New American Truth

After the book “World War Z” and then the cable television series, “The Walking Dead,” it seems like any company that manufactures a tool that can even remotely be used to fight zombies is leveraging the zombie fad as best they can.  Heck, even I wrote a book about it: “Surviving the Zombies: Things The CDC Didn’t Know.”  KA-BAR is no different and has been producing a line of “zombie killer” (ZK) knives.  Two of those knives, the War Sword and the Famine Tanto, are the primary knives used by the main character and his wife in my book.  So, I thought it would be a good idea to actually field test them and see how they performed. Read the full story

Long time readers know that I have, in the past, written several articles about Bugout Bags, Go Bags, Trunk Kept Go Bags and assorted other articles on related topics. This past week I was presented with an interesting hypothetical: what if you couldn’t take a bag? What if all you had was what you were WEARING and your guns. What would that consist of? Naturally this is radically different depending on what environment you are, or you expect to be, in. Still, it seemed an interesting enough challenge to contemplate that I thought I’d share. Read the full story

As I read various articles and blogs about survival preparation, planning, preparedness, etc. it occurs to me that each writer, including myself, holds a greater expertise in certain areas of preparedness and survival than in others. I know… “Duh!” right? What would I expect? Everyone has that which they have mastered to a greater extent and those skills that they still need to practice. It is human nature, I believe, to prefer to practice that which we are already good at and to neglect, to some extent, the things we aren’t as good at. Why? Because we naturally don’t like failure and when we practice the things we’re not as particularly skilled at, we don’t do them as well… leaving us feeling a greater sense of failure than when we efficiently and neatly accomplish another skill set we’re far better at. Read the full story

Let me start out by saying that I grew up in the era of the first couple Rambo movies and was firmly embedded with the thought that a good survival knife had to be big, have saw teeth, a hollow handle, a lanyard and in general look mean enough to take down a Cape Buffalo.  I have, since then, matured some (read “gotten older”) and have realized that where field knives are concerned, bigger isn’t always better.  Of late it seems that some manufacturers are agreeing with me. Read the full story

Everyone has a different idea of what a “tool kit” is and you can find a plethora of articles on “every day carry.”  My wonderment, as brought up by a conversation I had yesterday, is what preppers or survivalists carry each day that they consider essential for their survival.  The bigger question, for me, is what they think they should be carrying but don’t due to legal restrictions (weapons), convenience (bulkiness) or perception (how would people look at them). Read the full story

I have long been a fan of multi-tools – as far back as when I got my first Leatherman that, when you opened it to use the pliers, the metal edges of the handles dug into your skin.  Multi-tool designs have come a long way since then.  Gerber’s Bullrush is a recent release that is basic, comfortable and relatively compact.  It has what you need and not a bunch of stuff that you probably don’t. Read the full story

Not that anyone ever wants to get cut, but why is it that the cuts we feel, but that are so clean they take a few minutes to see, seem worse?  That was my first experience with this knife: a surprise cut.  My own carelessness led to the cut as I worked to get the knife out of its packaging.  I felt the cut, looked and saw a clean seam… and then the red well up as it started to bleed.  My first thought about this knife, after silently cursing the super secure packaging, was, “Wow; that’s a really sharp edge!” Read the full story

“I have two trauma kits,” my friend told me.  “One for making trauma and one for treating it.”  The “making trauma” kit was his Glock Model 19 9mm handgun.  The “treating trauma” kit was a package he put together himself, having actually cut and stitched the pouch he used out of an old canvas bag he had.  He filled it with gauze, a tourniquet, a couple pressure bandages and some QuikClot.  While that’s not what many combat veterans and/or medics would consider a complete trauma kit, it was what he deemed necessary to treat bullet wounds to his extremities.  The point he was very clear on was that it was as necessary and important to be able to treat wounds as it was to create them – possibly even more so. Read the full story

In my book, “Personal Disaster Planning Handbook,” I describe a layered and redundant system of preparation that includes both a backpack/bug out bag and a load bearing vest.  In the book I’m very clear that you have to make the choice whether you load your vest to support survival, defense (combat) or both.  Recently I had a friend of mine point out to me that combat is entirely about survival so if you load your vest to support defense/combat then, in his opinion, you ARE loading it for survival.  This gave me pause and forced me to consider a few things. Read the full story

The creativity level of people who are trying to sell something never ceases to amaze me.  Manufacturers, vendors, bloggers, etc… they all seem capable of coming up with a new spin on why you need something they’ve got.  I’m as guilty as the next guy: I try to sell my books and certainly this website makes a few dollars from advertising (enough to keep us up and running anyway).  For all that, I still believe that basic preparedness and survival starts, first and foremost, with YOU and your knowledge.  I also firmly believe that survival and preparedness are two different things. Read the full story