5 Bad-ass Perimeter Defense Lessons From A Vietnam Vet

Thank God you made it to your rural bug out location (BOL)! You almost didn’t get out in time before the Police State Metropolis you lived in had their National Guard soldiers shut down all further mass exodus from the quarantined city, with shoot to kill Iraqi War style road blocks on the last exits that weren’t already blocked by panicked mobs and burning piled up car crashes.

You get out of your bug out vehicle (BOV) and kneel down for a moment on the cool green forest ground in a soon to get very hot world, and give solemn thanks that you were granted the presence of mind and discipline to have your BOV ready to rock at a moment’s notice.

You will miss a few of the friends and neighbors you know you’ll never see again, and you’ll feel sorry for those who were trapped in their normalcy bias comfort zone and ignored the ominous but clear warnings. You will pray for them the first chance you get but right now you have another serious problem.

Beware of “Zombiez”!

You pulled ahead of the general Mad Max road rage on the Interstate and traffic finally thinned out considerably as you branched out to the county highways.

You started passing more and more stalled out of gas vehicles off the side of the road, now looted out, and deceased looking, with shot out windows and bullet holes in the doors. You noticed small groups of stragglers marching off the shoulder of the roads carrying their military grade weapons and back packs with grim desperate looks on their faces.

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These were the ones who never cared about prepping. They had a different kind of survival plan. They were out ambushing, murdering, looting, and ravaging those who didn’t prepare their vehicles well for escape.

A couple of them raised their weapons to draw a bead on your vehicle as you floored it and screamed passed at over 90 miles an hour but they never had a chance for a good shot. You then had that sickening, kicked-in-the-gut feeling as you realized it was going to get really ugly, really fast.

You hoped your secluded location would minimize marauding this “zombie” contact and that you would have enough time to make last minute adjustments, and finishing touches to your dedicated compound perimeter security before you hunkered down and sweated out the inevitable anarchy looming on the distant horizon…

Reality Check!

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“Okay, I’m ready to work on the perimeter!”

Although different catastrophic/emergency and disaster events require different strategies and appropriate levels of preparation, they all share a single concept.

Security. Security, defense, and personal safety measures also span different levels of preparation effort and expense.

There is a lot of info out there now on urban home invasions and spontaneous concentrated urban rioting and looting, and how to protect and fortify your house from a break in.

This is a good idea in any case even before an apocalyptic scenario, and the harder and more time consuming you make it for a predator to attack and invade your city home or apartment the better the odds they’ll get caught at the door by police. Or give you time to escape at another egress or ‘gun-up’ in defensive counter attack mode behind some concealment/cover and take them out ambush style as they break in.

But in a doomsday scenario such as a major power grid collapse, sudden universal economic collapse, or super bad disease outbreak, there won’t BE any Police response, at least not for you. Fortifying your home’s doors and windows and stocking up on a few weeks’ worth of extra food and water won’t help you that much in the long run.

The first myth is that you can survive in place relatively easy if you read certain books. That might work through a hurricane, super blizzard, or local power outage that traps people for many days, but not in an all pervasive major social and economic, and resource breakdown that would last months and even years. This is an entirely different prep than surviving in place strategies. Do not make the mistake of not realizing the difference.

In the worst case SHTF event, you must be as isolated as you can from congested metropolitan areas if you want any chance for safety and survival. Period. Because sooner or later desperate and extremely psycho dangerous “zombies” will target your urban dwelling place and get through your home fortifications one way or another, and kill you, or burn you out.

Almost any house can be breached and broken into by determined attackers given enough time if there’s no worry about police showing up on the scene and the occupant/defender’s name is anything other than Rambo. And I don’t mean days, but more like only a few siege hours.

Even brick houses with bars or steel break in shades like you see on business storefronts in high risk areas. And if you somehow manage to kill them before they get in the first time, there will just be another group, even scarier, right after that in most large urban environments. That’s the reality.

Bug Out and Live!

The best way to initially survive a worst case scenario is to NOT to be around anything for very long that can kill you. Then remaining low profile if not completely secluded off the predator radar and out of targeting sight. Because why would anybody of sound mind, except in certain unfortunate personal circumstances, want to stay in a burning high rise hoping the sprinkler system will work when they could take the emergency exit out immediately?

So bugging out should be your primary plan. And the only place to go is out in the rural areas where contact with others is as limited as possible along with minimal profile footprint concealment. Once you’ve attained that, then the next part is making sure the “zombies” can’t just easily take it all away from you if they do stumble upon your hideout.

If you chose a decent BOL, some professionals with experience in this think it’s easier and more advantageous to your safety and security to make a virtually impenetrable perimeter barrier around your dwelling than it would be to seriously fortify a house/apartment in the city or town.

The factual truth is that these types of bad human relations as violent social conflicts have been going on since Biblical times and always contain certain elements. It always boils down to attackers and defenders. Fortified compounds, camps or castles, and superior firepower and tactics which change the advantage and even the whole game.

5 Lessons to Learn from Vietnam About Perimeter Defense

The art of this type of social warfare evolved to a stagnation point during the Middle Ages and then became obsolete during the evolution of the military industrial complex and modern world warfare that included airpower and massive tank warfare. It was not revisited and perfected until the mid-20th century, in a small country police action in a faraway country called Viet Nam.

Ironically, as I draw from personal empirical knowledge and on the job experience and historic record on the comparisons and similarities, the best paradigm for survival perimeter combat preparedness comes from the Vietnam war, both when the French and the Americans were fighting it.

The lessons learned and strategies and tactics ultimately deployed became so refined and successful they remained in military application even to the modern Afghanistan war, and American mountain base camps and varies only due to advanced technology in weaponry and early anti-intrusion detection.

The Viet Nam conflict draws parallels similar to apocalyptic anarchy because political perspective notwithstanding, the typical American defenders hunkered down in camp compounds and defended against mainly ground forces who won‘t have air or naval power or sophisticated precision electronic detection or aiming technology.

The Viet Nam ground war was relatively primitive terms of force multipliers and its success, or lack of it, depended mostly upon small unit engagement with relatively basic weaponry.

Amazingly, today this type of fortification can be replicated on a smaller civilian but equally effective outcome on the private BOL compound today, and in a couple tactical applications, even better! Obviously the scale of enhanced force would be somehow different but the essential principles of applied dynamics and what works best are the same.

Here’s how to get started in the simplest, least expensive way.

  1. Local Threat Evaluation

A combination of the likelihood of indigenous harmful contact and the random plain view discovery level of your BOL determine the odds of you getting approached by marauding “zombs”.

If they can’t see you from any road, there simply is not that much of a chance of many roaming predators getting into your area, because most of the area is inhabited by good people, more exposed than you but pretty self-reliant and well-armed, and they would pro-actively interfere with any groups of predators before they would ever get to your neck of the woods. So the likelihood of your BOL getting hit is very low.

Setting up a protective live defense perimeter barrier would virtually guarantee your long term survival of the rare one time attack if that happens, because almost any well prepared and armed prepper will have enough firepower, ammo and resources on hand to handle that. That is opposed to a long duration regular siege and total destruction type environment that would be common in anarchy ruled urban environments.

  1. Barrier Protection

What does the Great Wall of China, the Berlin Wall, 13th century castle walls and other heavy barriers have in common? Walls are the most difficult obstacles to penetrate or breach by humans without heavy destructive equipment, but they also are the most expensive.

If your intruder simply can’t move forward and gain access to you in your inner protective shelter without getting stopped one way or another by formidable outside barrier, then your perimeter security succeeded and you survived. That’s why it’s better to have an outside perimeter circle of defense rather than allow them to get too close to your main retreat.

Again, the Vietnam War proved beyond doubt that you don’t need a castle or great solid wall to get the job done. There are other, even better ways…

  1. Perimeter Alarms

Aka anti-intrusion alerts and early warning devices. In Nam, we used anything and everything for perimeter alert from our empty beer and soda cans filled with pebbles, to the latest state of the art (at the time) forward terrain radar units and seismic ground sensors spread out even beyond the perimeter along with trip flares, and booby trapped grenades, and of course a healthy amount of pre-positioned Claymore mines if some of the attackers somehow get too far into the perimeter kill zone.

IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING you can easily replicate most of that with modern electronic battery operated noise alerts either with PIR detection triggers or pull pin type trip wire activation along with careful use of pyrotechnics, or both. There are pros and cons with each, mostly depending upon if you have a lot of animals especially deer in your area.

Pyrotechnics are a very good tried and true method of alert and can be enhanced to perform double duty as a shock deterrent ONLY IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING. The old saying is that there are only two types of pyromaniac powder monkeys: those who are already missing some fingers or eyeballs, and those that are getting ready to.

The other thing is the potential forest fire hazards if you live in a dry area especially if you are using the trip flares, instead of a flash bang alert.

There’s also the legality factor. Most states have strict laws on the amount of powder you can legally shoot off in a non-commercial/professional display personal firework. I believe the max is an ounce of retort/bang powder that you can shoot off or purchase without a commercial license. But check it for yourself before trying anything else!

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Plus, if the DNR is snooping around your land and you made an oversized flash bang on a trip wire that damaged his eardrums that will become cause for arrest.

I know there is advice out there on how to booby-trap your doorways but I seriously don’t recommend doing that with anything that can kill or maim (stick with loud siren alerts or flashing lights only) because not only is it illegal virtually everywhere, but it will be only a matter of time before you yourself or someone you care about trips the booby-trap.

And I strongly recommend that you don’t get into that with common store bought fireworks, which could easily blind or burn an innocent victim or start your house on fire.

On a perimeter defense, the common larger over the counter fireworks like the bursting skyrockets and rapid fire mortar tube clusters pre-loaded shooting and bursting shells could be used just to wake up the group of invaders.

The burst charges are not black powder loaded, but contain the silver flash powder which provides a potentially dangerous hyperbaric close concussive effect even in only a cardboard tube with the legal maximum amount of powder.

Again, these are legal to own, but you can’t shoot them at people without getting into trouble. Just like guns.

But in an all-out lawless society where nothing will be adjudicated anymore in any system but God’s court after you’re dead, these are formidable perimeter counter attack devices because they also can be enhanced for maximum damage and launched on demand electronically from a secure rear position or even tripped by wire.

So it wouldn’t hurt to stock up on these because they’re legal and fun on the 4th, and would definitely come in handy on a doomsday “holiday” as well, both as an alert and force deterrent out to a hundred meters or so. Like shooting mini-RPGs and a mini grenade launcher barrage on egress/entry routes backed up by hidden wireless security cameras, which now can reach distances out to five hundred meters or better.

But if you are just getting started, stick with the pull pin or PIR battery security sound alert/alarm devices.

pinned battery

You’ll immediately get why I caution you on this after your nephew or YOU forgot about it while out squirrel hunting, trip it yourself creating embarrassing Hershey Squirts in your under drawers, and your children or grandchildren will laugh at you mercilessly.

You absolutely need a lot of training and experience before you start playing with things that go bang. After you think you are safely proficient with the mind set of perimeter security devices, you can graduate yourself and augment to the trip wire re-loadable retort devices like the 12 ga. shotgun shell blaster.

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These are on the internet for about $40. They can take a shotgun shell right out of the box but these don’t work well because it is designed to be used with a barrel.

By itself it just pop bursts not even loudly below the shot/slug, and doesn’t even become any shrapnel because the powder is a slow burning type and it just splits the sides. Waste of good ammo. But you can get louder blank shells and commercial screaming flares and loud bangers from specialty ammo vendors on line. Pricey but very effective alert and deterrent effect.

There are also other good and even cheaper percussive devices that use only .22 caliber blanks, shotgun primers, or the nail gun blanks which also work decently on a lesser scale.

  1. Perimeter Intrusion Obstructions

Of course a high chain link or barbed wire fence always helps slow down people you don’t want coming in on your property, but these are easy to breach if you are a good climber or have a pair of wire cutters.

You can make it look like a FEMA prison camp and it will feel like one also, but it won’t do much good against anything but animals maybe, unless you electrify it, and I don’t mean horse/cattle fence. I mean you’ll need sizzling frying high amp prison fence to stop “zombs” using only a fence. Not to mention it will be pretty obvious to passers-by unless you camo paint it or something.

The next best thing is pyramids of concertina type barbed/razor wire rolls. Harder to breach without having heavier tarps or plywood which “zombs” certainly won’t have in their back packs. Easy to set up.

Or, you can do it cheaper and less labor intensive with something that worked so well in the Nam that we almost felt sorry for the enemy who tried to get through it because it always was like the proverbial shooting of fish in a barrel. We called it snag wire and/or tangle foot and as their moniker imply, once ensnared, they were almost impossible to get untangled from.

barbed wire

And all it amounted to was regular barbed wire rolled out on the ground in crisscross or lattice pattern on the ground at intersects less than an average human step, and propped up with stakes at various heights from ankle to knee level.

Enhanced by anything imaginable from punji spikes to tripwire grenades to napalm bombs along the way. Not to mention backed up by the secondary defensive firepower towers, and bunkers armed with heavy machine guns and LAW rockets and inner perimeter mortars.

Tangle foot would be comparatively easy and less expensive to set up in conjunction with the ’creative’ use of ‘passive’ natural terrain obstruction like tree limbs and boulders and heavy brush on your perimeter. You’d only need about an eight foot width across the part of the perimeter you were setting it up at.

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Look closely at the seemingly natural and innocent looking forest pictures to the untrained eyes. In the pictures of downed trees and branches which were intentionally created as an egress obstruction.

You can’t walk or climb over that without falling, tripping, and twisting yourself to injury and entrapment while not getting far, as it stretches for several yards straight ahead and several yards to the flanks before you can make it through but hidden in the grass are also stretches of tangle foot.

So you would naturally walk around it until you found a pathway/clearing to continue on. This turns out to be a funnel zone which essentially lures the intruders into going where you WANT them to be herded. Which is replete with trip alerts, more serious booby traps, cameras, or whatever else you like when the SHTF and you no longer casually walk around in the area because you’re now in full defense mode.

And these funnel areas–which actually control the locations of entry to your compound–then become pre-set up dedicated fields of cross fire counter attack kill zones. Where you can lay a heavy ambush backed in and covered from the entry way or snipe them as they try to get all the way through and closer if they aren’t immediately deterred and retreat away.

If you look closely at the woods picture with the path on the right side, there is also a natural passive tree barrier on both sides going outside the picture for fifty or so meters either way.

It looks like storm/weather damage caused the blockage but it’s actually a clever expedient perimeter hack by bending down horizontally and staking down smaller trees cross wise which continue to grow and can’t be penetrated except by chopping through. The path is normally used for egress but can be tightly sewn up and protected fairly quickly.

  1. Defensive Counter Attack Booby Traps and Other Devices

Don’t waste time getting into man-trapping devices like large snares, dead falls, punji pits, etc. These are so labor intensive, time consuming, and mostly don’t work, that it’s not cost effective in this day and age. And it will be a pain in the ass pulling out dead animals all the time.

Yes, they were used in guerilla warfare but only because the Cong were so piss poor and resource impoverished that they couldn’t do anything else. And good Point man could spot them a lot easier than trip wired grenades. When they got their little rice ball hands on better explosive ordnance, they quickly forgot about these primitive sticks and stones methods.

First and foremost and probably least expensive is a passive perimeter far enough away from your main compound/shelter that’s too far for an easy pick off gunshot or throwing of firebombs, usually over fifty meters and ideally about a hundred meters, with anti-intrusion alerts and deterrents.

Then augmented by tangle foot and strategic counter attack defense zones that can be upgraded later in a bad SHTF scenario with extra more effective counter attack equipment that you can make with legal supplies you already have in your stockpile.

Obviously we only touched the subject of base camp perimeter security, and what you still need to know if this article piqued your interest would fill volumes. But if you do have a serious interest in this I’ll answer any questions you have in the comments section and/or point you in the right direction for further edification on the subject.

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Written by

Mahatma Muhjesbude is a former Spec-ops combat Vet, LEO, international security consultant, and private contractor. He has instructor level credentials and skills in various survival disciplines. He is a dedicated advocate of Liberty and Justice for all and a proactive defender of our Constitutional rights. He strongly believes that the best value you can give back in life is vital knowledge through experience, and that's why he's writing for Survivopedia, using a pen name to protect his real identity. You can send Mahatma a message at editor [at] survivopedia.com

Latest comments
    • There’s plenty of good advise out there on perimeter defense/alarms that totally applicable to everyday life – where exactly is crime NOT occurring today?

      Absolutely nothing wrong with closing up your perimeter with creatic landscaping and passive alarms on those entrances purposely left open ….

      Prepping is 24/7/365 – not just after a SHTF

  • May as well put out a few 55’s of FOO GAS while you’re at it!!!

    • folks remember what murphy said/ no battle plan survives one minute after engagement/ make it hard for them to get in, hard for you to get out…

    • Can do that too if they get close enough. It’s pretty easy to set up. the only thing with that stuff is you have to consider the combustibility of your defensible area.
      You don’t want to ‘roast’ along with the vermin trying to attack you.

      Also, the gas might be too precious to waste on perimeter defense when there are so many other ways that are almost as good.

  • Great resource. But my wife thinks nothing like this could ever happen, besides I am too handycaped/old to do anything like this.

    So I’d just stand and fight and take a few out with me.

    Good luck

    Rick E-4 (twice)

  • Mahatma,
    How would you describe the kind of soil the VC built their tunnels in? Was it like the soil in any particular state? I’m thinking about what I’ve seen in movies here, since at my age of 18 the Draft reached 103, and my number was 109. I did see, on my own, the underground bunkers in Iraq (1990-91) dug into a gypsum-like “soil”. One seemed to be a perimeter bunker (all by itself) about 250 yards from a RG encampment that contained many housing bunkers, and a hospital bunker. I was a non-combatant officer during Gulf War 1 accompanying ambulances with 1st Cav., and allowed to visit some sites a few days after the ground war.

    • As I recall from reading a good book on the subject “The Tunnels of Cu Chi(?)” the soil was a hard clay type. These tunnels were cramped and took a long time to build (factor one cubic meter per man per day to dig). But over time, the tunnels eventually stretched from the Ho Chi Minh Trail at the border all the way into Saigon.

      If your soil would not support this, you may fabricate a tunnel system by trenching and burying reinforced concrete sewer pipe large enough for you to move through. This would require extensive expense in material and equipment, and you’d need to do your own work for the tunnels to remain secret.

      You will also need to bear in mind the depth of the water table in your area. If the table is rather shallow, your extensive tunnel preparations will prove all but useless without a telltale bilge system.

      • That’s correct, where I was up in the jungle highlands near the Laotian border the topsoil was a clay mixture. Red slippery mud during monsoon season and fine dusty red dirt in the hot season. Deep in the triple canopy jungle it might have been a little different in terms of a less dense mixture but you had roots and large stones to deal with. Toward the coast, of course, it would get a more sandy mixture.

        You can get away much cheaper than concrete with those silver coreggated steel culvert pipes they use for water run-off for a good underground tunnel system if you stay less than 4 feet under the surface? The larger diameters offer stand up room and I know a person who used one for a bomb shelter. The sides were formed up for a concrete pour, like a basement wall. And he used stacked window egress wells for the access door with a ground level undetectable top lid. It was all DIY and cost a LOT less than your standard commercial shelters.

  • Very good information,SIR.I was a few years too young for Nan..and I thank u for your service.I live in a condo 40 miles from NYC..not ideal if a shtf..but with several articles like this one and a couple courses I bought..it is opening my eyes.Thank-you

    • Do whatever it takes to buy some land out in lost-overshoe PA or NY or someplace far away from the 9 million drabble that will overrun you in your current AO (area of operation). I live in the middle of nowhere, over 7 hrs from the nearest metro of 1+ million, my nearest neighbor is 2.5 mi away from me. No much for 6 fig income ops out here, but what will that matter wtshtf.

    • You don’t need to buy info. You need to know where you’re going, what routes are available & what you’re going to do when you get to where-ever it is you are ‘safe’. All the fancy “tactical’ junk in the world is useless, if you don’t know how to use it. The most important thing is to know is where & what foods are available to you. Who do you know in that area & why are you living in a place you may have to run from?

  • You have to be on serious chemicals to come up with all this garbage. As if National Guardsmen aren’t Americans, that they’re trigger happy or don’t have a family & just enjoy the crap out of shooting people. I’m close to 70, spent some 3 yrs in Nam, in 2 different Engineer Battalions & an Infantry Division. Have never been this paranoid. If someone is this out of it they should just move to some cave in New Mexico or some other VERY fricking ‘ remote place eating old C rations while walking guard duty while wearing BDUs & loaded with Rambo gear!

    • Why are you even on this site? Try Martha Stewart.com instead. But,,,Thank you for your service anyway!

      • I’ve got your Martha Steward & then some! You write as if you sit around playing video games & watching Rambo reruns all day drinking beer, burping & farting in your mothers basement . You may own some cheap ass chink made AK47; where as any REAL American wouldn’t even own an AK47 (spray & pray)… Have you even been shot, been in a fire fight, mortared, did route recons ? I think not! Guys like you part time want-ta-be Rambos would just crap their BVDs & cry mama!

        • Wow Greg I didn’t realize you could tell so much from my short response. I too am a Vietnam “Era” Vet, entered USAF as Law Enforcement Specialist, and volunteered to go to Nam, but they did not send my class at that time 1972. Did my time then worked for 12 years Law Enforcement. Never got shot at, but had a couple of guns pointed at me. Recon…hunted down armed criminals, no explosives though. Hate beer, detest Sylvester, don’t do video games, mom lives in a trailer, love my Colt AR15LE, my DPMS .308 Gll, and my totally American made AK47 with American flag itched on receiver.
          Paranoid…no prepared. I don’t live with my head in the sand, or head in the clouds, or suffer from rectal cranial inversion either. But I can see where my country is heading, I don’t like it. Being politically active doesn’t seem to help either, the politicians just do what they want whether left or right, allowing our Constitution to be dishonored and misinterpreted. Anyway, just wanted to let you know I heard you and your frustration. It sucks thinking we might have to prepare for things to go South. I’d rather spend all my time fishing…less expensive.

        • WOW, Greg! Really? Well, I am a Vietnam Vet and happened to carry one of those “cheap ass chink AK47s” when I was in country and it was FAR superior to the junk M-16s we were issued. At least they worked EVERY TIME! Time has moved on my friend and the current AR15s are good, but I still own modern AKs and not the AR. At any rate, it is personal preference! Thanks for your service and sorry you and your wife are not prepared mentally or physically for what may be coming upon us in the near future! In case you have forgotten, there is a Radical Muslim in the WH and he is not our friend and we can rest assured that his friends will be invading us soon!

          • In the 9th ID, a door gunner also carried an AK47, went into a very hot LZ. stopped using his M60, started popping away with his Ak. Some unknown 11Bravo, heard the sound turned & fired at the sound not a target, that was that for the door gunner. And no I didn’t always have a 16 in Nam, 1st tour was the M14, M79 even WW2, 3.5 rocket launcher, Now that was a pig to tote!

    • WOW! Yeah, Martha Stewart.com or Bernie Sanders.com – something like that. Just keep drinking your fluoride water @workman, it’s good for you.

    • Why don’t you just sit back & get your rocks off with a cup of tea, & listen to Bach! I am 69 years old, & am disabled somewhat but I can still do a lot to protect my husband & myself when it comes down to the SHTF ! Why don’t you just give up & die? Too bad you don’t have the gumbos to try to give a damn! But with all sincerity I do want to thank you for serving our country, as there are so many who gave up on that war, & it was not fair to the people who did go over there per the persuasion of the GOVERNMENT! Please don’t think that I am trying to persecute you, but I am trying to motivate you as I am not a spring chicken either, but I will go down fighting rather then to give up to the masses of drug crazed illiterates who want to take over everything when it comes down to that time. They have nothing to lose, because when they can’t get their drugs, or their food stamps (only meaning the one’s who really don’t need the food stamps, but use them because they don’t want to work). And there are a very large number of these people who do nothing but sit on their tush & do nothing for the rest of us. Yes I paid my taxes, & worked for over 57 years & paid into the system which these people are taking our money to give themselves a free ride. Now, I am not talking about the people who really need the SSI or the food stamps, but I am talking about the bums, & you know who you are, freeloaders, & not nice either. Like I said I am somewhat disabled, but I do not collect anything from the government for my disabilities, nor do I get food stamps! I refuse to be a person who is using other people to get what they want but do not need! This country has become a “you owe me” type of individuals who do not belong on the programs that I have paid into all my life! As well as so many other Baby Boomers! So all of the people who do collect but don’t give anything back, well, you know who you are, & I hope that you can live with yourself taking from poor people & not feeling guilty about it. IN GOD WE TRUST, GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!

    • Yeah, Greg, my friend, A lot of misinformed and simply ignorant people think that Guard and police will protect you and not violate your rights as in ‘police state’ like they’ve done many verifiable times in the past. Had a 23 year old corporal in the National Guard in my area answer my question about whether he would confine and quarantine persons from free movement during a disaster. “I would obey orders’, he replied.

      I’m surprised you don’t know any better, being a Nam Vet, Greg, you had to be exposed to some serious ‘reality checks’? And you should never confuse paranoia with prudent emergency preparations. Even though it’s more emotionally stable to have a little fear about the government instead of always having so much “…Fear of God” like so many people enjoy having.

      But I guess that’s what happens with old age. Hope you don’t wind up like my old neighbor who just got back from the doctor with some bad news and some good news. The Doc said the bad news was that he had Altheimers. But the good news was that he would…forget all about it!

      • I’ve have seen that same article about the NG man saying he’d follow orders about 10,000 times. He was making sure he’d be on ht next promotion board & the good news old news joke is about as old as my socks. You forget one BIG rule of thumb; GI’s are not required to follow or obey illegal & immoral orders. Besides IF the SHTF, wouldn’t the NG be trying to protect their families also? Sure there wacko types in every out fit. I’m more worried about the “Contract Psychos” than active duty or NG types!

        • Okay, Greg, It’s not my thing to get into snidely fights, and i guess my effort at a bit of levity didn’t land to close to you, so here’s the reality. The Cold Hard stuff, not the normalcy bias stuff.

          The ‘requirement’ to not follow illegal or immoral orders does not withstand the reality of pragmatic military action.

          Any soldier who doesn’t obey a direct order from a superior OIC because he thinks/feels it is illegal or immoral–especially in emergency/combat/critical action will be taken away immediately, (or shot if they are under direct enemy fire which the OIC determines his disobedience caused imminent danger to his command).

          In the case of rioting looting or containing ‘hostiles’ or quarantined civilians, the soldier refusing to obey an order will be arrested and removed and some other soldier, who does obey orders–any orders– will take their place.

          The orders to shoot and kill civilians will not be put forth as ‘illegal’ orders. They will be put forth as orders to do their duty against ‘Domestic Terrorists’/rioters/looters and people who will kill others by spreading deadly outbreaks.

          In a martial law declaration they will suspend the 2nd and 4th amendments and you will be shot when the then, perfectly legal, order to confiscate your weapons–by force- if necessary will be given. And far more NG/police/DHS will ‘obey’ orders, than not.

          And yes, it depends upon how really bad the situation is. At first, they’ll be enough guard to attempt a containment, or whatever they get ‘ordered’ to do, and then if it gets worse, yes they’ll break away when supplies disconnect and get back to their families.

          Contract psychos? You mean in those Ninjas in black helicopters? hahahah! Worry more about other things, my friend.

    • People, people people! Greg, as a Viet Nam vet, I know you remember Kent State.
      Mahatma, if you live in Dallas, surely you recall the gridlock getting out of Houston when Ike came thru. It was a lot more than 100 miles. I am a 68 year old disabled vet (1st Cav, hooha ha), and very thankful I don’t have to toil for my living anymore. I have already moved to my BOL, but only because I don’t have to work for a living, anymore. With my health, I don’t expect to be a survivor WHEN the SHTF, but I am doing everything I can to ensure my loved ones are. Being involved with your vote is what our Founders fought and died for. Sadly, the way the machine is set up, your choices are pre made for you. Reps and Dems are just different legs of the same trousers. I am sure some people have felt this way since our Founding. I pray, but don’t expect that I am as wrong as ‘they’ were.

      • I agree, people can not live in 2 places at the same time. If you’er going into full t prep mode, then that is what you need to be doing 24/7. If you can only do it every now & then it ain’t going to work. Where ever you have a BOL, other people know it & when you aren’t there, they’ll be ripping you off; taking every thing they can haul off, building supplies, generators, tools, any & every thing! You need to be on site as much as possible just to to not only improve your location but to keep it secure. Some people would take your fuel & then sell it back to you. Trust no one!

      • Hey bro, because you were with the 1st you are already a true Survivor, you’ll do fine.

  • I live on the south side of Houston and am a senior saint. There are well over 5 million people in this region. Does anyone honestly think they’ll be able to safely exit the greater metroplex (it’s over 100 mile from one end to the other, north, south, east or west) and not get caught up in the gridlock that will ensue (unless they had 12-24 hours notice of the balloon going up)? Seriously. Ain’t gonna’ happen. And then hundreds of thousands of people are going to be fending off Obama’s disciples of everyone-owes-me-all-their-stuff mentality absent being in nothing more than their little car/truck/minivan, tent or, worse, on foot, rather than in the security of their house where all of their supplies and turf-knowledge are situated. And no, having a pre-determined and and well-stocked BOL is not going to happen except in a handful of extreme cases (and even those few locations eventually will be overrun by the hungry, violent masses if they weren’t already looted long before the SHTF). There are few woods, no mountains, etc. to hide out within several hours drive of here, and even those areas are close to other major metro areas (Dallas, etc.). No thanks. I’ll fortify my home and hold out as long as I can here, which is likely to be a much longer time than will ever be possible for me or the vast the majority of people trying desperately to survive out there no matter how well-prepped they are.

    • Terry, WRONG, you’ll NEVER hold out longer or safer than someone with a SHTF rural BOL. NEVAAh, as they say down South. You will be among the FIRST to die when all those Zombs you correctly described will FIRST come to your place and take you out. So if you are intent about giving up on serious pragmatic survival in a bad breakdown, don’t bother stocking up and playing Castle King, you’ll just die wishing you had spent the money figuring out a way to get out of Dodge when the ‘getting’ was good.

      The truth is that more Senior Citizens will survive relatively comfortable than anybody would believe. But of course it will be mostly in the rural areas. But you have to be willing or able to make some changes.

      And you don’t really have to go out so far in the wilderness as to have Mother Nature more of a problem than an asset. I know the metropolitan Dallas area (but don’t know why anyone who doesn’t have to lives there, LOL) and it’s easier to get out of there–if you’re ready to go quickly–than it is to get out of L.A. or Chicago that easily. But anybody can ‘make it’ –even seniors–with the proper planning , AND more importantly, with the proper mindset. Which obviously you are in absence of.

      • So, over 5 million people in Houston would survive just fine if they could all just manage to get to their well-stocked, secret rural BOLs? BS. All but the rarest of a handful stand a chance trying to abandon their well-understood turf and fight it out in the wild. Very few of us can afford the luxury of having a second domicile secluded from other people and stocking it for survival, and even fewer will be able to fend off the hordes that will zero in on those rustic cookie jars full of survival goodies upon realizing it’s an easier task than trying to figure out which of the millions of houses in Houston to target and getting weeded out by the well-armed householder/neighbors in the process. Sorry, but I’m not buying the escape to a BOL when the numbers and the geography are so very much against it.

        • Terry, are you taking your ‘whoopie’ pills today?
          Nobody ever said anywhere on these forums that EVERYBODY will survive, even if they prep, an all out massive epic end times scenario. NOBODY! That’s the whole point!

          What you are suffering from now is called confirmation bias bias. Let me show you how i prove that. You mentioned in your comment that not everybody can afford to have a fully ready BOL. away from urban chaos.

          Well, i agree. But it’s not really ‘affordability’. It’s the mentality process. You’ve decided in your mind that you don’t have the inclination nor capacity for some reason to consider a BOL. So you try to justify that (confirmation bias) by turning the reality around so it makes ‘sense’ to you to try to ‘Survive-in-Place’. So you now ‘defend’ that as a better choice to support your made up mindset.

          But i’ll bet your going to be surprised when you see more neighbors than you ever though possible bugging out quickly and successfully at the first scent of a really bad situation?

          And it’s not just the numerical reality of the chances of you getting home invaded during anarchy. Even if your ‘odds’ are ‘Powerball’ lucky and the systematic roving gangs of looters–or your own neighbors– don’t take you down, guess what else will? Which won’t be that much of a risk if you are a little more ‘remote’ in your location.

          There will be no more of anything you need. Except much more of what your nightmares never imagined. If it’s an outbreak initially, you won’t even outlast your food and water supplies. But after that’s gone, if they haven’t hit you yet, cholera, fires, and other sanitary born diseases plagues will finish off just about everybody in the city who didn’t get out.

          Well that settles it. I’m going to have do a tutorial article on how the least and most successful way for almost Anyone to get out of a major city fast in a really bad case scenario. Maybe next month.

          I wish you luck my friend, in any case.

          • That argument works both ways. You’ve decided in your mind that you don’t have the inclination nor capacity for some reason to consider a Bug-In-Location. So you try to justify that (confirmation bias) by turning the reality around so it makes ‘sense’ to you to try to ‘Survive-Away-From-Your-Natural-Home’. So you now ‘defend’ that as a better choice to support your made up mindset. A one-size-fits-all SHTF solution is a fantasy. I’ve weighed my options and made the best choice for my circumstances. You’ve done the same. Good luck to both of us.

          • Confirmation bias is also similar to a solitary confinement prison. Unless you free yourself you will begin to lose all perception of solid reality and positive logic.
            Then your confused mind begins to filter out any facts that don’t contribute to your intransigent thought process and you become ‘defensive’ to preserve that prejudice in your personal comfort zone. To wit:

            Instead of thinking about what i said and engaging in further analysis you simply knee jerked to defensive mode and tried to manipulate to your advantage by saying anything that might seem to switch the conclusion back to your ‘bias’ without first checking out if it’s stupid or not.

            Otherwise you would have more closely perused the article where i specifically qualified the DIFFERENT PREP SITUATIONS where there might be no need to do a major bug out and surviving in place might work for a particular problem.
            Then you wouldn’t have said something so incorrect as to say that a one size fits all’ BOL. is a fantasy” in an attempt to establish ‘confirmation’ that your decision is the best.

            Because it simply is not. In fact there definitely IS a ‘one size fits all BOL
            reality’ when it comes to the most serious of all SHTF Scenarios. Otherwise the government would not be interested in having a super BOL ‘one size fits all NON-fantasy’ for themselves and attendant butt buds.

            So it does NOT work both ways for me, Terry. I don’t have any extremely subjective biases. I consciously practice my existential inertia in an open minded mode of honest reasonable objectiveness without the chains of flawed subjectivity and skewed emotional content or delusional wishful thinking. I consider and analyze all potential and possibilities based on their pragmatic value production, not my comfort zone predispositions or personal preferences.

            The truth is possibly that you made your decision to ‘Bug in’ based on what you and others perceive as having limited capactity/resources, knowledge, to bug out if necessary and misdirection by books by the likes of Amateur Johnny -come- lately ‘experts’ who think the massive Bug Out from the middle east is due to everyone running out of bottled water or some such nonsense and as long as they kept a closet full of it, they don’t have to leave! And that nevermind the well armed ‘gangsta’ street gangs all throughout the greater and lesser Dallas megapolitan area that make Isis look like JV punks?

            And you’re thinking that you are going to hang around then, after the entire city infrastructure collapses with no water, no electricity, huge tracts of burning buildings creating smoke you can’t breath in, merciless roving killers, disease due to sanitary break downs, and that you’ve made up your mind that nope, you’ve ‘weighed your options’ and you believe the odds are against an outside BOL as far away as you can manage?

            Well, i hope for your sake–especially if you have children with you–that you didn’t have your thumb on the ‘options scale’? And maybe do another weight check with a few more ‘options’ you might have left of the scale?

            I’ll leave you this Veterans day with a couple aphorisms from a couple very wise people to ponder this Veteran’s Day.

            “…It’s not that people don’t know so much…It’s just that so much of what people ‘know’…just ain’t so!” Mark Twain.

            “The mind is the most valuable survival resource. It should be the first blade to sharpen in life…” P. J. Klipangle

        • Terry, You my friend need to make some friends and choose who’s house is the first, second and third fall backs. No man is a mountain nor can they stay up 24/7. find local folks who share your moral compass and desire to stay and survive. Then you will have a GREAT chance of lasting. I saw it in Bosnia and Argentina. Most groups where family based, others groups of friends or church groups. Good luck!

          • Neither you nor the original arthur know the details of what I have already planned (including a network of trusted prepper friends and neighbors of like mind that forms a major part of the basis of my bug-in strategy. I am quite comfortable and confident I’ll do as fine if not better than many utopian bug-outters who don’t think that their isolation is going to work against them when the organized bands of looters come calling.

            Different stroke for different folks.

  • Liked the article. I learned some things. But, how do we stop the destruction of our nation? Beside a civil war, how do we as smart, experienced grownups stop the Fed Monster from growing and shrink that fat over bearing nation devouring monster?

    • Jerry,
      The great visionary Framers created a process for that. VOTE these treasonous tyrannical Nazis OUT! aka Fire their feckless asses. Then demand the new ‘probationary’ hired hands change the law two only two terms for every politician. One office, and one in Jail if they don’t follow our instructions.

      And I don’t mean just re-casting them with the same old B grade professional political actors in one or the other of only two long playing disaster movies, Republicans or Democrats.

      We need to forget about prioritizing our personal agendas, delusional philosophies, and intransigent allegiance to out of control organizations. We must embrace the single most important aspect of this country that makes it better than anywhere else in the world to live. The Secular Egalitarian paradigm that the Founders created and implemented for us.

      And align together, regardless of our past affiliations, and vote for the candidate most likely to follow the true meaning of the Law of The Land, which is True Liberty and equal opportunity, and equitable justice…for All.

      Otherwise…it all gone! For ALL of us.

      • As a voter and a patriot doing my part, and making sure my family is prepared. I thought we did try to do just what you said “send new faces and minds to Washington” in the last election. Then, just as soon as they got off the plane, bus, train, minivan, and the Washington crowd picked them up in the limo’s, took them to the finest food establishment and watched while the new arrivals drank the Washington Kool-aid. Then once under the influence of the “drink of enlightenment” took them out back and neutered them. Just to make sure nothing changes and the representatives “We the People” sent to change things…. don’t, can’t, won’t….. I really don’t see how sending another round of fresh minds / faces is going to change anything.. I guess I’ve already lost hope…Here’s to remembering all those who have served our founding fathers vision for these United States of America. The way it was and is supposed to be…. Not this mutant cluster we have now….

        • Yup, you’re absolutely right, RS, they failed us by letting themselves get sucked right into the corruption. I guess we’re lucky they at least–so far anyway– didn’t let the current regime’s gun nazis get their confiscation laws completely passed…

          And yes, it seems useless and i’m depressed as well about it. It’s like all we’re doing is trying to put a bandaid on a gaping shotgun blast wound by have elections that amount to nothing more than trying to choose ‘the lesser of two evils’?

          I often feel like just saying, the hell with it also. But I have one of those ‘psychological disorders’. I can’t walk away from it without doing something. Especially in such a critical time in history where we really do have everything to lose in our lives

          I don’t even know how to ‘give up’. Never learned it.

          So I keep trying, this time maybe we’ll get complete ‘outiders’ in. That should at least shake up the ‘status-quo’ a bit for some small, but ‘real’ change. Especially if they don’t ‘need’ money anymore in life so they can’t be bribed by that.

          But I’ve got to get going and keep going with the proactive political message for true reform and preservation of our Constitution otherwise i can’t call myself a true Patriot.

          Because what have we got to lose?

          Everything.

          Here I go…

  • Thanks Mahatma. Like the tangle-foot solution!

  • Around here in NE Florida just about everybody has a pickup truck, some of which are HUGE with tow hooks all around. They’ll be easily ripping away fences and gates. I think that a deep narrow ditch would be pretty effective in stopping them though. If planted in brambles they would be unusable for attackers. If natural looking obstacles make intrusion a hassle casual looters will go for other easier targets allowing time for more serous measures to be set up.

  • What a load of nonsense.

    If “the rule of law” has collapsed, where are these “roadblocks on the exits” coming from?

    You’re worried about heavily-armed refugees, then you tell us that “bugging out” is the only way to survive?

    You’re not going to survive the next EBT card blackout.

    • The EXTENT of any ‘collapse’ always depends upon the severity and physics of it. And of course, how much control the government still has in terms of para military police state power.

      Economic disasters ones are slower than catastrophic meteors for instance or the Yellowstone Caldera going off. Like in Venezuela right now. It’s been dragging and dragging but steadily getting worse and pretty soon all hell will break loose and a violent revolution will emerge.

      The only thing is which side will win is up for grabs because the government already figured it out and issued confiscation orders after making ALL civilian gun ownership illegal in Venezuela. (enter the CIA, no doubt, now)

      “EBT Blackout”! hahahahh, that was a good one old gunner! But i’m ‘afraid’ you’re absolutely right. In this country, though, it would be all out civil war if they cancelled food stamps.

  • Some of the article was funny. My credentials during Nam? I was watching scooby doo since i was five years old or so. I think most folks live with the idea that their neighbors have about the same values and wishes for themselves.
    Many will die if stepping outside is an iffy thing. Looking poor and of no interest could go a long way.(not hard to do nowadays) Chickens or a dog(even a small one) could be good for warning you. To bad most houses are not bullet proof. If you are not already at the location you would be at in a SHTF Time,than you will regret it. Cities will become the new killing fields.

  • Blood stream thickens and also clots may create when the lower leg is actually stagnated for extended durations, like when you’re traveling by plane or car or
    even after procedures that call for mattress rest.

  • I find it interesting how some people are quick to criticize someone offering potentially helpful suggestions when the one being critical has never lived through the experience themselves. I like to read the blog written by a man who uses the pen name selco who survived the civil war in bosnia as his experience is much different from my own so i try to learn from him. while i may disagree on a singular topic on which he is speculating, i don’t criticize him as he has a much different perspective than mine, so i read his thoughts, use what i want, thank him for his comments, and go on with life. i see no reason to resort to ad hominem attacks on someone with whom i may disagree, nor do i respect those who do..

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