The Survival Weekly Dispatch - Volume 11, Issue 34
Hey folks, thanks for checking out the newsletter this week. It’s been a very busy week. I had to get all of the layouts edited for Backwoods Survival Guide 32, plus write a few articles for GAT Daily. About an hour before sitting down to write this newsletter, we recorded Episode 5 of our How to Survive 2025 podcast. Still to come is an article for KNIFE Magazine, more GAT Daily posts, and some copy writing for one of my favorite companies.
This newsletter will go out on the 23rd anniversary of 9/11. This is what I posted today on Facebook.
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Prepper Tip -- My wife and I watched REBEL RIDGE on Netflix last weekend. The basic premise is a former Marine named Terry Richmond runs afoul of some crooked small-town cops in Louisiana. In one scene, Terry is speaking with the Chief of Police, who is as dirty as they get (and played extremely well by Don Johnson), and he explains to the chief the PACE acronym he learned in the Marines. If you have Facebook, this link should work to show you the scene. I wasn’t able to find a clip of it on YouTube.
PACE is an acronym that was originally developed for communications, but as Terry notes in that clip, it has far-ranging applications.
P = Primary
This is the best option available to you, and typically the one you turn to most often.
A = Alternate
This is your first backup solution. It’s another commonly available option, but maybe one that’s a little less optimal.
C = Contingency
Your second backup option, this one might not be as convenient or reliable, but it is workable.
E = Emergency
Your method of last resort. It’s what you turn to if nothing else has worked or been available.
So, let’s say we’re talking about emergency evacuation from home, specifically how to travel from Point A to Point B. In this example, we’re looking at a family of four with two children under 10 years old and they have two medium-sized dogs.
P = the family minivan. It’s large enough to carry everyone comfortably and it’s a reliable vehicle.
A = dad’s commuter car. It’s on the small side and nobody is going to be all that comfortable for a long drive, but it’ll do the job.
C = neighbor’s truck. He has two of them, one he uses for work and another for personal use. You know him well enough to feel okay about asking to borrow one. And if he’s not home, you know where he keeps the keys.
E = everyone hops on bicycles and the dogs run alongside.
PACE can be a great way to find holes to fill in your plans.
By the way, I can’t recommend REBEL RIDGE highly enough. It’s an excellent flick.
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Have young children in your circle? Here are some free resources to help you talk to them about preparedness.
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“You live upstream and downstream from someone.” That’s a quote from a Be Ready Utah graphic talking about the importance of emergency sanitation planning. It’s a statement that has wider meaning if you give it a little thought.
The more people that we can bring into the preparedness fold, the better off we all will be in a disaster. If your neighbors are prepared to handle emergencies, they won’t need to ask for help, right? If you are prepared, then you won’t need to reach out to someone else. All of this frees up resources for those who, for any number of reasons, will truly need assistance in a crisis.
I’m going to keep hammering this drum – we’re all in this together. Help where you can, even if it’s just to educate and inform. Here’s a suggestion that involves zero face to face interaction. Seek out the Free Little Libraries in your community and leave preparedness books in them.
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Our hike this week was a visit to one of our county parks. This particular one has been closed for the last month or so as they were redoing the parking lot and making a few other improvements. It reopened this past weekend and it seemed like we weren’t the only ones who thought to check it out, as the park was much busier than normal. It was still a great walk.
Survival Tip – SMART Goals
A big part of preparedness is setting goals and achieving them. Maybe it’s to reduce your debt, increase your food storage, or just improve your physical condition. No matter what the goal is, you can use the SMART system to help you get there.
SMART is an acronym.
S = Specific
The goal should be specific if it’s going to be effective. If it’s too vague, then you’ll struggle with the rest of the planning process.
M = Measurable
This ties into specificity. The goal should have some sort of measurable quality so that you can judge when you achieve it. This also helps you track your progress toward the goal.
A = Achievable
While there’s definitely something to be said for setting big goals, they need to be realistic. If the goal is too outlandish, you’ll never cross that finish line and just end up frustrated.
R = Relevant
Why are you setting the goal? It should be something in which you have some sort of personal stake or interest.
T = Time
I’ve seen this one written as Timely or Time-Bound, but I like Time better. The idea here is that you need to be able to set up a timeline to achieve the goal. “Someday” doesn’t count. This applies not just to the goal itself but to each step along the way.
As an example, let’s look at a food storage goal. Just saying you want to increase the amount of food you have on hand at home is too vague, right? Here’s the SMART approach.
Specific – You want enough food on hand at all times to feed your family for a minimum of four weeks without going to a store.
Measurable – You can create meal plans to determine how much food you need to get that full four weeks. Alternately, there are a number of different food calculators online you can use. Personally, I don’t like to go that route because every family is different as to food consumption.
Achievable - Having four weeks of food in the home is definitely doable, provided you take it slow and do it smart.
Relevant - You’re a prepper, right? Enough food to feed your family for a month is absolutely relevant to disaster planning.
Time - Being realistic, you’re not going to be able to just drop several hundred dollars on a bunch of food, right? Instead, let’s look at a three-month timeline, where you earmark a small amount from each paycheck and buy a few things from your meal plans. This helps keep the goal measurable as you can track your progress each pay period.
Consider the SMART approach to be just one more tool in the toolbox.
Backwoods Survival Guide Magazine
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