Review: a lot of vague and dubious stuff here
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 04 22, 2013
Another short book on bug out bags I got for free about a month ago that I just got around to reading.The intro was the first warning sign, but I persevered and continued on. Really there is nothing complex about a BOB nor does it need to be especially expensive."Disaster can strike at a moment's notice. This leaves little time for preparation, especially if you need to get out of your home in a hurry. If you are serious about survival and the safety of your family, you should always have a bag of emergency supplies ready to go. This bug out bag should contain everything that you need to survive when and if you have to abandon the comfort of your day-to-day life, and should help you to find safety or start over if need be. Bug out bags are complex and important parts of preparing for survival, and they require packing a variety of items and tools for your later use. Preparing one of these bags can be expensive and is usually quite labor intensive, but it is well worth the effort if you find yourself in a real survival situation."It started out with a page or two about a 24 hour pack, but never really said why this might be preferable to a 72 hour pack that it went on to discuss. It even mentions a week pack that it refers to this way "this is a true survivalist's bag". I am not sure why, but the book warns "there is a better than average chance that something will go bad, expire or even break while it sits in your closet", WRT to the week bag. I have no idea what would be so fragile that it would break while merely sitting in your closet that anyone would want to put in a BOB of any type, or why this problem would apply especially to a week bag.It goes on to talk about packs for kids and pets, some of which actually made some sense. It says that "the ideal number of people for bugging out is two", like you get a choice of where or who you might be around when the need to bug out comes along.Types of bags are discussed - back packs and duffle bags are suggested. I cannot imagine any duffle bag being especially suitable for carting around out in the woods as the author apparently intends.It talks about water and suggests 4 pounds of water a day (about 2 quarts). But then it says you might be able to get by with as little as 12 quarts for a whole week. Wondering around in the woods on foot the chances of you surviving a week on 12 quarts of water would seem to approach nil. The book suggests water bladders, Nalgene, and military canteens as water carriers.Water purification is next - although like most so called "survival" writers they just do not get the difference between water purification and making water merely potable. Boiling and tablets are mentioned as the preferred ways. It mentions filtration as well claiming "Survival-grade filtration is a wonderful thing but it can also be hard to find." Possibly the author has never been to a Walmart or a sporting goods store where water filtration devices are readily available.For food it merely suggests bringing MREs, despite their high cost, bulk, and weight.Cooking is next, after your MREs run out. I guess the idea is to catch food in the wild and cook it, although nothing in the way of advice on this is given. Maybe it was covered later in the book. The book goes on to talk about food storage ideas (mostly ZipLoc and Tupperware).Clothing, footwear, rain poncho, gloves, shemagh are suggested. Some of what is talked about in these sections makes sense, other parts seem so vague as to be all but useless. The part about ponchos seemed particularly poorly done to me. Without actually saying so, it seemed to be suggesting some kind of cheap, disposable type poncho, but that hardly fits in with the "expensive" gear the intro mentions.It then talks about shelter - tarps, paracord, stakes (metal is best according to the book), tents, and poncho shelters. Again much of the advice is vague and not especially helpful IMO, and somewhat dubious as well, especially the part about bringing extra stakes and ropes for your tent, and that tents are mostly useful when there is more than one person.Fire is then discussed. It actually says this "Your primary ignition source should be a fire starter. The modern equivalent of a flint and steel, this item will let you create a spark by rubbing metal on metal." Later it suggests dried twigs as tinder. I don't know what kind of dried twigs would ever make suitable tinder.At this point I just decided I had enough vague and dubious advice, so I quit reading it about 60% of the way through its 980 locations. It thus earned a single star from me.This is another BOB book that appears to have been written by someone with a fantasy that he is going to bug out to the woods for some reason and live off the land. Just not a realistic scenario.Given the vague and dubious nature of much of what is in the book, it would not surprise me to find that the author is just latching onto some kind of prepper trend that he thinks he can make some money off of, rather than someone with actual expertise in this area, not that a whole lot of expertise is necessary to put together a bug out bag.Incidentally, I read this book (the part I read anyway) on my PC. A fair number of places formatting commands (or maybe remnants of them) were visible. It seems like a quick once through would have caught that kind of issue. For some reason, these kind of formatting errors seem somewhat common with self published books. Perhaps it has something to do with the software being used. Thankfully, writing errors such as typos, spelling, and grammar issues were not common enough (if they existed at all) to annoy me.