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Spike

@spikesguides

Jul 13

Intro to Prepping – Implementing Your Plan

Throughout this article series we have covered topics that may initially feel like separate ideas just floating around in the proverbial ether. As a fitting conclusion to this article series, we will talk about wrapping all these concepts together into one comprehensive plan that will allow you to slowly chip away at building your protective plan for emergencies. Prepping is not an action that happens overnight, it requires you to gather items and learn skills that take both time and money to accomplish. Few of us are billionaire savants and as such, we need to work on these things with time to accomplish our goals. We will be doing just that in a series of nine steps. They are as follows:

Step 1. Setting Objectives
Step 2. Assessing the Situation
Step 3. Developing a Family Emergency Plan
Step 4. Gathering supplies
Step 5. Ensuring Medical and Health Preparedness
Step 6. Establishing a Communications Plan
Step 7. Implementing Security
Step 8. Promoting Sustainable Living
Step 9. Regularly Reviewing and Updating

Step 1. Setting Objectives.
Much like in the earlier articles of this series, you need to know what you are preparing for. By utilizing the skills given in that article, one can determine what various potential events they may encounter realistically and begin to plan around them. From there, the individual should set specific and achievable objectives with regards to your well being during the event. As much as we might like to imagine we can keep the AC running through a nuclear war, it might not be realistic to write it down and work around it. On the other hand, ensuring you have water and a food supply is more realistic. Start with the bigger ideas like food, water, security, etc. From there you can create sub-goals to achieve these bigger ones.

For example, if I want to ensure I have water in case the water supply is stopped due to power grid failure or ignoring my bills for too long, I might set a goal of simply “water security.” From there I can determine how I am going to do that, so I might have sub goals of “multiple water sources,” “water filtration,” “water purification,” and “water storage.” From there, based on the knowledge I have gained from research I can write down how I am going to do that. For water sources I may simply need to find nearby lakes and rivers that aren’t too far to walk and carry water to and from. Water filtration could be solved with a filtration system like a Berkey. The list goes on and on and sub goals may even require their own set of sub goals, do not be afraid of getting specific.

Specificity matters and is very important to your well being. Having a vague statement of “water” and then just writing “clean it” and then simply getting a Brita filter isn’t going to be as robust as actually getting into the nitty gritty and solving each of these issues. It might seem and feel dull, and that is okay, you don’t need to do this in one sitting. You can take days or weeks to get it done, that is fine. The important thing with building this list of objectives and sub objectives is that it full accomplishes what you need to get done. Do not be afraid to build a list for each major part of your well being that you may need or even building a list and sub list for every scenario you may be planning for. This is a good thing and you will be surprised to see how much overlap there is between the various types of emergencies that may occur. As you work through your objectives, do not be afraid to go back and edit them as time goes by. When you learn a new skill or piece of equipment, a whole new world of possibilities may open up to you and you may find that you can add or remove aspects of your objectives list. This list is not the 10 Commandments, you are allowed to edit them and return to them as needed. With that said, once these initial lists are done, you are ready to approach the next step.

Step 2. Assessing the Situation.

Once you have a clear set of objectives to work with you need to objectively take a look at your current level of preparedness. This requires you to be a little harsh on yourself so if you are a narcissist, have a friend do it instead. You need to evaluate your actual current preparedness level for the issues that you think you will be facing. You need to compare what you have now to your goals. You need to ask yourself things like, “do I already have some of these objectives partially or fully completed?” You should try to identify the gaps and areas of improvement you have. This is for both things that require skill or physical items. One way to approach this is to simply take your objectives list and create a checklist of items and skills you may need to accomplish them and simply check off what you already have and make notes on what you are missing. Fill in those notes by commenting how you are going to accomplish them. If you want to learn fishing and hunting as an aspect of a larger food plan, you may want to start building those skills. Note how you will start researching or looking into equipment needed and then work through these notes in your life. Do not be afraid to get hyper specific here, too. While we won’t become experts in everything, Da Vinci’s renaissance man comes to mind, where we want to become as close to experts in many of these fields as we can. Do not succumb to the intellectual laziness of watching one YouTube video while your browse Twitter and call it a day. You need to commit to these topics because you very well may rely on them in an emergency and you do not want to be left wondering how to do something when your life depends on it.

Working through this list, while it may feel tedious, will ultimately lead you to becoming a better and stronger person. Even if the emergency never comes, you will still have valuable information that you can share with your family and friends that could help them in their time of need. Note that you do not need to finish every actionable activity on this list to proceed onward, if anything, this step is one you will return to repeatedly, like step 1, and update it as time goes by.

Step 3. Developing a Family Emergency Plan

(Note that if you are single or living with friends, this step is still relevant to you. You can replace the words family with roommates or simply adapt this section to simply cover yourself.)

Developing a family emergency plan, or FEP for short, is a multifaceted process. A FEP can cover many different scenarios and even be kept in a physical place like a binder for ease of reference for specific scenarios. A FEP can be as simple as something we discussed in the home defense article, where you have your family simply escaping the home during a dire threat via different access points and then egressing from the area to set up somewhere else, or it can be a plan of action during whatever emergencies you may be planning for. Ideally, your FEP should contain as many permutations of scenarios as possible without writing an entire textbook. You can begin with some simple things like assigning basic roles and responsibilities to family members, something we touched on also in the home defense article. Ensure that each member knows and understands the roles and responsibilities that they are entrusted with. Do your best to reinforce the importance of that role and foster their practicing of any skills associated with it.

For example, if you have a doofus adult brother who lives with you but has always had a keen eye, make use of it. Assign him roles that cater to his characteristics. If he can’t be trusted with labor but is good at spotting things, he can take an overwatch/lookout role as well as being given a designated hunter position. From there you can encourage, or even go out, hunting with him to build those skills and refine those already strong characteristics.

Once everyone is given a role, start by drawing a map of the home and the area you live in, maybe even make photocopies for multiple plans. Now you can build escape route plans in case of fire or any other type of threat. You can also use this map for defensive plans or things like assigning roles like gardening and perimeter lookout. For plans that require everyone do specific tasks, such as tornado drills, fire drills, attacks from ne'er-do-wells, you can then practice these drills on a regular basis so that once the time to act is required, everyone is calm and collected. In cases with young kids, you can even gamify the situation in order to keep their attention and prevent them from worrying of worst case scenarios.

A FEP doesn’t need to be created out of a sense of paranoia that leaves the home full of dread in case an emergency comes, the creation of a FEP can actually become a bonding activity. With the doofus brother example, it could actually be a positive thing in their life that ultimately creates a better outcome for them. A FEP should be created with input from everyone so that everyone feels listened to and all variables are accounted for. Regular practicing of these plans can also become a fun activity if gamified, like stated earlier, or simply just conducted during times where everyone seems a bit bored. Creating a FEP shouldn’t feel too much like a chore and shouldn’t feel like it brings a sense of doom and gloom, remind your family that you are simply preparing the same way you would for a fire drill.

Step 4. Gathering Supplies.

Finally we are onto a step that is specifically relating to gathering items, rather than implying them or checking them off a list that you created. This is where you are actually putting the pedal to the metal and getting things. Obviously this means getting the items you need for your lists created in steps 1 and 2 but it also means getting the items for things such as Bug-Out-Bags/BOBs/72 hour bags/get home bags.

Beginning with using the criteria laid out in the article for these bags you can build, you guessed it, another list! This time it’s an assembly list of what you need for your bags. If you have multiple family members who leave the house regularly for work or at least drive a car, you should hopefully have a pack ready for them to leave in their car for emergency use. Recall, that these bags are personalized to each person, their situation, their life, their circumstances, and what emergencies they may encounter. The goal of this step is to get these bags done!

Not only BOBs, this step is where you will want to start getting the other items from your lists. Focus firstly on getting enough supplies for a 72 hour long emergency, that means food and water and anything else laid out in your previous lists that pertains to the short term. This is because a 72 hours emergency is most likely to happen in the grand world of statistics over a greater event happening, and having the bare necessities is better than being caught with your pants down because you were saving up for the $40,000 off the grid electrical setup. The goal is to be prepared and being prepared for the most common scenario first makes logical sense.

Another thing of note is rotation of supplies. If you are going to have a horde of food and water, make sure you regularly make use of items that are close to going out of date to prevent spoilage while still building your dragon’s horde of whatever it is you are stocking up on. While we may be willing to eat expired beans after nuclear war, it doesn’t mean I particularly want to eat them during a power outage that is going to only last a few days.

Step 5. Ensuring Medical and Health Preparedness

As tempting as it would be to simply state “read my other book,” I won’t. What I will say right off the bat is I wrote a book about medical prepping and it is available on amazon! It is also available online as a free PDF, if you need help finding it, shoot me a DM on twitter. It is also available as a 6 part article series on my twitter account, just go to my twitter profile and look under the highlights tab! You don’t need to spend money on any of this information, purchases are simply done for the benefit of the creator.

With that out of the way, I am going to simply cover a few pointers that anyone can and should do in regards to medical prepping. Firstly, we are going to build another list! Build a list of all the medications, OTC and RX, that you will need in case of an emergency, whether it be 72 hours or for a longer period. From there you can also plan around common medical issues that can arise in short and long term periods. Things such as food poisoning, common illnesses, common infections, performing proper wound care and treatment. All of these and any other things you can come up with will require resources that you may not have on hand. Building a list that you can easily follow will help greatly.

When it comes to stockpiling drugs let me say, I do NOT recommend that you go and get any illicit or illegal drugs or gather any drugs in an illegal matter. Don’t buy Oxy’s from the guy in the hood, it isn’t worth it, get Advil. Look for OTC options when possible as these drugs will be the easiest to get. When it comes to RX drugs, things get more complicated. One thing you can do, I will describe in a scenario: If grandma needs her heart medication, next time she gets it refilled, ask if she can request a 90 day pack, or if there are some left over from the last bottle that she hasn’t taken, start a little pill savings account to build medication stockpiles. You can also simply ask your doctor for prescriptions for things in case of their need. While this is likely to not work, if you are close with your doctor, your odds of success do improve (I do not know if this is legal so do not take this as legal advice. Do not break the law.). There are also telemedicine options out there such as the one shilled by conservative talking heads that allow you to get an emergency kit with Azithromycin (an antibiotic) and Ivermectin (antiparasitic).

Other things you can do are get yourself and your family trained in first aid. The Red Cross offers courses all the time on basic first aid skills, stop the bleed courses, and other basic trauma skills. Other organizations will offer similar skills, just start searching for courses of that type in your area. From there, you should try and regularly practice these skills so you don’t forget them. You can get wound packing and tourniquet trainers on amazon for reasonable prices along with other similar trainers depending on what skills you want to hone. You should practice first aid scenarios for various emergencies regularly.

Step 6. Establishing a Communications Plan.

In an emergency, communications can be the difference between help coming or not. While the severity and size of the emergency certainly can inhibit your ability to call the police, you can contact family, friends, and neighbors for assistance in an emergency or offer your assistance in an emergency.

We have covered this topic before but I want to retread shortly here but having a communications plan in place with your loved ones and associates ahead of time is beneficial both because they can offer help but also as an avenue to stay in contact with them during an emergency situation. Begin with looking into what mode of communication makes the most sense to you financially and realistically. For some, a Baofeng radio to talk to the neighbors is enough, some may need shortwave radio, others may need to look into satellite phones if the distance is truly great (like other side of mountains or other side of the world). There are a number of tricks to stretch radio signals as well that I won’t cover here as I am not remotely qualified enough to even think about them. Let me simply say, do the research now on what mode of communication will make the most sense and start learning. From there you can teach others on the proper use of the equipment. I also highly recommend that if you are interested in the radio aspect, purchase the ARRL ham radio license manual, it is a great resource and can teach you a lot of basics that I am certain you don’t know if you are a newcomer.

Once you have a modality of communication established, you should establish your actual contact plan. The first question you need to ask is: what frequency will you be talking on? Find a frequency that isn’t being actively used and establish that as your primary frequency, you can also set a secondary or tertiary in case of jamming or traffic, some radios will allow you to simultaneously listen to multiple frequencies at once to monitor incoming traffic. Next you want to ask: what times of day are you and your other party(ies) going to talk at? You can’t guarantee that they will have the radio on all day if the power goes out, but if they know that you will have the power on at say 20:00 (8:00 PM) they know that they can use the precious power in their batteries then. Set a small window for initiating conversation like 5 or 10 minutes where the radio is powered and someone is actively listening to any and all frequencies for communications. After that time has passed and nobody has spoken, you can safely assume they have nothing to report or talk about at this time and power off for the day to conserve battery.

Setting systems like these up can be a chore, especially with people who are generally uninterested in this aside from humoring you. In cases such as that it might be beneficial to provide a short manual of operation with your communication plan written out with basic equipment use explained so that if it is needed, they have access to it. Something like this can be especially beneficial if you have elderly family members who may find technology a bit confusing. Laying out a simple step-by-step guide can be something anyone can do, just ensure you write clearly and explain everything in a way that makes sense for their level of understanding.

Other things to keep in mind are the local emergency services radio frequencies along with the national weather service frequency in your area. Write these down as they can be beneficial to listen to in case of emergency, particularly if other communication systems are not available.

Step 7. Implementing Security.

This topic was well covered in a previous article so I just want to lightly recover some of the basic topics and add a few others here.

Firstly, securing your home from animal and human threats is a must. Performing security audits and reinforcing your home are relatively simple steps that won’t draw too much attention or cost to yourself (as long as you aren’t buying Kevlar or steel wall panels). Things like high security doors, locks, deadbolts, bars, or other security measures are relatively common and can be a bit pricey up front but like with everything else in this article, you don’t need to do them right away. You don’t need to be afraid to b u i l d a l i s t. You can do it. I know you can. You might be running out of paper but that’s okay, can always buy more and fill a binder. Other things you can do are to train in self defense now. This can be in any form that you wish as long as it fits your personal security criteria. It could be firearms training, less lethal training, hand to hand, swords, anything. It also isn’t unheard of to be trained in both firearms and martial arts. Martial arts can come in any flavor you want as long as it is actually useful. Some forms of these, americanized “karate” is rife with these, are total scams that don’t teach you anything actually useful in a fight. Do some research and find one that interests you and begin studying. You may be required to take courses or learn from a singular individual selling classes on craigslist depending on how obscure your interest is. Lastly, like with everything else, practice. Without practice, skills atrophy, and then when needed, you are not as sharp as you thought you were and things can take a turn for the worse rapidly.

Step 8. Promoting Sustainable Living.

This sounds like hippy garbage I know. It isn’t. Sustainable simply means that is a process that can be repeated with time safely. There are things that we can do now in our daily life with our current hobbies that can make our lives easier should things go south.

For example, if you live near a lake or other body of freshwater, consider not using heavy insecticides, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and fertilizers in your lawn or garden that will runoff into the water. While firstly, they are dangerous to your health, they also can upset the ecosystem that you may very well rely on in an emergency situation. The old adage of “don’t shit where you eat,” comes to mind. You should try and do your best to keep the area around you healthy so that should you need it, you can easily utilize it.

Other things you can focus on are sustainable food production. Look into gardening, start with learning the basics of gardening in a way that is organic or using as few chemicals as possible for both your health and for the health of the land. Remember that the goal is to grow your own food indefinitely, not just one season. Look into crop rotation and other forms of farming. Consider what the Native Americans did with their crops and consider emulating their systems. Once harvest comes, look into preservation techniques. Food preservation in the form of canning is very useful if done safely and correctly but other options have been around for hundreds of years. Consider researching these methods and practicing them.

Finally start building a network in your community. Meet the farmers, make friends with your neighbors, be known as the guy who helps your community. This is both because it’s generally a good thing to do but also because should an emergency happen, you have a greater network to both assist and rely on. Humanity developed civilization out of a need for survival, we didn’t just do it because it was nice to be near a guy you could get along with. We did it for protection and food benefits to one another. Should some of the gears of the great clock that is postmodern society halt, you can at least rest assuredly knowing that you have some rudimentary form of social safety net assembled. You can also look into starting a local preparedness group to pass on your knowledge and gain some from others while also building a community of like minded individuals.

All of these seemingly separate ideas fall under the idea of sustainability. All of these ideas promote a lifestyle that can sustain itself should an emergency situation develop, particularly larger and more severe ones.

Step 9. Regularly Reviewing and Updating.

We finally have arrived at the final step. This one is also fairly self explanatory. You should regularly check your plan and see if it is still relevant to your needs and that the goals laid out in it are effective. Review your lists, all of them, make sure they seem fine, do not be afraid to change them entirely. As you work through your various scenarios and drills and skill building, reference your lists and update them as needed. You should always be in a state of semi-fluidity with your planning. Man plans and God laughs so being able to adjust as circumstances change can benefit your prepping prognosis should things go south.

I also want to add on that you should always be working on improving yourself. Anyone who decides that they have done enough is someone who has done not enough. Self improvement is not a task that can be truly completed, it is a process that begins and never ends. If we sit on our laurels and retire, we die, both intellectually and physically (seriously look into how retired people just die all the time). By building yourself up constantly, you will be building those around you up as well and it will help ensure everyone does better should the unthinkable happen.

Conclusion.

By creating lists and plans you are able to take theory and convert it into tangible things that can help your survival during an emergency situation. Prepping is often a lot of theory and many people get tangled up in it and end up never executing on anything meaningful when it comes to their actual survival. Build assembling lists and working through them in a logical manner you can better prepare for whatever situation you may encounter.

It also is very important to start small, don’t drain your bank account and your personal energy trying to do to much at once. If you are worried collapse is on the horizon, you should prepare in a way that doesn’t kill you before it even happens! What good will you be if you overworked yourself and barely know how to use all the goodies you bought? Taking it small and getting good at a few things is better than having a lot of things you can’t use. Paul Harrell and others use a similar philosophy with firearm ownership. What’s the best gun for self defense? The one you have now. You can get a better weapon down the line but starting with what you have and learning it can teach you skills that make you better with others later. This philosophy rings true in prepping as well. Take it easy. Even if the collapse is just around the bend, you can’t reasonably get everything squared away overnight. You can take a brisk pace, sure, but don’t go crazy.

Lastly, being fluid is important. Being rigid in your planning and prepping won’t help you should the situation and circumstances change. Take in information as it comes and process it, don’t be ignorant and assume your plan will always work. Don’t be afraid to admit something you did was wrong or something you planned for was incorrectly scenarioed out. Life is a series of changes and your list can be one of them, or your threat matrix, or your choice of water system, anything. To paraphrase Howard Zinn, ‘we can’t afford to be neutral on a moving train.’

Act accordingly.

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https://x.com/spikesguides/status/1762317310918811796

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Spike

@spikesguides

Apr 26

🧵Hill 3234: How 39 men successfully defended against hundreds

The story of this defense is possibly the best example of how elevation can make or break any battle. While an insignificant battle in the grand strategy of things, both sides fought with ferocity and valor.

In 1988 as the Soviet-Afghan war was drawing to a close, a single platoon was left to defend a tactically important mountain pass that allowed trade and logistics to flow into the surrounding area. The troops were stationed at Hill 3234 - named after its elevation in meters.

The Soviets were told to dig in that morning, anticipating Mujah hit-and-run attacks. Due to the frozen ground, they were forced to build emplacements from stones, particularly around their 12.7mm NSV machine gun.

Read 19 tweets

Spike

@spikesguides

Mar 21

The Bronze Age Collapse - More Than an Aberration of History?

The bronze age collapse occurred between 1200 & 1150 BC and saw the collapse of many societies and nations. Why does this matter? Because as Nietzsche said, "time is a flat circle," and similar patterns are emerging.

Beginning with the actors involved. You had the Myceanean Greeks, the Hittites, Cypriots, the Palestinian City-States, and a partial collapse of the Epyptians and Assyrians. These were the major powers of the world at the time. Encompassing a majority of the worlds trade.

What caused the collapse? An everything crisis. Economies collapsed, invasions, climate changes, and mass migrations with civil wars. We will address each of these and their seeming modern equivalents.

Read 25 tweets

Spike

@spikesguides

Sep 1, 2023

PSA CAMOUFLAGE 🧵

This is a joint effort between me and @dataskinwalker give him a follow and check out his work. I'll be covering more pattern/uniform related stuff while he has done more on the basic nature of camouflage.

Camouflage patterns.

It literally doesn't matter what you pick as long as it meets @dataskinwalker's laid out criteria which can be summed up as:

BREAK UP YOUR SHAPE.

Unless you're a ghillie in the mist, you'll be spotted. The goal is to be harder to hit at distance.

Mixing camos.

This is a great idea. For two major reasons. Firstly you can be better adapted to your environment. Devgru in the sandbox was known for swapping tops and bottoms out, especially on mountaintops. Why?

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Spike

@spikesguides

Aug 18, 2023

PSA. Shadows: Evading the All-Seeing Eye of the Postmodern Age 🧵

Staying hidden from the surveillance state.

Data is the new oil and everyone is a well. Don't get tapped.

Historically surveillance involved physically recording the subject, either by phone tap, hidden microphones, spies, and informants. The digital revolution introduced all of these into everyone's homes many times over, many of which are recording you now to sell your data.

The global data market's revenue was estimated to be $162.6 BILLION dollars in 2021 and is only growing year on year. The amount of data collected is staggering. For example with a smartphone the following can be collected...

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Spike

@spikesguides

Aug 15, 2023

PSA 5TH GENERATION WARFARE 🧵

War has changed.

War is one of man's earliest inventions and most effective. War has evolved with the generations to become better suited to its environment and our postmodern age is no different. Each generation builds atop the other, everpresent

Previous gens.

Gen 1 warfare is line tactics. This goes back deep into human history and remained unchanged through the advent of muskets.

Gen 2 is trench warfare and the massive armies seen during the first World War.

Gen 3 is maneuver warfare. Pioneered by the Nazis...

with blitzkrieg tactics. Aircraft begins to be more heavily introduced and leaned on.

Gen 4 is large asymmetrical forces. Guerillas, insurgencies, non-state actors, and more decentralized.

Notice how each generation isn't discarded but still used and built upon...

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