This briefing is to cover the other stray cats and dogs that any staff will need to account for.
You can slavishly follow the relevant Army FMs, of whatever era, or not.
But you will have to take care of these functions, whatever or however you assign them.
Communications
This covers any and all forms of communications, from carrier pigeon to encrypted transmissions. You will need Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) for any and every aspect of establishing and operating a communications net. It will need to be redundant, resilient, and clandestine, and best if it doesn't make you a pirate from the outset. They're going to have to walk a fine line to stay inside the lines, and still outside someone else's radar. SMEs will make you or break you on this.
IT types may be included in this section, or made its own little universe.
Medical
You're going to need standardization, training, and the whole gamut from what should go in an individual first aid kit (IFAK) all the way to field hospital systems, and everything in between. Medical operations may/will encompass preventative care, public health, sanitation, illness and injury prevention, as well as medical treatment, trauma, surgery, recovery, and rehabilitation.
Or, you can just shoot your wounded.
If you pick "B", don't wonder why no one wants to join your merry band of adventurers.
Engineering
Somebody better know how to build a bunker. Or an underground cache. Or fortify a position. And how to harden a safe house. Or dig a well. Set up off-grid power generation. Or build a school. Or a hospital. Or an underground manufacturing facility. And string electricity to it, and run plumbing.
You get the idea. So get the engineer(s) to support that.
Chaplain
I don't care if your group is the Madeline Murray O'Harebrain chapter of Atheists For Freedom, you better have a chaplain. The morale, guidance, and comfort aspects of their everyday mission cannot be overestimated, and there are only 4K double-blind studies to back up the importance of the spiritual component to every undertaking. Weddings, funerals, and a number of other functions are going to need someone wired to connect with people on that level. I'm NOT telling you to set up a theocracy; I'm telling you you'd better consider the spiritual component of every human being, and plan accordingly to meet those needs. And your group needs a conscience, and an expression of it.
Think about it: Even Robin Hood's merry band had Friar Tuck. There's a precedent for this stuff.
Finance
You don't have the ability to print limitless amounts of fiat currency to bankroll your undertakings. So you'd better consider how you will, and have people that can honestly and transparently bring money in, safeguard it, and disburse it where and when needed to meet the needs of your organization. I don't care if you hold bake sales, but if you're planning on robbing banks, my lawyer says I don't know you.
{Aside: A hot tip might be to think about what could be accomplished if a like-minded group set up a legitimate business, and agreed to dedicate all profits to something a bit more, shall we say...liberty-minded.
If it were a business with direct applications to other missions aspects, well, what a coincidence.
Suppose, just for one example, you had a doctor, a couple of nurses, a PA, and a couple of paramedics, EMTs, etc., who ran an urgent care or clinic, and were all "in on the deal".
What could the profits from that business do for a given group?
How hard would it be to slip in a wounded comrade for some off-the-books care and treatment, if necessary?
How about acquiring medical supplies for other uses?
What if they also rotated people through on internships and acted as your cadre trainers for medical arts?
And then opened up another such facility in a nearby place for another group?
Getting the picture?
Now imagine if you did the same thing with a ham radio store.
Or a hardware and building supply business.
Or a general retail business.
Military surplus store. Gas station/Propane delivery co. Construction company. Taxi service. Ambulance company. Pharmacy. Mortuary.
What if you had a delivery service, that could go anywhere and gather information all over?
Or a garbage pick-up company, same tasking?
Suppose you had enough money lingering around that you could think about opening an actual legitimate bank?
I can think of literally dozens of legitimate business concerns that you could leverage into both supplying your organization - at wholesale prices - and/or providing training and service options, while maintaining actual workday employment for members (potentially making them better doing the same sorts of things for your group), while making a profit in the local economy, and funneling the proceeds into bootstrapping the liberty efforts in your area.
It is no coincidence that the founding fathers and Sons of Liberty were some of the cash-fattest fat cats of the American colonies in the 1770s. Freedom isn't free, and revolutions don't fund themselves.
Start thinking about it, and then start doing something about that. That's exactly the sort of thing your finance section is going to have to get a handle on. Spin the wheels in your head, and see what you can come up with.}
Publicity
Or, if you prefer, Propaganda.
Along with a PIO to handle media contacts, you're going to need, want, and damn well better establish, someone to brainstorm and produce everything from Twitter, Book of Face, and other social media fodder, all the way to slick podcast and video productions, as well as graphic arts like posters, handouts, flyers, brochures and pamphlets. You want to be able to get messages out on every level, ASAP, and have a media campaign at least as well-thought-out as any military one.
Start with someone who can make a flyer or put out a tweet; work up to someone who's able to run a successful cable television network.
Or else, get used to getting your ass handed to you in the court of public opinion.
Miscellaneous
And any number of other things we haven't covered, or which will and do become apparent five seconds after you realize "WTF were we thinking to not have someone in charge of X?"
There is no limit to what you can have or set up. The limit is on what you can't do if you don't set something up.
Not everything has to be a full staff function, but if something is important, and no one is responsible for implementing it, and accountable for failing to do so, then no one will do it, and it won't happen. Or, it'll be so FUBAR'ed you'll be so far from f**ked you won't even be able to see it in the rear-view mirror.
Your circus, your monkeys. Employ them to best serve the needs of your organization.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Raconteur,
ReplyDeleteYou are one of the best writers and most useful bloggers on the whole of the internet. Top 10 easy. Think about that. Because of you, my family is better prepared to meet whatever may be coming (and I think 2016 may be 'interesting'). Among the many actions I have taken (motivated by you) I now have a get-home bag at work (I work 20 miles from home), bug-out-bags of various categories (survival, medical, food & water, food & water prep, etc.), and just got '100 Deadly Skills' in the mail today. Thank you for all you do!
CJ in NY
Ah, but the key is, you took responsibility for yourself and your family.
ReplyDeleteHappy to have helped, and well done.
Keep up the good work.