Patriot Express News Letter Edition #22

Fellow Patriots,

Good morning. Thank you for your continued support and time to read, email, text, and visit our website.

If you have been on board the past 22 weeks, you have experienced different versions of the newsletter. I try to balance inputs and suggestions to what feedback I get along with available time and information worth sharing. So, the remainder of this newsletter will probably be the format used. I may add or delete an item depending on the week and worthwhile information. Thanks for sticking around.

I do believe I have gotten to the bottom of the counter issue and number of hits on the articles. I am currently waiting on support from the web host. But, it appears the actual counter on the article is not working right. This is based on witnessing website visits within a three hour period vs the counter on the article calculating the same number or 80% of the number. I posted a new article on Monday and had Ms. Lucy go to the article on her device and click the article to read it and it remained at zero. So, Detective Colombo would be proud.

With that said... Let's get moving....

Reader advisory - This site, the author/owner and the contents of this site are for reading pleasure only. We are NOT responsible for your feelings, happy or sad. Smile, it will be okay.

As always, avoid fear porn, take what you want, throw away the rest and apply to your own preparedness as you see fit. Keep one foot grounded always. Earthly speaking, the only thing we know for certain is how prepared we are.

Thoughts for the Week -

Just as a heads up, I will continue providing the link to the newsletter on Saturday mornings, however, for post during the week please visit the website as you wish to find new articles being posted. I don't wish to fill your inbox full of emails from me unless it's a personal email between the two of us. If you visited the website during this week you probably noticed more items posted. As time permits and information is available I will post new content. Outside this newsletter, I try to avoid political items for several reasons. I try to keep things focused on the many areas of preparedness that could impact you.

We currently have five additional contributors and hopefully a sixth person will contribute very soon. This helps me a great deal because it allows me to focus on other things, topics, and growth. It is a balancing act because we have folks at many different levels of preparedness, likes, ages, male and female, geographic locations...

I do hope to post a new folder this week that focuses on individuals with special needs. Disabilities. Working in emergency management daily and building plans to keep employees safe means plans for every employee. If you have a person in your family or home that requires some degree of special care, you need to ensure your emergency plans includes specific care and guidance for the person. I caution you, believing a single plan in generic form will not work.

Hopefully, the articles I post this coming week will help you.

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We hope your September is going great. Can you believe the month is almost mid-point? In Alabama September means college football and if you don't speak Roll Tide or War Eagle, well, you may as well grab a good book and go hang out in the corner till December and if one of the two makes the college football playoffs, it's January. There is one weekend in particular when life stops here in Alabama. No, It has nothing to do with NASA and everything to do with the Bama vs Auburn game. Life stops for many. It's about the big game one time per year. Who will win bragging rights for another year. There is a funny joke here in the state, mostly told by outsiders. It goes something like this..."What is the difference between a Bama fan and an Auburn fan? An Auburn fan gets their t-shirt at Auburn and the Alabama fan gets their t-shirt at Wal-Mart."

Now this is perfectly fine. Why am I telling you this in a Preparedness News Letter? Good question. First, it's not really my place to judge. I'm here to simply offer information and help those who want help. Simply put, it's my goal. So what does this have to do with football? I was chatting with a person this week and he is a BIG Bama fan. So I listened to the greatness of this year's team until the person stopped to breath. I then asked him, "so what is the basketball team going to look like with a new head coach?" The person said "We have a new coach?" I smiled and said "yea, they relieved the old coach of his position at the end of last season." The person said "I don't really follow basketball very much, it's all about football for me." One of the things I find interesting is how many folks who are in to Preparedness speak the language but fail to take steps to prepare. Now don't get me wrong, something is better than nothing. But, the mindset of "I will learn and get smart and when the time comes I will run out and buy the things I need to have" probably won't cut it. Really? Well, all I can say is let me know how that works out for ya.

This philosophy will most likely bite the person in the behind. If you are a fan of a school you cheer for the school regardless of the sport. If you claim to be in to preparedness, you prepare as a routine, not as a convenience. And as Forrest Gump says "and that's all I have to say about that."

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We lived through September 11, 2019 this week and as always it was a somber day for many of us. No matter how it happened, or what was the cause, over 3,000 people died on the tragic day along with hundreds of first responders and resulted in roughly 4,500 deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan post 911. I won't go through the morning of 911 or Sept 11, 2001, but I heard many folks asking the question "do you remember what you were doing when you first heard of the strikes against the Twin Towers? I didn't hear one person respond, no, I don't remember. I personally remember how our Government, both parties, stood on the Capitol building steps and belted out God Bless America. United as one. The greatest superpower on earth. My heart weeps for the innocent and fallen, but my brain says what happened? No, not what caused the towers to fall. But, what happened to our nation? Do you ever think about the things that changed since 911? In the name of protecting our nation and its citizens we have endured attacks against our freedoms through the Patriot Act; witnessed divisions in our government, the attacks against faith, the attacks against the laws and documents that protect the citizens, ... In less than 20 years we have a fractured government and system. I often say to myself, "wow, this all happened in less than the 20 years I served my nation." How does the ideology of so many change in such a short period? Today, I have to wonder, if another 911 level attack hit our country, would our elected officials stand on the steps of the national capital building and sing "God Bless America" in a unified voice?

We must also remember another tragic event that occurred on Sept 11, but it was in 2012. The Benghazi Embassy attacks. Another preventable, terrible and traffic loss of American lives. Please remember the sacrifice of J. Christopher Stevenson, Sean Smith, and CIA (former Navy SEAL) agents Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. This event was bothersome as it should be. But what is more bothersome is the numerous efforts made prior to the attack to beef up security with physical hardware and added American security and it was denied. When I think of Benghazi it takes me back to another tragic period in our history, yet the story lines are the same. Troops on the ground in a hostile environment doing State Department work and getting over run pretty much. The troops didn't choose to be at the location and they asked for additional hardware support and it was denied near the top of the federal government.

The US military suffered 18 deaths and 73 wounded while killing 312 and wounding 814 Mogadishu street fighters. Same story, different day, and lives are lost over political correctness. One must ask, why no accountability from those sending our young men off to far-away places to do dirty work and ending up in body bags. Most soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen are willing to fight for the freedoms of our nation and to protect our families, to include die for the country we love. But they also expect their politicians to stand for them, fund and equip them, and give them a chance to win. Just sayin...

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I have shared how our small (5) person team at work holds a 30 minute preparedness session weekly where we take turns bringing in something to share with others in regards to preparedness gear. Yes, we work in Emergency Management, but these items are more for our personal preparedness when away from the work place. I learned something interesting that I wasn't aware of during this week's session. When discussing game traps and trying to prevent the dirt covering traps from freezing, a coworker shared how he had just been taught that you could take soap shavings or wax shavings and mix it with the dirt to prevent freezing. I had previously heard that some folks sift their dirt and mix a solution of Propylene Glycol and water but I would guess when it gets soaked it would form a mud pit of sorts. The wax mixture in the soap makes sense because it would be like wax on a car and repel the water preventing the water from draining through the cracks in the dirt and freezing. But, if you are using the dirt and wax mixture I would think you have to do the mix annually and not keep the mixture year to year. Why? I would believe during the summer season the wax may heat and breakdown causing a loss of wax. Maybe you could use it year to year if you took extra measures in handling and storing it during the off season. Maybe use clean 5 gallon bucket lined with a quality plastic bag. Then seal the bag and place the lid on the bucket. Store in a cool space out of the sunlight. Hmmm, sounds like another preparedness effort we do, right?

Okay, let's move ahead...

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