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485 US Army Survival Manual FM 21-76, at http://www.equipped.org/.
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sun hat, tool kit, kit - packing list, tarpaulin, Survival Manual (afm 64-5), kit - inner case, kit - outer case, attaching strap, ejector snap.
3. Overwater Kit – packing list, raft boat paddle, Survival Manual (afm 64-5), insect head net, reversible sun hat, water storage bag, mc-1 magnetic compass, boat bailer, sponge, sunburn-preventive cream, wood matches, first-aid kit, plastic spoon, pocket knife, food packets, fluorescent sea marker, frying pan, seawater desalter kit, compressed trioxane fuel, smoke, il umination signals, signalling mirror, fishing tackle kit, waterproof match box, raft repair kit.
Items in the various medical packets include: a surgical razor, tweezers, insect repellent, sun screen lotion, soap, surgical adhesive tape, aspirin tablets, adhesive bandage, gauze, elastic bandage, diphenoxylate hydrochloride and atropine sulphate tablets, sulfacetamide sodium ophthalmic ointment and iodine water purification tablets.
Zombie apocalypse writers have also put together some good, basic survival packs. F. Kim O Neil , in The Ultimate Guide to Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse,486 has the following zombie bug out bag: (1) maps and compass; (2) a gun and at least 100 rounds of ammo, magazines and maybe a cleaning kit; (3) multitool; (4) utility knife; (5) short sword-kukri or sheathed gladius; (6) flashlight, batteries and spare bulbs; (7) food rations; (8) small quantity of water (weight problem) plus water purification tablets; (9) fire making gear; (10) first-aid kit; (11) warm clothes; (12) space blanket; (13) rope/paracord; (14) radio; (15) personal hygiene kit (sunblock, toothpaste, dental floss, towel); (16) shovel and for zom poc, armor such as gauntlets.487
A similar sound list is given by Michael Thomas and Nick Thomas in Zompoc: How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse: 488 (1) drinking 486 F. Kim O’Neil , The Ultimate Guide to Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse (Paladin Press, Boulder, Colorado, 2010).
487 As above, pp. 86-87.
488 Michael Thomas and Nick Thomas, Zompac: How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse (Swordworks, United Kingdom, 2009).
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water; (2) first-aid kit; (3) antibacterial wipes; (4) antibacterial hand sanitizer; (5) toilet paper; (6) feminine hygiene products (for the ladies and wound dressing); (7) clean towels and face cloths: (8) fuel stove and cooking pot; (9) toothpaste, toothbrush and dental floss; (10) hydrogen peroxide; (11) isopropyl alcohol; (12) flashlight and batteries; (13) candles; (14) green emergency glow sticks; (15) survival whistle; (16) compass; (17) signal mirror; (18) flint fire starter, waterproof matches, lighter; (19) waterproof containers and bags; (20) warm jacket (also waterproof and breathable); (21) multitool/
knife; (22) working gloves; (23) nylon rope, at least 45 feet; and (24) gaffer tape.
Max Brooks’ bestselling book, The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead,489 also contains items, which by now we are seeing as standard: (1) backpack; (2) hiking boots; (3) two pairs of socks; (4) water bottle; (5) water purification tablets; (6) waterproof matches; (7) bandana; (8) maps of area; (9) compass; (10) flashlight; (11) poncho; (12) signalling mirror; (13) bedroll or sleeping bag; (14) sunglasses; (15) first-aid kit; (16) Swiss Army knife or multitool; (17) radio; (18) knife; (19) binoculars; (20) firearm, rifle, 50 rounds of ammo; (21) cleaning kit; (22) pistol (Brooks favors a .22 rimfire, 25 rounds); (23) hand weapon and (24) signal flares.490 Brooks recommends for a group, that one person carry maps, a compass, radio, binoculars, cleaning kit and signal flares.491 He recommends for groups: (1) silent ballistic weapon e.g.
crossbow or silenced firearm plus ammo (a good thing to have even without Hol ywood zombies); (2) telescopic sight; (3) medical kit; (4) two-way radio; (5) crowbar; and (6) water-purification pump.492
Again, all sound ideas.
Be sure that your bug out bag/survival kit has multiple means of starting a campfire including waterproof matches, flint and steel 489 Max Brooks, The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead (Three Rivers Press, New York, 2003).
490 As above, pp. 101-102.
491 As above, p. 102.
492 As above.
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and a number of magnesium block fire-makers, Swedish fire steels and even cigarette lighters. Learn how to start a fire in wet weather.493
Embers could be carried to start the next fire as the Australian Aborigines did, and survivalists could do this using their cast iron cooking pots. A short-term supply of tinder could come from cotton wool soaked in petroleum jel y, but torn-up philosophy and sociology books, soaked in petroleum jel y, a classical genitalia lubricant, burn with a political y correct warmth. One can even see a halo over the books as they burn.
There are two excellent disaster preparedness books by women that give detailed bug out/survival kits: Kathy Harrison, Just in Case: How to be Self-Sufficient When the Unexpected Happens 494 and Peggy Layton, Emergency Food Storage and Survival Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Keep Your Family Safe in a Crisis.495 Apart from these being overall good books, especial y in the area of food storage and preparation, the flavor of the books and writing style appeals to women and gifts of these books to your female partner and daughters should be considered. Both books also have discussions of emergency kits, and some important information can be found, not explicitly mentioned in most of the books written by those with testicles, such as dealing with children or babies. Harrison, for example, mentions that cast iron is the only cookware material able to withstand the high temperatures of wood fire cooking and most other cookware material will not last as long.496 This is an important consideration for apocalyptic bugging out, as a cooking pot will be essential for boiling water as part of your water purification rituals, as well as carrying embers.497
493 “How to Start a Fire in the Rain: An Illustrated Guide,” November 5, 2015, at http://
www.artofmanliness.com/2015/11/05/how-to-start-a-fire-in-the-rain-an-il ustrated-guide/.
494 Kathy Harrison, Just in Case: How to be Self-Sufficient When the Unexpected Happens (Storey Publishing, North Adams, 2008).
495 Peggy Layton, Emergency Food Storage and Survival Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Keep Your Family Safe in a Crisis (Three Rivers Press, New York, 2002).
496 Harrison, as above, p. 45.
497 For further bug out/survival kit lists see Albert Bates, The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook: Recipes for Changing Times (New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, BC, 2006); “Thoughts on Disaster Survival,” at http://www.frfrogspad.com/disastr.htm.
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Earlier I mentioned Cody Lundin, US Aboriginal skil s expert.
His two must-read books are 98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive! 498 and When All Hell Breaks Loose: Stuff You Need to Survive When Disaster Strikes. 499 Both books are written with an earthly humour; Lundin cites a note from Col. Jeff Cooper who refused to endorse 98.6 Degrees: “Sorry, but Anglo-Saxon vulgarisms give evidence of lack of imagination and limited vocabulary, and are not to be taken seriously.” On the contrary, the literary device of
“vulgarisms,” the zany drawings, especial y of hot babes with big tits, gets Lundin’s message across to his intended audiences; the books are “blokey,” but in no way show limited knowledge. Lundin exhibits considerable knowledge of human physiology and biochemistry, as he clearly explains the dangers of hypothermia and hyperthermia, for example. He shows how hypothermia, the drop of one’s core body temperature below 98.6 F (37 C) and hyperthermia, the raising of core body temperature above these base temperatures, can be prevented by use of clothing, shelters and making a fire, for the case of hypothermia. It is not the point of the present book to examine all of these details and reinvent the wheel. Regarding, for example, hypothermia prevention, he gives a fine outline of the modern layering system for cold environments (base lay
ers, insulation layers and environmental layers). Stated simply the base layer is worn against the skin and must wick away sweat, but in cold weather, keep you warm. The mid-base layer provides basic insulation and warmth when conditions are mild. The insulation later supplements the mid and base layers for colder conditions. The outer or environmental layer is breathable to allow sweat and heat to escape, but provides a waterproof barrier against wind, rain and snow. Having faced the prospects of hypothermia once myself on a hunting trip, I greatly appreciated these books.500
498 Cody Lundin, 98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive! (Gibbs Smith, Salt Lake City, 2003).
499 Cody Lundin , When All Hell Breaks Loose: Stuff you Need to Survive When Disaster Strikes (Gibbs Smith Publishers, Salt Lake City, 2007).
500 See further, L. McCullough and S. Arora, “Diagnosis and Treatment of Hypothermia,”
American Family Physician, vol. 7, no. 12, 2004, pp. 2325-2332.
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Specific details about clothing, sleeping bags and tents can be found in a classic backpacker’s book such as Chris Townsend’s The Backpacker’s Handbook, which is now in its fourth edition.501
Townsend is an experienced backpacker and has travelled across the world, and experienced all matter of climates. His book goes into detail about the best brands of hiking books, sleeping bags, tents and so on. This is another must-get, must-read book by an author who is a world expert on this topic.
The basics: as you do not know where you will end up, a person bugging out after a col apse will need to have a synthetic sleeping bag rated to at least -20 C and adequate warm clothing in the layer system to survive if and when it snows. One should have sound wet wear-pants and a jacket or poncho, waterproof and breathable and a snow parker, also waterproof and breathable and when not in use, it can be rolled up, and a cotton work shirt can be put over it to make a pillow.
Clothing systems need also to be able to deal with hot weather, and while cotton is a “death cloth” for cold wet weather, the fabric works fine in hot, dry climates, wicking moisture.
Headgear is essential: a waterproof, wide brimmed hat for winter travel, plus a woollen cap or balaclava for sleeping. In the summer, especial y areas with a diminished ozone layer, such as Australia and Chile, a wide-brimmed sun hat plus bandana is reasonable. However, as the sun gets “lower” on intensive uv days, one can still get burnt even if wearing a hat and bandana. Here in Texas, I usual y stitch cotton side protection to a hat that can be clipped in the front to resemble Arab head gear. When I was working in the Australian bush, I have worked outdoors in 43 C + heat with eye-frying uv radiation, and with good wrap around glasses, have not gotten sunburnt. I have fashioned sun hats with cotton side and front covers from cheap straw hats (two or three placed over each other creates strength and resistance from moderate strikes from vegetation/light tree branches when cutting) and in the winter I take off the covers and put duct tape on the surface of the hat to make a rain hat for less than US $6.
501 Chris Townsend, The Backpacker’s Handbook, 4th edition (McGraw Hil , New York, 2012).
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Lightweight tents will not see out the distance in any longer-term survival event. Usual y zips fall apart, or the fabric tears. Tarps are a good fall-back when the tent ultimately dies. Otherwise bugging out could become a form of buggery by Nature.
There are other things to be said about equipment that I leave to the section below on wilderness and backwoods survival philosophy.
Rounding off this discussion on bugging out, it is important to note that all of the discussions in bugout/survival kits are heavily influenced by “lost in the woods/bush/desert” scenarios. Not much thought has been given to “bugging out forever” where one takes all that one can carry, and like the first settlers, our pioneering ancestors, makes a new home from scratch. The reason for this is that most preppers are not preparing for the zombie apocalypse. Indeed, it would be extremely difficult for one person or a small survival group to survive with just the gear on their backs. We are assuming here the worst-case scenario of say evacuation from one’s retreat because of climate change, disasters or a range of other factors. Eco-refugees, we assume as wel , will travel on foot, perhaps because of the presence of real zombies, cannibals, predators and associated zmb scum and filth on the roads, as in the movie and book, The Road, or if roads are simply clogged with the debris of cars. In the alternative, bugging out may occur in the distant future because of climate change and other ecological disasters, long after cars have deteriorated.
In the worst-case scenario, assuming again that one has at least enough time to bug out, an individual or group needs a survival cart with tires that are from a mountain bike, with a repair kit and bike pump, or solid rubber tyres. Each person can carry a basic survival backpack with their cloths and personal items in case they get separated from the group. Thus, each person has everything they need for bugging out on an individual basis. The survival cart will be a small version of the pioneers’ covered wagon. Waterproof, extra-large duffel bags will be arranged to a human’s needs survival theme. One bag can be full of medical, surgical and health supplies; another, small hand tools; another to self-defense, with spare parts to guns (if you have any left), cleaning kits and ammunition. There 184
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should be at least one large food bag with compact, nutritious, long-life foods. mre’s are a possibility, although there are problems for many people with long-term use, such as digestive issues, as mre’s have ingredients similar to most highly processed food, being high in salt and low in fiber, and they are not light weight.502 But, perhaps one could have dried goods, beans, legumes, grains, powdered milk, protein powder, multivitamins, powdered “superfood” supplement, and freeze dried foods, to construct one’s own healthy mre’s.503 Tin food would be unsatisfactory because of the weight of the tin and liquid content. Food to be taken must have a high nutrition energy to weight ratio, and one can’t eat the tin. It is true that tin foods in having water already in the food do not need to have water added, but you are simply not going to be able to carry sufficiently more than a few days’ supply of water, so obtaining water will become, along with preventing hyper- and hypothermia and security, your main concerns in bugging out.
We will discuss wilderness survival shortly. My view on “living off the land” is that if what is meant by this phrase is heading into the woods or outback scrub with no bushcraft skil s, or poor ones, you will probably starve to death, or get eaten by predators. Much depends on what wild food is in the environment where you choose to make your, perhaps, last stand. If game is available and you have a firearm, your chances of survival improve. Living entirely on gathered wild foods is difficult. This is well il ustrated by the documentary Alone in the Wild (2009, Channel 4), where the likeable bloke Ed Wardle attempted to last three months in the wild at Dog Pack Lake and Tincup Lake, Yukon, Canada. He lasted a respectable 50 days, breaking down because of loneliness (“I miss people too much”) and lack of food. Although he had a rifle and a pump action shotgun, Canadian socialist law prevented him from shooting game, which 502 Sergeant Survival, “Best Bug Out Bag Survival Foods: The Ultimate Guide to Picking the Perfect Food for Your BOB,” at http://besurvival.com/guides/best-bug-out-bag-survival-foods-the-ultimate-guide-to-picking-the-perfect-food-for-your-bob.
503 Tess Pennington, “Do It Yourself: How to Make Nutritious Homemade Meals-Ready-To-Eat (MREs),” February 23, 2016, at http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/do-it-yourself-how-to-make-nutritious-homemade-meals-ready-to-eat-mres_02232016.
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was available. He reflected, in one segment of the documentary, while hungrily eyeing a juicy moose, that if he could have shot the beast, hunger would be gone.
However, long-term survival will involve more than just hunting and gathering. Simple agriculture will need to be pra
cticed. This means that a survival bag needs to be devoted to non-hybrid seeds for vegetables (and fruit trees that can be grown realistical y from carried seeds rather than nursery-prepared seedlings, which as pot plants will not be practical to carry), with adequate stocks to prepare for a possible failed first or even second crop. Some basic hand tools will need to be taken. I have planted gardens on the family farm by hand since the age of six, growing my own food, as my alcoholic father drunk most of the food money. I was able to grow melons, potatoes, corn and other vegetables just using seeds which I got from the wasted food, collected from supermarket waste, before it was fed to the pigs and cows. If I could grow my own food, using only hand tools as a grade school kid, nothing should hold you back.
I planted crops using a mattock and a heavy “chipping hoe.” These tools are your basic ones. To clear scrub, it would be useful to have a cutting-edge mattock or bushhook, which by the way can double-up as an excellent zombie melee weapon. It would be nice to have, a “slasher”—an old-style tool which is essential y an agriculture version of a pole axe weapon (or vice-versa)—a thick blade on a pole (say a long shovel handle), for scrub clearing. You will probably need to make one if you have black smithing skil s or get one made up before the col apse. A long-handled spade, with a flat rather than curved blade, can also be sharpened on the edges for scrub clearing, and as we will see later in book 2, zombie clearing as wel .
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Wilderness and Blackwood’s Survival
Philosophy: Live Off the Land or Die Trying
Bear Gryl s’ series (2006-2011) Man vs. Wild (and more recently
The Island with Bear Gryl s (2014-2018) and Running Wild with Bear Gryl s, (2014- 2018), has taken wilderness survival into the lounge room and made this aspect of survivalism respectable for the tv watching, pizza chomping crowd. Bear is famous for tasting truly disgusting survival “foods” such as thick juicy bugs and describing the taste sensations, along the lines of: “It’s like eating lukewarm pus mixed with snot…” As wel , he has drunk his own urine, and squeezed elephant turds to put water his mouth, to hell with disease transmission. If you think about drinking your own urine, while theoretical y this seems reasonable, in a survival situation when you are desperate enough for moisture to drink your own urine, the urine is likely to be concentrated with salts and toxins and not suitable for drinking anyway. Likewise, for water in shit. Bear’s urine was not likely to be very concentrated, so he was able to do it because he was not in a real survival situation. Most survival literature recommends against drinking one’s urine (along with sea water of course), but both can yield drinking water if distilled.504 Securing water is a vital wilderness skill that I will say more on shortly.