Random Annoyances, And Why I Need More Chainsaw Bar Oil

I've been interested in technology since discovering the second generation of Tom Swift books, reading Popular Science and Popular Mechanics in the barber shop while waiting my turn, and since visiting the Museum Of Science and Industry, back when L.A. was a world-class city and not yet a world-class third-world sh*thole.

That would be a very, very long time ago.

So on the whole, for my edification, instruction, and entertainment, I adore it when someone comes along and explains anything they're Subject-Matter Experts on, in language anyone can grasp, and with suitable illustration of major concepts and particular details. Bonus: for free!

And if Thomas Edison hadn't invented motion pictures in the 1890s, talkies hadn't come along in the 1920s, television in the 1930s, and YouTube hadn't been around since 2005, I wouldn't be so quick to bring this up. But it's not like anything I'm about to say should be news to anyone. Yet, it is.

But the two worst things on the internet, bar none, are amateurs on YouTube etc. who don't know WTF they're doing, and professionals on YouTube etc. who don't know WTF they're doing.

Whether you can't help whipping out your idiotPhone 27 and filming the grandkid's birthday like you were having a seizure during DTs, some idiot savant backyard wizard with the production values of Ed Wood and the plot coherence of Robert Altman, or just some BBC fucktard with way too much caffeine and a raging logorrhea syndrome, trust me when I tell you This book is for YOU.

Read it, learn it, live it, love it. Or else die. Of dick cancer. In a pool of hungry crocodiles. With frickin' laser beams on their heads.

For the short-attention-span TL;DR crowd, a brief summary.

1) Shakespeare died in 1616. It's a f**king VIDEO. So don't tell me, SHOW me.

If you don't get this, and TV looks easy to you, trust me when I tell you: it's because you're a retard. GTFO of the Internet forever.

When Peter Falk tells pre-pubescent Fred Savage in The Princess Bride "Back when I was your age, television was called books", it's witheringly funny. But nota bene, Gentle Reader, that neither consummate director Rob Reiner, nor maestro screenplay author William Goldman then proceeded to give us nothing but Peter Falk droning on from the book for the next two hours. Because it's a frickin' MOVIE!!

Today's f*cktard-fail case in point (and the reason for my rash today about the topic):

Stop. Do not watch!

*I* wanted to watch this. I wanted to hear the information, and more importantly, see the story. Not attend an endless lecture with some insane effing blabbermouth. Otherwise, I could have tuned it in on a podcast, or read the damned book. Don't bother watching this, let me summarize it in nine words, and a much briefer video clip:

"Insane homeless guy breaks into museum to explain history." - best comment under this video at the site

Here's the entire 25 minute video summarized , in only 78 seconds:

 

World of Warships insanely sponsored the other content in question, and I'm here to tell those guys: you were ripped off, and you're mega-idiots for paying money for this. That video is an enthusiastic moron in love with the sound of his own voice, and a sadistic glee in torturing a trapped audience, with no more idea of how to use the camera to tell a story than he has of how to build a warp drive with household tools. He needs a beating with heavy pipes and a sock full of rocks. If he wants to lecture to mopes in person who're free to walk away or throw rotten fruit, fine, but he should GTFO YouTube for life, before he has an accident. Involving a dull rusty chainsaw.

There's one YouTuber, a former USAF ATC, on ATC flightSims who responds to that much blather without any purpose succinctly:

"That's great; blog it."

This is dumbass code for STFU already.

You want to see how to combine a story with visuals?
Here's your guys:

Anything with James Burke. 40 years old and more, and still brilliant exposition.

2) Yes, it's a video. No, the video isn't the most important thing.

Learn a lesson:
People will watch sh*t video with great sound forever:
Blair Witch Project - $140.5M profit on a production budget of $60K.

People will drop sh*t sound in 0.3 seconds:
you, every time your friend calls you on his cheap ass cell phone from the bottom of a well.

If you can't get flawless audio on your video (unless it's man-in-the-street action, like a car crash or a gunfight in progress), shitcan that audio recorded from up your @$$, and dub over that.
There are only 1000 sound editing programs, and any microphone at BestBuy or WalMart is better that the p.o.s. in your cell phone, or even on the video cam you bought. Guaranteed.

Put a wind sock on that mike outside (it's a thing that looks like a tiny poodle of faux fur). No one wants to hear the hurricane, or you puffing and panting. Not even on your own sex tape.
Tie the dog to the car bumper, and drive it away. No, really.
Don't shoot under the airport landing pattern, next to the freight train yard, beside a guy with a jackhammer, or anywhere else bystanders are wearing earmuffs because of OSHA requirements.
Otherwise, the above comment regarding dick cancer and crocodiles applies to you too.

3) But it's still a video. Get a tripod.

No shaky video unless you're recreating a Saturn V moon launch.
And every time you get the urge to whip-pan while the video is rolling (unless the Blue Angels are flying right overhead at Mach 0.8 and 200'AGL), stick your tongue in a live light socket. Repeat until that urge passes.
If a tripod is illegal, get a monopod.
If a monopod is illegal, get a sandbag or a square of wood with a 1/4"x20 threaded bolt (the size of every tripod socket since about ever), and put it on a stable surface.
If those won't work, take your buddy, the one who wanted to do all those puke-your-lunch whip-pan shots, and once the tongue-in-the-socket electric shocks render him unconscious, duct tape the camera to his torso. And get your shot, with no seizure-shakey cam.

4) Pencil and paper have been around for centuries.

a) Write a script. Shakespeare died, but the idea of knowing what you're going to say before you say it hasn't.
Every time you say "Um"? Tongue. Light socket. Repeat until the problem resolves.
Won't resolve? Dick cancer. Crocodiles. Frickin' laser beams.

b) Make a shot list.
What shots do you need to have for the script? Get them.
Telling us about a tiny detail (By which I mean showing us a tiny detail)? Insert shot: a super close-up shot of the exact detail in question. (E.g., guy defusing a bomb, someone setting their watch, etc.)
Watch the James Burke video above, even any one of the longer versions of it on YouTube, and compare that clip with the lack of anything like that in the perfectly awful Turbinia video, at least in the 90 seconds I could stand to watch it before my blogging fingers started twitching. Worse than a crime, it's a tragedy.

c) You can use online tools like Sketch-Up, or even a crayon, and draw out a stickman storyboard just like a comic book and combine the shot you want with the dialogue/voice-over for that shot, and then go out and shoot it. Check them off when you get them. (That's how you know you got what you came for.)
Just like they do in Hollywood on multi-hundred-million-dollar movies.

You can copy this just by having enough brain cells, and doing it.

Now see if you can figure out why Marvel Comics is making the most and best franchise movies in the last 20 years, bar none, and Stan Lee is and will remain the most successful movie writer in history.

5) EDIT!!!!!

Take out every boring second. Every bungled attempt. Random noise. Cars honking, dogs barking, dumbasses screaming into the microphone. Every last flaming thing that isn't 5-star flawless, or 4 stars and salvageable with some editing magic. Like Hollywood does because they're pros, and like you don't because you're a lazy bastard.

Accept one-take magic if it happens. That Tiger Woods Nike commercial back in the day, bouncing a golf ball on the club head for 28 seconds, and then whacking the ball to Antarctica?

One take. Screwing around during an all-day shoot. Which became the commercial.

I was working on Just Shoot Me once, in an episode where George Segal's character had bet Donald Trump he could beat him at golf, in a dress. (No, I didn't get to meet pre-presidential Trumpster.) But we went on location to a local golf course. In the script, Segal had to sink a putt that was at least 30'. In a dress.
We had a golf pro. A coach. Ten dozen brand new golf balls. Entire crew, and truck load of film. Segal showed up, walked over to wardrobe, came out in the dress over his regular wardrobe, walked over to the green, took a few air swings, and we settled in for what was to be a long afternoon trying to get the shot.
So for the take, Segal walked up to the first ball, lines up the shot, tapped it perfectly, and it rolled straight to the hole like it was on a rail, and dropped in with a sound-perfect plunk in one take. "Do you want another one?" he asked.
Director says, "Nope. We're done. That's a wrap." Everyone home early, for a shot that was 2 seconds of TV on a minor sitcom.

A friend of mine worked on a beer commercial, with a Professional Pourer. (Yes, it's a thing, apparently.) Take One, the guy pours the product into the pilsner glass, it swirls in a perfect amber-colored maelstrom of hoppy wonderfulness, the foam head gets to just over the lip, and one absolutely perfect drop of foam overflows, and dribbles right down across the logo. Absolute artistic orgasm of a shot.(Which is why there are Professional Pourers.)
Director says, "Let's get one more good take, just in case the client wants another version."
Seven cases of beer and fourteen hours of filming later, they hadn't replicated the first one, nor even come close. Guess which take they used in the final cut...?

Bottom line, know what you want, and chop out everything that isn't that. First take, eightieth take, doesn't matter. But if it is take 80, get rid of the other 79 before you post the thing.
Nobody cares about all the extraneous crap, and they'll appreciate not wasting half their day waiting for your video to get to the point. More importantly, they might stick around long enough to see the whole thing.

(I just saved you $200K for the most important 95% of things you'll learn at film school. You're welcome. Now buy the book above for the other 5%. Mine was shorter and cheaper, but that one is definitely better.)



Those five weird tricks will move you from the ranks of the 99% of awful creators on YouTube, Vimeo, etc. who deserve dick cancer and a bloody, laser-scorched end, and move you to the top tier of production, whether it's a 5 second gif shot, or a garage-band feature film.

And I won't have to hunt you down and kill you, slowly, with a dull chainsaw, starting at the toes.


{Aesop has worked in Hollywood for over twenty-five years on everything from feature films to Top 40 TV shows to commercials to low-budget award-winning short films to homemade music videos, and has produced, directed, shot, miked, lit, gripped, propped, wardrobed, EFX'ed and more, times beyond counting. And has a growing list of people on his To-Be-Chainsawed List, while the grains of his life ebb away one by one. Please, he yells because he cares, but he's not above thinning out the gene pool.)

Basic References -

 

 

T-1, Hour Zero.
Happy Monday. Welcome to the Knowledge Issue Point.
 
I don't care if you can stand at the position of attention, walk in a straight line, shine your boots, or salute. (It's nice, in some settings, moderately helpful with gaggles of dazed newbs for getting them from Point A to Point B without getting run over by traffic, and it does teach maggots discipline and attention to detail, but intrinsically, it's window dressing. If you can't pay attention without someone screaming in your ear, wear clean clothes, feed yourself, and wash your nasty @$$ without someone making you do it, nothing I write here will help you. Ever.)

Neither do I, at this moment, care to impart one single whit of martial history, customs of the service, military ranks, or other arcana. Nor cover a host of PC SJW happy horseshit we currently drop around our current services' recruits' necks, like a boat anchor to a drowning man.

Because the best discipline, the kind that matters, is self-discipline.

If you can master that, grab a bucket, or a thumb drive, proceed to the Issue Point, and draw your Knowledge ration for the next phase of training.

Books are our friends. I know this because someone told me that when I was about three years old, and it's stuck like glue to me to good effect ever since. The books below will get you through tough times, and may very well save your life, and not by stopping a bullet when you carry one of them in your shirt pocket. Until you manage to move The Knowledge below from your computer to your brain housing group, and then become able to muster it to your feet and fingertips like a frickin' Jedi master, it's just random electrons.

It's up to you to make it transition from thumb drive to brains to fingers.

These will not teach you everything (though it may feel like it sometimes), and in many cases they'll give you tons more than you need to know, including about a lot of stuff you don't need to know, strictly speaking.
But they contain most of what you do need, and give you room to grow, should you choose (or be forced to by necessity), beyond the bare basics.

Additional references, from a variety of sources, will follow as necessary, but this basic ration contains 99% of everything to be covered in the notional two-week period I outlined yesterday, and in fact contains about the same percentage (and much more beyond that) of what every recruit gets in the Army or Marine Corps in several weeks to months of Basic training.

People who get to some level of Jedi mastery of it are what the military calls sergeants, chief petty officers, and officers, which is not anything to ever be ashamed of.

Using these below, I'll point to specific chapters, sections, pages, etc. as I break it down into bite-sized chunks.
All of these links are active as of today, and since they only cost electrons, you'd be a fool not to download them, and put them on flash drives, at a minimum. Some/most of them can be purchased in dead-tree format from the GPO, many have been bootlegged as-is and sold by other companies over the counter at brick-and-mortar bookstores, and on Amazon, and you can also take your flash drive stick to Fed-Ex/Kinko's to burn your own copies, and it's completely legal. Hell, you paid for this stuff with your taxes.
But for one example, the current survival manual below is over 600 pages. That's $24 or more at the copy center, by itself. (But if I could take just one book into the wilderness with me in a gallon-sized ziplok baggie...)
If you find current copies of any of these at gun shows and swap meets, and for a reasonable price, I'd grab them.
Older versions, anything from about 1980 onwards, are generally worth the trouble as well.

But with this link list, you can get your hands on them for mouseclicks, plus the bandwidth and time.

And you should.

Someone forward-thinking might want to put the lot of them on flash drives, to have them handy to hand out to like-minded individuals, if they thought they might need others to have them in hand on some future day.

And yet again, getting the book, or even memorizing it, won't make you an expert. You need real-world application. But this is where you get the knowledge to apply in the first place.



FM 21-20 Physical Fitness Training (1998)

You can also use the following for the most current manual, but the download was horrendously slow:
FM 7-22 Army Physical Readiness Training (October 2012)

FM 21-18 Foot Marches (April 2017)

FM 4-25.11 First Aid (December 2002)

Tactical Combat Casualty Care (December 2017)

DD Form 1380 - TCCC casualty card (June 2014)

FM 23-9 Rifle Marksmanship M-16A1/2/3/4/M4 (April 2003)
MCRP 3-01A USMC Rifle Marksmanship (October 2012) - thanks Badger!

MCRP 8-10.3 Pistol Marksmanship M9 (January 2016)

FM 3-25.26 Map Reading and Land Navigation (January 2005)

FM 21-75 Soldier Combat Skills (January 2008)

FM 21-76 Survival (May 2002)

Soldier's Manual of Common Tasks Level 1 (June 2009)
Every single task for every soldier Army-wide, broken down to the individual steps.

FM 24-19 Radio Operators Handbook (May 1991)

FM 7-8 Infantry Platoon and Squad (April 2016)

Two additional recommendations that are always worth the getting are
1) The Guidebook For Marines, which is privately published, not available anywhere as a pdf, and distills yards of Army field manuals down to the quick-and-dirty essentials.

2) TC 3-21.76 Ranger Handbook (April 2017) which, being an official DA pub, is available at the link as a free pdf, and does a great distillation of things for the Army's best infantry experts.




Note that recently the Army, in its institutional wisdom, elected to change the field manual (FM) numbering system that had sufficed from about 1920-2010 or so, just to make things more complicated. I've used the older version for most of the above, but as the references are all recent, most if not all of them have the current numbering system on the first page. I also provided dates, because that's how they change editions.

For instance, I have multiple copies of FM 5-15, Field Fortification, dating from roughly 1920, 1940, 1955, 1968, and 1980. Why? Because, for instance, the 1920 edition was chock full of detailed drawings on how to construct a chemical-war-proof subterranean field battalion HQ and hospital capable of sustaining prolonged shelling from anything up to the size shell of German railroad artillery, using nothing more complex than sandbags and timbers up to 8"x8". Like they built along 400 miles of WWI trenches.

But after nuclear weapons became a thing, and trench warfare went away, that wasn't seen as quite as important, so it's not in the 1968 or 1980 editions.

So what? Well, imagine you're in Bosnia next year, and the Serbs don't have nukes, but they damned sure might want to shell the shit out of your town or village all day long with conventional artillery, and suddenly, those 90-year-old underground casualty station/field hospital drawings might come in pretty damned handy.

By the same token, you aren't likely to ever need to field-strip an M2 Browning MG, and you aren't likely to use a grenade launcher or Claymore mine. But you damned sure may be faced by someone who has them, and it would be a good idea to be able to recognize them, and know how far they're effective, and how much of what building material you'd need to build something of in order to be safe from the effects of one. That's the kind of extra info in many of the above references on which it would be a good idea to have a nodding familiarity, at some point.

Real-life cases in point: The Mexican military deploys the G3 rifle; the near world-standard FN MAG GPMG (that's the M240 to us), and the same M2 .50 BMG we've used since WWI. So, when one of them falls into your hands someday, or one is mounted atop an HMMWV or cartel "technical" at the border (by which I mean anywhere between, say, two miles south of the dotted line of the actual border all the way north to US I-8, which could actually be 50-100 miles north of the dotted line), it's a little late to wonder whether you're in range, what you need to hide behind to be safe from it/them, or how to utilize (or disable) one that...somehow...comes into your possession, and crack the book open and freshen up on the details on the spot. (Ask me how I know this.)

Any knowledge is better than no knowledge, but there will always be another thing to learn.
And what's in your library may someday be all the reference collection you're ever going to have, for either short- or long-term.

Plan. Ahead.

Ex Libris: Basics Of Resistance

h/t WRSA

 

Claire Wolfe ("It's too late to work within the system, and too early to shoot the bastards") and Kit Perez have a new book out.

Excerpt:

In today’s excerpt from our new book Basics of Resistance, we look into Chapter 9: Allies and Associates. By this point, we’ve talked extensively about your core group, its members, and its operations. Now we look at outsiders who may help or hinder you. We pick up after the discussion of close allies and move on to more casual contacts. NOTE: We owe this chapter to a great supporter of our project who prefers to keep a low profile.
—–
Let’s define an associate as “anyone you know who is neither a known or suspected enemy.” Obviously, that covers a pretty broad range. 

Like who, for instance? 

• The old lady down the street who watches the world go by from her living-room window.
• The guy at the local tire store.
• The kid working evenings at the 7-11.
• Your admin assistant at work.
• Mr. and Mrs. Hu at the Chinese takeout.
• The preacher at the local breakaway Christian church.
• Your cousin who works in the county supervisor’s office.
• The daytime bartender at the tavern downtown.
• The retired business executive down the street.
• The nightshift waitress at the waffle palace over by the Interstate.
• The Johnson boys over at their jackleg garage and scrap yard. 

In other words, virtually everyone you encounter during your daily round is a potential associate (or enemy), and it’s up to you to make an informed, accurate decision whether to trust each one. 

How? By getting to know them and what makes them tick. Nothing more, and nothing less. Even if you’re not a people person, you can improve your interpersonal skills using time-honored basic investigative techniques such as the
following: 

Shop local, shop small: In a Big Box world, it’s getting more difficult to find the little local place for hardware, food, car repair, or any of the other necessities of life. Do it anyway. Be prepared to pay more at the local store than the national chain. Watch your manners. Support local businesses. 

Community service: Do you support the local ambulance corps? What about the firefighters, be they volunteers or paid professionals? Can you do more? Do local emergency services have classes that would benefit you and your group? Most volunteer fire departments have non-firefighter volunteer positions open as well, and those are a great way to not only bolster your credibility in the community, but they also put you in the loop for information not generally available to outsiders. 

Police relations: Take the opportunity to discreetly participate in any community affairs events your local LEOs conduct. Don’t be a badgelicker—but don’t be a gratuitous jerk, either. Get a sense of who the officers and commanders are, not just as the guys who give out speeding tickets, but as actual human beings. What is your local police department’s capability? Weaknesses? Equipment? Personnel levels? Set aside any personal bias and figure out if any of the officers can be used as conduits for information. 

Other government officials: Ditto the advice above. You want to take every opportunity to see how people behave in normal times to better inform your organization’s decisions come hard times. You should also have a copy of and understand your county’s emergency plans; check with your county supervisor’s office on how to get one. If your county offers CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) training, sign up; if not, find a nearby county that does. 

Your neighbors: Break the modern paradigm and gradually get to know a little about your neighbors. You will be astonished what you can learn by being interested (but not too interested) in them. See the section on neighborhood barbeques and meet-and-greets. 

Local churches: Sadly, many clergies in modern-day America are closer to government and its objectives than to the Almighty, but it will still benefit you to have a sense of who’s who in your community. Most churches have large kitchens and gathering places, which will be essential community assets in a crisis. Sorting the mammon-worshippers from the truly benevolent is a task in what will ultimately be a battle for hearts and minds. Pay attention to those in the religious community who do a lot of volunteer work; what’s their motivation? If they’re worried about getting credit or need attention, they might not be the best people to work with. 

The homeless: Do you have any in your neighborhood? Do you know? Where do they camp? How many are there? Is there a way to help them help you and your organization? Be creative. If they can’t be used as assets and are merely a risk, do you have a plan for mitigating that risk? 

Medical facilities: Big or small? Is there a hospital auxiliary you or a core member can join? How many doctors? RNs? Other paraprofessionals? Are any medical personnel known personally to you or other members of the core group? Are they willing to teach you? 

Airports: Who do you know there? Runway length and other facility info? LE or military usage?  

Area-specific place/personnel of interest: Do you know anyone at local military or National Guard facilities? What kind? How well do you know them? How well can you get to know them? 

By this time, some reader is wondering what in heaven’s name should be done in all of these situations and places. 

The big-picture answer is simple: Know more this week about every person, place, and thing listed above that you find your community than you knew last week. 

Why? Because your organization has goals that you and your group are fully committed to achieving. And every person, place, and thing above can either help or hinder your group in achieving those objectives. 

By yourself, in a crisis, you’re screwed.

Boys and girls, this is exactly what Sam Culper has been trying to download into people when he talks about reconnaissance of the human terrain in your Areas of Operations and Interest.

It's what Bloghost CA means every time he makes "Meatspace" and "Local, Local, Local" a masthead quote at WRSA.

It's what the clever fellows in Special Forces, for going on 70 years, have called an Area Study (the diligent will want to refer especially to Appendices G and H in that pdf, if you haven't already done this for your local area. How big? Start with just your home county/parrish. Then do it for every adjoining county. Get cracking.)

I'm not going to come help you, and you aren't coming to help me, when times get sporty. The people and alliances you've cultivated in range of where you live will.

Or, not.

Even after the Internet goes down, Darwin Awards will still be handed out. They just won't necessarily be recorded for posterity and comedy relief.
Don't be Those Guys.

When you're ready to reach beyond bare mastery of a subject, you read widely and deeply. That's why, at last look, I have 20-30 different basic first aid texts, and 40-60 different survival manuals.

After getting the basic gist of the subject, you're always looking for two things:
* New ideas, tactics, tips, and procedures, and
* New ways of teaching the tried-and-true ideas, tactics, tips, and procedures.

Because every once in awhile, there's something new under the sun, and there's always a way to make an old subject new to a fresh audience.

If the rest of this book is of the same caliber as this excerpt, it looks to be a valuable addition to anyone's library, and it's on the way to mine.
If it helps you to crack the code of long-thought doctrine on a subject that is becoming more practical and less academic every passing day, you may wish to do likewise.

And in case you're still not sold, there are additional excerpts to peruse.

I would suggest you buy this book.
$11.69 in grid-down paperback copy, and only $0.99 through tomorrow for kindle readers.
And as a review by James Wesley ,Rawles (SurvivalBlog) suggests, you might want to consider extra copies as handout gifts to Like Minded Individuals.

Get. Read. Do. Pass To Others. Repeat.

Because as noted in the excerpt, "By yourself, in a crisis, you're screwed."

Ex Libris - Survival & Austere Medicine - An Introduction

h/t WRSA

If you've never visited FerFAL's (Fernando Aguirre) blog, you oughta.
He's an Argentine, who looks at survival through the lens of someone who lived through Argentina's post-Falklands (Malvinas) War financial collapse and aftermath.

Brought up today because Pete from WRSA noticed this FREE download of a four-star excellent disaster/SHTF medical reference.

Posted here.

PDF download here.
Survival & Austere Medicine - An Introduction - 3d edition
22.14MB, 614 pages, color illustrations

Compiled mainly by Oz and Kiwi docs and nurses, with a lot of crossover listing US equivalent meds/measurements, and based on a lot of give and take from their online medical forums and FAQs, I'm 380 pages in, and it's four-star (out of five) AWESOME.
(Did I mention it's FREE?)

I have a few quibbles. (But they invited feedback, so I'll be sending them a few notes for their 4th ed.) But they're minor.

In short, download this book, print it out, and store a copy on a thumb drive. It's a damned good comprehensive "introductory" reference to disaster medicine, whether just on a desert island, or after the zombpocalypse.

And I'm working this weekend, so this will do for post fodder. Hopefully by next week, I can get through the other 234 pages.

This should go on your medical reference shelf, like it will mine. In a local small disaster, or a major civilizational meltdown, as the platoon sergeant reminded us, "you WILL see this material again, ladies."

But as you're probably lacking a couple of decades of hands-on that I've got, you should spend an ass-numbing amount of time reading it first, soon, and repeatedly, and then hands-on practicing as much of it as you can while no one's life is at stake.

Get cracking.
And then thank the nice folks for handing you a $100 current medical textbook for FREE.
This is good stuff.

Man, The Tool-Maker

h/t WRSA

I am no slouch at tool-using, but it's an acquired habit. (And not my profession, strictly speaking.) Nonetheless, I have built beds, tables, furniture, cabinets, shelves, boxes, and two small cabins in my day, demolished houses and built rooves (roofs for English grammar-averse troglodytes), and any number of other things, including helping to erect and tear down goodly chunks of the village that is the original RennFaire for an embarrassing number of years. I've done 3 1/2 room additions here at Castle Anthrax solo, and before I'm too decrepit, I expect to erect the entire SHTF lair at Camp Snoopy that will put Bond Villain Lairs to shame. Including the pond, greenhouses, bunkers, trenches, concertina wire, and heavy weapons pits. (Yes, I'm serious.)

And, on my best day, I'm but a journeyman.

Point being, now or WTSHTF, there will be tool-users, and casualties. There will be no third option. In seriously distressing times, anybody healthy enough to eat but not bright enough to swing a hammer will find out what contractors mean by "construction laborer" in short order, or they will learn the meaning of John Smith's dictum that "He who does not work, neither shall he eat." (Liberal Idiots - but I repeat myself - that is what Reagan meant when he told you in the 1980s that "The best welfare program is a JOB.")

Pioneer is a verb.

Tools are why pioneer wagons were so heavy and moved so slowly from 1800-1900.

A man with the right tools can do anything.
A man who can make the right tools will have the money of the man who can do anything.
This is why most of the gold discovered out west started in the pockets of the miners, and ended up in the pockets of the smiths and shopkeepers who sold them those tools.

Working on TV and movie locations, it saddens me to have to explain to twenty-somethings that the 100+ year-old house they’re shooting in was built entirely with hand tools (No, really! Before electricity and indoor plumbing!), from materials hauled in by horse-drawn freight wagons from the nearest train depot, which is why the driveways are so big and curving; and that the reason the garage out back is so short, and has two small stalls not big enough for a SmartCar is because back in the day, that was the barn for the family horse(s). And that those sticks on the back side of an exposed wall are simply the 1900-era version of sheetrock, back when it was called plaster-and-lathe.

You can literally see their heads pop from the swelling at that point, like you just landed from a spaceship and asked to be taken to their leader.

Then they go back to texting and playing videogames on their surveillance phones.
Meanwhile, over at Zero-Gov's website, is a very cursory primer on the subject of tool assemblage. If this is news to you, go and learn.

You can also note that some of the worthiest sections of ,Rawles' three worthwhile written offerings*, and no small amount of his SurvivalBlog deal with tools, tool acquiring, and specifically what and which to get your hands on.

Most of us already know all this, and have made decent headway at becoming the jacks-of-all-trades we ought to be, both for self-satisfaction and the pride of creation, and for the collection of life-saving skills if/when Ugly Times come upon us again.

But for those who've concentrated on more immediate things, and those too new to have heard or apprehended that a sexy rifle and case of MREs aren't going to git 'r done in challenging circumstances, go read up on those resources.

Then, as now, skills at carpentry and woodworking, metalsmithing and metal fabrication, civil engineering/construction, plumbing, electrical work, welding, gunsmithing, automotive and engine-using skills, and the like, will be the entry ante to survive and thrive, not to mention among the millions of good-paying, good-benefits trades and job openings Mike Rowe is always on about right this minute, which can't be outsourced to China or India ever, and require no college, minimal training, and mainly just basic math and eye-hand co-ordination, with a modicum of attention to detail. Got a GED, not afraid to get your hands dirty, and don't want to squander $100K and up for a communist-indoctrination fap-fest at the local Uselessversity Re-Education Center, but still want to make upwards of $100K in a couple of years (while your liberal arts peers are still only juniors at State U. trying to master beer pong)? Caterpillar (little company in Peoria IL, maybe you've heard of them?) is always crying for guys - or hell, girls too - to learn things like heavy equipment maintenance , for going on 40 years. Three years out, and you're pulling $100K /yr or so. But no, stay in that clean-hands barrista gig, Snowflake. Coffee-slinging Latte Monkey will be a yuuuuuge gig during the Zompocalypse, right?

They're also fun, and if you're so inclined, can keep food on your table, a roof over your head (possibly even one you built your ownself), and money in your pocket.

So if necessary, go read Buppert's piece, and get busy getting what you'll need and learning to use what you've got if we ever become Venezuela - or the Eloi.

Survival is graded pass fail, not on the curve. And it's pretty much set at the 90/10 percentile, if not right at 100/0.



*(this one, this one, and this one, and in that order, if you were wondering; the rest are mostly a waste of time or money for the most part, IMHO)

Retread - Medical Text Linkapalooza

I'm dredging this post up while I work on some other things, and because it's worthwhile.
It's reprinted from last October.

As promised:

FM 21-11 First Aid For Soldiers 1989
The Ship's Medicine Chest USCG 2003
FM 8-50 Bandaging and Splinting 1957
FM 8-230 Medical Specialist 1984
USMC Field Medical Service Student Manual 2008 (multiple lesson links)
Operational Medicine 2001 (multiple sub-lessons and links)
FM 21-20 Physical Fitness Training 1998
FM 8-10-6 Medical Evacuation In A Theatre of Operations 2000
FM 21-76-1 Survival Evasion and Recovery 1999
FM 3-5 NBC Decontamination 2002
FM 21-10 Field Hygiene and Sanitation 1970 (more comprehensive version)
FM 21-10 Field Hygiene and Sanitation 2000
FM 21-10-1 Unit Field Sanitation Team 2002
FM 8-10-4 Medical Platoon Leader's Handbook 2001
TC 21-3 Soldiers Handbook For Individual Operations and Survival In Cold Weather Areas 1986
ATP 4-25.13 Casualty Evacuation 2013
USN Nutrition and Exercise Manual 1999
FM 8-284 Treatment of Biological Warfare Agent Casualties 2000
FM 4-02.17 Preventive Medicine Services 2000
FM 21-18 Foot Marches 1962
FM 8-10-1 The Medical Company 2002
SOF Combat Casualty Care-TCCC 2007
Where There Is No Doctor...Dentist (multiple chapter downloads)
Online TCCC course (individual Powerpoint lessons)
NAEMT TCCC course modules
Johnson & Johnson Ethicon Wound Closure Manual 2005
Emergency War Surgery 2000
USMC Mountain Warfare Wilderness Medical Course 2002 (Windows doc)
Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders Reference Guides - multiple resources h/t WRSA

Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list. Missing, e.g., is any functional pdf link to the
Special Operations Forces Medical Handbook 2d ed., 2008 which I highly recommend.
(and I deliberately left off any link to the hugely obsolete text
ST 31-91B Special Forces Medical Handbook 1982 which I do not recommend, other than purely as historical reference.)
And there are all sorts of other references out there (some of which I'll cover in the future at some point), but those above are a great place to get started.

Do I want you to become a combat lifesaver, special forces medic, or regimental surgeon with those resources? No. (Of course, if you aim to, the above is your homework; get cracking.) But this list will give you a great perspective on what can (and should) be done, from people who've already done it, under all sorts of adverse circumstances and in multiple environments, and by digging in you'll at least get some perspective on how much you didn't know you didn't know. And not to belabor the point, but most of the other resource texts that you should have are copyrighted material, which you should buy in order to support those authors; the link to get them is called Amazon. Meanwhile, the stuff ginned up by and for the .mil is public domain, by law, and you already paid for it when it was deducted from your paychecks as federal withholding.

The above resources would be sufficient to do a great job in many cases, if you had nothing else available, and would keep you busy for 1-3 years just getting the info into your head.

The links are all current, as of today, but one thing I found in checking sites was that links on the 'Net are an ephemeral thing. Download all of these today, or ASAP, and print them in hard copy at your leisure, after you've flipped through them on your computer.

All of them, together, would fit on a thumb drive. And should go on one, or several.
Pass such a drive/drives along to your group's medic(s), and/or any paramedics, nurses, doctors, etc. you count among your friends. It'll cost you a couple of bucks and some time, but you may equip someone to save your life someday after things get sporty, and possibly even make a better friend.

Enjoy.

*FREE* New USAF Survival Evasion Resistance Escape Handbook AFH 10-644 3/27/2017 ed.

h/t to WRSA

Courtesy of FerFal, the link to the all-new (as of LAST WEEK) USAF Survival Handbook, March 27 2017 edition, all 652 glorious pages of it, available for FREE DOWNLOAD courtesy of your friends at the United States Air Force.

This is free gold nuggets laying right on the ground at your feet, boys and girls.

Get some.

Then print one, and put by a few copies on flash drives here and there, or to give away.
You already paid for it with last year's income tax.

Blogcation Is Over: Back To The Cultural Wars

Of Carnivores and Cavalrymen, by Chris Hernandez

{Note: I had the great privilege to meet Chris Hernandez when a Fourth of July trip put him in proximity. Surprising me not a bit, he is every bit the gentleman and scholar one would expect, if they'd been reading his blog, visible under his name to the right. This response to his article is also a large part of what we discussed over dinner with his family. You should read his stuff, and when afforded the opportunity because he's finished some more, buy his stuff. You should also know I give out praise the way I hand out $100 bills.}

The publishing industry, as part of the cultural media like TV, the movies, academia, etc., doesn't just publish stories to make a profit, they publish the stories that they WANT to make a profit. Pro-military conservative gun-owning white male neanderthals need not apply.

If Naval Institute Press, which had never published fiction before, hadn't taken a lucky chance on an unbelievable submarine story by a total rookie, Tom Clancy would be a retired insurance agent from Eastern MD. His success got you Stephen Coonts, Harold Coyle, Dale Brown, Ed Ruggero, (all former military) and probably a dozen lesser lights, none of whom would've seen the light of day if NY publishing firms had any say.

If you write a novel about how all vets are PTSD-timebomb homophobic wife-beaters who eat babies, go postal on a kindergarten, and then cap themselves, you'll be the darling of the book signing circuit, with a movie option in the wings. Witness the baker's dozen anti-war movies about Iraq and A-stan, some from novels, made and released to horrible box office while troops (including you, {Chris}) were actually engaged in combat at the time, despite how much money the one before it lost.

And let's don't overlook the possibility that Dillrod got his fantasies {in Carnivore} published because the publishers knew, or strongly suspected, that he was completely FOS, and wanted to exploit the image of him as a wanton killer turned loose by Chimpy McBushitler, the Emperor Sithlord Cheney, and Darth Rumsfeld on the sweet, peace-loving children of Southwest Asia.
Publishing that kind of narrative would be seen as pro bono charity work for The Cause.

Look how much ink they've spilled trying to tell you that there's no way a war-hero president who faced down Kruschev and humiliated the Soviets was killed by a frothing rabid, citizenship-renouncing avowed communist, because there's no way a trained Marine with a scoped rifle could have put two bullets out of three into a slow-moving target from under 100 yards.

It's not a conspiracy amongst themselves, either. They just all went to the same schools, vote the same, think the same, hang out with themselves, and can't, for the life of them, imagine how anyone else could sanely disagree with their point of view unless it's someone who eats lead paint chips and drinks moonshine in a trailerpark in flyover country. And I'm probably soft-selling what they actually say to each other when they think no one's listening.

The beauty of things now is the traditional gate-keepers are losing sway as technology democratizes culture. You can self-publish, I can make movies, someone else can do a YouTube weekly TV show, and none of us need spend more than about a month's rent in Hollywood or New York to completely skip the Old Guard system.

{Chris,} Keep writing.
We'll beat down the gates, pee on their corpses, and YouTube the video.
21st century rockstars, I tell ya.

Resource Update

Under the heading of Medical Reference, there's a book you should add to your list, and your library:

The Survival Medicine Handbook: A guide for when help is NOT on the way

Written by the Altons, AKA Dr. Bones and Nurse Amy of the Doom and Bloom blog and podcast fame, this book is 588 pages of medical gold, for times when 9-1-1 is a fantasy, or a distant hope, and now it's all on you.

This book is a huge expansion and improvement on the 1st Ed., largely due to numerous questions, and some serious dedication to upgrade and improvement by the authors.

You are well advised to get this book, consult it, and get your medical preparations for any major disaster you foresee up to the point where you could take advantage of the information provided. You can store food and water, but there's no Start Trek medical hologram you're going to boot up, on the day.

This book, in your head and on your bookshelf, backed up by a careful and thoughtful acquisition of important medical supplies is the next best thing.

$35 and change on Amazon, and a steal at twice the price.
Really.

Lesson Five: Medical Reference Books

(Note: All references updated to 2012.)



The following was one response to the prior article, when it was posted:

   "Unfortunately most folks aren't going to dedicate that much time, or be able to for that matter.    The new “first responder" training is useful, but the medical portion is so basic (less than the basic first aid courses) that it absolutely must be supplemented with the basic and advanced first aid courses at a minimum.

The problem is, there aren’t a lot of programs in between the advanced first aid course, and the EMT course; except as you said putting it all together yourself; and without direct knowledge and experience of what's going to be covered that can be difficult.

 

For years I've been wishing for a program that covered basic and advanced first aid, as well as emergency response, basic emergency diagnostics, and basic trauma care; in a way comprehensive enough to be meaningful; but that could be covered with a few weekends of instruction plus home study."

I’ve known active-duty combat arms Marines who managed to squeeze in an EMT course, but I understand those who can’t. That’s why I hinted that you can do the work piecemeal—it’s better than nothing.

If you can't do an EMT course, do the Red Cross Basic First Aid & CPR.
Then take their 4 hour How To Measure Blood Pressure module.
Volunteer with Ski Patrol, or at a local ER one or two nights a month for several months, and do or see as much as they’ll let you.
Get your lifeguard card and do that for a season.
Take any wilderness first aid classes you can at the local hiking stores, or diver first aid/Dive Medic/Rescue Diver courses.
Bit by bit you’ll be a first-class responder.
I worked with an ER senior Resident instructor doctor who could literally dump out a walletful of 140 certifications.
He’d invariably start a lecture, even to other doctors and nurses with that trick, followed by his own, “SO WHAT? Either I know what I’m talking about, or I’m full of crap. Alphabet soup and wall plaques don’t save lives. That’s what your BRAIN is for.”

With that in mind, Lesson Five: Books Are Your Friends

I learned that from the daycare lady who took care of me at 4 years of age. I blame her for the fact that I’ve got cartons of the things around, because the spare bedroom/library is overflowing.

But with medical books, it’s a gold mine. Dig in, friends.

As a start, begin with the highly readable (i.e. dumbed down but basic and accurate) Red Cross Basic First Aid, Advanced First Aid, and CPR for the Professional Rescuer texts. Ideally, get them because you took the classes.
Then, add on the flyers, handouts, and pamphlets from any other training you receive.

Even if you never take the class (and yet again, you should) to be an EMT, there’s no law against getting and working through a good EMT text on your own. Get through a chapter a week, especially if you can find one with a companion workbook, and you’ll be miles ahead of people who do nothing. Mosby and other publishers make good ones, or you can check your local CC/Occ. Ctr. student bookstore to see what they use.

Lacking that, I can’t recommend anything more highly than the most recent edition (10th, currently)of Emergency Care and Transportation of the Sick and Injured by the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons. It’s the gold standard, IMHO, and if you passed high school English, you’ll “get” it.

Another must-have is Wilderness Medicine: Beyond First Aid by Dr. William Forgey. It’s a fabulous comprehensive handbook for anyone who’s concerned about medical help in the great outback anywhere in the world, and Dr. Forgey (I met him once) is great doc and a prince of a man in getting the information to the average person. Buy this book!

The current Special Operations Forces Medical Handbook is also quite valuable. Unlike 18D training, I do not recommend shooting and treating your own goat, however. And the now prehistoric (30 years out of date) edition of SF Medical Handbook ST 31-91B should be saved as a historical reference, not so much used as a medical one. Unfortunately, the ancient text is the one of which every table at a gunshow has a stack, but the up to date version has to be obtained either from the GPO, or Amazon. A more basic first aid overview is in the Air Force’s Aircrew Survival, AF 64-5.

Another text I’d heartily recommend is Where There Is No Doctor. It was written by tofu-eating tree-hugging Leftists doing Peace Corps-type work in Third World $#!^holes, but nonetheless the text is informative, readable, and very useful, especially from a preparedness standpoint.
The companion book Where There Is No Dentist is less useful, but still of value.

As noted in the previous post, for setting up shop in austere circumstances, two books are worthwhile. Survival Nurse by Ragnar Benson, is a good basic overview of running a care station in either the Third World, or after the Third World War. And for a book geared specifically for making do in such circumstances, Improvised Medicine: Providing Care In Extreme Environments by Iverson, 2011, is very worthwhile.

If you can find the old olive colored texts, get a pre-1970 Red Cross Advanced First Aid textbook at a secondhand bookstore. {Nota bene, some things, like prehistoric CPR, and cutting on snakebites, are obsolete and verboten.} But they contain a lot of skills and ideas, particularly for bandaging and splinting that are still dead-on, and it’s more knowledge in your head.

If you get to where you’re ready for the big leagues, Lange’s Current Emergency Diagnosis & Treatment, or the Emergency Medicine textbook by Tintinalli et al are the bibles of current ER physicians. 90% of the information is mentally accessible and useable to someone with a good lay knowledge, and I’ve seen both at Barnes & Noble or Borders. Consider adding the current Merck Manual, Taber’s Medical Dictionary, to explain some things you might not understand, and any current one of the various Nursing Drug Handbooks (Lippincott's version is my personal preference). And of course, Amazon can get you almost anything.

If you get that far, even with no diploma, you’re a frickin’ medical supergenius, and will be very handy in an emergency.

My library would break an elephant’s back. But my brain only weighs 3 pounds or so, and I take it with me almost everywhere (occasionally it seems to go missing, but it usually turns up by suppertime). Get as much knowledge out of the books and into your brain as you can to be truly prepared. That’s true with every subject, but doubly so with medical knowledge. It’ll even make you a better patient when you see your doctor. (Trust me, medical professionals appreciate smart patients.)

Don’t worry about not knowing all the high-tech modern medical stuff. Any modern nurse probably knows more about medical “stuff” than a doctor did near the turn of the last century and then some. It’s kind of frightening, but 1900-era medicine didn’t do too badly at preserving the human race. Most of that modern knowledge is still found in books. They’re lightweight, require no batteries, and work anywhere there’s enough light to read.

So get some, read them, and improve your odds of survival.

Casualty/Trauma Care & Supplies In Austere Conditions

Per a request to MDs and SF 18Ds (of which I am neither, being instead a trauma nurse of some years' experience) on John Mosby's "mountain guerrilla" blog, I offer my two cents:

Under the heading of “What would you want to pre-stock/cache to care for casualties with moderate to severe trauma under semi-austere conditions?”

Rather than go all Pollyanna, I’m going to be blunt: The first thing you’re going to need, to quote Col. Trautman from “First Blood”, is “A large supply of body bags.”

Major trauma and gunshot wounds (GSWs), under field conditions, have a much higher likelihood of turning live people into dead ones, despite all your efforts. It’s not a certainty, but the likelihood is much greater, so let’s deal with worst things first. You absolutely need, along with the mental and emotional toughness to deal with this fact, the physical ability to properly bag and tag the remains, and inter them without creating a pandemic among caregivers and survivors. Plague, cholera, typhoid, and a host of other medieval ailments await humanity if you can’t accommodate this eventuality. So casualty bags, a place to bury them, and a crew of people to do it, will have to be provided for. Both Korean War M.A.S.H. hospitals and their modern 21^st century equivalent have a Graves Registration Unit, for good reason. You also need to record the deaths, and mark the graves – overtly or covertly – so that next of kin might have some opportunity to recover the remains in better times.

That leads to a need for chaplain(s) or equivalent, to perform the associated rites and rituals. They serve dual duty for those not imminently leaving this world for whatever might come afterward, and such care can have a great impact on casualty recovery. I don’t care if you’re personally an atheist, literal piles of documented peer-reviewed studies underline the point that physical casualties need spiritual care. Do not neglect this aspect if you want optimum outcomes.

You’re undoubtedly going to have personal effects, as well as weapons and gear from said casualties, so you’ll absolutely need to have the people and space to deal with, store, inventory, and be accountable for safeguarding and/or passing along such items, with absolute integrity.

Then there are the casualties themselves, and their care, which was certainly the main reason for the query.

Once you move beyond primary care for injuries and wounds during the first hours or day, your patients’ concerns balloon from mere initial treatment to the full range of human survival: you now have to deal with hydration, nutrition, elimination, cleanliness and personal hygiene, as well as continued medical management, wound care, infection control, and other therapies.

In short you’re now looking at creating a hospital, at minimum, however primitive, and at most essentially re-creating an entire healthcare system continuum, whether you meant to or not. The alternative is to shoot your wounded.

Hospital Rule One: Cleanliness Is Next To Godliness. As was demonstrated in the Crimea by Florence Nightengale, or the American Civil War by Clara Barton, and every conflict before or since, clean patients and wards heal, and dirty ones kill.

So immediate needs: Betadine, bleach, Bactine, hydrogen peroxide, isopropyl alcohol, Lysol, Cavicide disinfectant (or equivalents). Sterile dressings and clean bandages (dressings are what you put on the open wound, bandages hold the dressing in place, thus the latter only need to be clean, while the former need to be sterile). Silk, plastic, and paper adhesive tape. Q-tips. Penrose wound drains. Ace wraps, Iodoform gauze, sterile surgical gloves, drapes, and sponges. Clean exam gloves, patient gowns, slippers, sheets, blankets, towels, washcloths, basins, bedpans, urinals, commodes, sponges, toothbrushes, combs, disposable razors, soap, shampoo, lotion, water pitchers, cups, meal trays, dishes and utensils. Enema supplies, sterile urinary catheters in a range of sizes and collection bags.

{Edit addition: And lest we forget - like I did - you need a means of disposing of poo, pee, dirty diapers, gowns, sheets, bloody and pus-filled bandages, and all other assorted nastiness, far from patients, food, water supplies, and anyone you have any regard for. "Red bags" for biohazardous waste are only the beginning of solving your problem, not the ultimate solution. Just as in Rawlesian survival, think systems, not just a list of stuff.}

BP cuffs, thermometers, stethoscopes, and at least a basic drugstore pulse oximeter. Ideally otoscope and laryngoscope, plus disposable speculums and tongue blades.

A host of over-the-counter (OTC) meds. IV fluids, poles and hooks to hang them, administration kits, tubing, catheters, etc. (Most of which is Rx.) All the oral antibiotics you can lay hands on. Other Rx meds if you can get them legally and store them safely.*

You’ll need “holy water”. Q.: How do nuns make holy water? A.: they boil the hell out of it.

So a water supply, the equipment/capability to boil water, do piles of laundry, sterilize instruments and equipment, wash hands, and bathe, cook for, and feed a patient/patients for days or weeks.

Food stores, and the ability to heat/cook/prepare them. Vitamins, both multi and individual types. Supplemental and homeopathic remedies.

Splinting and casting materials, crutches, slings, braces,  post-op shoes.

Surgical instruments (both reusable and disposable), a full range of sterile suture materials.

Higher-end: Laboratory-quality microscope, test tubes, slides, centrifuge, and associated lab equipment. Refrigeration capability, and blood collection/storage/transfusion equipment.

Top-drawer: Cardiac and/or vital signs (VS) monitor/defibrillator, and some X-ray/ultrasound capability (dream list, and a tad pricey, but doable, and since you asked…).

And hopefully a surgeon and/or ER doc, physician assistant, nurse(s), orthopedist/physical therapist, pharmacist, homeopath, nutritionist, etc. to help you take advantage of all of it, as well as the cooks, laundry, orderlies, and associated minions who do the grunt work. Even if it’s just one or two people, but obviously, the more people you can staff, the better you’ll do. And all the notebooks, paper, pens/pencils, and index cards you can get to keep charts on your patients. At a minimum, so that the person who takes over the next 12 hour shift for you while you or the doctor sleeps knows what’s going on with the patient, what to do/not do, and so you do too when you take over again after them.**

I didn’t go into quantities for any of the above, because whether you acquire 2 or 200 of something depends upon resources, storage space, etc.

Lest this sound extreme, it can be readily accommodated bare-bones in an average two-bedroom house if it were a dedicated care station, and it’s pretty much the range of supplies/equipment I’ve had at my disposal in ERs ranging from basic 2-bed units, up to world-class 60+ bed Level I ER/trauma centers. Imagine a widow/er in a large house with 2-3 spare bedrooms and ideally a full basement with an empty garage (let alone farmhouse/ranch with a bunkhouse and full barn with basic indoor plumbing! Happy day!), and you or I could set up a full-on clinic/mini-ER/surgery/recovery ward for as long as food, water, and expendable supplies and medicine held out, sufficient to care for a battalion of troops and/or a town from 500-1000 people pretty easily. All it takes is space and money, just like pretty much everything else in life. You could do it as small as one dedicated treatment room in a large bedroom, but there are economies of scale, and trying to do everything in a space the size of a 20’ Conex container is barely possible, but it’s a distant third choice, IMHO. I think it’s kind of geometric: If you allot 2x the resources compared to a medic with a cot and an aidbag, you can probably do 4x as well. If you allot 5x the space/equipment, you can do 25x as well, and so on.

Some quality references are the “Special Operations Forces Medical Handbook, 1st or 2d Ed., ca. 2008” (not to be confused with the ubiquitous, somewhat helpful, but woefully obsolete and outdated SF Medical Handbook ST 31-91B from ca. 1982 or so), and “Survival Nurse”, by Ragnar Benson, which is a decent if minimal overview on setting up a basic casualty care mini-facility in rugged conditions. An especially ideal one specifically for this topic is "Improvised Medicine: Providing Care in Extreme Environments " by Iserson, 2012, which is precisely geared towards pulling a hospital out of your back pocket in crappy locales or after disasters and other extreme events. And at least one comprehensive textbook of standard nursing practice by Mosby, Lippincott, etc. Along with all the CURRENT physician/medical references you can acquire, from textbooks to periodicals, hard copy, CD, digitized, and any videos/DVDs/BDs of care, procedures, etc. The obvious step beyond setting up such a capability is to make it, so much as possible, a “teaching” facility, so that you can start multiplying and disseminating the knowledge to as many people as possible, both to better care for your patients now, and to ensure the capability isn’t lost. “Two is one, and one is none” works for hospitals, doctors, nurses, etc. just as well as it does for shovels and bug-out bags.

 

*Meds, which are probably 50% of modern Western medicine, are another huge issue, especially regarding pain control. I realize we’re talking about operating in an insurgent or post-zombie apocalypse environment, but in preparing for worst cases, it’s worth noting that an illegal stockpile of minor narcotic pain relievers stored with one firearm, now, could get you enough federal enhancements at sentencing to pretty much screw the rest of your life and twenty other peoples’. Due diligence and common sense are called for.

** I’m not, at this point, going into all the specialty items for care regarding eyes, ears, nose, and throat concerns, or dental injuries, or burn care, or amputation care/prosthetics, all of which are likely co-components of wounds from penetrating and blast trauma after association with getting shot, stabbed, fragmented, and blown up, and nearly killed. Mainly because it would be an encyclopedia, a pitifully sketchy one at that, and there are numerous textbooks on the subject.