SurvivalRing

Shared with permission of Leon from  SurvivalCommonSense.com

Posted on March 26th, 2010 by admin in Food and Cooking

by Leon Pantenburg

Looking for a way to use up surplus flour, or make a cheap trail food or durable survival ration? One answer may be hardtack, a baked, unleavened wheat cracker. As a survival food, hardtack has a proven track record.

Three Confederate soldiers captured after the battle of Gettysburg. Hardtack was a standard ration for both armies.

Vicksburg, MS: My gray-clad brothers-in-arms and I  hunkered down for dinner. In the morning, we would do battle with those “heathen Yankee horde” Civil War re-enactors at Champions Hill, between Jackson and Vicksburg , Mississippi.

I was “under cover” on assignment for the Vicksburg Post to cover the battle, one of the biggest re-enactments of the year. Except for the Nikon safely hidden  in my haversack, my gear, weapons and accouterments were authentic in every way. Since I was working for the post, I had to represent the home team and be a Confederate. (This probably caused a minor earth tremor in Iowa as my great-great-grandfather, James Hallowell,  97th Illinois Mounted Infantry, rolled in his grave!) My excuse was that I was drafted,  like most Confederate soldiers, and had no choice!

I ‘d learned a lot about being a Civil War infantryman in one short, sweltering afternoon: the wool uniforms were too hot, and felt like you were wearing sweatsuit: the wool Kepi-style caps provided no sun protection and the canteens were too small. The Sargent, sensing my disillusionment with the Confederate cause (and knowing he had an embedded journalist in the unit), picked on me, said I was a slacker, and called me a baboon when I dropped my canteen during drill. As darkness fell, we would sleep under wool blankets, not to stay warm, but to fight off mosquitoes all night.

But the food was the worst. Dinner was a piece of hardtack, a fatty piece of bacon toasted on a bayonet over a campfire;  horrible boiled coffee brewed in my tin cup and a wormy-looking apple. After eating my meager meal, I was ready to either desert or attack the Yankees that  night and get some real food!

Hardtack is one of the original trail and emergency foods, and it is worth considering if you are a prepper or are interested in wilderness or urban survival. The advantage is that hardtack is easy to make, transports easily and will last a reasonably long time if stored in plastic bags or containers. The disadvantage is the bland taste, and traditional toughness.

Even after yeast was discovered by the Egyptians, there was a purpose for unleavened breads. It was easy to carry and durable, so it was standard fare for hunters and warriors.  Centuries later, Christopher Columbus took unleavened bread on his journeys.

One concept of war is that whoever can keep their army fed will win, and hardtack has one of the traditional survival foods for American armies. This illustration is of the Grand Review, held in Washington D.C. at the end of the Civil War.

Hardtack remained a staple in the New World. During the early settlement of North America, the exploration of the continent, the American Revolution, and on through the American Civil War, armies were kept alive with hardtack.  A basic concept in war is that the side that keeps its soldiers from going hungry will probably win.

Hardtack is also reasonably nutritious. Wheat flour is more than 10% protein and includes Vitamin B. During emergencies, people can live for quite a while on just bread and water.  Although raw flour is hard to digest, in the form of hard bread, it is edible.

No one has determined just when, or how, during the American Civil War, hard bread began to be referred to as hardtack. Apparently,  it was first called hardtack by the Union Army of the Potomac; although the name spread to other units, it was generally referred to as hard bread by the armies of the West.

Regardless of the time frame, if you’re a history buff, prepper or hard core survivalist, you should consider including hardtack in your emergency food supplies or survival kit.

Here’s some recipes:

Army Hardtack Recipe

Ingredients:

• 4 cups flour (preferably whole wheat)
• 4 teaspoons salt
• Water (about 2 cups)
• Pre-heat oven to 375° F
• Makes about 10 pieces

Mix the flour and salt together in a bowl. Add just enough water (less than two cups) so that the mixture will stick together, producing a dough that won’t stick to hands, rolling pin or pan.  Mix the dough by hand. Roll the dough out, shaping it roughly into a rectangle. Cut into the dough into squares about 3 x 3 inches and ½ inch thick.

After cutting the squares, press a pattern of four rows of four holes into each square, using a nail or other such object. Do not punch through the dough.  The appearance you want is similar to that of a modern saltine cracker.  Turn each square over and do the same thing to the other side.

Place the squares on an ungreased cookie sheet in the oven and bake for 30 minutes. Turn each piece over and bake for another 30 minutes. The crackers should be slightly brown on both sides.

The fresh crackers are easily broken but as they dry, they harden and assume the consistency of fired brick.

Swedish Hardtack

• 1 cup water
• 3 tbsp. vegetable oil
• 3 tbsp. honey
• 3 cups rye flour (or 1 1/2 cups rye & 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour)
• 1  1/2 tbsp. brewer’s yeast (optional)
• 1/4 tsp. salt

Mix liquids together.  In a separate bowl, mix dry ingredients.  Combine the mixtures, stirring to moisten throughout.  Form a ball.  On a floured surface, flatten the dough, and roll out thinly. Cut into squares and prick each cracker with the tines of a fork a couple of times.  Transfer to lightly greased baking sheets. Bake at 425° F for around 8 minutes, checking to be sure not to over-brown.  It is best served warm.

Mix: two cups of all-purpose flour and a half teaspoon of salt.  Use more salt for authenticity. Mix by hand. Add a teaspoon of shortening and a half cup of water, stirred in a little at a time to form a very stiff dough.  Beat the dough to a half inch thickness with a clean top mallet or rifle butt.  Fold the sheet of dough into six layers. Continue to beat and to fold the dough a half dozen times until it is elastic. Roll the dough out to a half-inch thickness before cutting it with a floured biscuit cutter or bayonet. Bake for about a half hour in a 325° F oven.

The basic ingredients are flour, salt and water. General directions are also similar: Dissolve the salt in water and work it into flour using your hands.  The dough should be firm and pliable but not sticky or dry. Flatten the dough onto a cookie sheet to about 1/4 inch thick, and cut into squares 3 inches by 3 inches.  Pierce each square with 16 holes about ½ inch apart.  Bake in oven until edges are brown or dough is hard.

Preheat the oven to 400° F For each cup of flour add 1 teaspoon of salt. Mix salt and flour with just enough water to bind. Bake 20-25 minutes.  The longer you bake the hardtack, the more authentic it will appear.

A Sailor’s Diet

• 2 1/2 cups old-fashioned or quick oats.
• 3 cups unbleached flour.
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt.
• 1 teaspoon baking soda.

In a separate container, mix:

• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk.
• 3 tablespoons honey.
• 1/2 cup melted bacon drippings or shortening.

Combine the two sets of ingredients. When the dough is thoroughly mixed, roll it out on a floured board to a thickness of about a quarter inch.  Cut out circles of dough with a large drinking glass dipped in flour and put them on a lightly greased cookie sheet.  Bake for about 5 1/2 minutes at 450° F.  Let the hardtack cool on a wire rack before serving with jam or jelly.

ABOUT LEON: Since 1991, Leon has been an assistant scoutmaster with Boy Scout Troop 18 in Bend, and a wilderness skills  trainer for the Boy Scouts’ Fremont  District.  Leon earned a second degree black belt in Taekwondo, and competed in his last tournament (sparring and form) at age 49. He is an enthusiastic Bluegrass mandolin picker, two-time finalist in the International Dutch Oven Society’s World Championships, and a freelance writer for the Bulletin newspaper in Bend, Or.

Click the link below to download this PDF file.

Left Click to READ/Right Click to SAVE AS:
===> [download id="8"]

If you find this download useful, please leave a comment below.

Thanks, Rich

Shared with permission of Leon from  SurvivalCommonSense.com

Posted on March 11th, 2010 by Leon in Recommended Readings

by Leon Pantenburg

The Survivors Club by Ben Sherwood

One of the most important goals of survival common sense is to help you develop a survival mindset. Essentially, that means you must have a rational plan to deal with, get out of, or find a way to survive, a life-threatening predicament. Bottom line: You must know what to do next.

Most of us can’t take all the survival field classes and seminars we’d like to, and only a fool would create an emergency to see how he might react. And may God  preserve and protect  the people who rely on the “survival” or “reality” shows to learn survival skills!  I fervently hope these folks never have to use what they learned on prime time!

But the rest of us can read and study, and hopefully get an insight into how we might act under extreme stress. That knowledge is a tool we must use, and it must be included in every survival kit.  The Survivors Club is a book that presents some of this critical information.

Author Ben Sherwood interviewed people who have survived everything from the World War II Holocaust to the Twin Towers tragedy on 9/11. He was seeking a common ground, a kind of definition, about why some people survive catastrophes, disasters, and emergency situations and why others don’t.

His conclusion, after extensive research, is that the most important part of survival is in your mind. And – no surprise here – you must develop a survival mindset. Otherwise, all the training and tools in the world are worthless.  Check out his book at Amazon.com for only $8.  The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science that Could Save Your Life

So where do you begin?

According to the U.S. military, you must first decide you will survive.  The US Army Field Survival Manual is their official instruction for how to stay alive in hostile environments amd offers this advice on the very first pages:

“The experiences of hundreds of servicemen in WWII and Korea prove that survival is largely a matter of mental outlook, with the will to survive the deciding factor.

“Without the will to survive, your chances of surviving are greatly diminished,” the book states. You can buy the book on Amazon for only $10. US Army Survival Manual: FM 21-76 , Illustrated

The next step to surviving might be to accept that whatever is happening to you is not unique. We all want to think we’re special, Sherwood, writes, but any survival situation will cause people to react in established behavior patterns. The sooner you get over being incredulous, the sooner you can start reacting in a positive way and come up with a plan.

Then, a survivor must do something. The most common reaction, regardless of the circumstances, is to do nothing, hang tight and wait for someone else to react first, or tell them what to do.

Psychologist John Leach, author of Survival Psychology, calls this syndrome the “Incredulity Response.”

Leach says people tell themselves: “This isn’t really happening.” The stress of the crises, Leach notes, causes people to lose the ability to make decisions. They turn into statues.

This mindset can be fatal. Leach later wrote: “Denial and inactivity prepare people well for the roles of victim and corpse.”

But surprisingly, there aren’t a lot of panic attacks during an emergency. Researchers examining crises as disparate as the WWII London Blitz and the attacks of Sept 11 found people rarely lose total control and run around mindlessly. Rather, most just freeze until they’re told what to do.

So we keep reading The Survivors Club, because we all want to know the secret, the one thing that can make a difference between living and dieing.

What is the secret of survival? Sherwood asked Ray Smith, former Marine Drill Instructor, with 27 years on active duty in the Navy as a survival instructor. Smith is the author of  How to Survive on Land and Sea. Smith’s answer is simple.

“Faith in God,” Smith says “It’s a major factor in all survival scenarios.”

Smith feels so strongly about that concept that he thinks it should be in the first chapter of any book on survival. In military parlance, Smith claims, faith is a “force multiplier,” a factor that multiplies your strength and efficiency.

Sherwood also interviewed Dr. Al Seibert, one of America’s foremost authorities on survival psychology. Siebert believes one of the most critical skills is what he terms “serendipity talent.”

“When disaster strikes,” Siebert claims, “life’s best survivors not only cope well, they often turn potential disaster into a lucky development.”
Serendipity is not good luck, he adds, but rather it is a skill that can be developed. The process of turning adversity into advantage occurs with amazing speed. In his mind, Siebert said the words “serendipity” and “survival” are interchangeable.

I first ran into the writings of Viktor Frankl, eminent psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, when I was in graduate school. Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning remains one of my favorite books. I’ve given copies to people in jail, to folks with life-threatening illnesses, to people facing crises of faith and for no particular reason at all. (It’s another book you should read!)

So it was no surprise to me that Frankl was mentioned in The Survivors Club. Frankl developed a survival mindset to get through Auschwitz.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing:” Frankl observed, “The last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Quoting 19^th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche, Frankl added:  “He who has a ‘why’ to live for, can bear with almost any ‘how.’”

Purpose gives you the why – the meaning and mission – in your life. It also gives you the power to survive.

I usually prefer to review older books that aren’t in the limelight, because there is a lot of good information out there that shouldn’t be overlooked. And, as soon as a book makes some list, it seems like every professional reviewer takes a crack at it.

But “The Survivors Club” deserves reading and re-reading. It teaches about the most important part of any survival situation: Your reaction to what is happening to you.

Read it, absorb the information and learn. The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science that Could Save Your Life

ABOUT LEON: Since 1991, Leon has been an assistant scoutmaster with Boy Scout Troop 18 in Bend, and a wilderness skills  trainer for the Boy Scouts’ Fremont  District.  Leon earned a second degree black belt in Taekwondo, and competed in his last tournament (sparring and form) at age 49. He is an enthusiastic Bluegrass mandolin picker, two-time finalist in the International Dutch Oven Society’s World Championships, and a freelance writer for the Bulletin newspaper in Bend, Or.

Note from Rich - We’ve just purchased this book from Amazon and received it this week. I’ll add my own comments regarding the book and topics within, to this thread, using the comment section below.

Click the link below to download this PDF file.

Left Click to READ/Right Click to SAVE AS:
===> [download id="7"]

If you find this download useful, please leave a comment below.

Thanks, Rich

Shared with permission of Leon from  SurvivalCommonSense.com

Posted on March 22nd, 2010 by Leon in Survival Tips From Peter Kummerfeldt

Editor’s note: “The water stunk like sewage, but it was all we had to drink,” the Vietnam vet mentioned during the interview. “The farmers fertilized the rice paddies with human excrement. We dipped the muddy, stinking water out of the field with a canteen cup then filtered it through a towel or handkerchief, then loaded it up with water purification tablets. It smelled terrible. It stunk. Even when it was 100 degrees and you were very thirsty, you could hardly force yourself to drink it.”

The British custom of tea time is probably one of the first water purification rituals. Long before germs and viruses were discovered, the act of boiling water to seep the daily morning and afternoon tea meant the Brits were purifying their water before drinking it. There’s no telling how many lives were saved because of this tradition.

During the Civil War, coffee served the same function. It was considered a healthy drink – the guys who drank nothing but hot, boiled coffee generally had a good chance of avoiding water borne illnesses. But the soldiers who drank clear, cold water out of a bubbling creek (downstream from a privy, small town or feedlot) frequently got sick. Small wonder that hardtack and coffee were considered necessities for hard campaigning!

Today, there is more polluted than pure water in the world. No matter where you go, you must stay hydrated to stay healthy and able to function. Here’s some advice on how to purify the water you find in the outdoors. – Leon

By Peter Kummerfeldt

As an outdoorsman, talking to other outdoor men and women, I often hear two statements made regarding drinking water from outdoor sources. Some claim “I never treat the water I drink in the outdoors” while others say “I never drink the water because it’s got bugs in it.”

In the first instance, not treating water increases the risk of gastrointestinal illness. In the second instance, ignorance of how to make water safe to drink dramatically increases risk of dehydration. Dehydration, in turn, dramatically increases the risk of other, associated problems.

While the risk of water borne disease is much lower in North America than internationally, particularly in developing countries, it does exist. Wherever possible, water should always be treated to remove or kill harmful pathogens.

The primary reason to treat drinking water is to prevent gastrointestinal illness from fecal pollution. Gastrointestinal illness (especially diarrhea) can make life miserable for anyone trying to hunt sheep in Asia, kudu in Africa or even closer to home, elk in the Rocky Mountains.

To be safe, water must be disinfected, which is defined as “the removal or destruction of harmful microorganisms.” To do this, water must be boiled, treated with chemicals or filtered. “Disinfection” of water should not be confused with “purification” of water. Read the rest of this entry »