Violence in Syria

Posted by Selco on February 24, 2012 in Violence | 28 comments

Those scenes feel strangely familiar.

This short documentary shows many aspects. People queuing up for the few food that is left, makeshift hospital that does not work well and the human tragedy that comes with all this.

Often street fighting was very similar. Spray and pray. What you see after 2 minutes are civilians with guns. Not aware of risks and without much of a strategy. We have been like that in beginning too. After some time you figure out what to do and what not. What people there do is so dangerous because they underestimate angle of fire from attackers. Enemies have to get out of cover just a little bit to shoot people, while they have to move several meters to get back to some sort of cover. Crazy risk indeed.

You also see crowd dynamic. Who believes those people will ever give up fight? Nobody. They will win or die. What you see in video is that crowd is exctatic for fighting, for freedom, whatever.

What you do not see in video is what is going on in background. Maybe situation is not desperate enough yet, because this one bakery shop still operated, but if situation continues like that people will turn against each other. Team spirit was gone in second month after we got cut off from supplies and that is when pillaging, raping, torturing start to become common.

I hope someone ends this situation over there. I prepare for situation like this and when you watch this, this should be reminder that things like that can happen to you too, not just in far away country. People really wanting to kill each other looks same worldwide.

Here is another video from other side of things. Filmed by Syrian Army snipers.

If you have other videos / reports about situation over there feel free to share in comments.

» 28 comments

Global State of Preparedness Survey

Posted by Jay on February 17, 2012 in Resources | 11 comments

Most of us put a lot of thought and resources into being prepared. For many it is a real lifestyle and not just a hobby.

We invite you to participate in the Global State of Preparedness Survey that will offer a snapshot of how prepared people are right now and will give you an idea how prepared you are as compared to others.

The purpose of this anonymous survey is to assess priorities and strategies and create a benchmark for the future.

It will also help you to spot some issues you might have overlooked in your preparations.

We are also working with an illustrator to create an easy to understand report of the survey data we will send to you.

SURVEY IS CLOSED RIGHT NOW

Please share this with fellow preppers.

» 11 comments

The European Cold Snap

Posted by Jay on February 14, 2012 in Survival Psychology | 27 comments

Something again about power of media and human stupidity, or i can call it human lazyness to check some simple facts.

first aid

Right now in my region we have something like two weeks of very bad weather, snow, -15 or -20 C temperatures (getting finally better now), roads are blocked by snow, whole cities are completely cut off, infrastructure in some regions is falling apart, ambulance services can not reach patients, stores are mostly closed in worst hit cities, electrical power is off. Deaths from cold temperatures are more than 600 now.

Now this all is temporary, maybe few more days, week, and life is coming back to normal way. But still from this “small” scale event there is again some important lessons to be learned for us.

In my country political elite rule the mainstream media, i guess in every country in the world it is something like that, sometimes more obvious sometimes less. Free media barely exists. Maybe politicians in other contries have “smoother” ways to control media, but at the end all come to same.

So from the beginning of this bad weather collapse event i am following local media to confirm some things. Every single broadcast in media with some politician is same: “everything will be fine, we have enough resources to fight with this, our power plants will not have problems, we all doing our best for citizens, there is no need to panic, there is no need to panicly go in to the shops and buy candles, extra food ,water, whatever, our medical system is completely ready for this event, all patients will be take care of” etc etc.

In reality, first about medical system: few examples, our medical system works that we have supply for a few weeks, for example we are preparing for next month based on facts from the last month. So obviously if we had for months or years certain number of patients for example in emergency room (ER) we have manpower and medical storage in ER for that number of patients.

In other words we are working on assumption that everything will be fine. We are not counting that some major event can hit us, so even if we have extra manpower and extra medical supplies in ERs or hospitals, for some major event, we have that only for short period of time.

We do not have backup. Politician will say: “our medical system can cope with this event” because he need to say good news, politician who is telling bad news will not be elected next time, most of the people do not want bad news, even if it is truth.

OK, i work in medical system, so i perfectly know how bad the system is. For example, try to research how many respirator machines hospitals in your region have, after you finish that, research how many respirators will be needed if some kind of bad deseases struck your region, terrorist atack, flu, SARS..

Even if you do not research this. What you would learn would be pretty much bad news anyway.

Point is: System is not ready. And that is not worst thing. Worst thing is that system will try to convince you that “system is ready” for everything, until it is too late.

Same thing is with power plant, for example coal power plant use coal (obviously), coal is been delivered with railroad, since snow and ice is covered everything they can not deliver it to plant.

Plant by their rules have coal for something around 10 days of work without delivery of new coal, by simple math (and asking some friends who work there ) i found out that they have coal for 3-4 more days. And that’s it. Power for 400 000 people will be off, heating too, and everything that’s going along with that.

And funny, yesterday some politician shows up on TV stating that “citizenz will have electrical power no matter what happens”. We can all sleep well!?

Same goes with all stores, and everything else. When delivering of goods stops, all is going down. If you are member of my course you will have heard me talking about the signs of SHTF and what happened before all hell broke loose. Now compare this with what’s happening now.

All this is happening… in part of the world where 20 years ago we had war, so you could expect that people here know how bad things can be, but no even here people are just people, who again believe “smart” guys on TV.

Now please understand me i am writing all this as a simple example. Everything now will be fine, unless new ice age is starting.

Point of all of this is: in last week or so i did not hear from any authority, any…, advice for people that they need to buy food, candles, medicines, and everything else for month or so. Most of the people are waiting for them to tell that before they start to prepare for something. They are not going to say that. We need to prepare alone, without warnings from anyone.

Look what happens with all these disasters. Good news and if things get bad, its up to people to suffer, die or survive and politicians later play the blame game without any change.

If you have people who do not believe in preparing or think their government will look out for them, tell them this story or stories like that. It is simple logic. Nobody likes guy with bad news. I see history repeating itself and that in country that has been through major SHTF time. Most people here should know but they do not want to know. People see what they want to see, get told what they want to hear (only good news) and are blind to truth again.

» 27 comments

Older and younger people during SHTF

Posted by Jay on February 10, 2012 in FAQ | 36 comments

Lot of questions about how older people did, or how younger cope with everything in that period.

first aid

If we talk about older again it comes to the fact how many people they had around them, i mean did they spent that time in the group, alone, or just with spouse. And again it comes to their skills.

Older people during SHTF

It was not about “they are old and they are not strong, so we do not need them”. Not in my case. Everyone was needed. The question “how older and very young people did during SHTF?” is to wide. Easiest answer would be that they did like everybody else. Not well, life was hard.

During my trip out of the town, over that mountain, to get some stuff, one of the most important persons in the group was men in his 70ies, he was not strong, he was not powerful, he was old grumpy dude. But his value was in fact that he was something like tracker, scout and in same time guy who knows how to handle horses. In group of strong armed men without too much rules that old guy was something closest to a leader, because nobody of us had a clue about horses and about winter in the mountain.

That old man knew both things, mountain and horses, and he had value because of that.

Inside town, in my group, one of my family members was a old guy who was during 2. world war fredoom fighter. He fought against Germans and Italians, was wounded couple of times, had bunch of medals (another older guy from my group fought on Nazi side but this is another story).

Before SHTF nobody paid too much attention to his stories about terrible time during his fight in WWII, i mean we all respected him, but younger folks in my family even made jokes with him when he started with his stories, we were like ” oh s..t there he goes again how he ate leafes in the woods and fought Italians” or we always joked with him because he never wanted to watch war movies, his medals were shiny things, without some meaning for us.

His stories about hiding, hunger, killing were like fairy tales, jokes almost.

But guess what? Few years later when SHTF suddenly we started to pay attention on him, we had some questions for him, what he ate in that bad time? How he hide from enemy? Did he use some traps? How bad was it? On what way he killed enemy?

Or other example: what do you think how many young people in their 20s know something about natural remedies, herbal cures. Not too many, but some old ladies in my region know that stuff, obviously they become important. Nobody called them “superstitious old folks” like before SHTF.

I do not know are you following what i am trying to say here. But my point is that everybody had hard time in that period, young and old. Age did not matter much, only how useful a person was.

So instead of power some of the old people had enough brain and experience, knowledge to be equally important as young and strong people.
Again, of course old smart and expirienced guy, who was alone, did not have too much chance.

But being old and member of group, i do not see that as a bad thing. Knowledge and skills are the key. And i do not see strength and gun as the only important skills for some future SHTF scenario.

Children during SHTF

But just like in normal times kids are most important things, we all do everything that we need to do for our kids today. People did everything that they need to do for their kids in that time too. Everything.

Just like kids are most important thing in life of the parents in normal time, it is same in very bad time. Some usual things were pushed away sometimes, so most important thing was to keep the kids safe. I guess proper techniques of raising kids are hard to obtain when you must be ready in almost every moment to run, shoot, kill, when your first worry is to stay warm, or find food on some funny ways.

It was impossible to maintain some level of “schooling” for school age kids, i mean even if you had time to do that, you just spend it on some more important things. So basically, in most of the families, groups, houses or whatever kids were most important thing in meaning of keep them safe, but for everything else were not enough time, chance, or good will sometimes.

So obviusly those things left some traces on kids from that period. Lot of troubled young man grow up from those kids. Not to mention fact that some of the teenagers from that time learned that human life can be taken easy.

So if you had kids in that time, and you keep eye on them, covered them not only from physical danger but also from dangerous new meaning of life, those kids had some chance in future life to be normal persons, husbands, fathers, doctors whatever.

But if you protected them physically but let them watch and listen to everything that happened around them, they learned some things the wrong way too.

I know some kids from that time, they survived everything, they grow up. Most of those kids became good husbands and fathers, we can call them normal men. They do not remember too many things from that period, their parents made sure they do not witness too bad stuff.

I also know another kid from that period, he was something around 10 years old in that period, his father learned him some things in that time, to make him strong man, he sometimes showed him how people killed people. That kid grow up and become drug dealer, with many deaths on his hands.

I guess he learned in his young age that human life can be taken in order to obtain some things and carried on with that idea.

» 36 comments

SHTF First Aid: When small cuts kill

Posted by Jay on January 20, 2012 in First Aid | 95 comments

I was invited to check guy who was badly beaten by few guys, man who invited me offered me to introduce me to some man who had connection with smugglers, so i can get stuff cheap if i help this guy.

first aid

When i entered house, guy was laying on bed, could not move too much, lot of bruises everywhere on body, he was conscious, in pains, pretty much drunk. On first look he did not have some serious open injuries, my biggest concern was that i was pretty sure that he had few broken ribs, strong pain while deep breathing, and while moving his body, and clear mark of boot on his chest, obviously someone was jumping on him.

I could not do too much with broken rib, actually i only wrapped him with some layers of clothes, to improvise some kind of belt, and hope that broken rib did not induce some more serious injury to lungs, or something else.

He was coughing and spitting blood, but again i was hoping that comes from broken teeth, not from stomach or lungs. Minor cuts and bruises we just rinsed with rakia, and that s it. Nothing more we could do.

And guess, what? Few days later, i was called again, and everything was fine, except nothing was fine. One of the pretty much small cuts on his hand got infected, it was small cut, in normal times would not required sewing or stitching, maybe butterfly closure. But it turned bad.

I’ve spent days and days cleaning and removing dead tissue from that wound, trying to do something, some of his friends manage after some time to get some antibiotics, child dosage in suspension with expired date of use.

I used scalpel, not medical, it was scalpel for some wood work, i removed tissue with that, his family used mixture of honey and some pine stuff for wound, i used rakia and peace of old rubber glove to keep it open.

Anyway he survived, he did not lose his hand, but he lost function of three fingers. It was pure luck that he did not lose his life. And funny thing, not the broken ribs killed him but small cut almost killed him.

Probably nothing would happen if i had Iodine and enough sterile gauze, not to mention stuff like topical antibiotic, or Ciprobay tabs or any of this.

Now of course I’m prepared and have everything, for topical, oral, intravenous use.

Later he told me that guy wanted to hit him in the head with some agricultural tool for digging, he missed his head, he just scratch his hand with that.

Just basics can go a long way

Anyway, point is, to buy today full set for treating wounds, does not cost too much, sterile gloves, compress, forceps, butterfly closures, antibiotic treatment, povidone, hydrogen peroxide, anti tetanus shots, sutures… everything, it can be found for maybe 100$ here.

Is it worth 100$? Yes, it can worth 1000$ or 10000$ it can be priceless actually. When it comes to you or your family member it is priceless, if you helping someone else, you can say a price.

first aid set

I learned medical profession before SHTF and work now for over 20 years in medical field, mostly emergency room and see people stabbed and shot every week. Often I’m person who has to get them ready for transport when they still lay in their blood. Here are two simple things you can do now to help your chances of survival.

Just learn basic procedure for treating wounds and make sure people around you know it too. You might be unconscious when you need treatment and loved ones should know how. Too often people treat things and make things worse not better.

Most wounds that you are going to care are gonna be small cuts, lacerations. I am not saying that you are not going to be in situation to treat gunshot wound, or open fracture on leg for example, i am using laceration as a example to show some basic rules, everything else takes much more to say, and needs to be addressed as separate and big subject.

      1. Use protection if you treat wounded man, gloves, mask, face shield, gown… whatever you have if possible.
      2. Stop any massive bleeding (if it present) by direct pressure on wound, elevation (extremity) or pressure points.
      3. Remove dirt from wound by irrigation, i prefer hydrogen peroxide and sterile water, use sterile swab or sterile forceps for that.
      4. Use iodine on sterile compresses, and dress the wound with bandages.
      5. Start with antibiotic treatment (Xiclav or similar antibiotic)
      6. Inspect wound every day, clean it, then use Iodine and compresses and bandaging.

Now remember, this all matters for you if YOU are only person with some medical knowledge and some medical supplies, if there is no doctor, no hospital, in other words if SHTF for real. If there is a higher medical authority than you available, look for it.

These are some general rules, exceptions are many, stab wound you can not flush in some cases, you can kill man in few seconds if you instantly remove knife from his leg (example), is he allergic on antibiotics? What if wound become infected after few days? Antibiotic ointments oral antibiotics or IV antibiotics?… Much more to say about this. Anyway, the standard procedure will get you out of biggest trouble in most cases.

Basic EDC (every day carry) First Aid Set

Now here is my basic first aid EDC (every day carry). I have in bag with my gun. I have that bag usually with me or in car.

Military First Aid Bandage / Field Dressing, 6-pack, Camouflage, 4″x7″ with Gauze Ties
Military bandage is used to quickly plug hole in sterile way. It is first thing that you gonna put on any bigger wound, it is made from something like gauze pad and bandage all in one, point is if you do not have time to take too much time on the place, just use military bandage to cover wound, stop bleeding, and bandage it, all in one, and it is packeged sterile. This is often first thing used just after someone is shot or stabbed.

C-A-T Combat Application Tourniquet – Black by North American Rescue Brand
To stop massive blood loss.

Sterile Latex Exam Gloves, Individual Peel-Open Package, Medium, Box of 50 Pairs
There are also sets with mask and gloves in one sterile package. I use that.

Prestige Medical Fluoride Scissor, Black, 7 1/2 Inch
EMT scissors, it is very heavy duty scissors, for quick removing clothes from patient, i often use it on my job for cutting seat belt. Quickly, sharp and with guard so you can not cut or stab patient and good ones can even cut wire.

Povidone Scrub Solution, 16 Oz
Kills bacteria.

KENDALL VERSALONTM All-purpose Sterile Sponge, 4 Ply, 4″ X 4″, 2/pk – Pack 25
+ 3M Medipore H Soft Cloth Surgical Tape – 2″ wide -
+ 3M Steri Strip Skin Closures 1/4” X 3” – 10 Packages of 3
+ Kerlix Type Gauze Rolls 4″X4 yds, Sterile, 10/bag
If I have more time to treat wound or follow up treatment.

I have a bit different things but as most of you are from US or other country with Internet shops I looked products similar to mine up. As you see it is not much but it can make a big difference. Difference between life and death.

» 95 comments

First Article of Selco’s Survival Guide

Posted by Jay on January 7, 2012 in General | 53 comments

*The upcoming course that launches next week consists of several elements such as interviews, some videos, Selco’s supply list and a guide about what Selco thinks is important when it comes to survival. This article here is the introduction to the guide. If you have subscribed to our newsletter you will get early access to join the course that will launch next week. (This post was written by Selco but edited by Scott, a native English speaker)*

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Scope of this course

This course is about the simple and raw side of survival and not the fancy bells and whistles part. I believe this raw and very basic side of survival sometimes gets forgotten. But in the end it is not things like fancy freeze-dried blueberry muffins that will help you survive when TSHTF (The Shit Hits The Fan).

There is nothing wrong with trying to prepare to keep your living standard even if TSHTF, but that is not the point of this course.

No matter how many freeze-dried blueberry muffins you have stocked, the day will come when the last one is gone and all you have is your big sacks of rice or grain, if anything at all. This course begins at that day. The focus here is on the uncomfortable, stinky, brutal and depressing side of survival. This is what I can talk about best, because this is what I experienced.

This course is mostly about what I experienced in my time during the Balkan war, how I coped with it and what helped me to survive. Often in life, we learn only when we are forced to, and in this course I will share what I was forced to learn during my year in hell.

Fewer rules, more principles

Jay and I sat together and tried first to establish some basic principles. Because unlike rules, principles are universal and in all sorts of unexpected situations they will help guide you toward right decisions and right actions.

There are many great books and resources concerning technical aspects of survival: so no, you will not find recipes for candle-making in this course. It is simply better to get a book about that.

The three parts of the course

The first part of the course consists of the interviews Jay did with me. These will introduce you to the experiences that taught me the tough lessons I am trying to pass on to you. You will come to understand the mindset that helped me survive and stay sane during my year in hell . Walking in my shoes a bit will prepare you to better cope with unexpected situations that may arise in your own life.

In the second part of the course, you will find several chapters of advice on topics such as security, trading, movement, water & food, and first aid & hygiene. While the interview part of the course lays the foundation and helps you to see things from my point of view, in this part of the course I offer concrete and practical advice. I will talk about the lessons I’ve learned, and how I might approach the next crisis differently.

In the third part of the course, I go through some of the equipment and resources I keep on hand, providing you with a detailed list of what I stock and why.

Been there, done that.

In the end, this guide is a set of personal opinions, based on a set of personal experiences. There is no one single way that works for everyone. If this course can help you to anticipate and adapt to any unexpected and dramatic upheaval that may come your way—the kind of disaster we all hope never comes but must be prepared for anyway—it will be a success in my eyes.

Since my experiences during the Balkan war I have been preparing for whatever might come next. I have never stopped. It was first all about weapons but my focus has changed over time. I have settled on a way of preparing which I’m confident is the right way for what I expect to happen in the future. As a member of this course, you will be informed whenever I modify my setup or plans. So as long as we all have the Internet let’s enjoy the ride into the darkness together.

You will learn a lot of things in this course, but like learning to play a guitar only practice will get you ready for the challenges that might await us in the future. Please use what you learn here, think about it and put it into action. Just having a map that shows you how to get up the mountain doesn’t mean you are ready to get up there. The only way to know this is to get out and try things. Throughout the guide I will recommend ways of practicing the techniques I have shared with you.

Finally I want to send a big thanks to my family and friends, to Jay for contributing his psychological knowledge and coming up with all those hundreds of questions that helped me to remember, Scott for editing this guide, and also to everyone on the Internet who has encouraged me to share my experience. Thank you and now let’s get started.

*To learn more from Selco, check out his online course.*

» 53 comments

How we celebrated things

Posted by Selco on December 30, 2011 in Entertainment | 43 comments

It is the end of the year and people are celebrating so I write a bit about how we celebrated.

Actually we did not celebrate anything particular, like birthdays or christmas or anything similar. Maybe we celebrated fact that we are alive. If we manage to have something like safe house to fix something as a party we just bring whatever we had and party there.

shoot

Usually it were two things, heavy home made drink and marijuana (everyone was growing that at that time), and music sometimes. Sometimes in a form of some kind of musical instruments, or sometimes in very rare ocassions in a form of some battery powered stereo or boom box.

To understand how that looks, you first need to understand what all that ment to us. Every occasion for any kind of party was something like way to get away from rude and hard reality. So whenever i attended to some kind of party it was a special. With very few things it was great.

Sometimes few cigarettes, bottle of drink and good company of 3 friends was a best party that i ever attended, even before and after all of that. And when somebody brought boombox and we listen music, it was not like we listen music today. It was like we listen music for real, like we never listen music before or after. Magical. We feel that music, we feel those few cigarettes and alcohol. It is actually precious and special feeling. Simple things just meant a lot. Music alone was enough to get you “high”. When you are so depraved of special things, things like that become very intense.

It is much easier to bond with people in ocassion like that. I could say it is spiritual and weird. Important thing to mention also is that feelings and customs about get together with girls and sex are “moved” on scale. If i wanted to speak in today terms, if you attended on some party and you had will, few joints or bottle of hard thing, you had a great time, because boys and girls in those parties lived for that moment only, nobody was sure is tommorow gonna come for them.

So in reality if you attend on some kind of party where we had 10-15 people including women, it was not like in parties before and after that. I guess it comes from fact that life was not worthed to much so “thanks” to that connections between man and woman could be maded more easily then in normal times, much more easily.

If girl want to connect with you, or you wanted to connect with girl, you just ask. Some things just become more easily to do, with lot of shortcuts. People just do things without regreting because times were hard and so unpredictable. So nobody wanted to have too much missed chances.

Every part of town, every street had something as a” safe hose” for party. Sometimes houses changed, mostly not. Young people still tried to get together, to do what most of the young people do. Party.

Friendship are maded fast, relationship are maded fast, broke fast, fun was fast and unpredictable.

If i can say that one good thing is come from all of that it was a fact that we did not have enough time to pretend in our ways of expressing emotions, for example expressing our love. It was fast and very powerful. I guess true nature of people is visible in hard times, emotions can be expressed easily if you aware that maybe you are gonna die tommorow.

One place I remember was basement of partially burned house, on small windows are bags of dirt, with very small openings for ventilation. Basement is divided into two big “rooms” with some old furniture, and all kinds of junk, like engine cover from ruined car, that we put on cinder blocks for building houses and use it as a table, in other room there is a part which is separated with a old curtains, and made like more “private” for “love” purposes.

Air is congested with smoke, so actually you do not need to ask for joint, you just need to breath inside and you gonna be fine.

We are all best friends for that night, because tommorow may not come, we all ready to speak stories that are normaly not going to speak because same reason. Music is giving you feeling that there is a reason and sense for life. I am looking for a girl so i can spend that night with her there, talk nonsense or story of my life, she is looking for that too. The parties were out little escapes and helped us to keep a bit normalcy in these hard times. Music was very powerful so you might want to add a small music player to your preps if you do not have already.

15 or 20 years later sometimes, in rare ocassions when i meet some of the girls from those parties, we just share small smile, we do not talk.

» 43 comments

Suburban Survival – Space to Secure vs Privacy

Posted by Jay on December 18, 2011 in FAQ, Security | 73 comments

I get this question often so I answer it here.

“I would like to be part of a community or family larger than 2 or 3, but my extended family is worthless. My husband’s family is 1000 miles away, and don’t get the advantages of family either. My hope is to stick to our suburban home with a few good neighbors on our block. Is that a fantasy?”

suburban survival

Hello and welcome, fantasy is way too strong word, lot of the things can be turned from fantasy to the real things very easy. I think it is the worst scenario, to be in the suburban when sh!t hit the fan. Worse than even city, and for sure worse than rural.

Because of defense. In most cases people are further away between houses, so there is not too much sense of organizing something as a small group of neighbors. Too hard to keep it secure if you do not have the numbers.

It always depends on the space where you live. Few neighbors in close houses like in city make sense because you have less area to secure, more choke points. Few neighbours is way too little in suburban but of course always depends on your area.

But still if i found myself in the suburban areas, i do not think i can survive without some bigger numbers, and bigger organisation, on street level. The alternative would be to take neighbors in or secure smaller area like 2 houses instead of 6. So families of 6 houses move into 2 houses and secure those. I saw some families survive like this on outskirts of city.

We also moved all people (15) to one house, but we were in city so our defense setup was different anyway.

Problem is people, neighbors will want to keep their space, privacy and all that so most will not come. But as soon as neighbors family lies robbed and dead in the garden people will reconsider and trade privacy for security. Many people had to get hurt first or loved ones get killed before they learned. Learn now, that you and loved ones don’t get hurt.

» 73 comments

Survival Situation – Action Wins

Posted by Jay on December 14, 2011 in Survival Psychology | 61 comments

Usually we take for granted what we see on TV, or other media. You can say “No i am always suspicious and do not believe all this” but most of us are forming our opinions unconsciously. So at the end, over the time we just have some opinions, and we are just sure about some situations and solutions, we believe some things just work like that because we saw it so often. Even if we are not experience that in real life, or even if we are not spending much time thinking about these things.

You see action movie and people just shoot each other no big deal.

As i say before, act of shooting is not so hard, actually it is pretty much easy, but decision to shoot someone is much harder, and great majority of people have problem with that decision in real life.

shoot

On one of the local meeting during our hard time people tried to organize some stuff like how to protect homes, set up some kind of neighborhood watch or something like that, most of the guys were armed with guns or any other kind of weapon, on the other side mostly all without previous experience with guns or weapon.

Guy who had a rifle was a taxi driver in normal times, he bought rifle few days before everything started, probably just gets know about basics with gun handling, but he was trying to look dangerous and relaxed in same time. In the middle of some kind of meeting and yelling he somehow gets in argue with another guy, who had a hunting knife on his belt.

Very soon argue was out of control and man took his knife out of the belt and start to approach guy with rifle. It was not something like jump or sudden attack, it was more like slow threatening walk with knife toward the man. Ex taxi driver had enough time to raise his rifle and simply shoot the guy with knife, but he did not, he got finished off, stabbed multiple times.

People just left the area and move on. Guy was left there, I guess relatives picked him up some time later. Body was gone the next day.

It was not about his speed or something like that, i guess he was just stuck with whole situation, he hesitated too much, he was not prepared for that threat, he was not ready, call it as you like. Now when you look in whole situation looks strange that guy did not just raise rifle and fired, but to do that you need first to cross over some things in your mind. That change takes time.

I have seen more situations like this one, sometimes just seconds counts, and your will to do things.

My ex coworker bleed to death because his wife freezed when heavy caliber bullets cut off his arm, even she had some kind of tourniquet and some bandages close to her, she did not use anything, she just screamed while blood was pouring all around him.

It is hard to get your mind in state when you not think too much, instead of just act accordingly, it is hard to do that especially in not normal times. Hard times can learn people to act like that, but it is hard school and lot of people just failed. Great majority of us is same like that taxi driver, only few of us like guy with knife.

This is not about becoming killer, or toughest man. It is about acting. Hopefully your SHTF situation will not be as violent as mine. But remember human act or freeze and freezing can happen to all of us. Prepare people around you to not freeze but act by practicing drills.

Yes there is reason why you do “boring” airplane and ship rescue drills. It teaches you to act and this might make difference between life and death.

» 61 comments

Getting to know Selco

Posted by Jay on December 11, 2011 in General | 18 comments

*Disclaimer: This is a guest post by Jay, the guy who does the site with Selco.*

Like many of you I know Selco from his posts at a big survival forum. I thought his story is a story that must be told and if possible in great detail because who can we learn better from than someone who has been through the end of the world as he knew it.

If you would like to climb Mount Everest would you listen to someone who has been up there or someone who just imagines how it is up there?

I live in Thailand for most of the year and just a few days after Selco agreed to do the interviews and online course about his experience and preparations, I was already on a plane to Europe. A long bus ride later, I was in Selco’s country. It was quite depressing to still see the scars of war on almost every corner… literally because usually people looked for cover behind corners so they were especially riddled with bullets.

I met Selco in my hotel and he surprised me with a nice Browning folding knife as a gift. I had a shoulder holster for his Glock 21 as a surprise for him… so it seemed we kind of understood each other and hit it off well. We went out to get some coffee. Coffee is really big there and you see people drinking coffee like people in other countries drink water.

In the mall I was surprised to see so many security guys. Selco explained that’s normal, and it makes sense because so many people carry weapons and the tension and people with post war mental problems don’t make the situation any better.

We went back to the hotel and started the interviews. I had 17 pages of questions prepared but while we spoke, many more questions came up. Before I met Selco I also had friends from the US Army and even a SERE instructor who added a few questions. While I did my best to ask “everything” those of you who join the course early on have the chance to ask even more questions. We have planned to do another four interviews in the weeks after the course launches with your questions.

I stayed a whole week with Selco, and this week was a bit like time traveling. He showed me some of the real places. We recorded a lot, and the more I heard from him, the more I understood his survival mindset that enabled him to overcome something so bad and terrifying that it’s hard to imagine.

I was amazed by how he was able to speak about so many devastating experiences and personal tragedies and still remain alright. He is really someone who has processed all that happened to him and the people around him and can live with this experience in peace now.

It is a bit weird but if you hear his story in detail, it just changes your perspective. If you compare this with food then most of the survival books and advice I read so far tasted like frozen pizza with lots of artifical ingredients to somehow enhance the taste, while what I learned from Selco was like a good juicy grass fed beef steak from the grill. More natural, more real and in the end simply better.

What Selco has to share is honest, it is real, it is brutal, dirty, smelly and unpleasant. Welcome to one of the toughest real survival experiences… that lasted a whole year…

I’m not sure about you but I had so many “aha moments” when reading what Selco wrote. I had many more of these defining moments where you gain real wisdom and understand something during this week with him. Many things I understood and learned are things that are better learned from someone else, because if you have to find that out for yourself through trial and error, you might simply die in the process.

Maybe you know some people who had a really hard life and who overcame a lot of massive problems or went through extremely tough times to just come out of it stronger, wiser and more balanced? That describes Selco. There is no hate and no anger, but determination. A strong, pure will to do what it takes. He is a go-getter and this is also what helped him to survive this year in hell. He is really not a person who would start a fight but also not a person anyone would want to fight. He just does what has to be done.

We expect the course to start in the first week of January.

» 18 comments
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