Becoming an Asset

Forgive me for the format. Sometimes its hard to narrow down my thoughts. Please add to or take away from, change or personalize this to fit your needs. I implore you to share this with your friends, family or church.

Becoming a Strategic Asset

This is my mission statement: I want you to be set up for success. No matter the situation or disaster, be an asset that is worth being relied upon and bring a useful value to yourself and others. History has proven that those who can not take care of themselves can get left behind and it never ends up good for those people. You have more value you than you may think. Consider your skills and be ready to use them.

So, how do we become an asset? Well the definition of being an asset at it would involve a person with particular usefulness based upon their specific skills and the level of their skills usefulness that can be applied for beneficiary purposes. Examples: Laborers with general contraction based knowledge, electricians, engineers, carpenters, masons, welders, plumbers, and mechanics. Then to your more technical skills like dentist, doctors, nurses, and then to the really technical stuff like software engineers and computer experts. Obviously a society after a collapse would benefit from these occupations but what about the ethics and law portion? First Responders like fire fighters, EMS, and the police? ALL OF THESE positions are important to making a society function. 

What else can be asset? Well, when the prophecy hits the fan, just consider this, how many of these occupations that I have previously listed will still be showing up for their 9 to 5 jobs when the country goes into complete panic and collapses due to whatever reason. Figure out what your doomsday disaster scenario is and just consider, if it all goes bad, will the people who maintain the normal life every day city dwellers still show up for work? 

Maybe at first but eventually they will be forced to take care of their own. Then we get into the harder to speak on conversation topics like: Who comes to fix my broken pipes after a winter storm? Who repairs my generator when it stops running, let alone, who becomes the available gas station? Do you not think that gas stations will become an asset worthy of protecting? What about the pharmacies? I would put so much security on a pharmacy that you would have better luck robbing a bank rather than visiting any malice on our pharmacies. 

What about the hospital and all of its employees? During any type of disaster, a hospital becomes probably the second or even first most valuable asset in a community. Would you not relocate other assets such as the “security personnel” to that hospital? Also having mass storage for gasoline and diesel to keep the power on? 

Speaking of security. Let’s discuss the other side of community preparation. 

Prepare overall maps of your community and the most valuable assets in your communities and don’t forget where food comes from, your farms and ranches are probably your second most valuable commodities in your community. My map would include, cardinal direction, all of my most valuable resources, all main roads in and out of my (base, community, town, city) and would also include the totality of my area of operations for at least a couple miles. I would include resupply locations, hospitals and aid stations, refuel stations and finally I would break up my map in sectors. It may seem complicated at first but its really not. Heck if need be, pull up a picture of your “base of operations” on google maps. Draw a circle around it and by using the clock method, break the sectors up into numbers on a clock. 12 o’clock is true north and 6 o’clock is south. Pretty easy. Make sure to include overlays of your HQ, hospitals, pharmacies, power station, water sources, entrance/exit ports (roads), food storage banks, barracks for security forces, hardened structures for the civilian populations to take shelter in, and rings of perimeter security both internally and externally. 

Have a list of emergency personnel staff and alternates incase those staff members are incapable of fulfilling their duties. List of Leadership for various roles and their alternates. List your sources of communications that can be salvaged. Munitions and weapons depots, to include armories and distribution centers for arms incase of invasion. 

Consider your water filtering systems and stations. Underground bunkers and hardened structures where water and food rations can be stored. Ancient well springs that can be taped into during a time of great need. Consider how you will secure these areas, most likely fully staffed with permanent security attachments. For the leaders of the communities, consider the estimates of diseases that are already present once the community has to be locked down and life saving services start to go offline. Get a good estimate of medicine if a mass plague or infection breaks out in the community and leave reserves of medicine just for that event. Types of disease, symptoms, severity of contagion if the food and water sources are fouled.  Also, what remedial measures are in place  incase such an incident was to occur.  Consider your triage areas, grave digging details, ambulance fleet and drivers etc.

There will be an endless screening of how all supplies are being sustained and secured down to the smallest detail of expiration dates and items that are mildewed due to an inequality in the humidity inside the storage areas. Inspections on food stocks to be performed daily and recorded. Every ration taken either from a person eating it or the ration being disposed of due to whatever ailments must be recorded. There will be rumors and conspiracies of factions hoarding rations for themselves and their families. This is unavoidable and is why an accurate, stringent account of all food rations must be kept and must be protected at the highest levels of security. Food controls the behavior of the weak minded and desperate. A fortress can implode from within based solely on conspiracies and factions in the community.  Do not underestimate the depravity of man. Do not take inner security for granted. 

In my honest opinion in the matters of security, we need to take a long hard look at security before the emergency happens. We must go beyond the ideas of the minute man militias now. Due to the interference from the federal government and the lack of accountability in our current formed militias nationwide, based either from the lack of technical proficiency with a major in tactical applications or from minor of government infiltration and the frequency in sabotage by state and federal agencies, I would declare any and all large formed militias to be hereby compromised from the internal level. Instead of forming a militia of unknowns, turn yourself and reliable men that you can trust in strategic national assets. For in the day the need arises and men must be called to combat an internal conflict or the invasion from and external threat, it will be your decision to participate in our nations defense or not to engage at all. 

If you do decide to engage in the defense of our nation you must understand the rules of war during that current period which can change rapidly with the introduction of chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons. The theater of war will also vary based on troop strength and weaponry. This conflict will be nationwide most likely be even higher likely your theater of operations will be on the state, county and city level. You must secure your base of operations first before moving to assist others that means keep a defense force in place. A defense force’s only occupation is the defense of their territory. All other forward applied forces will have to be carefully calculated in their deployments and to what theaters they are most needed in. We must remember during this conflict that resources are limited and a resupply of major logistical items may not be pliable. Get prepared now. Engage your community and its leaders now. Find out if the leadership of your community has an established plan for a true disaster event.

This topic is long from being finalized but consider this, most of this preparation will be done on the individual level. Do not count on a governing body of people to have a solid plan for every situation. It will be up to you and the others who prepare accordingly to navigate a disaster and help one another.

At the end of the day, like it or not, you are either an asset or a liability. The decision lies with the individual. If you sit on your ass all day, eating junk food until your in a food coma and can barely move because your inner spirit animal is a watermelon, well…you may just be viewed as a liability.