Down And Dirty Bug Out Gear

Down And Dirty 

Bug Out Gear

I get asked all the time things like, what gun should I get, or people tell me “If something happens I'm coming to your house”. The former is a question I'll deal with much better later, but for now I'll suggest the following:

*Ruger 10/22 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruger_10/22) the .22LR is one of the most common rounds in this country, it and the rifle are endlessly versatile. Though a Marlin or Savage in .22lr are acceptable.

*A Glock – 9mm/.40 are common enough rounds, and easy to learn to shoot.

*A 12 gauge shotgun. Remington 870 or Mossberg 500 are my two top choices.

Make sure you buy a cleaning kit that will work on these, and at least a hundred rounds of ammo for them. DO NOT BUY WOLF OR BLAZER AMMO!!! They are okay for target practice, but you can get a much better deal at Wal Mart for Winchester FMJ's. The ammo you will be using is for survival, be it lethal or hunting. Not the time to take chances on cheap, “good enough” ammo.

As for coming to my house when “The Shit Hits The Fan” (THSTF) or “The End of the World As We Know It” (TEOTWAWKI), have fun. I won't be there, nor will I leave much behind that you can use. I'll probably leave the tubs and toilet bowls full of water, and some wood in the fireplace.

Now, as I write this the US government is about to start laying off workers, and supposedly shutting down much of its operations if a budget can't be agreed upon in the next 19 hours and eight minutes. I think people are freaking out because they don't understand how the world works. At 12am on Saturday morning there won't be riots in th streets, an invading army of Vatican Warlock Assassins led by Grand Vizier Charlie Sheen yelling “Regulators! Mount up!” or “Winning” while they quaff tiger blood and and force women into brothels.

Now, there's nothing wrong with being nervous, and taking a few precautions.  I mean, us "gun bunnies" and "right wing survival fanatics" might know what we're talking about...

Anyway, go get a gallon sized ziploc baggie out of your kitchen. Put the following items in it:

2 Energy bars 

A Full Disposable Lighter 

2 small candles

A Multi Tool (Gerber/Leatherman/etc) 

A Boxcutter 

2 bandannas

1 Yard of Duct Tape wrapped around a pen 

An LED Flashlight with extra batteries

Now go put this in your car, in addition to a heavy jacket and three bottles of water. If you don't have these items, read the next bit and then make a list, and head directly to Wal Mart, Kmart, Target or wherever. I honestly don't know how you made it here without having these things in your household (maybe you live in a dorm or nursing home?), but I'll do what I can to help you in my later posts. ;p

Now get a backpack, large satchel, duffel bag, or if you have to a suitcase. Load it with this:

A Blanket 

Flashlight with extra batteries 

3 MRE's

A light jacket 

A first aid kit 

2 Dur-A-Flame Logs

2 Disposable Lighters 

A large knife (not a pocket one) 

Binoculars

Any medications you might need 

List of phone numbers you might need 

A City/County Map

A Poncho/Rain Coat 

A roll of Duct Tape 

Bottle of One A Day Vitamins (100 count)

Put this by the door with a gallon jug of water. You now have a small survival kit in your car and a very basic Bug Out Bag by your door. Ideally you should have bag for each member of your household. Remember, I'm just putting this up as extremely basic info for you to have right now. I'll get into everything else here in much better detail at a later date. Below are some helpful sites:

Survival Cache — The Gear Site for Survival

Survivalist.info : Survivalist & Survival Blogs

Total Survivalist Libertarian Rantfest

Complete Survivalist

Old Knowledge Database Links Corrected!

Author's Note: This has been written in response to the past two days of frantic e-mails, Facebook message, and phone calls from people freaking out. Its a quick and dirty post.

I Hate Today's Youth

Two months ago one of my Soldiers in the US Army Reserve was accepted into the Officer Candidate Program. Until they saw him that was. His earlobes are distended big enough to hold a beer bottle cap, and they informed that unless he paid for plastic surgery to have them altered, he will not be allowed into the program. He joined later in life, and the “earplugs” had already stretched that far before he joined the Army.

I procrastinated for two years before finally joining the US Navy at age twenty. I just didn't want to cut my hair, and even kept it down to my knees when I reported to Great Lakes Naval Recruit Training Center on October 28, 1998. After two days of not showering or being able to pull it back in a ponytail, I was dying to get a haircut. I had to go to the female barbers to have it done, which followed me through the next 8 weeks of training. While I stood in that line along with female recruits, I started to feel bad about wasting the twenty dollars my great grandmother had given me to get a haircut on a bottle of Bacardi Rum and cigarettes the night before I left home. Newly shorn, I was allowed to rejoin the male recruits to quickly don uniforms and then have them inspected by Recruit Division Commanders (the Navy's equivalent to Drill Sergeants), who cussed us out and made us take them off, put them on again and then started inspection creases and badge placement levels with a laser pointer. This was a completely different world from the last two years I'd spent surfing and laying around beaches in Hawaii, and I cold tell it would be a struggle to conform to its rigid standards, and yet keep any semblance to the person I was before.

Twelve and a half years alter, I'm a Fire Team Leader in the US Army Reserve in charge of men younger than me, some of them by fifteen years. And I'm the one doing inspecting uniforms, checking that they shaved and showered that morning, and other endless things to make sure they are conforming to the Army's standards forty-eight hours out of every month. The rest of the time we're allowed to grow full beards, where what we want and if we so choose, to have really, really poor hygiene. But for the most part they clean themselves up and conform to what's expected for those days.

I tend bar at a place in Huntington where its a much younger crowd, actually much closer to my younger Soldiers' age than mine. They're massively covered in tattoos, piercings, young “men” skin tight genes that look like capri's (I believe these individuals had poor male role models growing up and this is what they think “getting in a girl's pants” means), and earrings that stretch their ears out enough to hold a fifty cent piece. How they'll ever fit into society, hold a real job or get any father's permission to marry their daughter's is beyond me. And what mother would want to see her heavily tattooed and shrapnel decorated daughter walk down the aisle? And the majority of their spending money is acquired by donating plasma or other ludicrous pursuits.

I know military service will never be mandatory, that we'll never have a society in the USA like Starship Troopers where you have to serve to vote. And that the draft can't be reinstated because its sexist. But I do feel that the majority of today's youth would benefit greatly from the swift kick in the ass some form of federal service would provide. Of course, I could just be getting old.

My Daily Loadout

Okay, so "Daily Load Out" sounds a bit odd.  Kinda spooky, creepy, hermit, survivalist psycho-ish.  Plus the pistol, cell phone and extra mag go on my belt and the earpiece usually falls down in between the console and seat of my Explorer.
Anyways, what all do I got here?  Well, I have an HTC Hero cell phone.  A leather wallet and cheap LED flashlight from Wal Mart.  A Benchmade fountain pen with a pointy end that will fuck you up.  Oakleys.  Juicy Fruit.  Marlboro 72 Lights with a Bic Lighter jammed inside the pack  A Benchmade automatic opening knife (think switchblade) with a partially serrated blade.  A Springfield 1911 chambered in .45 ACP with a double stacked .45 ACP mag a ten round mag as a back up.  And a toboggan for my cold head cuz it winter.  And keys to my Explorer.
Poor belt...

Well, I finally have a place up on the Internet to post whatever retardation spews forth from my speaking orifice.
Not sure what direction, if any, this blog will go.  Movie reviews, playing with my GI Joes, my evil exes, surviving the coming "Zombie/Economic/Nuclear/No More Social Networking Sites"Apocalypse...  we'll see where my brain roams to.

Anyway, I guess you'll want to know some stuff about me.  I'm 32 years old, currently surviving in South Point, OH.
I was raised (I'm still not sure I grew up) in Flatwoods, Ky until 1/2 way through my senior year when I moved to Hawaii and graduated from Kapolei Community School.
At 20 I joined the US Navy and served 50 months as a Journalist (I was kicked out of DINFOS twice) and a Quartermaster, aboard the USS SAIPAN (LHA-2) & USS KINGFISHER (MHC-56) from October 28, 1998 to December 28, 2002.

I came back to the Tri State (OH/WV/KY) and attended Ohio University Southern for a bit and worked as a doorman and bartender in various bars in Huntington and Barboursville, WV, and somehow got drnk enough to joint the US Army Reserve as a Combat Engineer.

 In May of 2007 I deployed to Iraq as part of the 396th Engineer Mobility Route Clearance (we did Route Clearance) and returned in May of 2008.
Currently I'm still in the Reserves and attending Mountwest Community College to be a Paramedic.
Thank you, please drive thru.