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Originally posted by DaddyBare
First let me say I did not come to ATS for the survival section. Truth to be told my interests lay elsewhere… But I do have skill and training in this field… I have taught others to do the same with the Marines… for a time I worked as part of a Mountain rescue team… I grew up on a 150,000 acre ranch… was riding fence-lines when I was 12… as a child I often ran barefoot through the canyons and high mesa country of northern New Mexico… I was born wild
On last night’s radio show Semper brought up a valid point… Survival is not about going all Rambo on someone… Ask any one of the thousands of Vets here on ATS, they’ll set you straight… Combat is one thing…Survival is an entirely different subject … Skills for wilderness survival, like those for administering first aid… they are skills every outdoorsman/ solder hopes he will never have to use. But when they are needed, they are indispensable. At the risk of sounding dramatic, they may spell the difference between life and death…
If you ask me if I am a survivalist my answer is no… I am an outdoorsman, a country boy, a regular old Red Skin… simply put… I grew up in an environment where things like power and running water were luxuries… surely not necessary for daily life… it may surprise many of you to learn a large segment of the global human race lives quite happy, long, healthy, productive lives without ever seeing an electric light bulb, a TV, refrigerator or a car…
I’m one of those people…In my family when the lights go out… it is not a crises, it is an annoyance… Paying for water is also an annoyance when I can just as easily drive my own well... No food at home… means I probably have to shoot a couple of rabbits or squirrels on the way home from work… Maybe I have to butcher one of my hens…Picking some fresh veggies in the garden… that to me is not survival… to me that is every bit as normal as you picking up your cell phone, to text in a pizza order… Gaining these so called…”Survival Skills” is simply learning to do what humans have been doing for thousands of years… Live in the field for several months and you will know what a truly decadent pleasure a hot shower is… but you can live just fine without…
Survival has nothing to do with Combat… It is a fool who seeks out a firefight… especially if you’re dragging your own family along… Combat is about fear filth and utter madness… people doing their best to kill you… you struggling against your own demons and fears… responding on instinct and training… praying you get them before they get you… It’s the smell of combat I hate most of all… blood and bile… sharp and pungent… the screams when someone is hit, yours theirs it doesn’t matter… Real combat is not a movie or video game…nothing happens in slow motion… that comes later as you replay the horror in your mind again and again and again…. no sane man would seek it out on his own… and it has nothing to do with wilderness survival…
Where I come from we have a saying… a good hunter can feed his family for a year with only a handful of shells… but in a real firefight even 10,000 rounds might not be enough… When you can… it is far better to quietly slip away and live to fight another day…
Survival and outdoorsmenship is fun, communing with nature living as our ancestors did…honing your skill… that is not a hardship…
Real combat in not a game nothing to romanticize…
I now step off my soap box... lecture over... So get out there and have fun in the wild...I know I will
Originally posted by DaddyBare
a good hunter can feed his family for a year with only a handful of shells… but in a real firefight even 10,000 rounds might not be enough…