.

Michael

mboone@rtccom.net