You’ve spent the last few years stacking emergency transitional food in the pantry, in the closet of the guest bedroom, and in the garage. You bought a grain mill and have stuffed pound after pound of rice, beans, pasta, and wheat berries into mylar. You’ve couponed until you’re blue in the face, joined a wholesale club, taken advantage of every sale on oatmeal and canned tuna. Even with all you’ve managed to put away, you realize in the back of your mind that, for the long-term, it will become necessary to shift from food storage to food production, so you’ve planted fruit trees in your landscape beds and stashed an impressive mix of vegetable seeds in the freezer.
But what if the transition isn’t as cut and dry? Environmental conditions, social unrest, illness within your family, or a steeper-than-anticipated learning curve could delay the ability to move into full-scale agricultural production. All of a sudden, then, your one-year food supply will have to stretch to 14 months or longer. Perhaps you discover too late that your stockpiled provisions, while loading you up with the necessary calories, lack one easy-to-overlook micronutrient.
Above: Food storage will get you through the initial stages of an emergency, but in the long run, it is not enough.
Food security during a major event should not only focus on stored food and Little House on the Prairie-esque self-sufficiency, but also on “transitional food production” — systems that can generate some nutrition even during a bugout or shelter-in-place scenario. Wise preppers should consider how they can implement smaller-scale food production that will help stretch their flour and freeze-dried meals, while giving them a wide range of nutrients. In the event of a delayed growing season, a crop failure, or a need to lay low a little longer, mushrooms, eggs, and sprouts are examples of sustainable foods that can help fill the gaps between what’s in the cupboards and what will eventually spring up in the garden. Furthermore, many families are accustomed to a good bit of variety in their diets, and these items can make the 99th serving of rice and beans a little more tolerable.
Transitional Food Systems Should Meet Three Criteria
1) They should be portable enough to be transported to a bugout location and back or moved into a sheltered space with relative ease.
2) They should provide significant nutrition for their bulk and weight.
3) The knowledge, skills, and equipment required to produce these foods should be easily attainable for the majority of folks.
Mushrooms To-Go
Mushrooms are the only non-animal food source of Vitamin D. They have more protein than most vegetables, they provide significant levels of riboflavin and niacin, and they’re relatively easy to grow — or at least some species are. While growing morels isn’t impossible, it’s not as reliable an undertaking as producing shiitakes or oysters.
Above: Shiitake mushrooms can thrive on oak logs, producing more than a pound of food per log per year. This is much safer and more consistent than foraging in the wild.
Foraging for wild mushrooms is an interest of a lot of self-sufficient families, but the production of mushrooms is an easy skill to learn. Just remember that some species prefer to grow on logs, while others like straw, wood chips, or compost. Your local cooperative extension office may offer workshops on growing mushrooms. It’s also possible to purchase online kits that consist of growing media pre-inoculated and ready to produce.
As an example of what’s possible, for less than $50, one can buy enough shiitake spawn to inoculate 20 small logs, using only a drill and hammer. The oak, beech, birch, or maple logs will go through a colonization period, which can take anywhere from six to 18 months. After that, each log can produce up to a pound and a half of mushrooms annually for as long as it takes for the log to completely rot down. In the case of oaks, that may be as long as five years. Logs that are already colonized and bearing are quite portable and can be tossed into the back of a pickup truck like firewood, ready to travel to a new site.
Sprouting Nutrition
The radish is an underdog of the vegetable world, usually grown as an afterthought by home gardeners, stuck into a spare corner of the garden and certainly not as esteemed as beans, corn, squash, or tomatoes. But radishes have a couple of characteristics that make them worthy of consideration as a survival crop:
1) Many varieties like Cherry Belle, French Breakfast, and Rover mature in 21 days. In other words, from the moment the seeds are placed in the ground, radishes will be ready to harvest in three weeks. That can translate to multiple crops each year, from spring through fall.
2) Both the roots and the greens can be eaten.
Above: Radishes are an often-overlooked candidate for home gardens. Their leafy greens are also edible.
The thing that makes radishes versatile as a transitional food is that not only can the seeds be planted, but they can be sprouted indoors for a spicy boost of vitamins and minerals.
The equipment needed to sprout radishes (as well as alfalfa, mung beans, wheat berries, broccoli, onions) is minimal: a jar with a screened lid and some clean water. Soak the seeds for a few minutes and then strain the water off through the screened lid. Then, rinse them twice a day. Three tablespoons of seeds will yield about four cups of sprouts in less than a week.
Mobile Livestock
Farm animals can be a good source of protein, fertilizer, and pest control. Technically, if one has the trailer and the facilities and labor to load it, any livestock could be considered portable, but for most folks, that’s outside the realm of practicality. On the other hand, even children can carry and load poultry and rabbits.
A chicken will produce as many as 250 eggs a year, while some duck breeds will lay between 300 and 350. A couple of eggs per day for each member of a family is a strong justification for maintaining a small flock.
Taking small livestock with you, of course, means you also have to haul any feed or medicines they would require, but in the case of poultry the burden can be somewhat reduced if one selects breeds known for their foraging abilities. For chickens, that list would include Buckeyes, Egyptian Fayoumis, Plymouth Rocks, and Welsummers, and duck breeds counted as good foragers include Campbells, Welsh Harlequins, and Runners.
Above: A backyard chicken coop can produce several eggs per day for each member of your family, saving a substantial amount of money at the grocery store.
The internet is full of tips for reducing backyard poultry feeding costs, from fermenting their feed to producing your own supply of maggots or mealworms. (For any not repulsed by the notion of entomophagy, mealworms could double as a source of protein for human consumption.)
Other types of poultry can be advantageous, as well. Guineafowl are known for their “watchdog” screeching behavior and for their tick-scouring prowess, while geese may fill the role of bouncer in the poultry world, helping keep small predators away.
Above: Have you considered farming ducks? Some breeds can lay even more eggs per year than chickens.
We could list honeybees as portable livestock, but there are a lot of moving parts, from managing Varroa mites and other pests to keeping swarming under control, so unless you’re headed into a SHTF situation with beekeeping know-how already under your belt, it may not be practical to learn what you need as quickly as you could with chickens. But if that’s the case, the pollination insurance that a colony of bees could provide to future farming efforts would mean a lot, in addition to the honey and wax they’d manufacture.
Grow Bags/Buckets
Not a food per se, but containers for planting crops are a good investment. Grow bags, buckets, or large flowerpots can provide the means for some food production during bugout scenarios or when conventional soil is compromised. These can be transported either pre-filled with soil or with the intention of filling with a growing medium once a destination is reached. A grow bag or container has many of the same advantages as a raised bed but with the added bonus of portability.
Above: Grow bags are an excellent choice for portability due to the built-in handles. In this photo, they’re filled with potatoes.
Even bags of cheap topsoil from the local garden center can be quickly converted to impromptu growing space by cutting an opening, amending with organic matter, and sowing seeds. In the interim, these bags of soil can be useful for fortifying a shelter. Root crops like potatoes, carrots, and beets do well in containers, as do tomatoes and peppers.
Even when suitable soil is lacking, buckets are conducive to simple, non-circulating hydroponic production, such as the system made popular by Bernard Kratky of the University of Hawaii. Buckets, net pots, clay pellets, and a small amount of water-soluble fertilizer specifically for hydroponics is all that would be required for Kratky hydroponics. Leafy vegetables like head lettuce or kale, as well as vegetables that produce a lot of fruits per plant like cherry tomatoes or peppers will thrive in this soilless method.
Above: A compact windowsill garden can provide fresh garnishes to add to dry or canned staples.
Tapping all Resources
When we hear of sugar maple sap being collected in the U.S., we assume the only goal is syrup, but in Korea, it’s a tradition to drink the sap of the maple tree, known as gorosoe, as a health tonic, often while relaxing beneath the tree that supplied it.
Likewise, bottled birch and maple sap have shown up in American health food stores and high-end grocery chains in the last few years, and research does indicate that this liquid can add a boost of copper, zinc, magnesium, and other elements to the diet, in addition to providing hydration. (Few water filters are as effective as a tree’s cambial system.) Sycamore and walnut can also be tapped and either cooked into syrup with an investment of time and fuel or drank as is.
Above: Simple taps can extract gallons of sap from trees such as maple and birch. The sap can be consumed on its own or cooked down into delicious syrup.
While not a huge contributor to overall health, the equipment to extract gallons and gallons of sap is minimal: inexpensive plastic spouts, a bit of tubing, and some buckets. And in situations where you’re living off a finite number of foods for a long period of time, anything that can provide a few more micronutrients is going to be worthwhile. Of course, when time allows, cooking down the sap from any of these aforementioned trees will yield a sweet syrup that can be used or bartered.
Sap can’t be extracted from a tree year-round, and the timing varies across the country. In Southwest Virginia, for instance, the maple, walnuts, and sycamores flow in January and February, while birches can be tapped later in the spring. The bigleaf maples in Washington State are usually tapped around Christmas time, while things aren’t in full swing in New England until March. You would need to know when sap flows in your location, and that’s going to be when nighttime temperatures are well below freezing, but days warm up to the mid 40s or 50s (Fahrenheit).
It pays to become acquainted with these foods and production methods before they’re needed. Inoculate some shiitake logs this fall. Sprout some radish, mung bean, and alfalfa seeds on the kitchen counter to see how receptive your family is to their taste and texture. Grow some potatoes and carrots in felt bags, even if you have a two-acre garden to work with. While you’re at it, grow some hydroponic jalapenos on the back deck. Strive to provide your backyard chickens with all the nutrition they require while relying less and less on commercial feeds. Take inventory of which tree species are on your property or around your bugout location, and plan to learn the sap collection process when possible.
As good as white rice and pinto beans can be, they can always be improved with a few chunks of shiitake mushroom or a sprinkling of radish sprouts.
The last decade has seen a veritable explosion of firearms and tactical instructors. While these skills are no doubt vital to possessing a well-rounded survival repertoire, the underlying historical and psycho-emotional factors of interpersonal violence are rarely discussed — let alone trained — by most of our favorite instructors. These issues are far less entertaining to talk about, and require far more effort to reach instructional proficiency. Enter John Hearne and his company Two Pillars Training. Part professor and part gunslinger, Hearne has carved out a unique and under-served niche in today’s go-fast social-media-forward training market. He possesses both an extensive career as a federal law enforcement officer and advanced academic degrees requiring finely tuned research capabilities. This unicorn combination of personality and experience has endowed him with a unique knack for studying the more erudite components of surviving violent encounters, focused primarily on human evolution and historical case study. After attending a pair of his lecture classes revolving around these aspects of survival, we took the opportunity to sit down with him, one-on-one, and hear a little more about who he is and how he landed in the unique position of training armed and prepared citizens alike on the intellectual nature of up-close-and-ugly violent crises.
Above: As an active Federal LEO, Hearne has extensive training in both pistol and carbine employment.
RECOIL OFFGRID: Tell us a little about where you’re from originally.
JOHN HEARNE: I was born and raised in a small town in rural Virginia. When I write small, I mean a population of 300 or so. I was raised in an intact two-parent household with my grandparents living next door. It was a classic rural upbringing; we lived on the edge of town, and I could wander the local fields and forests after school. I could hunt small game in the woods behind our house or go quail hunting with my dad. My grandparents were great as well; I could go and shoot anything unfortunate enough to turn up in front of me and my grandfather would clean it for me. Then, my grandmother would cook it. The only thing “unique” was my parents managed to send me to a private college prep school from the fifth grade on, so I had a huge head start in the education department.
The whole time I was growing up, my dad was active in the local volunteer fire department and would end up serving as chief. I grew up playing in the firehouse, and I joined the fire department when I was 16 and became an EMT when I was 17. I’d say an attitude of public service was instilled in me fairly early.
How did you get into a career in law enforcement?
JH: My dad had been a reserve deputy in Florida prior to my arrival in the world and he would end up as a special police officer when I was a teenager. My great-grandfather had been the sheriff of Wicomico County, Maryland, and I remember hearing stories about him from my dad. Also, several of the volunteer firefighters I served with were deputy sheriffs or local police officers, so law enforcement seemed like a normal job to me.
When I was 17, I got a (deserved) speeding ticket. I thought that if I knew how RADAR and such worked, I might be able to avoid a repeat of that experience. I started to do ride-alongs with a local police officer and later some deputy sheriffs. I quickly became fascinated by the job and thought it might make a good career. I was able to start as a part-time dispatcher, which gave me my first glimpse behind the curtain.
At the time I was still in college, I found out that the National Park Service hired part-time officers and my dad encouraged me to apply. I had every intention of working for a few years and then using the experience to get hired by a more prestigious agency. I continued to work summers through graduate school to gain experience and I really enjoyed how the agency provided all the emergency services — fire, EMS, and SAR. I ended up working nine years on a part-time basis and was hired for a full-time position in 2000. At this point, I don’t think I’m transferring to another agency and will probably make a career out of it.
Above: Students working through concealed-carry pistol work.
We know you’re still on active duty, but what has been your most challenging assignment thus far? What about your favorite one?
JH: My most challenging assignment may sound bizarre. Due to a lack of prosecutors, cases in the certain large Western parks use an agency representative to handle all of the misdemeanors and initial proceedings on felonies. You don’t have to be a formally trained lawyer, and to be fair, an effective cop knows the law as well as most attorneys do. You attend a one-day course to familiarize yourself with basic criminal procedure and the local rules. I was given a point of contact in case I had any questions, a point of contact who really didn’t return phone calls.
I found myself in charge of a small prosecutors’ office for the summer in Yosemite National Park. I had two law students and a part-time secretary to assist with a previously poorly managed case load, which had resulted in a massive backlog. We conducted all of the expected business from initial appearances to plea negotiations to conducting trials. We had to deal with all of the crimes that were occurring that summer as well as the backlog. Prior to this experience, I thought I wanted to go to law school. This experience thoroughly disabused me of that notion. This was a great chance to get a different view behind the curtain, an ugly view to the inner machinations of the legal system — note I did not write “justice system.”
I’ve had a lot of assignments I really enjoyed. If I had to pick one, I’d have to choose my time with our field training program. This program takes officers who have just graduated from the academy and helps them apply the abstract knowledge they should have gained in the academy to the real world. From 2004 to 2016, I served as a field training officer, field training supervisor, and member of our national advisory council. I’ve always enjoyed teaching and our team was consistently able to take people with limited experience and get them up to the required performance level. Arguably, more important were the cases where we recommended someone’s removal from the law enforcement profession as they were fundamentally unsuited for the job. It has been very rewarding to see rangers that I helped train, excel in the field, make good cases, and eventually move up to higher positions in the agency or lateral to a “cool guy” agency like the U.S. Marshall Service.
Is your law enforcement career what got you into shooting competitively?
JH: I wouldn’t say it was my law enforcement career per se that got me into competitive shooting but rather poor law enforcement training. I was one of the last people in my agency to give up their revolvers as we made the transition to semi-automatic pistols. I was a pretty good shot with my GP-100, and while I never shot a perfect 300/300, I was always chasing it and tended to shoot in the high 290s. The semi-automatic transition course was supposed to be a three-day, 24-hour class. Instead of three days, I got four or five hours, most of which was in the classroom. We went to the range, shot a few drills, and attempted the qualification. I passed the qualification course in the low 270s. I was told that I was “good enough” since I still shot 90 percent, and the class ended.
I was honestly horrified at the difference between shooting ability between the two platforms and wanted to get back to where I was shooting with the revolver. As far as I could tell, nobody in the agency really knew enough to make that happen. At the same time, Front Sight was starting its move to Las Vegas and hosted an open house that I attended since I was living in the area. I was able to get a significant discount on my first class and drove to Bakersfield, California, for their four-day handgun class. I know that “all the cool kids” like to make fun of Front Sight, but in the late ’90s it was a dramatic improvement over any training I had ever experienced. I did very well in the class, and it opened the door of the private sector training world to me.
It has long been common practice to recommend shooting competitively, and I’m pretty sure it was recommended in one of the Front Sight lectures. It was also at this time that I started paying more attention to gun magazines, as this was pre-internet and they were the only source for information. I started to look for local matches to shoot. I tried IDPA and wasn’t overly impressed. The club where I was shooting also hosted matches under the Paladin System that Rick Miller established. These were very seriously defensive-minded shooters who ran hot ranges and mixed long-gun stages with man-on-man events into every monthly match. I started traveling in the local area and would shoot whatever match worked with my schedule but never missed the monthly Paladin Match.
Above: John Hearne discusses concealed carry tactics.
There is still some debate over the efficacy of how competition shooting translates into duty/defensive firearms use. What has been your experience in this regard?
JH: This is a great example of a question where the two offered answers tend to be at extremes, and neither is right. There are those who say that competition has lots of translation, and those that claim it has none. The truth lies somewhere in the middle — it has some clear value, and how the individual engages with it really determines the ultimate value.
The people that proclaim the high value of competition often overlook the heavily scripted nature of most matches. Most matches tend to allow for the rote memorization of the course of fire. This negates a lot of the potential value of having to solve problems on the fly with imperfect information. Doing well tends to be rooted in how well you build and run your shooting plan and deal with any exigencies that occur in the middle of that plan.
The people who say competition has no value are as equally disconnected from reality. A lot of folks who discount competitive shooting simply don’t like the objective measure of their skill that competition can provide. People with very low levels of skill will avoid competition as an ego defense because they don’t want to finish in the bottom 10 percent. These people are also discounting the direct experience of famous gunfighters who all attributed their competitive background to their later success. We have historical examples such as Col. Rex Applegate or Jim Cirillo as well as the testimonials from America’s most elite military operators that they found competition more stressful than real-world gunfights.
You have a long list of defensive firearms courses under your belt, including time as an instructor for Rangemaster and your agency. What do you see as some of the biggest gaps in training for LE officers?
JH: The most obvious gap is that of standards. The trend for years has been to lower the shooting standards. As soon as some stage is deemed “too hard,” agencies opt to remove it instead of investing in the training needed to have their folks pass it. The level of skill needed to pass a typical POST course in no way reflects a level of learning that we can expect people to be able to access under stress. The only two qualification courses I can think of that hold folks to a meaningful standard are the old Air Marshall course and the old Bakersfield PD qualification. Please note that “old” proceeds both of these, as they are no longer used.
We really need to shift the standards up — what most agencies consider the “instructor” standard is what the street level guy should be able to meet. We now have solid data that better marksmanship correlates with better decision making under stress. In 2023, anything that leads to better decision making needs to be implemented immediately, not discounted for convenience.
Above: Hearne’s live-fire courses focus on applying cognitive processes to firearms-based self-defense problems.
If you could make a magic wand and change police training at an institutional level, what would that consist of?
JH: This is worth an entire article by itself. In a nutshell, the whole enterprise needs a reboot, starting with hiring. The sad fact is that most police training is bad training. Very few people understand the underlying factors that make for good training, and we just rush people through with the full knowledge that recently graduated recruits won’t retain what they tried to learn in seven months after they leave the academy. The people trusted to instruct are rarely deep experts in the area they teach, and they often lack the ability to effectively convey what they do know. Often, the training division is where the misfits who weren’t suitable for the field but couldn’t be fired are warehoused. We have to accept that building people who perform takes time, effort, and resources. Rushing someone through a 10- or 12- week academy just doesn’t work. There isn’t enough time to legitimately ingrain the skills we expect police officers to possess.
Even if we had a perfect academy experience, agencies are unable and/or unwilling to give their officers the recurring training they need to stay proficient. There is no way for the limited training infrastructure to allow officers to practice empty hand skills, shoot their firearms, and practice other critical skills at the regularity that allows proficiency. These are monthly, if not weekly, training requirements, and nobody is willing to pay to have proficient officers.
On the flip side, what trends do you see in civilian firearms training as harmful to those seeking training for defensive firearms use?
JH: There are trends I see but I don’t know if I’d call them “harmful.” The concerns I have with private sector training are reflective of instructors answering the demands of the market from consumers who don’t know what they need. The industry tends to sell a lot of higher volume shooting classes with the end goal of pursuing technical excellence. There is nothing wrong with technical excellence and shooting common drills faster, but the point of diminishing returns is hit sooner than many people want to accept. What I think of as “detrimental” is limiting your development to just raw technical skill. At some point you need to focus more on skill application instead of taking another 0.05 second off your draw to first shot. At some point, you need a tactics class to know how and when to apply the skill you’ve developed. You need knowledge other than how to shoot, such as empty hands skills or medical training, and we all need to be in the best shape we can be in. I see instructors with really good classes who incorporate this sort of needed material, who struggle to fill classes simply because the round count isn’t high enough or subjects are “boring.”
Above: John Hearne supervises cognitive-based handgun training.
How did you get into teaching/training on your own, and how did you come up with the name Two Pillars Training?
JH: I don’t know if there is a teaching gene, but if there is, my mom gave it to me. Both of my sisters are professional teachers and I’ve been teaching for decades. In graduate school, I taught SPSS [statistics software]; when I was working in IT, I remotely taught users how to use this newfangled thing called email. When I developed a serious interest in shooting, I naturally started teaching the material to anyone who wanted it. I ended up running range sessions at work before I completed my basic academy let alone firearms instructor school. I guess I had an ability to convey information effectively, and as my body of shooting knowledge expanded, I was able to convey it.
As far as my own company goes, I’ve known for a long time that I loved teaching firearms-related material and that I would be facing mandatory retirement with a young family to support. I was given some sage wisdom by Craig Douglas. He told me that for the last five years, you have to be working doubly hard — working at the current job and working to build the next job so you’ll have something to step into. My goal has been to start to build the business and frankly, to make as many mistakes as possible while I still have a day job to allow for those mistakes to be non-fatal.
Another bit of wisdom I picked up from Craig Douglas and others in the industry is to put a lot of thought into your company name. Once you start to build the brand, you really can’t change the name, even when you really want to. I wanted my company name to reflect what I’m trying to do and not be another derivation of Tattooed Tactical Combative Gunfighter Inc. The name “Two Pillars” refers to what I’m building my business on — peer reviewed scientific research and real-world best practices. In a nutshell, I’m trying to look hard at the credible scientific research as well as what the best, most successful people are doing in the real world. We have a ton of folks doing the latter, not many doing the former, and almost nobody doing both.
Many of the lectures and training courses you’ve offered under Two Pillars are heavily rooted in rigorous, academic research. How did you develop this methodology?
JH: My master’s degree taught me a bunch of relevant and useful skills — primarily the ability to review the current body of high-quality literature and gain an overview of the current understandings of a topic. When I started down this path, I found a few obscure references that I wanted to read and review out of curiosity. Any peer reviewed article is going to have a list of references at the end. I quickly realized that there was a large body of knowledge which was mostly untapped by the training community.
I realized that over the years, we had been able to stumble across best methods by trial and error, but rarely could anyone explain why we did something in a particular way. The research gave a very good explanation of the realities that tended to underlie best practices. I liken it to troubleshooting an engine. You can know what to do and that will get you so far. However, if you understand why or how an engine works your ability to repair or tune it will be much better when the standard “do this” answer doesn’t work.
I thought that it was important to set the record straight and use objective truth to form the best understanding possible. Those in the fitness community who look to the literature jokingly say they’re fighting “broscience.” I guess I’m trying to fight “broscience” in the field of human performance under life-and-death circumstances.
Above: In addition to his range courses, Hearne has an engaging series of lecture courses on training methodology and historical violent incident case studies.
You gave us the opportunity to sit in a couple of these lectures, one of which focused on dissecting some milestone critical incidents in law enforcement history. What benefits do armed citizens gain from studying the forensics of these types of incidents?
JH: I use both the Newhall incident and the Miami-FBI firefight as case studies when teaching armed citizens. For the typical middle-class to upper-middle-class person living in a protected bubble, the realities of criminal violence are just an abstract worry. Most of these folks have no idea what kind of people they share the earth with — evil men who don’t share the decent bourgeois values and see decency as nothing but weakness. Both Newhall and Miami feature the scary pairing of a sociopath with a psychopath. The typical decent person has no idea that folks like this exist. By pointing to actual historic events with known antagonists, you can ground the idea of evil men as something real — you can point to concrete examples and begin to realize what you have to do to prepare. We can use these events to put a human face on an abstract concept that might otherwise be dismissed.
You’ve also spent a significant amount of time digging into the evolutionary and cognitive roots of combative training. What are two of the biggest “eye-openers” you’ve learned about how humans process life-threatening situations?
JH: The biggest revelation was how much the human mind hates novel circumstances. Novel means that the mind hasn’t experienced it before and doesn’t have an existing framework to handle it or make sense of it. The best way to eliminate novelty is to be exposed to the situation and ultimately build a mental construct that encapsulates it. We can call this mental construct a “schema” or “mental map” or “mental representation,” but whatever we call it, it’s the most powerful predictor of success across a variety of fields from martial arts to medicine. Without a solid mental map, almost all of the raw technical ability is wasted since the mind doesn’t know when and/or how to apply it. In a nutshell, training in skill application trumps training in pure skill every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
The second revelation was the role that recency played in predicting performance. If you understand how the human mind learns, stores, and sheds motor programs, you realize that skills which aren’t practiced regularly fade away very quickly. For many life-saving skills, the last time you practiced the skill is the most important factor in predicting your ability to perform it in dire times. A chart that I found from the Center for Naval Analysis says it best: “People rust faster than equipment.” If you’re going to rely on a firearm to defend yourself and others, you’ll need to handle that firearm weekly and shoot it monthly. Even a small amount of well-structured rounds, like 30, will go a long way to maintaining not just proficiency but your ability to access the skill when your life is at risk.
Above: John hearne inspects a shot group on a target.
How do you try to incorporate these lessons into your work as a firearms instructor?
JH: The academic body of knowledge can provide us with both subtle and direct guidance on how to better shape our training. There are very practical examples from the world of motor learning. Most instructors don’t appreciate how many repetitions it takes for someone to begin to learn a motor skill that is new to them. By making sure that you include sufficient repetitions when introducing something new, you can really enhance your student’s progression and shorten the learning curve for them. This may limit how much material you can present in one day, but it will guarantee that what you do cover is far more likely to “stick” and be available at a later time.
We can also draw more “big picture” lessons from the literature. As mentioned above, the need to eliminate novelty and build valid mental maps should be our top priorities. If an instructor knows this, then they can interject relevant tidbits along the way. I find that small lessons regularly interjected are more useful than a major point emphasized once. For instance, when I teach tactical anatomy, I show people who have sustained life ending wounds yet are fully capable of continuing to fight. This exposure helps eliminate the novelty of the situation and shows the student which mental maps are likely to be most relevant to the problem they most likely to encounter.
Modern conveniences and technology have dulled a lot of our situational awareness and “survival instincts.” What situations does the public ignorantly tend to get into trouble the most with?
JH: I’d offer two major areas of concern: being unaware in public and broadcasting information that you are a lucrative target. We know with a great deal of certainty how criminals select those they victimize. Moving about in public while immersed in your smartphone while wearing headphones that block out the audible environmental clues is a great way to become a target. The criminal wants three things (mostly): a victim that is unaware, a victim whose capabilities for self-defense are less than the attackers, and a sufficient reward to make the risk worthwhile. If you simply don’t bury your head in your phone while moving about, you’ve gone a long way down the de-selection road.
If you do have to use your phone in public, pause, look around, and plant your back against something like a wall that limits your awareness to your front. Most people don’t do that and the criminal looking for an easy target will simply remove you from the list of possible candidates. We are effectively displacing the crime somewhere else, which is sadly almost everything we can do in the current political environment.
What sort of training would you recommend the public do to protect themselves or recapture some of that cognitive survival ability?
JH: While most folks would love a one-stop solution — just take this class — I think that a deliberate effort to cultivate solid habits has the biggest return. As noted above, make a conscious effort to not use your cell phone while walking. If you want to listen to music while moving about, get a set of bone conduction headphones. This will allow you to have pretty good auditory awareness while allowing you to listen to whatever you found so compelling. Another good habit is to make a deliberate pause before moving through transitional spaces. Before exiting your car, stop and look around for a second. Ask yourself: Who’s around me and what are they doing? Before walking into or out of a store with a glass door, pause and survey where you are about to go. You may miss something relevant but the fact that this sort of behavior is fairly uncommon will likely get you passed over.
If you do want a “one-stop solution” for these sort of issues, I can’t think of much better than the Managing Unknown Contacts (MUC) curriculum taught by the ShivWorks collective — folks like Craig Douglas, Cecil Burch, Larry Lindeman, Chris Fry, or Paul Sharp. Their offerings are critical because they provide a road map for what to do if you do encounter someone who isn’t persuaded by your general attempts to be deselected. Most attackers will conduct an “interview” before launching an attack. The MUC material does a great job of not only teaching pre-attack indicators but also how to fail the potentially most important interview of your life.
Staying organized in the field can be a struggle, especially when it comes to keeping writing gear easily accessible. Anyone who has packed a bag for a trip of any length will have most likely felt the frustration of meticulously organizing a bag, only to have its contents thrown into chaos the second an item is sought after. The painful reality is that, if a pack does not have a designated pocket for a particular item, its going to get stirred into the gear gumbo that gets created by mixing everything in a larger compartment. Outdoor company Tuff Possum empathizes with this plight and has come up with some clever solutions, including this Field Writing caddy.
Instead of jamming pens, pencils or markers into valuable MOLLE slots, this caddy keeps writing utensils in place in an easily accessible pouch. With dimensions measuring 3.25″ x 5.75″ and weighing 0.7oz, its a lightweight solution that can be attached to the MOLLE/PALS of most modern packs and chest rigs. Being able to quickly access a writing utensil in the field is crucial when notes need to be taken quickly, and the Field Writing Caddy's laser cut, double layer CORDURA laminate body keeps about six averaged sized writing utensils exactly where they were meant to be placed.
Tuff Possum uses Tegris, an incredibly durable composite material for MOLLE tabs on the caddy, and includes a hook and loop patch for additional stability depending on what it is being attached to. It can also come in a variety of color styles, including: ranger green, coyote brown, multicam, multicam black, and wolf gray. Whether its transcribing details during a field interview, making sketches on a map, or writing a time stamp on tourniquet, there is no such thing as too much organization.
This year, the Offgrid staff will be attending the 2023 Overland Expo, and we are excited to get a preview of the 2023 Ultimate Overland Vehicle. Overland Expo is cranking things up a notch with a heavily modified Lexus LX600. Designed to keep a group of four comfortable and happy off the beaten path for up to a week, this luxury SUV/trailer combo seems more akin to a mobile penthouse than an overlanding rig. Mule Expedition Outfitters spent hundreds of hours making sure no stone was left unturned, and the results are remarkable. Chosen for its 3.6 turbocharged V6, GA-F body on frame platform, and a myriad of offroad capabilities, the LX600 was a potent overlanding vehicle before adding all the extras.
Front End
The LX600’s front has been heavily modified with the ARB Summit MKII front bumper, behind which is the new SOLO Series 12.5 winch from Comeup. A pair of ARB’s new Intensity IQ lights provide illumination, and the Summit MKII supports Midland Radio’s new Bull Bar Antenna, which enhances Midland’s MXT-575 GMRS radio mounted inside the cabin. Attached to the roof is the first-ever Prinsu roof rack for the LX600. It holds the Armadillo A2 rooftop tent as well as the Peregrine 270 awning, both from 23 ZERO. Built in along the side are camp and scene lighting, courstesy of Vision X’s Overland Area Lights.
Susepension and Navigation
To increase the off-road capability of the LX600, suspension components from Total Chaos and Radflo have been included. Total Chaos developed upper and lower control arms and rear links, and stock shocks and struts have been replaced by Radflo’s 2.5 diameter Remote Reservoir shocks and coilovers. This makes suspension height more than 2.5 inches taller than stock with much greater travel. Elevated suspension height allows 33/12.5R17 Kenda Klever R/T tires to be mounted around 17-inch, satin black compression wheels from ICON Dynamics. Off-road trail navigation is managed by the onX Offroad Trail Maps app, which is running through Apple CarPlay on the LX600’s 12.3-inch touchscreen.
Rear End
In the rear, an all-new dual swing-out rear bumper from CBI Offroad is used to mount the truck’s full-size spare tire on one arm and a five-gallon jerry can with a set of traction boards on the other. When the bumper is swung open and the rear hatch is lifted there is Goose Gear’s new Ultimate Chef Package for LX600, which includes a CFX3 45 fridge from Dometic. Meals prepared using the Ultimate Chef Package can be enjoyed on Tactical Tables and Chairs from Helinox, and additional water for drinking and cleaning is stored in two of Dometic’s Go Hydration Water Jug and Water Faucet.
Housing the rig's auxiliary power management system, the Smart BMS CL 12/100, from Victron Energy, is a custom box crafted by MULE Expedition Outfitters. An Optima Batteries Yellowtop DH7 battery mounted under the hood gets the LX’s 3.5-liter V6 cranked and running, and the twin-turbo six’s deep rumble emanates from the first-ever MagnaFlow Overland Series Cat-Back Performance Exhaust System.
Extras
The official tool kit of the Ultimate Overland Vehicle is the Off Road Tool Bag with Tool Roll from BOXO USA, and Forrest Tool’s Max Tool Kit is on hand in case off-road recovery requires a shovel. In the case of an injury or medical emergency, there’s a Self-Reliance Medical OTK 1450 First-Aid Kit onboard. Adding Off Grid Trailers Pando 2.0 makes the Ultimate Overland Vehicle even more versatile by not having to squeeze a sleeping quarters into the limited space of the vehicle itself.
Compare the features of the 2023 Ultimate Overland Vehicle to some of the other rigs that debuted in Overland Expo the previous year.
Despite what it may sound like, social engineering isn’t the sort of thing you’d get a degree in from an Ivy League school. In fact, this kind of nefarious so-called engineering is quite the opposite. It could easily be called social reverse-engineering, since it has little to do with building up positive social interactions and everything to do with deconstructing them for personal gain.
What is Social Engineering?
One definition of social engineering comes from prominent Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Labs. The firm defines it as a category of techniques employed by cyber-criminals, designed to trick unsuspecting victims into disclosing their confidential data, infecting their computers with malware, or opening links to infected sites.
Although it's certainly true that many social engineering attacks happen on the internet, there's an equally large risk of falling prey to social engineering outside the digital realm. In a broader sense, social engineering is just skillful psychological manipulation, and it can occur in any interaction between two or more people.
Above: Clever criminals won’t need to physically disarm you if they can verbally disarm you first. A charming smile and a convincing appearance are often all it takes to get a victim’s guard down.
Social engineering attacks often occur over the phone, in the mail, or even during face-to-face interactions. Certainly, protecting ourselves every day while using technology is critical, but in a grid-down or emergency situation, eliminating the risk of someone eliciting personally identifiable information (PII) is the key to protecting your assets and identity. Most importantly, countering these attacks will keep you and your interests safe during a chaotic situation.
If a large-scale disaster were to affect your region, your priorities would consist of keeping yourself and your family safe, fed, and calm until some sort of order is restored. Naturally, during this type of crisis you will encounter strangers whether you’re at home bugging-in or going mobile to a bug-out location.
Above: Live-monitored security cameras and access controls can help prevent piggybacking and tailgating attacks.
No matter where you are, a heightened sense of situational awareness is worth a fortune if employed by all members of your family. When the excrement hits the proverbial fan, the general population becomes more desperate for resources and will employ tactics like those used on the web to exploit your weaknesses.
Even outside of a disaster scenario, especially brazen criminals may use these techniques to mislead you or take advantage of you. If you can get your family more involved in the identification and countermeasures to defeat these five types of social engineering attacks, your chances of survival will greatly increase.
Piggybacking or Tailgating
Gaining entry to a restricted area — whether it's a home, business, or high-security building — is a desirable skill for criminals. It's also the first step toward compromising other levels of physical security.
One of the simplest but most effective ways of entering a prohibited area is by tailgating. No, this isn’t just referring to the road-rage-inducing driving technique — it covers any method of closely following an authorized individual to achieve access to restricted places.
Above: Criminals have tried to take advantage of the unsuspecting by impersonating law enforcement officers.
This can mean sneaking behind someone who is unaware of your presence or manipulating and piggybacking an authorized person to gain entry. In countless spy movies, the hero sneaks into the middle of a group of enemies to walk through a checkpoint — that's an example of this technique.
In an everyday scenario, this may involve a bad guy gaining access to a location with critical telecom equipment in order to plant a harmful device, or someone attempting to steal confidential information. To prevent this, most companies will live-monitor CCTV cameras, install anti-passback systems in their access controls, or just rely on employees to not hold the door for unknown individuals. Sounds easy, right? But what about during pandemonium? How can one prevent someone with nefarious intentions from harming them or compromising their bug-out spot?
Countermeasures
If you’re finding a safe place to bed down and take shelter for the night or keeping supplies in a predetermined bug-out location, you must protect the integrity of your hideaway. With limited supplies, this may be difficult, but maintaining high ground, securing a wide perimeter, and memorizing your surroundings can assist in keeping unwanted visitors out.
Try to pick locations with considerable cover, whether it’s in a forest or urban environment. Avoid well-lit areas and keep your own light signature in mind when traveling at night. Use surrounding material to conceal your hideaway and lessen the risk of blowing your cover.
Above: An outward appearance of vulnerability can distort your perception of an individual.
Whenever you’re mobile, try to keep eyes in the back of your head, and your ears to the ground, figuratively. One thing that could bust your hard-earned cache of supplies or personal safety is a compromise of position. Take stock of your surroundings constantly and maintain situational awareness. As stated above, keep your personal light signature in mind when traveling after sundown. That being said, if you must use a flashlight to navigate, use a lower lumen setting or moonlight mode found on most tactical lights. Ideally, 5 or 10 lumens will still allow you to see where you’re going, while still offering you some concealment.
Once you arrive at your bug-out spot, tone the lumen setting down even more. If your light has a red light setting, opt for this as it will still allow you to see what’s directly in front of you without casting any additional beam around your position. A better (but more costly) solution to operating in low light is to pack a pair of night vision goggles (NVGs). Whichever you choose, make sure concealment is the number-one priority.
Baiting
In the digital world, a link that looks too good to be true, such as a free cruise or free iPad, can easily trap an unknowing user into a well-laid-out baiting scheme. This technique is often the precursor to something even worse, such as ransomware or malware — both equally scary violations of your digital security. However, these attacks aren't always so obvious.
The ultra-ransomware attacks WannaCry and Petya were prime examples of how many people can be tempted by baiting through a link or random email. These two attacks affected nearly a half-million users across the globe. They could’ve been much worse if worldwide media coverage hadn’t alerted those who received suspicious emails, but had not yet opened the embedded links.
Above: This wallet may have been dropped accidentally, or it may be a form of bait, so approach with caution.
Baiting relates seamlessly to a grid-down situation as well. Whether you’re finding a safe area away from the chaos, looking for useful provisions, or generally avoiding danger, getting fooled by a baiting attack can be just as bad as falling for the illusion of a lake in the middle of the Sahara Desert. In a SHTF situation, countering these methods can be just as easy as when you’re browsing the web — although there’s no pop-up blocker or anti-malware plug-in to help you detect real-life scams.
Countermeasures
Just like most attacks, general situational awareness can prevent a myriad of incidents. If you see something that you feel could be useful or that appears curious, look around you before going near the object.
For example, rumors have circulated about criminals targeting individuals in parking lots late at night by placing bait to lure the victim away from their driver’s side door. As the victim steps away from his or her car to inspect the out-of-place item, the assailant could move in and commit whatever act they intended on carrying out.
If you’re familiar with the area you’re in, it's best to stay in the parts of town that you know best. Unexpected incidents often happen in unfamiliar places, so sticking to the familiar areas will likely be more beneficial for your own personal safety. If it’s a foreign environment, do your best to stay nondescript and don’t linger. Just like with cyber safety, staying out of questionable websites and avoiding unknown links will promise you more safety than browsing to them.
Phishing
In 2017, many U.S. residents were victims of a giant telephone phishing scheme by a group of unknown social engineers who attempted to steal large amounts of money. These hackers would call their targets and claim to be the IRS, stating the individual owed the federal government funds due to a tax audit or mistake in back taxes. This scheme is still active and has worked frequently over the past year. Even worse, many different forms of it have popped up from copycat hackers.
Above: Casual conversations in public can be used by clever criminals to obtain information about your personal life.
Just like on the web, phishing can be dangerous in the real world as well. During a grid-down scenario, unsavory characters may attempt to slyly elicit information from you regarding your past, your profession, and even personal notes like marital status. These pieces of information, as trivial as they may seem, can all be used against you in some way or another. Now, this doesn’t mean lie to everyone you know, but be sure to take caution if someone is asking way too many questions all of a sudden.
Countermeasures
Be careful what information you surrender to those you have just met. Your belongings, such as gas, ammunition/firearms, generators, and food, aren’t something to brag about during an emergency. Mentioning this to the wrong individual might put a target on your back.
It’s best not to offer any information that isn’t obvious about your family or personal life. These are all things that can be held against you if you’re the victim of a nefarious social engineer. The last thing you want is for a family member to be taken hostage because a rogue group wants something that you have — if society collapses, many individuals will have no qualms about seizing any advantage they can.
Skills can be just as valuable as tangible items, so be cautious of what you put on display to those who don’t know you all too well. If someone notices you’re a medical professional, they may show up on your doorstep injured and begging to be let in — or worse yet, demanding your assistance at gunpoint.
Manipulation and Pretexting
The line between awareness and paranoia must be drawn very finely when identifying pretexting. This technique involves convincing those around you that you’re something you’re not or manipulating perception — a very powerful social engineering skill. For example, someone who’s up to no good might dress up as a police officer or another figure of authority to gain access to an area.
Above: Flaunting wealth on social media is a great way to become a target. Be very careful about disclosing the extent and location of your valuables, as this may entice criminals to target your home.
Pretexting can be used during times of panic to make advances on targets that would otherwise be off-limits to the average Joe, opening up many opportunities to wreak havoc. Gaining trust as someone else is a surefire way to deceive the unsuspecting.
Countermeasures
To detect pretexting, ask leading questions about the person’s association with who they claim to be. Don’t come off as insulting, but use conversational questions about how long they’ve been doing what they do or how they obtained their credentials to figure out if the water is truly murky.
Inquire about their situation, how they’re surviving, where they’re from, and other non-intrusive questions about their life. A friendly demeanor and good acting skills are essential to pulling this off convincingly.
If after all of this, you’re still questioning their expertise or authority, find polite ways to get out of the situation. Look for visual cues when they’re answering your questions. Shaking or fidgeting of the hands, limited eye contact, voice trembling, hesitation, and answers that don’t particularly line up are red flags that should signal you to get out of Dodge before it’s too late.
Diversion
Diversion is exactly what it sounds like: diverting someone’s attention away from something that they really should be paying attention to, thus opening the opportunity to commit a nefarious act.
As one can imagine, there are a myriad of situations in the real world where diversion is effective. Most popular is the around-the-corner trick, where a group of individuals work to draw their victim away from the target of the operation (such as a vehicle, home, or security post). When the victim is away from the target, another member of the criminal group strikes and takes action on the target, thus completing the diversion attack and leaving the victim with their pants around their ankles.
Above: Criminals may request your assistance with a car break-down or medical emergency to distract you. This is especially effective with the aid of an attractive, harmless-looking accomplice.
If you’re the target of this social engineering attack, it may be difficult to determine if you’re being led down a path of lies by a stranger, or if there is indeed something going on that may require your attention. Combating these attacks is difficult, so attempt to pick up on any odd behavior that a shady character may display before your time to evaluate runs out.
Countermeasures
Claiming that someone is in medical distress or in danger is a common way that one could be tricked into leaving a vehicle, possessions, or family behind for just a minute. These situations get your blood pressure pumping, raise your heart rate, and stop you from thinking clearly about being deceived. Everyone wants to believe somebody wouldn’t lie about an actual emergency, but stay alert and pay attention to your surroundings — not everything is what it seems.
The easiest way to avoid this attack is heightening your sense of personal security. If mobile, avoid leaving supplies out on display. This just makes them easy pickings if you aren’t around. Also, make sure you make things as theft-proof as possible at your bug-out location. It’s not always easy to do, but stashing valuables in hidden spots can save you some heartache if anyone ever loots your hideaway.
Final Thoughts
When dealing with experienced social engineers, you may not even know someone is taking advantage of you, so it's essential to watch for warning signs.
The attacks we’ve presented are some of the most common types that are carried out by cunning criminals. Above all, the best way to prevent being a victim is by having a heightened sense of awareness and taking preventative steps to protect your belongings. The countermeasures we've discussed will enable you to be more cautious and prepared in the event of a catastrophe.
President Biden famously said, “You don’t need an AR-15. It’s harder to aim. It’s harder to use. And, in fact, you don’t need 30 rounds to protect yourself. Buy a shotgun.” He continued, “If there’s ever a problem, just walk out on the balcony here … put that double-barreled shotgun, just walk out on the balcony and fire two blasts outside the house.” Politics aside, we shouldn’t need to tell you this is bad advice — in any defensive shooting situation, you’ll need to account for every round you fire, so blindly slinging buckshot off the porch is a terrible idea. Furthermore, I’d argue that a 30-round-capacity, semi-automatic, low-recoil carbine is in fact an excellent choice for home defense. However, if your AR-15 home defense plan starts and ends with placing a loaded carbine by your bedside, that isn’t enough to be fully prepared. If it's your first-line defensive tool, you should train with it. More importantly, your training should be realistic to the scenario.
Rogue Methods is a training company founded by U.S. Army veteran and former Chicago PD undercover officer Raul Martinez Jr. — you can read more about him in my Spotlight interview in Issue 57 (on sale August 15th, 2023). Martinez aims to provide courses that teach realistic fighting skills, rather than the flat-range-focused, technical shooting skills found in many other courses. I recently attended Rogue Methods’ Low-Profile Carbine class, which takes a unique approach to teaching defensive carbine skills.
Rogue Methods' Take on AR-15 Home Defense Skills
The class began with a segment on a topic Martinez addresses in every one of his courses: first aid. Each student practiced applying a C-A-T tourniquet to their own limbs and to other students’ limbs. For the latter, we wrapped excess strap around the windlass to prevent quick removal — tourniquets are painful, and victims may try to loosen them, leading to preventable fatalities.
Above: Martinez demonstrates tourniquet application. He believes that medical skills are essential, especially for those of us who use firearms frequently.
Next, Martinez discussed carbine setup. He covered topics including red dot brightness, cheek weld (bring the sight to your eye, not vice versa), stock position, grip (don’t break it when you’re working the selector), and sling configuration (something you can “swim out” of quickly to reposition).
Above: Martinez gave one-on-one advice to each student regarding grip, stance, and carbine setup at the start of the class.
Speaking of slings, we removed them from our carbines at this point, since Martinez wanted us to get used to the feeling of using them in a “grab and go” bedside gun configuration. We also didn’t wear battle belts or chest rigs full of mags, since that’s not gear you’re likely to be wearing in a spur-of-the-moment self-defense incident. We loaded one mag into the gun, dropped a spare into a pocket, and stepped onto the range.
Drills & Standards
Each student worked in 3- to 5-round strings, learning to reset the trigger quickly under recoil and adjust point of impact based on optical offset at close range. We practiced the three ready positions — low ready, high ready, and muzzle up (a.k.a. high port) — to get a feel for the situational pros and cons of each. For example, the latter might be necessary to keep the muzzle pointed away from bystanders or family members in tight spaces.
A variety of drills were conducted between 10 and 30 yards, leading us to vary our shooting cadence based on distance and target size. Accuracy and shot accountability were repeatedly emphasized, because as I mentioned earlier, you’re legally and morally responsible for every round you fire. That said, Martinez didn’t expect perfection from students, and reminded us that an effective hit is still an effective hit even if it’s slightly off-center. The key is the ability to get those hits on demand, under stress, and quickly enough to remain unharmed by an attacker. That’s the difference between getting A-zone hits on the range and defeating a threat in the real world.
Additional layers of difficulty were added as we walked and ran between positions and worked around barricades. We learned how to move swiftly up to cover, staying back far enough to fully extend the gun. To lean out from behind cover, the leading foot is planted, and body weight is shifted over that foot like the beginning of a lunge, yielding improved stability. Multiple targets were added to the mix, and Martinez specified varying round counts, shot placements, and sequences for each. “No shoot” targets were also incorporated, since Martinez emphasized that having enough restraint to know when not to shoot is critical.
Above: Martinez's personal rifle of choice is a Cobalt Kinetics 11.5-inch SBR equipped with an Aimpoint Micro red dot.
Closing Thoughts
I really enjoyed this Low-Profile Carbine class, and it served as a good reminder that AR-15 home defense training is different than training with a carbine for competition, military service, or law enforcement. By keeping a real-world perspective in mind, Rogue Methods provided some valuable drills and lessons. Rogue Methods also employs a variety of assistant instructors with diverse skill sets and backgrounds, including military, law enforcement, and competition shooting experience. So, each class brings different types of expertise to help students become more well-rounded, rather than relying entirely on one instructor's viewpoint. For more information on upcoming Rogue Methods classes, go to rogue-methods.com.
It’s no secret that the coolest cucumber can think clearer and perform better in a violent physical altercation. Countless documentation of historical events has been written about the critical importance of staying cool under pressure, from Wyatt Earp to Chris Kyle. What three things can be done to keep your cool should it hit the proverbial fan? Listed in order of priority, they are: prepare your mind and body, map your environment, and have an operational plan.
Above: A couple experiences the stress of the fight, flight or freeze response.
Humans need current information to make an accurate assessment and formulate a viable solution to a tactical problem. Anything other than relevant physical and mental input, rapid assessment, and a realistic solution can cause significant decision-making delays. In a life-and-death situation, even a few seconds of processing time can put you behind the action-reaction power curve.
If you expect to stay cool, you’ll need to allow that mind-body input-processing-solution process to run without a hiccup. There are two approaches to streamlining this process — one psychological and the other physical.
Psychological Preparation
Looking at it from the psychological perspective (mind), at times, your perception of a threat may be so intense that it could cause a “freeze response.” People who have experienced this have described physical symptoms such as tunnel vision, auditory exclusion, fine motor degradation, an inability to physically move, and the like.
Above: Even during our daily routines, many of us have experienced information overload that clogs our decision-making process.
Most people are concerned about what they call being “frozen with fear.” However, you can effectively prepare for and overcome such a psycho-mechanical “freeze” both proactively (pre-freeze) and reactively (post-freeze).
Proactively, you can run through potential high-threat scenarios in your mind. The subconscious registers these imaginary vignettes no differently than if they were actual events. By watching these scenarios unfold in your mind’s eye, you gain a familiarity. (Editor’s Note: This is the reason why every issue of RECOIL OFFGRID includes a hypothetical What If? scenario for you to visualize.)
Reactively, you can take a deep resetting breath, and keep your eyes moving to break tunnel vision and gain continuous visual and audio input from your immediate surroundings. This causes your body to continue functioning on the conscious level and can help override the autonomic panic mechanism.
Speaking practically, what being “frozen with fear” more accurately describes is the brain being overwhelmed. The brain must process information to determine your best course of action. If that mental process is clogged, then you in effect are frozen, not with fear per se, but bogged down in a self-induced mental processing quagmire. Some call this analysis paralysis. The root cause is inbound information that may be new, unfamiliar, and threatening.
Proactively running mental self-rehearsals, engaging in force-on-force training, judgment exercises, and/or use of force training makes the experience no longer something new to your mind. Such proactive measures further mitigate information processing overload and decision paralysis by making such scenarios feel familiar.
Yes, from a psychological perspective there’s nothing much you can do about the “threatening” part, but you can certainly inoculate yourself against newness and unfamiliarity, which removes at least two-thirds of the mental processing roadblock. This is critical to prevent psycho-mechanical freeze.
Physical Preparation
Looking at it from a purely physical perspective (body), if you’ve never been in a face-in-the-dirt drag-down knock-out violent physical altercation, then such an experience would be a brand-new one to your body. You’d be unfamiliar with the nuances of physical combat. If you had experienced aggressive bodily impact prior, then it would no longer be new. If you were previously trained in boxing, martial arts, or some other type of hard skill (physical training), then your body would at least be familiar with certain aspects of aggressive physical contact such as how to best develop receiving or managing impact, make evasive movements, and other related body mechanics.
Above: Boxing and martial arts can help you condition your response to bodily impacts, reducing the shock you’ll feel if you get hit.
Training in hard skills is the most effective form of tactile inoculation available. It familiarizes you physically with the intricacies of personal combat. After you’ve rolled on the ground with someone trying to get you to tap out, stood toe-to-toe with someone trying to punch you in the throat, or spent quality trigger time on a firing range, your body begins to experience such activities as “just another day at the office.” Minus previous exposure, physical experience, or familiarization, you place yourself at a tactical disadvantage. Real-world training in any hard skill is a recommended proactive measure that preps your body by preventing new and unfamiliar physical experiences from clogging mechanical function.
From a physical perspective, there’s nothing you can do about the “threatening” part of it in terms of physicality, but by training in any type of hard skill such as shooting, ground-fighting, boxing, martial arts, and the like, you can gain a level of familiarity so that it’s no longer a new or unfamiliar physical experience.
Above: How many times have you checked your watch without realizing what time it says, or glanced at a sign without actually reading it? This is the difference between looking and seeing — only the latter involves conscious mental engagement.
Psychologically new and unfamiliar incoming information and physically new and unfamiliar experiences can cause a processing jam both in mind and body. Removing two out of the three roadblocks mentally and physically affords you a significant tactical advantage. You will be able to process a tactical solution faster (both mentally and physically) than those who would otherwise mechanically freeze.
It’s no surprise that the military and other government agencies (such as those providing protective services and the like) require rigorous psychological and physical training as a job prerequisite in preparing both mind and body.
Map Your Environment
Most people believe that situational awareness is just a matter of “looking around” or “keeping your head on a swivel.” It’s so common that these cliché lines can now be found in action-adventure movies. There’s a lot more to it than just simply looking.
How many times have you looked at your watch and then had to look at it again to take in the actual time? It’s not what you look at but what you see that matters. Looking is simply a matter of placing your eyeballs on something, whereas seeing is a matter of being mentally engaged with your environment.
Above: The first time you drove a car, driving the speed limit felt fast and overwhelming. Years later, you have conditioned your mind and body to the point that 65 miles per hour feels like standing still. The same can be done for fights through continuous training.
Taking visual and audio control are the keys to mapping your environment. This valuable skill takes time to develop. Next time you go into a restaurant or a coffee shop or a store, take a minute to just stand off to the side for a second and look and listen for anomalies — those things that don’t seem to fit the environment. You may be surprised to find what you discover in this simple, easy to run exercise.
The second part of mapping your environment is to locate and identify your highest and most likely threat areas. These would include any structural entry or exit such as doors or windows. Commonly referred to as the “fatal funnel” doorways, narrow halls, and stairwells are natural chokepoints. You don’t want to find yourself stuck at a chokepoint in a violent physical altercation. Identify your chokepoints and how you would avoid them.
Lastly but certainly not least important in mapping your environment is identifying cover, concealment, fields of vision, and fields of fire. Will that knee-high wall, table, or protruding structure stop a rifle round? Mapping your environment is a recommended active measure and something you can do on-site without anyone even suspecting what you’re doing.
Environmental mapping ties directly back to mind body prep in terms of interacting with your environment. Engaging with your immediate environment displaces any newness or unfamiliarity that may present itself within your surroundings, which further attenuates the probability of a psycho-mechanical freeze. Interacting with your environment both mentally and physically significantly contributes to formulating a layered solution to any burgeoning tactical problem.
Have a Plan
In the world of aviation, pilots always strive to be cognizant of the dangerous and cascading chain of events that can arise from simple oversight, negligence, laziness, and overconfidence (complacency breeds contempt — that being the most inexcusable cause). These common operational blunders are the behaviors that generally lead up to an emergency. By being cognizant of these behavioral failures, pilots avoid ever having to implement the exigent response skills or reactive measures mandated annually in flight simulators.
Above: Pilots are a good example of operational readiness. They proactively plan and train for various emergency scenarios so that if one occurs, it won’t feel new or unfamiliar. This helps them react significantly faster.
The same applies to operational readiness. If you have taken proactive measures to prep your mind and body to neutralize the effects of processing new and unfamiliar information and experiences, then you’re a step ahead of the next guy who has not. If you take the additional measure of mapping your environment, you’re then mentally engaged with and in further control of your immediate surroundings.
One more thing that you can do to help keep your cool should it hit the proverbial fan is to come up with an op plan. If the front door is no longer an option for you then target your egress for the back door. Determine which pieces of cover you will employ and which route will get you there quickest with the least amount of physical injury.
Needing to keep cool means that you’re physically reacting to an active threat with which you’re engaged. As it’s going down, take a deep cleansing breath to clear (or possibly unfreeze) your mind and plan your next move. Don’t just spin around in circles. You need to think on your feet.
Speaking of feet, staying mobile is a priority — moving targets are more difficult to hit than stationary ones. Staying mobile is the only way to create distance (which is your best friend) between yourself and the threat. More space equals more time, which equals more opportunity to solve the tactical problem.
Most folks think, Well, I’ll just walk in and place my back against the wall so I can see what’s going on. OK, that’s not a bad initial idea, but then what? What’s your op plan if you do see something? Do you have an unimpaired field of vision? Where are the margins of your fields of fire should you need to go to guns? Do you even have a backstop? If it’s a no-shoot scenario, then to where is your first tactical movement?
If you had to move yourself and your family out the kitchen or back door, you’d need to get there incrementally in a full-blown firefight. How and where would you move to get to that next piece of cover? What are your safety options along the way?
You’ll most likely not be able to follow your initial op plan all the way to its terminal objective — Plan A hardly ever ends up working out — but even having one to start with puts you ahead of the power curve. You have saved the step of needing a plan. It’s always better to have and not need, than need and not have.
Prepping your mind and body both proactively and reactively, mapping your environment by identifying ingress, egress, choke points, fields of vision, fields of fire, and the like, plus having an op plan to follow during either a shoot or no-shoot scenario are the necessary gray man tools in your tool kit. They afford you the opportunity to gain the initiative, stay ahead of the action-reaction power curve, and keep your cool when the mercury rises.
Cities are full of life and can be fantastic; on the other hand, they can also seem to be more trouble than they’re worth. Because cities have higher populations, they also have more of everything. This increased concentration of people results in greater depth of food, culture, concerts, shows, shopping, sporting events, and life in general. Along with this comes an increased risk of criminal victimization, but there are tangible ways to reduce your criminal risk profile through thoughtful planning and consideration. This article isn’t necessarily for those who already live in urban areas — those who do usually already intrinsically know much of this — but for those who are less familiar and perhaps have a skewed view of risk due to depictions in the media.
Thanks to profitability of news outlets being based on eyeballs for advertisers, there’s an evolutionary pressure to highlight the horrid and downplay successes. The phrase “if it bleeds it leads” exists for a reason — harrowing and horrific tales activate the limbic system and induce fight-or-flight reactions, effectively forcing us to pay more attention, to watch more and watch longer. Our brains aren’t wired to make us happy but to keep us alive. And this biological hijacking for views distorts our own perceptions of safety, regardless of the actual risk.
Above: Transitional zones like parking garages and dark parking lots are places where criminals search for targets of opportunity.
Despite heated headlines and raving rhetoric blared by the 24-hour news cycle and grandstanding politicians, interpersonal crime is statistically rare. Times of uncertainty correspond with a temporary increase in criminal activity, but it’s not a continuous trend. Violent crimes of all stripes have been precipitously dropping since 1990, with a bump in 2001 from stressors of Sept. 11 and another in 2020 with the pandemic and lockdowns (which has already greatly calmed).
Additionally, not all crime is created equally. It’s not that some crimes don’t matter — the crimes we primarily need to concern ourselves with as temporary visitors are different than for a permanent resident. Here we’re not just talking about personal, violent crimes such as murder, assault, sexual assault, and robbery, but the smaller opportunistic subset of those terrible offenses.
This article isn’t about how to fight once the fight is on; it focuses on methods to avoid trouble in the first place. The most successful fight is the one you don’t have, not the one where the fight happens and you come out the victor.
An Ounce of Prevention
Criminals look for easy marks, those who present a high likelihood of success while minimizing their personal risk. Not looking or acting like a target makes you less likely to be a target. Avoid outward displays of wealth such as expensive (or expensive-looking) shoes, watches, and other adornments. Act like you belong, walk with a purpose rather than with furtive movements in high-traffic public areas, and walk more casually like you live there in more-residential ones. Don’t openly count money, read maps, or generally look like you’re lost. While you’re walking, don’t stop for strangers accosting you for any reason. Along similar lines, there’s some safety in numbers — two or three people are harder to victimize than someone on their own.
Above: Author Dave Merrill scans for potential trouble while remaining calm and confident.
A projection of confidence, even when you’re not actually confident, can go a long way.
Don’t Do Stupid Things
The dirty secret of gun crime, especially murders in the United States, is that it’s highly concentrated in only a handful of realms. If you don’t participate in the illicit narcotics trade — the purchase, sale, manufacturing, or transportation of illegal drugs — and can afford to live outside an area where illicit narcotics trades occur, your odds of being shot and killed are infinitesimal. And even then, that murder is likely to be perpetrated by a friend or family member.
You greatly reduce your odds of being victimized if you don’t partake in black-market criminal enterprises. Don’t buy drugs, don’t procure the services of a commercial sex worker, and don’t take part in underground gambling. Setting aside any moral issues and potential legal entanglements, these activities are far more personally dangerous for two main reasons: the odds of legal recourse are low because the victim is also breaking the law themselves, and they usually involve larger amounts of physical cash.
While it’s true that credit cards and debit cards can be stolen and used, their use requires a slightly higher level of criminal sophistication to avoid being caught and prosecuted versus cold, hard cash.
Don’t Go to Stupid Places
Stupid places are not just areas where illicit activities take place, but also where people have reduced behavioral inhibitions. Yes, we’re talking about alcohol. Bars, night clubs, strip joints, et al. are all places with higher risk factors, which only increase as the night goes on, peaking in the nearby parking lots when these establishments close. Ego, alcohol, and outsiders are rarely a winning combination regardless of the population density of the area.
Above: Businesses that rely more on cash sales are tantalizing targets.
Businesses that rely more on cash sales have a much higher risk of being subject to burglary and robbery, because while a bustling suburban Whole Foods Market has a daily sales number an order of magnitude higher than a small corner bodega, the vast majority of the money running through that Bezos business is digital. The risk of being witness to a robbery or being robbed yourself also increases based on proximity to easy egress routes — think a small cash-based business alongside a major highway at night.
Transitional zones such as stairwells and dark parking garages can also be considered stupid places and present opportunities for the criminally minded. Depending on the layout of the city and the resources available, it’s often better to take public transportation such as a subway or a taxi/rideshare service to avoid these transitional zones.
Don’t Go at Stupid Times
Even in an extremely bad area, not every inch of land will be bad, and even the most dangerous places won’t be bad every minute of the day. The most dangerous place in any city in the world between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. are the highways that crisscross them, and even so-called “safe” places carry higher risks of victimization during times of darkness late at night into the early morning hours.
Above: Violent crime isn't the only danger in an urban area. Often careless drivers on busy streets present a larger threat.
Don’t Go With Stupid People
“Stupid people” in this case are the ones who want to go to stupid places, do stupid things, and do them at stupid times. If you have a friend or family member who seems to be a magnet for trouble, the common thread with all of that trouble is them. This isn’t to say you can’t be friends with someone like that — they’re often quite fun to be around — but definitely be choosey about what you do and where you go with them.
Issues With Apps and Crime Data
There are a multitude of websites and smartphone apps that’ll give you maps and alerts of crime information, but they’re less useful than they appear on the surface. One of the issues with crime data you’ll find on the internet is that you have relatively little information. Take a listing of “assault,” for example: the location and perhaps time of the reported crime is all you’ll usually get. You won’t know any of the circumstances, like if it was a false report or a domestic issue — while domestic assault is awful, it has nothing to do with outsiders visiting the area. Typically, when we ingest incomplete information like this, we assume the worst: that the assault was on a stranger, like us, and that it would apply to us in that area. There’s some survival benefit to this type of catastrophizing, but this type of negative thinking also warps perceived danger.
These apps can be helpful to view general trends and to highlight areas of higher criminality, but over-focusing on raw data will only increase fear and anxiety. Use these resources but use them sparingly. Like talking heads on the TV, app developers have a vested interest in keeping you glued to the screen.
Above: Urban areas often get more bad publicity than good thanks to common media practices.
A Mundane Risk
While much of this article is focused on violent crime, dying due to a car accident makes you no less dead than being murdered by a stranger. Apps are actually extremely useful to note the most common locations and intersections for automotive accidents. Defensive driving is never cool or sexy, but it has a much greater impact on safely getting you from point A to point B. You can’t control the actions of other people, but you can control what you do. The risk of a traffic incident not only increases during times of higher density of traffic, but also the later in the evening you drive. People under the influence are more likely to be on the road after 9 p.m., continuing until about an hour after the local bars and other drinking establishments close.
This advice is boring, but wear your seatbelt, look both ways at intersections or before crossing the street, and don’t text and drive.
Further Learning
While this article is more of a high-level view of risk mitigation, there are resources and courses you can take that delve more into the nitty-gritty. Drawing from his more than two decades of law enforcement experience, especially his work in counter-narcotics, Craig Douglas of ShivWorks teaches some tremendous classes on the importance of pre-engagement tactics and how to manage unknown contacts, as well as your best actions for success when and if that fight actually starts.
Cities are far from the cesspools some say they are, but even in the safest cities in the world you can find trouble if you go looking for it — so don’t go looking.
Loneliness is a condition that weighs heavily on the soul, even when you’re in an environment with all the trappings of comfort like food, shelter, fire, and water. As Dr. David Matsumoto pointed out in RECOIL OFFGRID Issue 51, just the advent of the internet and social media has had profound effects on the population and has been a major source of negative emotions associated with using a computer in lieu of personal interaction with others. Prolonged isolation not only has psychological effects of depression, anger, anxiety, and thoughts of suicide, but research says it leads to poor sleep, accelerated cognitive decline, and premature mortality.
Can these symptoms be staved off with proper preparation if you’re suddenly thrust into a situation where you’re alone indefinitely due to a situation in the wilderness that left you stranded? What can one do to occupy their time to keep their brain engaged in something productive, think positively, and keep negative thoughts from creeping in and losing all hope? We asked survival instructor Kevin Estela and first responder Joey Nickischer to explain what they’d do in that situation where mind over matter is critical.
The Scenario
Situation Type
Surviving Isolation
Your Crew
Yourself
Location
Remote Pacific Northwest
Season
Spring
Weather
Cool; high 53 degrees F, low 42 degrees F
The Setup: Your own mind is one of your toughest adversaries in a survival situation, especially when there’s no one else to interact with. As has been evidenced by TV shows like Alone, one of the reasons many contestants tap out is because they can’t handle being by themselves indefinitely for long periods of time. Human beings are social creatures and need to be in contact with others to thrive. It’s clearly documented that long periods of loneliness and social isolation are linked to serious health conditions, both physical and psychological. Ask any prisoner who has spent extended amounts of time in solitary confinement, and most will tell you it was the toughest time they ever did. If you were thrust into a situation where, in addition to having to secure food, water, shelter, and heat, you were now forced to find ways to keep yourself from declining cognitively due to isolation, what would you do to keep your head about you?
The Complication: You’re an independent person and love new adventures. You have no problem going it alone on hikes, camping trips, road trips, fishing trips, and hunting excursions because you enjoy not having to rely on anyone else and the excitement that comes with a certain amount of uncertainty. However, you understand that living on the edge doesn’t come without risks. Like Aron Ralston having to amputate his arm after being trapped alone for five days under a boulder, these adventures and insistence on experiencing life to the fullest by yourself are always a roll of the dice.
While fishing alone in the islands off the coast between the borders of British Columbia and Alaska, you decide to try a remote area you’ve never been to before. The location is about 200 feet offshore from one of the many islands in the area. As you’re bringing your 20-foot outboard boat around at a high rate of speed, you unexpectedly slam into a rock that was hidden just below the surface. Your vessel quickly begins to take on water. By the time you realize the severity of the damage and conclude the boat is sinking, there’s no time to use the onboard radio before it disappears into the water. You only have a few moments to grab what you can fit into a backpack and swim to shore.
After making the swim to shore and regaining your composure a bit, you realize the cell phone in your pocket is inoperable due to water damage. You may be stuck here a long time until help arrives. However, you feel confident your bushcraft knowledge and the few items you can salvage will help you survive off the land for a while. The problem is, how long will that while be? As this is an area not traveled by the Coast Guard often and no one knows your exact location, you realize your life is beginning to mimic Tom Hanks in Cast Away. While the closest thing to a companion he could find was a volleyball, how can you come up with activities or mental challenges to stay focused, cognizant, sane, and not succumb to the horrors of prolonged isolation?
Survival Instructor Kevin Estela’s Approach
First things first, Kev, check yourself. Do you have any injuries from getting thrown to the bow of the skiff? What about cuts to your hand you didn’t realize you received while clinging to rocks climbing out of the sound? It was really cold, and you wouldn’t even notice getting opened up by those barnacles. Prioritize! I wasn’t expecting that rock and I hate being cold and wet. I have to do something about these clothes, they’re all I have. What about all that kit left on the boat? Damn, I can’t believe I don’t have that other gear. Snap out of it! Being cold and wet is a choice at this point and I can fix that if I get a fire going, or I can bitch and moan about something I should fix later on. There has to be driftwood washed up on shore. Even if the outside of that wood is wet, I can shave it down and get to drier wood inside. I still have my Winkler fixed blade, so here we go.
Preparation: Without injury, it shouldn’t be difficult to get a fire going. I’ve been teaching bushcraft and survival skills since 2007 and have lit thousands of fires. I’m carrying a ferro rod that can survive brief exposure to saltwater but this salty environment will eventually wear it down and destroy it. I have a carbon-steel fixed-blade belt knife that I don’t have to worry about opening — thank God, since my fingers feel frozen. If I keep moving, I can warm my body from the outside in. I see plenty of driftwood; it’s willow and it burns like crazy. I’m going to need a lot because it burns hot but fast, and I’ll be through my short supply quickly. One armful, and then another, and more and more. Don’t worry about the quality of each piece — surely there are going to be some duds in there along with the prime dried-out pieces.
Screw building a fire ring like all the manuals; there’s no chance that fire is going to spread in this damp environment. Start with the tinder — lots of tinder — and use the back of your blade to make fine scrapings that’ll take a spark. Pin those scrapings down and run that ferro rod hard with a lot of quick scrapes instead of your usual one or two scrapes with concentrated sparks. You need as much heat as possible, and you can be critical of your technique after you get fire. A spark, then a slow glow of flame that builds intensity as it hits more fuel, then FIRE! Thank God. Now maintain it, add fuel, dry your clothes, and assess your kit. Plan on banking your fire overnight and keeping that warmth going indefinitely.
The fire is warm, and it’s giving me some comfort. This would be a lot easier if I could clone myself and have an extra set of hands, but I’m all alone here. I’m being negative again. I can’t think about others, I need to be “survival selfish” and think just about me right now. Looking through my backpack, I have the usual gear on me like a water bottle with a nesting cup, some repair kit, battery charger for my now non-working phone, some fishing tackle, a few creature comfort items like a headlamp, gloves, and some basic med gear.
What else is out there on the boat? If I wait six hours, the tide will be low and I can wade out there to check, but I need to do this now before the weather and time takes its toll on me. I can build up my fire and be ready to walk back to shore. I know there is a basic flare kit, a bait bucket I can use to collect rainwater, and a dedicated fishing pole. What was that quote I’ve used about coastal foraging? That’s right, “When the tide goes out, the table is set.” There’s plenty to eat here. I just have to make sure I stay warm and hydrated. The physical side of this emergency shouldn’t be the worst I’ve been through. I know my mind is going to wander, and given this remote location, I have no idea when I’ll get out of here. I have to keep my mind busy or thoughts I have no control over are going to get the best of me.
On Site: With the basic kit I recovered from the boat and a system of feeding myself that follows the rise and fall of the tide, I’ve settled into a routine, which is absolutely vital. I’m working on my primitive shelter each day. The bed I’ve made using a garbage bag on top of ferns needs daily upkeep as my body weight crushes them down nightly. Once repaired, I wait for the tide to go out and collect mussels, snails, and assorted shellfish. Every so often, I’ll find a small fish trapped in the tide pools that I can shock by throwing a rock into it and then splashing the stunned fish out onto the rocks.
The pile of discarded shells is helping to fool my brain that I’m eating enough, but I know my body is craving not just calories but diversity. Food boredom is kicking in. Each day, I’m building up the materials I have set aside for a smokey fire I’ll light if I see any ship or bush plane fly by. This environment is so lush and green, the white smoke from burning greens should contrast and stand out, but it has to be a significant amount of smoke or it could be confused for a poorly lit camping fire. This routine is getting boring, and I need to do something else to defeat this isolation.
As a kid, I stacked rocks along the Connecticut shoreline and threw others at them to knock down the towers. My dad was a crack shot and every so often, we’d throw a larger rock and find a spurt of water come out of the ground where a clam was. Wait! I forgot about that until just now — I can dig up clams with a digging stick I’ll carve. It will become a game, a goal, and each day I’ll reward myself with the bounty. It’s a little victory, and I need that right now. Not seeing any sign of rescue each day is weighing on me, and I have to build some positive mental attitude little by little.
I’m trying not to imagine what my family and friends are thinking about me. I never checked back in during the comms window we established. They must be worried, and they must be looking. I hate inconveniencing them. Snap out of it, Kev. It will be worse if they never find you or find a dead body here. You can’t worry about them now. Be survival selfish and survive. These tears are a sign I’m losing it. Wipe them away. Dad wouldn’t want you to be weak. Remember the family motto, “To the last drop.” You don’t give up, you don’t quit, and don’t you consider suicide. That doesn’t end pain, it transfers it. You keep going. Remember what you have to go home to. Remember that girl in Texas you met who you still want to build a relationship with. Remember that next book you want to write. There’s more positive to look forward to at home than there is negative here on this island to crush you. Don’t forget your worth and your potential.
Crisis: This morning, I noticed I’m losing more and more weight and muscle mass. That line that formed on my Tenicor Zero belt from regular wear is not where it is now. My seafood diet is starting to become more transactional, and I’m just choking food down now for the sake of calories. Gone is the gratitude before each meal, and I feel like I’m barely existing. I can’t lose all faith, and I have to continue to pray something will change here. This feels like a test, and I feel like I’m on the verge of failing. My ferro rod has long been worn down by the environment and regular use at night as a quick light, since my headlamp has been useless for a couple weeks now. I can’t stand the fact I walk by salmonberries that aren’t ripe yet and feel like they’re taunting me. I’d kill for something sweet like they usually are in the summer, but that is still months away. I can’t believe a stupid segmented/aggregate berry is pissing me off.
Each day, I walk the shoreline of the small island hoping to find something that washed up that could help me. Every day, my expectations for rescue seem to dwindle. I’m convinced I’m the only jerk who has ever been around to this cove. I’m making it a point to add more tasks to my day each day, but there are only so many times I can hone my knife on the smooth rocks on the shoreline and only so many times I can make extra thin cordage out of the scrap dock line that was washed up. There are only so many times I can wake to the sound of something in the woods behind me only to realize it isn’t another human but some four-legged scavenger. I’m normally an optimistic person, but the gravity of my reality is crushing me.
Something hit me today. I’ve made a living out of teaching bushcraft, and this has been a test of those skills and that knowledge. My final days here mean nothing if I’m never found. Or maybe I am found, but it is too late and all that remains is the skeleton of a man curled in the fetal position, representing one final attempt to stay warm with no good firewood nearby. A new daily practice as part of my routine has been to sit on a particular rock that looks out over the sound just looking at my watch and seeing how slow time is passing by. The sound. No … wait, that sound! It’s one I know. It’s the sound of a fishing reel’s drag being tested. I look to my left to see a sport fishing charter that must be going for lingcod or another bottomfish. Have I been out long enough that a new fishing season has started? It doesn’t matter. I need to light this fire, I need to grab those flares, I have to be as obnoxious as possible to get their attention. I’ve been so survival selfish thinking about my own daily fishing that I’ve forgotten others would be drawn to this area. It looks like that charter boat is changing position. Are they repositioning for another drift or are they headed my way? How many weeks has it been since I drifted those waters? They aren’t following that line that I used, the bow is turned in my direction and they’re sounding their horn.
Above: Survival instructor Kevin Estela stands geared up and ready for whatever the path ahead may throw at him.
First Responder Joey Nickischer’s Approach
There are scores of stories of people getting stuck on a deserted island for the long haul, and an untold number who were trapped for a day or more. As part of your regular prepping repertoire, it’s wise to take precautions against this happening if you’re traveling over or through the water. While most people will automatically think they need supplies to ensure water, shelter, and food, the biggest thing many people forget is to prepare for the mental struggle that’ll inevitably set in.
My first few days marooned on an island will be focused on the immediate needs of getting warm, building shelter, collecting water, and signaling for help — all of which are the hallmarks of every good outdoorsman. After all, I’m usually the one out looking for lost people and have the skill set to handle this situation.
Get started! Take off the wet clothes as water will pull heat away from the body 25 times faster than air. A few light exercises will start the heart pumping and get my core body temperature up. Now, look for a good spot to start a fire, one that will warm me, provide rescue signal in both smoke and light, keep critters away, and boost my spirit. Take a full inventory of what supplies you were able to salvage from the boat. My Ten Essentials list was outlined in “Get Lost” in RECOIL OFFGRID Issue 28 and contains, among other things, fire-starting material, a flashlight, orienteering compass, small tarp, whistle, and the old-school USAF survival knife. This kit will get me through the first few days, and if I’m lucky, I was also able to grab a flare gun and life jacket.
Next, think about shelter for the night, both underneath you and above you. It’s also important to make a large SOS signal in an open area that’s very visible from the air. We’re not talking letters 3-feet tall; we’re talking letters 10- to 20-feet tall. The bigger they are, the farther away they’re recognizable. Tomorrow, explore the island for possible inhabitants and threats.
Once the first few days have passed, this is the time that the first bit of real fear will start to creep into everybody’s consciousness. What if help never comes? This notion shouldn’t be too hard to dispel in the early stages. Stay focused, and don’t let your fire burn out. Starting a fire is a lot more labor intensive than keeping it going; it also lifts your spirits. Make sure to have a slow but steady supply of combustible material handy, as well as some greener material to make a lot of smoke. Smoke is visible from miles away. Make sure your SOS sign still has good contrast to the background; green materials will start to fade and footprints in the sand will also diminish. Refresh these regularly. It’s also time to start working on a viable food source. Fish should be an easy choice but also forage for what the land has to offer. I’m going to stay busy and focus on what I need to do. Surely somebody is looking for me and in the right area. After all, I did remember to leave a detailed itinerary with a trusted friend.
As the days turn into weeks, and the weeks turn into months, this is where the mental problems really start. According to Dr. Sharon Shalev, author of A Sourcebook on Solitary Confinement, we’re going to start feeling anxiety, depression, anger, panic attacks, hypersensitivity to sounds and smells, concentration and memory problems, fatigue, hallucination, and paranoia. The best way to combat these mental health challenges is to nip them in the bud, preferably before they start; loneliness is a big deal. If you watch Cast Away with Tom Hanks, the movie script delves into his struggles with this. Hanks’ character, Tom Nolan, even draws a picture of his girlfriend onto a cave wall as a coping mechanism. And, of course, the unsung hero of the movie was Wilson, the blood-stained volleyball with a face drawn on it. Wilson was Nolan’s connection to the living world and was inspiring enough to keep him from committing suicide.
The Will Smith movie I Am Legend also touches on the struggle of isolationism. In this movie, we see Smith’s character, LTC Robert Neville, using many of the coping mechanisms I touch on below. The writers did a good job portraying the dark path the mind can wander down when inherently social humans are forced into solitary existence. (I particularly like this movie not just for the interesting storyline but because I have a 2.3-second appearance in it, by the Brooklyn Bridge.)
If you’re ever in the solitary survival situation, you want to end up a lot more like Nolan and a lot less like the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. Here are some of the things you can try to ease these stressors:
Focus on the present. Don’t trouble yourself worrying about next week when you’re overly stressed — deal with the here and now. Do things to, ever so slightly, improve your situation. Small steps and small victories.
Structure your day. Having a routine is comforting to many people. You don’t have to think about what comes next; you already know the schedule. Tend to the fire, get some water, eat some food, upgrade the shelter, back to the fire. Rinse and repeat.
Positive self-talk. What a powerful thing positive self-talk is. When I was a young police officer in the early 1990s, I attended the Calibre Press Street Survival seminar. There were many positive things I took away from that seminar but one of the most powerful was the Positive Self Talk card. I carried that card in my wallet until well after I retired. Some of the things written on that card were, “I will learn from my mistakes and the mistakes of others,” “I will adapt, improvise, and overcome any adversary,” “I will be committed to maintaining balance and emotional health,” and my favorite, “I will survive.” I read and reread these mantras numerous times in my career. Sometimes I didn’t even need to read them, just seeing the card in my wallet was enough for me to remember the ones I needed. To me, the biggest part of the officer’s creed is “I won’t give up and I will make it.” You bet your ass I won’t give up — and neither should you.
Be optimistic. If you’re feeling down, give yourself some positive self-talk and then think about the amazing, best-selling book you’re going to write about your misadventure. Change your perspective.
Stay active. Don’t spend your day lying around and loathing your situation; that isn’t going to help anything. Instead, spend the day doing things that make you happy or improve your situation. Take a walk along the shoreline and as Nolan said, “Who knows what the tide will bring.”
Practice some new skills. Think of this as the perfect opportunity to try and build that survival shelter you said you always wanted to make — there’s no better time than the present. And didn’t you always want to learn to build a fishing net? A fishing net sure could make life a lot easier, maybe it’s time to get started on that. Oh, and a basket would be great to put all that fish in — let’s weave a basket. A solar still can come in handy — let’s see if I can make one. Or perhaps I can turn that rusty tin can I found on the beach into a mini stove.
Attitude of gratitude. Be thankful for every teeny, tiny thing you can. It’s a bright sunny day? Excellent, it’s a good time to absorb some vitamin D from the sun. It’s raining? Quick, let’s catch as much as we can to increase our water storage. Whatever it is, think of it in the most positive way.
Smile. This goes along with the attitude of gratitude. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, your brain builds neuron connections in just 12 seconds. Neurons are the information messengers between different areas of the brain. In short, they help brain function and could use a little extra exercise. Stop, close your eyes, smile big, and think of something positive for just 12 seconds.
Nutrition. Nutrition plays a big part in our overall well-being. Do your best to eat whatever you can scrounge up. And once in a while, maybe give yourself a reward with a small feast. Gather up a big pile of fish, clams, mussels and berries — or whatever you have available – and pretend you’re at a family picnic. Eat up.
Write about your situation. After all, you want to have most of the details remembered when you publish that best-selling book — like Aron Ralston did after he was forced to amputate his own arm after it got trapped under a boulder. Strips of bark can be removed from trees and a charcoal pencil can be made from burnt sticks. You can combine the writing with practicing your new skills for paper making as you discover which bark has the best consistency for writing and longevity. Hint, it’s birch bark.
Play games. Make a game of anything you do. Challenge yourself to do something better or faster. Make yourself a deck of cards out of rocks. Gather some gray, brown, black and white stone to count as the different suits and scratch appropriate markings onto them; solitaire is a one-person game. Or shoot some hoops using a pine cone and one of those baskets you wove. The crashing waves can be the adulation of the fans in the audience as you drive down the court and slam dunk the ball.
Music. Two University of Central Florida professors teach a class called “Music and the Brain,” explaining how music impacts brain function and human behavior — including by reducing stress, pain, and symptoms of depression as well as improving cognitive and motor skills — and the brain’s ability to produce neurons. The brain reacts emotionally to music and can bring you joy, excitement, and pleasure. Have your own private karaoke session — nobody is going to complain this time. Or drum on some logs and rocks. This is also a good time to perfect your whistling ability.
Look after something else. Nolan invented Wilson to keep him company, and it was also Nolan’s responsibility to look out for Wilson. You might recall near the end of the movie, Nolan was napping on the raft in the middle of the sea, exhausted. He awoke to find that Wilson had started to float away, and it was Nolan’s duty to “save” Wilson. So, adopt something. Keeping the fire alive could be that thing, plus it’s useful. Or perhaps you might find a turtle that wants a buddy. Whatever it is, it’ll help give you purpose.
A positive mental attitude is the backbone of survival. Do everything you can to stay as upbeat and positive as possible. Once you start practicing a positive mental attitude, it’ll carry over into all areas of your life. As Nolan famously said, “I know what I have to do now. I have to keep breathing because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide will bring.”
Above: Retired NYPD detective and technical rescue instructor Joey Nickischer hones his technical rope skills.
Conclusion
It’s easy to succumb to the fear of tangible disasters, such as an assault, natural disaster, or viral pandemic. However, as Dr. Neal Olshan pointed out in “Don’t Be Afraid of Fear,” in RECOIL OFFGRID Issue 11, letting fear run rampant has severe consequences on its own. Being alone and having to survive by yourself in the elements comes with its own set of challenges, especially when no one is there to help or communicate with. Letting feelings of isolation get a foothold can only exacerbate the problem, particularly if you don’t even realize it’s starting to manifest.
Read up on research to learn some interesting facts about what leads to feelings of social isolation and how that differs from loneliness. It’ll help you gain a greater understanding of the markers that can happen so you can recognize it if you have negative emotions associated with being alone. If it can occur when you’re surrounded by other people, imagine what can happen when you’re forced to be by yourself. Challenge your brain with mental exercises, games, and documentation of your thoughts when you start to experience those feelings. The negativity you feel often has nothing to do with your surroundings but is a distorted message emanating from your own mind. Correcting that with certain activities and psychological assistance in the best possible environment you can when resources are available will help you prepare that much more for being in an atmosphere that is stripped of human interaction.
Meet Our Panel
Kevin Estela
Kevin Estela is the director of training for Fieldcraft Survival in Aberdeen, North Carolina. He’s the best-selling author of 101 Skills You Need to Survive in the Woods and an accomplished magazine writer. He’s the host of the Fieldcraft Survival Podcast and a regular guest on others. Estela has been a professional bushcraft and survival instructor since 2007 and has tested his skills in a wide range of environments. Highly sought after for product testing, designs, and feedback, he’s regarded as a subject matter expert and authority in outdoor skills who conducts regular courses around the country. You can follow him on Instagram at @estelawilded
Joey Nickischer
Joey Nickischer is a retired detective with the New York City Police Department. He currently works as a technical rescue instructor with numerous organizations, covering topics including high angle rope, mine rescue, off-road operations, and wilderness search. He serves as a team leader with the Westchester County Technical Rescue Team and is the commander of the Putnam County Technical Rescue Team, as well as serving as ex-chief of the Patterson Fire Department.
Using a piece of clothing for many applications, such as a survival scarf, is an old concept. Soldiers and huntsmen have been using strips of their own shirts as impromptu bandages, pants can be used as an emergency flotation device, and socks make a convient cozy for water bottles and thermoses. Finding multiple uses for a single piece of gear is one of the best ways to adapt to ever changing situations, headgear is no different. One interesting way to diversify your survival portfolio, is with the use of a modernized scarf like the one by outdoor company Tuff Possum.
Above: The multipurpose survival scarf can be worn, compressed, has numerous uses, and weighs a mere 5oz.
Survival Scarf Origins
Survival scarves are used for many applications, probably most notably in arid regions where they can be used to protect the head from overheating, and the lungs from dust inhalation. In cold regions they are used to reduce heat loss around the neck and keep sensitive facial skin tissue from freezing solid. Although scarves have been around for centuries as protection from the elements, the use of a modern survival scarf became popularized with outdoor legend Mors Kochanski. As an avid outdoorsman, Mors was always looking for creative ways to do more with less, and never took anything into the field unless it was capable of performing several tasks. Since Mors specialized in boreal survival, he found that a scarf could have many more uses than just preventing heat loss, including shelter building and gathering supplies. He even recommended it as a piece of kit in his book, Survival Kit Ideas. As textiles improved, the survival scarf was eventually made out of the more high-tech, light-weight materials that we have around today. Tuff Possum took this several steps further by incorporating several useful features.
Above: These Jordanian nomads are wearing a shemagh, a type of survival scarf, to protect their heads faces from extreme heat and harmful dust particles..
Multipurpose Survival Scarf Uses
Exposure is the leading cause of fatalities when people find themselves in the outdoors, which makes keeping your body temperature properly regulated a critical survival effort. Tuff Possum's Multipurpose Survival Scarf is sewn into a tube out of rip-stop nylon, making it strong enough to be used as a partial shelter or ground cloth, and can be stuffed with leaf litter and debris to create an insulated pillow or sleeping mat. Although it is not water proof, its permeability makes it possible to strain most large particulates from water before properly sanitizing it for drinking. There is plenty of space inside the survival scarf for foraging, and with a little cordage, can be converted into a sling pouch. The survival scarf is reversible, one side being olive drab for concealment, and the other blaze orange for signaling.
Survival Scarf in Action
Several trail blazers in the outdoor skills community also advocate for the use of Tuff Possum's survival scarf, including Craig Caudill of Nature Reliance:
