Part of the Light Fighter Concept that has become integral to Lodestone’s philosophy is scaling up or down based on circumstances or threat.  It is silly to go to Walmart kitted-out to the max.  It’s just as silly to think, “Nothing will happen today”, and go to Walmart with only your cell phone and a debit card. 

Survival, regardless of the environment, demands a realistic understanding of your situation, personal limitations, adaptability, and resourcefulness.

Those of you who’ve taken a class with me know that I’m an IT nerd, rather than someone who jumps out of aircraft or eats things that would make a billy goat choke – so today, July 19th, was a big day in the news for me.

So, it’s the end of the world – you’ve got you bullets and beans, and you’ve stocked up on gold and silver to trade with your fellow survivors of the apocalypse.  You’re set, right?

Well, let’s take a look at that.

"Do hard things. Hard things are rites of passage, hard things ground you, hard things heal you." —Jessica A.

The Project Avalanche was a 3-day training evolution and assessment of current skills in the “Austere Environment” series of training produced by Lodestone Training and Consulting. This course was run at the Ben Franklin Range, an 1,100 acre plot of land with thick vegetation, significant elevation changes, lots of natural resources, and no cellular reception.

“Hey Uncle Chris! I think Jimmy hurt his wrist!”

We were on vacation at the beach; my family, my sister’s family and my parents all packed into a rental house a short walk from the Atlantic. It was the first time my three youngest had seen the ocean, and I was applying sunscreen on the back patio when the injury was announced.

I've been wanting to write this article for a few weeks now, without knowing how to start, so I'm just going to do it. We find ourselves standing at the edge of a Cliff, looking off into the future and seeing many potential hazards. We do not want to fall down this Cliff, so we make preparations to be ready for the things to come. We make plans, we store goods and equipment, and we train. We know there are many dangers ahead. In this article, I want to address one of those dangers.

During the Season 4 Episode 21 of the Lodestone Training and Consulting podcast we mentioned that we had just signed up for our General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) licenses. I know I teach that there is no test required for the GMRS license, but I now think the test is navigating the FCC website.

As you know, the world just seems like it’s getting crazier and crazier. We felt compelled to write this article to encourage you to start to grow some of your own food or if you already do, to increase your production.

Sometimes we gain wisdom from learning from the mistakes of others. This is an opportunity for you to gain wisdom from someone who has mistreated his feet. To mistreat one’s feet is a great mistake.

This article comes from a conversation with my 16-year-old. The other day, she had an event that, for weeks, email reminders had gone out, telling everyone to be on time. Because I grew up in the 82nd Airborne, I need to be places ten minutes before the event starts. It is better to be ten minutes early than one minute late.

In the Land Navigation Seminar, I go over maps and talk about where you can get different types. But why we need maps? I am an 18F, and a nerd, which means I collect maps. I love them and one day I will wallpaper an office with them. We are not here to talk about home décor, however, we are going to talk about some of the useful maps that you can add to your collection.

On August 2nd, we posted Season 3 Episode 5 of the LTAC Podcast, “Preparing Like an ODA”. If you haven’t listened to it, I suggest you do. In it, we talk about one of the best ways to prepare for emergencies. It’s not about how many or what type of guns should one have. Or how many beans should you store. It was about how a special forces team prepares for a mission and tackles problems.

I recently was away for just over two weeks for some good training. I spent some long days in the heat and humidity working in the woods of Alabama. By the time I returned home, I was smoked and ready to relax. I hadn’t seen my family in that time (nothing compared to all the time I’ve been away on deployments, but I missed them nonetheless) and decided to take them out. With a family our size, this can get expensive. We went to a hibachi restaurant and had a wonderful time. When the bill came…

Whenever I hear someone talk about a safe room or “panic room”, I always think of the 2002 Jodi Foster movie Panic Room. For those of you not familiar with the film, Jodi Foster buys a house that has a “panic room” in it. People break into her house and her and her daughter lock themselves into the “panic room”, while the bad guys are looking for a fortune that is supposedly in the house.

When we talk about being prepared and ready, we always think guns, ammo, shelter, food, and water. What we most often overlook is keeping our guns up and running while we get through whatever emergency/disaster we are in. I will refer to this as “the event”. This means having some spare parts for our ARs in the event we have a catastrophic failure.

I would like to take the time to talk a little bit about planning. The intent of this article is not to teach a class on MDMP (Military Decision-Making Process) or TLPs (Troop Leading Procedures) or any other type of specific planning models. These models are used by the military and are very effective, however, for the average person, I believe that looking at planning from a broader point of view will be more helpful.

The events last week in Texas yet again show how delicate our First World nation really is. I won’t waste the time here going into how the “green” energy is wholly ineffective. What I will spend time on is that only you are responsible for you own well-being.