HONORABLE MENTION

If I haven't said it before, http://bisonsurvivalblog.blogspot.com/, gave us a nice mention the other day. Mr. Dakim is a good writer and on occasion is quite humorous. The Handmaiden is an English Major and she laughs at a lot of his jokes. His forte is thinking about something before he acts. He shows himself to be a true survivalist. I think he is like me in that he reads other survivalist blogs on a regular basis and gets his 'stay alive' fix as he can. Put this guy on your reading list. He gets after it!

DOOMSDAY SCENARIO

I was reading Ranger Man from up in Maine yesterday and he got on the subject of the first 24 hours of SHTF. I think that is a worthy subject. Very worthy indeed.

Because you have heeded the words of the main body of survivalists, it is a given that you will have plenty of food and water stored to keep your grip on life. You will be out of the citites and you will not be alone but within a group of like minded individuals. If you have had enough time you will have constructed food cellars of concrete covered by dirt and gravel to a depth of 4 to 5 feet. Not totally impervious to the missiles of TEOTWAWKI but damned close. So you will be protected and you will have food and water. You will have weapons and ammo. You will have first aid handy. You get into the cellar and you wait out the trouble. Then you come out and get on with living. I learned from a Master Survivalist. His preparations were superb. I am sticking with them. They will keep me and mine alive for a long time. Just come out of that cellar prepared to defend what you have. You worked hard for it and you have the right to keep it. If you can.

FREEBOOTERS

These are the guys who will initially make trouble for you. It is known that there are men who have nothing but weapons and ammo for their survival. They will have 4WD pick-up trucks or motorcycles. I look for them to mostly be on motorcycles in order to avoid taffic jams. A slender motorcycle will get out of town a lot easier than a wide truck or car. They can get decent gas mileage and scrounge for what they need on the road itself. A few gallons of fuel will be easy to come by if the person who wants it has an assault rifle pointed at whoever owns the fuel. In life and death situations ownership is a murky concept. There won't be any cops to call for you to get aid and assistance. There will be no trip to jail for the thief. I guess ownership is to he who wins. I believe that is called the Law of the Jungle. So you can almost bet your life that Freebooters wil be following the Law of the Jungle. In the jungle, he who wins eats, he who loses, well, he passes on. Do not get caught up in standard American Citizen type of thinking. This will turn you into a slow reacting, and probably dead, person. Remember that story title by Elmore Leonard, The Quick and the Dead? Well, that is an apt description of how to stay alive in a mob ruled world. Be QUICK. The slow guys will be DEAD. Let the gang or the mob see THEIR guy's blood mist in the air, not yours.

A LESSON IN LAND SURVEYINNG

Knowing a bit about land surveying can be helpful in knowing how to travel and defend in an ugly situation. If you live in the flat lands of northern Indiana, you will find most of your roads to be laid out in a Township type of arrangement. A Township is 36 square miles, give or take. It's 6 miles by 6 miles. Township 15 or 16 was given over to the school. The local school was built in that township. They built the school and then sold off the timber on the remaining acreage. After that the land was leased to a farmer of some reputee who agreed to pay so much an acre to the school, which the school then used to pay it's teacher. Since this was over 600 acres, the school generally got enough to pay it's way. Nice straight roads and flat land. Text book strategy.

In southern Indiana things were a bit different. Steep hills and rocky hollows were the rule and not the exception. The textbook grid of the Topwnship system didn't work too well in that kind of terrain. So parcels of land are irregularly shaped and the roads follow what is called "the path of least resistance." Where ever there was a steep hill to climb, the road just went around it on most occasions. And where a man had level fields for his farm, when the road went through, the level field was avoided. So southern Indiana country roads follow creek banks and take twisted paths. Roads are thus found on flood plains and winding little hollows made by rushing creeks of "toad strangler" storms which dump a bunch of water and are gone.

GETTING THERE FIRST

No matter where you are in this land of ours, there is country where it is possible to live, defend, and grow your own food. And if these levels of suvival are not present, then look somewhere else. Get established. Get used to the terrain and the lay of the land. Know what all the 'signs' mean in your part of the world. Around my neck of the woods we have a lot of Karst ground. You would call the predominant features of Karst SINKHOLES. That is because ot the Limestone that lays in this land. Limstone is water soluble and over centuries the limestone will dissolve and form caves underground. Sometimes these caves are close to the surface of the land and when things get right the land collapses into what we call a sinkhole. They would be ponds except water won't stay in them cause it goes on out the cave that is there under the ground. Some fellas years ago got into these sinkholes and walked for very long distances underground. Quite an interesting bunch of stories. Most guys were afraid of the caves. They didn't like it underground. I have explored every nook and cranny I could find between here and the county seat. I always took a friend with me. And I always told the Old Man where I was going and what road I would be on.

But this is not a tale of caves not found. This is a rant about getting where you need to be ahead of the destruction that is going to come. You get your people and you get your land. You have a leader. You have a law. And you get busy building your life. You get busy learning the lay of YOUR land. And you learn the best way to defend your land. And when the Freebooters come, you will be there first and you will be the victor of any battle.

I recall the stories of General Greene in the Revolutionary War in this country. Greene was a Quaker from Pennsylvania and Quakers have a natural tendency to fight the British. They had been horribly abused in England and had come to this continent to get away from it.

Greene did most of his heavy fighting in South Carolina. And I don't think he ever won a battle. But he ran Cornwallis ragged. Constant skirmishing going on all the time. If Greene had fought Cornwallis in conventional battle he would have gotten his ass stomped. So he didn't. He gathered his forces and made a show of battle and when the initial salvos were over Greene's men got the hell outta there. I don't know how many times he pulled this off, but he did it real regular. And he never left any food or forage for the enemy in his retreat. Sort of a scorched earth policy. Cornwallis was finally told to go fight Washington and Washington was ready by then and whipped the pants off of Cornwallis. But Greene knew the lay of the land before he ever fought a battle. He used as much local help as he could find and he treated them with respect. The story goes that he had one battle where the local militia agreed to give the British two musket shots per man before they retreated. Greene accepted those terms.

So start your defense against an invasion a few miles down the road from your home. Hit the bastards and hit them again later. Remember the song "The Battle of New Orleans"? "So we held our fire 'til we seen their faces well, then we opened up our Squirrel Guns and really gave 'em Hell." "We fired our guns and the British kept a comin', there wasn't quite as many as there was a while ago. We fired once more and they begin to runnin', down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico." And if that ain't enough to cure the problem, just fall back to your next good spot and do it again.

WARN THE DEVILS

You can leave a message in the road that the invaders are going to travel. Tell them to send an unarmed negotiator around the next bend in the road and you will talk to him. You might find you have some allies instead of enemies. But be very, very cautious in this approach. Treachery will abound in the land. Never ever give up your position of strength to strangers. It can cost you everything you have. If you decide that the invaders are out to get you then kill the negotiator and get ready for battle.

THE ODDS

Modern warfare teaches that an attacking force needs to out number the defending force by 5 to 1. That means is you have 20 guys on the defense the attackers ought to have a 100 before they stand a reasonable chance of defeating you. This is why attacking is so difficult for an invading force. The defenders are ready and dug in and the invaders have to carry the fight to them. And the defenders will use every dirty trick in the book. Mark that down on your list of things to do. Play dirty. Ignore the rules. Win. Ain't no second place winners in warfare.

Play dirty and stay alive!

Michael