[3/24/17] When you think of the word ‘survival,’ what usually comes to mind? Making a fire out in the woods, setting up a lean-to shelter with vines and sticks, setting up traps and snares to catch small game, and procuring water might be a few things that come to mind, right?
Knowing how to do each of these things is incredibly important for any survival situation. However, the advanced tactics used by the U.S Military (including the Navy SEALs) demonstrate that there’s much more to survival than just starting a fire and building a shelter.
The primary difference between these ordinary survival skills, and the survival skills learned by the servicemen and women of the U.S Military, is that the military’s learned survival tactics take personal protection and defense into account.
In short, the U.S Military and especially the Navy SEALs approach survival in a different and deeper way than most survival classes or disaster preparedness classes tell us to. Let’s take a look at the biggest reasons why:
SIMPLICITY
As a result of the advanced and complex training of the U.S Military and Navy SEALs, you may believe that the survival tactics they learn and employ are at least a little more intricate.
However, this could not be any further from the truth. On the contrary, the military has learned that simplicity is required for survival. If you want to survive, you have to keep things simple, and then become as good as possible at being simple as well. By overcomplicating what needs to be done in survive, you’ll only waste valuable time and energy and be in a far worse state as well.
This could be fatal in a disaster scenario where you constantly have to be on the lookout for those who are harming you and are in a more vulnerable position to fight.
DECEPTION AND EVASION
The military genius Sun Tzu was the one who said that war is not about fighting, but about deception. A military commander can win against a materially or numerically superior force through deception and evasion tactics such as decoys, feints, disinformation, and diversionary attacks. These kinds of tactics have been used for thousands of years and continue to be used to great effect today. You can use them as well.
Finding yourself in an armed confrontation with another person or another group of people means that you are putting yourself in harm’s way. And if you have a family to protect, that could mean that you are putting them in harm’s way as well.
It doesn’t matter what kind of weapons or training you have or how many people are on your side. You should avoid armed conflict as much as possible. Even though soldiers are trained for combat, they too follow this principle as well.
Just as each soldier fulfills a specific role in a military unit, each person has a specific role in your survival group as well, including you. This means that you need to conserve as much of your number as possible in order for your group to remain as efficient as possible and stand the greatest chance of survival.
