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Teamwork, the key to survival. #98550
08/16/2006 11:26 AM
08/16/2006 11:26 AM
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ConSigCor Offline OP
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This post comes from Modern Minutemen and should be given serious consideration by all.

Doc
**************************************************

Survival Requires Synergy

Steven D. Ramseur

Once you have studied the realities involved in surviving a long term catastrophe (years, not weeks), it becomes painfully obvious that maintenance of a reasonably comfortable standard of living in a post disaster situation is beyond the resources of one individual or one family.

It is simply impossible to know enough... to learn enough... or to afford enough to meet all the needs of a family unit living at more than a bare subsistence standard of living... a standard of living far below what we would now consider to be "third world". This is a future I would wish upon my family only if death were the only alternative. We can, however, do better... much better.

"How?", you ask. "With a little help from our friends" is the answer.

Team work is the key to survival, not only individual survival, but survival of an acceptable standard of living... even survival of a productive society. It is simply not possible to cover all of your future needs from within your family unit.

For example, you may be a great gardener, but can you build and maintain the tools necessary for production level farming. Even if you can forge plowshares and tan leather for tack, what if your animal gets sick, or what if your family gets sick? Can you diagnose the problem, and if you can, will you have stored the supplies needed to treat the problem?

What if you are a great farmer, a great blacksmith, a great vet, and a physician on the side? What if someone attacks your family while you are in the field? Who will spin the yarn? Who will weave the cloth? Who will make the clothes? Who will tan the leather? Who will make the shoes? Who will teach your children? Even if you have every one of these skills, you are not likely to have the current resources to stock the supplies needed to maintain the trade. Even if you stock everything that might possibly be needed for every one of these trades, there will simply not be enough hours in the day to meet even your most basic needs.

What is the answer? The answer is specialization. This is the root foundation for human society. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Forget the idea that you will survive in your secure fortress with your solar power, your tons of wheat, and your thousands of rounds of ammunition. You will succumb to a superior force, or to disease, to starvation, or to isolation and depression.

The "dream" survival situation would be a small, relatively isolated community with a large agricultural base and some manufacturing resources. It would have its own power supply, temperate weather, and a good mix of trade skills. Very few of us have the luxury to live in such a plane. In fact there are very few such places at all. Even if you can find one, they are not likely to welcome a total stranger into their community during the turmoil of a post-catastrophe situation.

If you know of such a place, consider moving there now, even if it means a career change and an income reduction. You may have to give up your weekly trips to the symphony and the theatre, and you might not have a choice if 15 different French restaurants, but you might find your live very much richer for the safety, fraternity, and slower pace of life.

I realize that we cannot all live in small town utopia, and even in these communities, the vast majority of people don't give a moment's thought to post-disaster survival. They don't have on hand even a fraction of the supplies needed to carry on their trade for even a few days out of touch from the regional and national distribution system. Life in America is just too comfortable just now to think about things.

So what can you do? You can learn all you can about everything you can. You can stock up on reference books. You can collect all the supplies needed for short term survival and intermediate term subsistence. But most importantly, you can learn a practical skill, then stock deep in what you do well, then recruit friends of like mind who will do the same for other complementary skills. A carpenter with some wheat and a rifle with loads of ammunition might be in a poor situation with a sick or hungry child. A carpenter who has seen fit to put aside a top quality set of hand tools and several hundred pounds of nails might be a rich man in a community with a need for shelter and building skills.

A physician may be a lousy shot and unable to defend his family, but a physician with the tools to diagnose illness and a stockpile of medicines to treat them is guaranteed to have the whole community turn out in his defense. The combination of his knowledge and his supplies, not necessarily either one alone is what makes him an immense asset to the community. The whole is again worth more than the sum of the parts.

After realizing that the team or group approach to preparedness is superior, one must consider what skills are essential in order to know what to learn or who to recruit.

Skills might be divided into essential or primary, and desirable or secondary, based on whether they are necessary for personal or cultural survival respectively. Primary skills needed for personal survival, and the people to provide them, might include:

1) Sustenance - storage, preparation, and production of food and water

A) farmers
B) serious gardeners
C) cooks and bakers

2) Shelter - short and long term protection from hazards of toxins, fire, radiation, the environment, and antisocial behavior, including maintenance of existing shelter

A) builders - electricians, plumbers, carpenters, masons
B) wood cutters
C) sanitation or radiation engineers
D) mechanics

3) Security - protection from the antisocial conduct of insiders or outsiders

A) law officers
B) military personnel or veterans
C) hunters or others skilled with weapons
D) administrators (yes, even after the great disaster there will be a need for a few petty bureaucrats. Someone has to keep the ducks in a row.

4) Medical care - maintenance of the personal and public health of the community

A) physicians, especially Family Practitioners and Surgeons, a Pathologist might have his place but would be of less general use than a primary care clinician or surgeon.
B) dentists
C) nurses, physicians' assistants, paramedics, EMTs, ex-military medics
D) pharmacists
E) sanitarians and public health officials

Secondary skills are things you personally might be able to live without, but society cannot.

1) Education

A) teachers - parents can teach, but not as well or as comprehensively as someone who is trained in it professionally. Note also that teachers frequently make good administrators if you don't want any real bureaucrats in the group.
B) parents - education is their principle job anyway. C) lawyers and accountants - Their primary skills may be useless, but they are well educated people. Don't let lawyers administrate, however, unless you want a new world as screwed up as the old.

2) Transportation - life proceeds very slowly when you must walk everywhere.

A) mechanics - There will be no shortage of surplus vehicles, but keeping them running will be a task.
B) chemists and/or distillers - Those surplus vehicles and machines must run on something.
C) animal breeders - If you can't get the truck run you can ride an animal. This form of transportation is also edible and produces fertilizer. Petroleum may be hard to come by as well.
D) wood and leather workers - to make harnesses, saddles, wagons, etc.

3) Communications and Electronics - vastly increases the efficiency of production, distribution, and security.

A) ham radio operators - they almost always have plenty of equipment and they think a lot about emergency preparedness.
B) telephone technicians - the telephone system will still be there but keeping it working will be a vital help to the community.
C) electricians or electronics technicians - the generation and storage of electricity is vital to communications and very helpful to almost every other sector of the community.
D) athletes - If you can't get the message there any other way, you can always send a runner.
Others might add quite a few more categories to this list, but it's easy to see that the scale of the task in mastering even a fraction of these skills is beyond reasonable expectation.

A practical way of dealing with this problem can be found in studying the organizational principles of the U. S. Army Special Forces. Among the concepts taught in the Special Forces is the idea of limited specialization. Every Special Forces soldier is expert in the basic skills of soldiering such as weapons, movement, concealment, survival, etc., but he is also a specialist with very advanced knowledge in one particular area such as communications, intelligence, demolition, or medical. Every team member is familiar with the skills of the others, but he is expected not only to be able to utilize his skills in a superior manner, but also to teach his skills to others.

The Special Forces soldier is a consummate warrior, but his principle mission is not to fight but to teach, lead, and inspire. The "survivalist" should consider this to be his mission as well. The Regular Army NCO would be expected to lead a squad of ten or so men. The Special Forces NCO would be expected to teach his skills to a large number of indigenous sympathizers and then lead a group as large as a company or a battalion... jobs usually held by captains or lieutenant colonels.

So too should the dedicated survivalist consider himself a leader and teacher. After having mastered the basic skills of self- reliance his next priority must be to master his specialty skill, and having learned it well, to stockpile the tools of his trade. He must then work on the other specialties important to survival, with special emphasis on skills not yet filled by recruitment.

A good plan would be to become a specialist in one of the primary or secondary skills, develop a good working knowledge of all of the primary skills, and become familiar with the secondary skills.

The camouflage-clad, rifle toting loner of the popular media isn't practicing survival, he is practicing for suicide. Don't imitate him, and don't recruit him. Survival means teamwork, and the bigger the team the more comfortable the future.

Just think, if everyone thought like a survivalist, then it's likely none of us would ever need these skills and supplies we work so hard to obtain. The best life insurance policy is the one you don't have to collect on.

9 December, 1990

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Originally published under the title: How to Survive Comfortably or What Friends are really good for...


http://futurepositive.synearth.net/2002/10/23


"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
Re: Teamwork, the key to survival. #98551
04/16/2007 01:31 AM
04/16/2007 01:31 AM
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Just added another safe house yesterday. Makes 5.


Monica Lewinsky- amerikan patriot and militia poster girl. Only person in amerika that blew away a crooked president, never served a day in jail and lived to tell about it.
Re: Teamwork, the key to survival. #98552
07/10/2007 09:15 AM
07/10/2007 09:15 AM
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Another addition for the medical is a mid wife, or obgyn. If there's men and women, there eventually will be the need to deliver babies. wink

Re: Teamwork, the key to survival. #98553
07/10/2007 04:11 PM
07/10/2007 04:11 PM
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Agreed CSC,

The lone wolf will work in the short term, For basic survival. But in the long run everyone will need to cooperate and build a future, trading and skills to help your neighbor out. I have honed many survival skills over the years and I could live alone in the wilderness for a while, but to actually build a place where my family would want to live takes cooperation. You can't barter with yourself, and you probably will not have the time to build or make everything you need by yourself. yes you may be able to do basic first aid and some of us could do a bit more, but peole will get sick and will need things that maybe we haven't got the skills to do or the time to learn. What I am saying is YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE OR HAVE THE TIME TO THINK OF EVERY SKILL YOU MIGHT NEED SO LEARN TO COOPERATE. CSC has shown the way once again please pay attention...

Just for grins I know that many of us can make it out there for a long time, alone self sufficient and skilled but unless you like being alone all the time, find like mined people...


I believe in absolute Freedom, as little interference from any government as possible...And I'll fight any man trying to take that away from me.

Jimmy Greywolf
Re: Teamwork, the key to survival. #98554
08/30/2007 12:15 PM
08/30/2007 12:15 PM
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What you think will happen, makes a difference in what you need. If you are anticipating an 'end of the world' scenerio, such as that killer comet hitting Earth and killing 95% of all life, human and otherwise, then if can get past the first few years, you might be able to survive at cave man status.
If what you are preparing for is a local disturbance, then your needs are vastly different.
You really do need to have something in mind when you prepare.


Nemo me impune lacesset
Re: Teamwork, the key to survival. #98555
08/30/2007 02:26 PM
08/30/2007 02:26 PM
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A comet hitting the Earth scenario, causing an ice age. The ice age could last for hundreds of years. Yes it would be good to know whats going to happen, but you can't. That is the nature of a catastrophe. The prep you must do is food stores and weapons caches and skill learned to survive. The above is not all that you will need, see CSC's list and others post who have listed basic needs. What you are trying to do is buy yourself time to learn new skills in a new environment or status. Then you will be able to move yourself to a better area or learn how to make it in the new world that exist now.


I believe in absolute Freedom, as little interference from any government as possible...And I'll fight any man trying to take that away from me.

Jimmy Greywolf
Re: Teamwork, the key to survival. #98556
08/30/2007 03:07 PM
08/30/2007 03:07 PM
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One things for sure, one's safer "in numbers" then being a lone wolf. Networking with others is the smartest way. And everyone has skills they can contribute. Even in the smallest ways.

It wouldn't be a bad idea now (B4 TSHTF) that one take a college night school course in CPR, first aid, etc. Whatever will help when the normal avenues are no longer available after the TEOTWAWKI sit occurs. wink


"In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot". Mark Twain - 1904
Re: Teamwork, the key to survival. #98557
08/30/2007 04:20 PM
08/30/2007 04:20 PM
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Now that I think of it, that comment about lone wolves committing suicide isn't exactly correct. There's a movie out there called 'Alone in the Wilderness' with a guy named Dick Proenneke (google him). He went up to the forest in Alaska and built a cabin by hand and video recorded it in the 60s. He intended to stay there for 1 year but ended up spending the next 30 something years, until 'he couldn't deal with the winters at 85 years old' or something like that. He was 50 when he went in and backpacked the metal heads of his tools to make handles once he got there. Although he did have a friend flying in with a bush plane with rhubarb and potatoes and bags of sugar, mail etc. That was not for survival, it was for comfort. Nonetheless, he lived out there alone for quite some time, sure he may have died out there if his friend hadn't came and brought him back that last time, but he made it far enough to die an old man, and that's not suicide, just living life to it's natural end. So recruiting a lone wolf may not be THAT bad of idea, depending on the motive of their solitude, they may just think that they are the only one that thinks like a survivalist. There ARE still people out there who think like that... hell, I thought like that for a long time, until I started networking with my friends, family and on the net, then I realized that I am one of many and the 'civilization' approach that I knew was the smartest and most comfortable option IS indeed possible.
Now that's where I focus, but I have been there as well.
So AP2 we starting the fall classes then? I just found out that we're fully funded.

Re: Teamwork, the key to survival. #98558
08/30/2007 04:43 PM
08/30/2007 04:43 PM
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Well here's a little "kick-in-the-backside-thought" for everyone reading this...

This article basically suggests that we build a small to large community of like-minded-survivers/survivalists to rely on so that each of us as individuals or very small groups won't have to be, 'Jacks-of-all-trades, and Masters-of-none'.

That's all well and good, but frankly, if we are all going to build small communities of those that we would need to survive comfortably, there would eventually result in something much like a "Town". Which we already have plenty of in this country... The only real difference being that the "New Community" would supposedly govern itself through a single leader or group vote,(oh yeah, that exists right now too).

Why is it not easier to totally rework our communities and set our current form of government back to the way it should be... the way it had served the people of this Nation for near 200yrs???

Is it that it would be too hard to fight the current government to wrestle the proper control away from it and put it back into the hands of the People it was meant to serve???
(Do any of you think this current over-powerful government is going to leave your little community alone to do as you will?)

Or if our current over-powerful government somehow collapsed and required bebuilding, beginning with small communities as the type expressed in the above article, wouldn't it just be easier to begin this on the small scales and build from there BEFORE a total collapse is relized and the additional worry/burden of a National Defence is also forced to be dealt with and/or totally rebuilt ALSO???
(Or did anyone here think that our government would quietly collapse and leave the functioning bulk of our National Defence INTACT in this "Big, Bad World"???)

I just gotta see some of the answers to these questions.... wink

Michael


"Argue for your limitations, and in the end, when all is said and done, they're your's!"

"Sheeple & Shepherds, pick one! You can't be both no matter how you dress."

The higher ya go... the higher ya can get! Mountain Men Rock!

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