Patriot Express Newsletter Edition #114

Fellow Patriots,

Greetings and welcome to the PENL Edition #114. Thanks for being here with us to check out some thoughts and preparedness information that will hopefully help you on this journey to self-reliance. While we transition through June we must stay focused and work on our preparedness plans and resources. The unknown remains a large threat to our way of life.

I want to wish all the fathers around HFS and beyond a blessed and happy Father's Day. I hope this year you can spend time with your loved ones and beyond. After the Covid-19 2020 banning of families being together (yawn) I hope you can spend time together all you want in 2021.

I also want to give a shout out to the Frank/Dill group who are having their monthly dinner and meeting right now. This is great bonding time and the opportunity to discuss their next training date and topics. Keep up the great work and don't look back. I'm proud of your effort to make our group better and bonded.

I will be meeting up with some new HFS members in Pulaski, TN on Sunday. These are folks I met at Heritage Life Skills 2021 in Waynesville, NC. I look forward to the time we get and conversations going forward.

In my "thoughts for the week" I stay focused on preparedness and areas we must address and maintain. We are so focused on what happens in Washington DC that we forget about it being hurricane season as well as droughts, rising crime, and the potential for fires in different regions of the nation. If you are planning a vacation have you researched the area you will travel and any areas you may transit through if you drive? A vacation sounds fun and relaxing however we can't assume everything will go as planned and no pitfalls will occur. Think outside the box and left of bang.

Thursday Zoom Rallies – In this weeks HFS Thursday Zoom rally, special guest retired Colonel and Congressional Candidate Casey Wardynski visited the rally and discussed preparedness, the concern for the current condition of our nation, national debt, defense, and other topics of interest. Several of the HFS Patriots took part in a question and answer session at the end of the rally. HFS appreciates the two hours Mr. Wardynski spend with the group. In the preparedness session I covered some additional areas folks may wish to add to their preparedness blocks and provided recommended books to assist in the topic areas. Thanks to everyone who attended the rally.

New members to HFS - Several of the new members emailed wanting to do the zoom rallies. Awesome. I will be reaching out to all of you in the next couple weeks on how I plan to go forward with Zoom. My goal is to hopefully provide quality information, training, and effort to everyone participating. The obstacle is the amount of time required to put a single weekly zoom rally together and then conduct it. As much as I would like to do two zooms per week, it just isn't possible right now. So a lot of discussion continues on how HFS can juggle and adjust to keep information flowing and training available. I'm certain it will work out. It is just figuring out the best way to go forward. I asked the Patriots in the ongoing zoom group for suggestions and advice and I received some great suggestions. All the new folks should be getting a email soon on this topic.

Hope for Survival YouTube - If you haven't already subscribed to the page, please consider doing so. This informs you when HFS post a new video. Thanks for your consideration. Thanks to everyone who subscribed in the past week.

HFS joined Sara Hathaway and Chin Gibson on the Changing Earth podcast last Sunday evening to discuss preparedness and community building approaches. I would encourage folks to check out Sara's work at the Changing Earth podcast and website. The links are on the video below at YouTube.

I will join Paul Seawright on the All American Podcast on Saturday morning to talk preparedness. HFS Zoomers may remember Paul from a recent Zoom Rally where he was guest speaker. I look forward to this opportunity and discussion with Paul.

Communications: You can now follow HFS social media on the following outlets:

Facebook – Hope for Survival

YouTube Channel – Hope for Survival

MeWe: - //mewe.com/p/hopeforsurvival2

Connect and give me a shout. Share with family and friends.

Moving along …

If you are a guest or newcomer to the HFS journey, please check out this link for additional information offered through HFS. https://www.hopeforsurvival.com/post/guest-and-newcomers-information-page

We must make this brief public announcement to protect the innocent.

Ding, Ding, Ding....Attention HFS readers..... Opinions shared in this newsletter are just that, opinions, and nothing more. Read at your own risk. The owner and author of this site is not responsible for hurt feelings or thin-skinned readers. I do my best to show restraint and respect to the best extent possible. I take as many precautions as possible and try to remain as nonpolitical as possible, however, there are times when I just can't help but point certain things out. Occasionally I use words only Patriots recognize and understand. It's not personal against any non-Patriot. It's just the truth. Sometimes we must pull up our spenders and suck it up. Just saying. Stay the course, read what you want, and avoid the rest. Avoid fear porn as much as possible and the day will be okay. When all else fails… Keep the faith and always have Hope.

Let’s move along and get to some thoughts...

Thoughts for the week –

I was recently having a discussion with another prepared on the topic of safe rooms. Most people do not design or buy a home with a safe room in mind. When this is the case, a plan must be devised from their existing structure. Here are some thoughts I shared in a previous website article several months ago.

Locking Down Your Safe Room

This is a simple plan for folks without a safe room in their home. I came across this article a few weeks ago while researching Mylar curtains and ballistic protection for homes. One of my favorite topics to talk about and teach is security and home protection. Locking down your already locked home. What you do beyond locking your doors is what we are talking about. You do lock your doors at night, don't you? When we start the process of discussing home security, it is like all other facets of Preparedness. The mindset. It does no good to prepare or build a layered security plan if you don't understand why you are doing it. The mind is the most powerful tool you possess. Train it and utilize it as part of your plan building and process development. Step outside the box and see things from a different perspective. If this doesn't make sense then consider reading my book, Hope for Survival and/or A Sheep No More by Jonathan Gilliam. This will help you understand the philosophy of thinking outside the box. So, in this article I'm talking about a SAFE room on the interior of your home. When you think about a safe room or panic room, you need to focus on making an interior room of your home safer and more secure. Remember this may be where you take your family in the event of an emergency that threatens your life. This interior room of your house will be safer and more secure. It does not have to be high-tech and ugly. In most cases, there is no reason to change the purpose of a bedroom or home office. All you need to do is make it safer, so you want to start with the exterior of your home and work inward. Obtaining a loud home security system is a great start. After that, consider these construction tips before you go crazy with the surveillance system. GET THE RIGHT DOOR - Have you ever watched the Hollywood tough guys kick down the door and it splits and splinters in to a thousand pieces? Well most likely they are not so tough because it was a hollow core door they attacked. Most interior doors are hollow core with an emphasis on noise reduction and privacy. Get a solid exterior door instead. You will still have the functionality of an interior door, but it will be tougher. Many exterior doors are steel, for greater security. Reinforce the Frame - A strong door is pointless with a weak frame. Make sure the fame around the door is equally sturdy. Today, most frames are solid with the doors, so ask how much force the frame is rated for. The answer should be "no more Hollywood tough guys can break it down." It should be sturdy enough to withstand a grown man repeatedly throwing himself against it. Lock it Down - Just as you lock your exterior door with multiple locks, including deadbolts, do the same with your interior door. Also consider a drop-bar lock for even more security, and add more locks at the top and bottom of the door and frame to make it even harder to leverage against a single point. Replace the Window - It may seem like a pain, but it will be necessary to swap out entire windows, frame and all, with security windows - not just the panes. Cover the windows with heavy curtains, too. Even with the lights on, the right curtains will prevent an intruder from seeing exactly where you are inside your safe room. Once your room is fortified, make sure you have the necessities just in case you have to barricade yourself inside. Depending on the circumstances, you should prepare for hunkering down for a few minutes or a few days. As with everything else in security and preparedness, always err on the side of overpreparing. That is not a type or misprint. Over prepare. You drive around with four tire rolling and one in reserve, no complaints on this one. Okay, so assuming you have fortified an existing room in your house, consider these steps: Make it a Safe Room - Add an actual safe; in this case, the room can double as your gun room. A solid safe can be bolted to the floor. If the rule of thumb is self-defense, then be sure that, no matter what the circumstances are, you'll be able to arm yourself. Store guns, ammunition, and cleaning supplies here, and include some basic supplies here. Don't Forget Water - You can survive for quite a long time without food. But it's easy to find yourself dehydrated in a short time. The safe room also might be used during natural disasters, so plan as if you were preparing for an earthquake or hurricane. Have enough water stored away to last seven to ten days on average. Depending on the reason you are barricaded in to your room, you may need to make arrangements for bathroom business. This will require additional water and sanitation steps. Call for Help - The most important step is a phone. No helps is ever going to come if you don't have a means of contacting the outside world. Hollywood doe a great job scaring us with mastermind criminals cutting phone lines and disabling security systems. But chances are, you won't have to worry about it in reality. Just in case, keep a cell phone and charger inside the safe room. As soon as you are inside, call emergency services and stay on the line. Remember the Necessities - Some other things you need to plan for are critical items you must have. Like, prescription medications. You must make sure you have them stashed and if possible have extra. You should also stock a make shift medicine chest. The perfect location for your safe room would be a master bedroom with an attached bath room. This would solve a lot of potential problems. Lastly - You want to obtain and install a quality surveillance detection system you can operate and monitor from within the safe room. Secure a primary and alternate power source to keep your system operating. These are your eyes and ears until help can be notified to provide back