One of the most important aspects of survival, whether we’re dealing with a fieldcraft scenario, in the backcountry, or we’re dealing with a grid down type emergency in our own backyard, is the mental aspect. One aspect of the mental game that the Army has done a good job of synthesizing is the use of the keyword “SURVIVAL.” In this case, SURVIVAL is a mnemonic memory aid, that stands for: (1) Size Up the Situation. (2) Undue Haste Makes Waste (3) Remember Who/Where You Are (4) Vanquish Fear and Panic (5) Improvise (6) Value Living (7) Act Like the Natives (8) Live By Your Wits/Learn Basic Skills In the older editions of FM21-76 Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape, and the 1992 edition, simply focused on Survival, the Army did a pretty good job of breaking these down, but there was a lot of room for improvement on their take. (1) Size Up the Situation Really, this means sit down, shut the fuck up, and look at what is going on, where you are, and what you have available to facilitate survival and/or rescue. a) Size up your surroundings. Get a feel for what is happening in the surrounding environment. Are you in the middle of an urban riot, or a major urban battle? Are you in the mountains in winter? Are you in the swamps of the Southeastern US? What do you know about the environment? What do you know about the ongoing situation, big picture? Surviving in a desert is a challenge, but surviving in a desert, in the middle of an ongoing military campaign may be even more challenging. b) Size up your physical condition. Are you injured or wounded? It doesn’t even require a combat wound to be wounded. How did you get into a survival situation? Were you in a car wreck on an isolated mountain road? Did you run your snowmachine into a tree? Did you fall in a river and float 10 miles downstream before you managed to get out? Are you fit? If you take a fit dude and a fat fuck, and put them both in a survival situation, the smart money is on the fit dude. Not because he’s fit, exactly, but because he has the tenacity and force of will to do the work to be fit. That drive is what is necessary to overcome a survival scenario. What kind of fit are you? A musclehead who throws pig iron around, but considers twenty minutes on the treadmill to be “cardio” probably isn’t going to do as well as the marathoner who thinks 10# dumbbells are “strength training,” because survival situations are mostly endurance challenges…until they’re not. A well-rounded, hybrid athlete who does serious strength training and does serious conditioning and cardio base building will outperform both of the others. Are you wet? Do you need to focus on immediately getting a fire going to warm up and dry out? Finish reading: https://www.patreon.com/posts/109535576?pr=true Continue reading...
