Needful Things

In a recent meatspace convo, I mentioned that I've done the training legwork to train and equip anything up to a battalion of folks.
What's lacking, for anyone between the two great oceans, is the folks in question.

That fact noted, I have, in fact, ginned up a list of the sorts of topics you'd need to cover, for folks who'd had zero training nor prior military service. And have largely laid out the syllabus for same.

Most of it you can find other places. Some of it by people with more expertise.
No where, that I am aware of, so concise, nor centrally located.
(Well, unless you're between 17-39 years old, and you want to give up 4-8 years of your life, with a good shot at winning a Purple Heart, perhaps posthumously.)

For all of it, I highly recommend, as many times previously, that you seek out bona fide Subject Matter Experts, for real-time hands-on training and practice in the subjects in question. In these things as in, e.g., skydiving or scuba diving or flying small aircraft, you aren't going to learn how to do it, for real, on the day, from reading a book. Let alone a blogpost or ten.

But at some point, you've got to make the first step, which is always going to be looking at the material, and learning certain things in your head, so that you can eventually progress to doing them with your hands.

So in shameless tease of that point, starting next week, I'll start putting up the building blocks. For some people, it will be cursory review. Good for you. For some others, it will be all new Things You've Never Heard. With my compliments.

I will also put up pdf links to material you'll need, should you lack the hard copy references in question.

For both, diligent practice, with people who can answer your questions in person, and supervise your execution of same, correcting errors as necessary, in real life and real time, is the ultimate goal of the exercise. Because book learning isn't street smart.

We're not talking about taking over the world. We're talking about keeping you and those you value and/or love alive, in anything from a local emergency to a major disaster, or worse. The smaller of which are inevitable, and the larger end of which remains an open question. (Trump will not be president forever, for just one obvious thing. And like rust, the enemies of this country in general, and your individual liberty in particular, never sleep. No small number of them are paid for with your tax dollars, and have been every day since before you were born.)

The skillsets for any of the above are frighteningly but conveniently very similar.
(This is why the Notional Guard is the go-to group for riots and natural disasters, capice?)

And on your own, you should already have or get CERT training, a basic EMT class/card, basic firearms instruction on rifle, pistol, and shotgun (and in that order), orienteering/land nav/geocaching skills, and radio training to any level of HAM licensure that you can get to.

You should have your medical and dental ducks in a row, and be in shape (round is not a shape) and doing some level of regular cardio exercise and fitness, whether it's power walking, hiking, bicycle riding, swimming, or jogging. (Cross-country skiing or snowshoeing also counts for those of you north of the snow line, either latitudinally or by dint of ground elevation.) You don't need to be able to do BUD/S or SFAS PT (although it's something to definitely aspire to), because most of us aren't 18 years old any more, but if you can't do 15-20 minutes of cardio at your target heart rate for age, you're pretty much going to be baggage for anything constructive - and you can lie to others, but you can't fool yourself, try though you might.

And if - and only if - actual inescapable physical disability prevents the latter, you should double down on the other tasks, because you're the immobile target zebra in the herd, and predators don't give handicap scores. They will be grading the Final Exams; I nor you will not.

For anyone interested, the bus unloads Monday, at the footprints.