Fellow Patriots,
Greetings and welcome to the Patriot Express Newsletter Edition #123. Thanks for spending some of your valuable time with the HFS family. We have lots of new readers the past month and I want to welcome this also. You are surrounded by great people and a great HFS family I'm proud to call our Patriot family.
I'm sorry this PENL is being posted later than normal. I would tell you a digital dog chased the digital paperboy and caused him to crash and lose your newsletter. Oh wait, it did happen that way except without the dog and paperboy. I hit post around 6 pm and the entire newsletter vanished in to cyber space. Guess who got to type it all over? I'm glad digital ink dries fast. HFS has posted a newsletter 123 straight weeks without missing a weekend. I couldn't let this break the streak.
Ms. Lucy and I had a busy week indeed. We spent five days on the road this week doing HFS business in the TN mountains, Western NC, and Northern GA. I will share more below.
Thursday Zoom Rallies – HFS conducted zoom rally #64 with a special guest from the great Bluegrass State of Kentucky. Dr. Joshua Crawley spent a few hours with us to share his thoughts on Covid-19 and vaccinations. It was a great opportunity for folks to ask questions and hear thoughts and opinions from a practicing doctor. Dr. Crawley is a front line doctor seeing the impact of both the vaccinated and unvaccinated. I want to thank those who attended for being polite and professional. A few of you emailed me since last night to share their thoughts and they assumed there was a message I was sending. Oh how well they read me. Yes. Respect. We can agree to disagree and be civil. We can exchange thoughts and still be family or friends. Some find this a very hard thing to do. What some didn't know is I know a few folks in the room who may have received the vaccination or currently battle with the decision. It could be a big career decision for some. So to have a qualified opinion from one who is medically trained to share his thoughts on the vaccination was important. Again, thanks to everyone for being civil and respectful. Because of the length of time we offered to the guest and question/answer, we pushed back the Part 2 of the Greg Allison interview with Jonathan Hollerman. We will cover it next week.
Hope for Survival YouTube - For those signed up for the HFS YouTube page please be advised I posted a new Podcast this evening. You can find it at this link. https://youtu.be/42foDogCbuI While on the road I had a chance to interview a fellow HFS Patriot and discuss preparedness near a large city. I appreciate the opportunity to cross paths with him.
For the new Patriots you will find many helpful videos on canning, food preparedness, security and defense in depth, firearm safety discussions, canning meat, and other important topics.
Thanks for your consideration. Because I still work a full time day job, time is limited and I have not been able to set up a routine schedule for recording and posting videos yet. Thanks for hanging with me. Share the link with family and friends. Thanks to everyone who subscribed in the past week few weeks.
HFS Mobile Schedule:
Aug 22 - Preparedness Training - Black Mountain, NC
August 27/28 - Monticello, KY - 2nd Annual Preparedness Training Day
Sept 24/25 (Pending) - Health and Freedom Conference - Col Springs, CO
Jan 2022 - Cannon Memorial Baptist Church, Central S.C.
If you would like HFS to come to your community to conduct training classes or speak on the important of preparedness feel free to contact me.
The 2nd Annual Preparedness Training Day Monticello, KY on August 27th and 28th will include a Friday evening meal with a Q and A session and Saturday will be a full day of training and opportunities to get better prepared. We have also added another class that will be taught by one of our HFS Patriot sisters who will travel to KY to teach a weed walk class to help attendees better recognize and understand the importance of things growing around us.
For more information email me at Preparedness101@protonmail.com
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
Hope for Survival books: You can obtain information on the two HFS books at this link: Survival, Preparedness, Disaster Management for individuals or family (hopeforsurvival.com)
Hope for Survival - How Food, Water, Shelter, and Security Could Save Your Life (Book 1)
Hope for Survival - The Mindset (Book 2)
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 –
As stated above, we spent five days on the road this past week with fellow Patriots. This is always a joy even when it requires road time. I would much rather be in the field than behind a keyboard. Getting to chat and learn from others is always priceless for me. Seeing Patriots grow in their preparedness skills is also very rewarding for everyone involved. Watching individuals learn then connect with others to work together as a community team/tribe/node is part of that this is all about. Thanks to the Frank/Dill group for opening their training up to Ms. Lucy and I was much appreciated. Thanks also to the host who took us in for a few nights. We always feel at home when visiting the north GA area.
Here's a few pictures from the group training which covered hand gun familiarization and shooting, building faraday cages, radio antennas, satellite phones, ham radio, and a great meal to break bread together.
We also traveled up to the Cumberland Plateau to spend the day with Festus and Mrs. Festus to discuss the next six months of business for HFS and then we shared a great birthday meal provided by the host. Thank you much for the time, food, and great conversation shared with all. I don't know how many birthdays Festus has actually had but the lad doesn't look a day over 21.
Any trip HFS makes to or through Waynesville, NC must, I repeat, must include a visit to our favorite preparedness store to see our two favorite Patriots. Carolina Readiness Supply is a great place to visit and get a hand shake and a smile. It was great to see Ms. Jan and Mr. Bill. They are not only two of the friendliest people around they are two of the hardest working as well.
Oddly our drive from GA to Waynesville, NC was the day of the heavy rains and flooding in the region. The radio reported that 4.5 inches of rain fell in one hour and it rained another 8 plus hours or more. Even with the rain and winds, we met up with two awesome Patriots who stepped up to be the new Waynesville, NC Group/Tribe/Node team leads. We had a great chat and lunch with them before departing. I'm really excited for these two Patriots. They will do a great job indeed.
Next....
Depending on where you live you may or may not know the damage caused by the heavy rains, flooding and mudslides. Many families are now homeless as well as losing their business locations or jobs. Last report I read was roughly 20 residents are still missing.
When heavy rains hit and one lives in a potential flood zone, near a water source, or close to a hill side or mountain where mass waters can run off causing mud or rock slides as well as massive waters breaking the banks and moving at a high rate of speed can change the life of many forever. Anyone who has lived through it can tell you it is not to play with or wait out. You must make a decision very quick or possibly lose your life or a family member also. Because these events are often unpredictable and they do not happen very often, citizens will push off planning in any way. As a short term solution I would suggest folks consider getting familiar with the 5-5-5 Plan as well as setting up a P.A.C.E. Family Communication Plan, which I have covered here recently.
What is the 5-5-5 Plan? This is how I described the plan in my first Hope for Survival book and this text is taken from pages 50-51. Here you go. Check this out:
"To help you out, consider adopting the “5-5-5” plan. This is a basic course of action used by many families. It is simple and easy to implement in your home. Like any plan, you must adapt and adjust it for your circumstances. Set up three different time categories: Five seconds, five minutes, and five hours. NOTE: If it takes you more than five hours to do anything, you are in trouble. If you have a family, then build the plan as a family.
The Five-Second Plan
This plan means you and your family are ready to evacuate your home in 5 seconds or less. Reasons to drive a five second plan would be: a house fire, an intruder, a tornado, and an earthquake. These are just a few examples. You may add others to your list after conducting your own risk assessment. What would you do if…?
…you woke up in your bedroom during a house fire and you only had time to run around your bedroom before evacuating, what would you grab? Your cell phone?
…you are standing in your pajamas during a drizzle in the winter while your home burns? You should have a change of clothing in your five second bag.
Whatever the emergency you are preparing for that might only give you five seconds, think about what you should need to have with you or to do in five seconds. Do you have your clothes laid out the night before, or do you have a “Ready Bag” or “Bug-Out” bag in your room with items that would help you deal with the situation?
I would strongly encourage you to set up a bag per family member in the room where they reside in the home. A simple backpack that is no more than ten to fifteen pounds. Remember, the route you plan to escape could be blocked, so think about your circumstances and consider staging identified items in a place other than your home. Maybe have a second bag set up aside from the prepacked bags. Each family member will grab their own bag as they escape. You will need a predetermined rally point to meet on the outside of your home.
You must also plan an escape bag for your family pet(s). That’s right. The last thing you need to be focused on during a disaster is finding your pet’s food, water, or medicine. You can either pack the bag yourself or buy a prepacked K-9 or kitty bag with essential items already in the bag.
The Five-Minute Plan
This plan means you and your family are ready to evacuate your home in 5 minutes or less. Reasons that drive a five-minute plan would be: a tornado warning in the vicinity of your home, a forest fire, or a medical emergency. These are just a few examples. You may add others to your list after conducting your own risk assessment.
In most cases, a person will have a few minutes to get ready. In the case of having a family, you can see how important it is for them to know what they need to do if something happens. Otherwise, you will be spending precious time getting them ready and none on getting yourself ready. Identify or break down each scenario into what you would need to do and what you would need to take for each family member.
You may have noticed that a tornado is listed in both scenarios. Wouldn’t you rather have 5 minutes to get ready for the emergency vs. the 5 seconds? The difference between the two could be as simple as having an alarm such as the Midland WR-120B NOAA Weather Alert All Hazard Public Alert Certified Radio. You would be awakened by a 90db alarm if something was happening in your area. The five-minute heads up could be the difference of getting your family to a shelter vs. just getting out the door. These radios can be purchased through Amazon, Wal- Mart, Radio Shack, and most box stores. Consider one that runs on battery, crank charge, solar, and electricity. Some are even equipped with a flashlight built in.
The Five-Hour Plan
This plan means you and your family are ready to evacuate your home in 5 hours or less. Reasons to drive a five-hour plan would be: a hurricane targeting your region, riots breaking out impacting your work place routes to home, or a regional or national power grid failure. These life altering events are affectionately known as the Sheet Hit the Fan (SHTF) scenario which I refer to as the “Some Have all The Fun” event. You may add others to your list after conducting your own risk assessment.
This is the plan you must think out. If you lose the power grid or the financial system collapses, you will have some time to organize. Remember, do not be part of the 90% group and ensure you stay three steps ahead. While everyone else is either trying to stock food, get cash and fuel, or just doing crazy things, your plan will have you locking down, or you will be miles down the road headed out of town to a pre-designated location.
If you are planning on grabbing your items and heading to a bug out location, could you do it in five hours? Does the plan require you to load supplies and take several vehicles, pets, and family members? This may not be so easily done. Have you walked through your plan conducting each step to ensure it works? If your plan requires three vehicles and one breaks down, what is your fall back plan? What if your five-hour plan changes and turns to five minutes? Can you do it? Do you know how you will spend the five minutes? If you haven’t noticed by now, these plans require much thought and execution before the event. Why is this good? Because it will allow you to see failure points in your plan and have time to correct them before it is a real event.
In any plan, you may have to make the hard choice. No choice is guaranteed to ensure surviving a total failure of the system. Remember that most choices are driven by circumstances. You may be living your day normally and then something minor happens that escalates to something big. If you are not paying attention, you may be behind the curve from the start. You do not want this to happen, especially if the events require immediate response and you, your wife, and children, and any other family member or friends are located in different locations. Things such as:
1. Ability to relocate – Do you have the ability to leave your home?
2. Age, health and financial factors – Critical points to your plan.
3. Timing and events – May require big adjustments to your existing plan.
4. Intelligence reporting and existing threats – How soon will you receive accurate information?
5. Personnel in place – How separated everyone is will impact your ability to leave quickly.
6. Current danger level escalating quickly – Grid down, riots, and gangs will change your plan.
7. Mobility choices – The age of your family could determine your ability to mobilize.
8. Seasonal impacts – Based on your location, the weather could require altering your plan.
9. Consensus vote – Does everyone agree on the plan? They should because it impacts them.
You should not judge and anticipate other people’s actions based on your own views and values. Other people will act unexpectedly and irrationally, in ways that can potentially be enormously harmful to yourself, your family, and your possessions.
In situations with adverse scenarios disrupting normal social order, other people will feel they are justified in taking everything from you, including your dignity and quite possibly your life, even though there is no possible logic to it. Do not expect a societal breakdown to bring out the best in everyone. It will bring out the worst in sufficient numbers of people as to pose major problems.
If you actively protect your property and yourselves, you are likely to deter everyone but the most determined or desperate of looters during the early stages of any civil breakdown. In seven to ten days when looters are no longer motivated only by greed, but instead by fear and the need for survival, the situation will become more extreme. Past studies reveal teenaged children are the most violent to deal with when starving."
Next ...
Someone recently asked me to describe the perfect example of a Patriot from my perspective and after much thought, I took a deep breath and described my thoughts to the question. Start them young and ensure they have a good sense of humor. I found the perfect poster for my description. :
Okay, lets move along to the news…
Preparedness News –
1. From Old World Garden Farms - 3 Summer Garden Chores - How To Make Next Year's Garden Better Now! (oldworldgardenfarms.com) - Good article with some good advice. Depending on the style of gardening you do this article offers some good advice. We all want to avoid weeds, right? Check it out.
2. From Prep School Daily - Prep School Daily: The Medicinal Uses of Spotted Knapweed - Here is more good information to add to your paper library for medicinal purposes. I don't recall seeing a picture of knapweed so you may wish to find another source to get the picture to add to the information.
3. Prepper Survive - 10 Doomsday Bread Recipes - Preppers Survive - Okay, I can do without the doomsday but I really like the thought of bread or ten types of bread. Throw on some homemade jam and jellies and we have a homerun.
4. From Macalister Anderson - Prepared for That - After and During a Natural Disaster - Prepared For That - Over the months and miles traveled doing preparedness with HFS I find most folks prefer talking about the doom and gloom of a manmade disaster. I bring up the most likely scenario will be a natural event such as a tornado, hurricane, ice storm, earthquake, fire and so forth. These are not as sexy as discussing the EMP, CME, or terrorist type event or manmade event. Ahh, the latter manmade events or more horrific and scary. Really? A disaster is just that, regardless of type. Until such event hits you and you lose everything, you will continue to see things this way.
5. From Kris Bordessa - Attainable Sustainable - Sweet & Savory Spiced Tomato Jam Recipe - Attainable Sustainable® (attainable-sustainable.net) - Even in the small garden I covered in last weeks PENL with two tomato plants, we had a large volume of tomatoes to find a purpose for. Personally my belief is one can never have enough jam and jelly stocked in reserves. (smile)
Other News –
1. From NC Renegade - American Partisan - B-52 Bombers On Saturday Were Ordered At The Last Moment To Not Attack Afghanistan’s Largest Air Force Base In Order To Destroy The Aircraft Based There | NC Renegades - This is very interesting. We may never know why the event was cancelled in reality. I just find it interesting in both Afghanistan and Iraq, we pull chalks to depart and before we are wheels up the enemy we fought for years is back in power and the people and nations we bled for, spent hundreds of billions of dollars on, and tried to help bring civility, turns out to be for what?
2. From John and Natalie Whitehead - The Rutherford Institute - The Rutherford Institute :: T Is for Tyranny: How Freedom Dies from A to Z | By John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead | - Another excellent article from the Whiteheads.
3. From Tyler Durden - Zero Hedge - The Afghanistan Exit Debacle: Incompetence, Distraction, Or Something More Sinister? | ZeroHedge - Is all the above a good answer? I was speaking to Festus the other day on this topic before the article posted and I do believe pretty strongly the current fiasco in Afghanistan was planned and part of a bigger plan. Not pointing any fingers but why would the US spend 20 years and nearly $3 trillion dollars to up and pull out unless it was part of a bigger deal. Like what? Did you realize the current estimate of natural resources in the Afghani earth is near $5 trillion dollars or higher? Oh, China is on the ground now already digging these resources up.
4. From Zachary Stieber - Epoch News - US Troops Carried Out Operation to Rescue 169 Americans in Kabul (theepochtimes.com) - These are the great stories I like to see and read about. One of my greatest memories from 20 years in the military was carrying a person to a helicopter to evacuate and the person could not speak English. I felt them reach over to my arm and touch the American flag on my sleeve and then smile. That makes it all worth it. Doing a good deed for another human being you do not know.
Drum roll...........
That's all my Patriot brothers and sisters.
Thanks for your continued support to HFS, your emails, messages, and prayers to the HFS family. We appreciate each of you.
Prayers - Please keep our great nation, our elected leaders, military and first responders in your thoughts and prayers. We pray for good health and wisdom. Please pray for our leadership to find answers and guidance to the problems facing our great nation. May your faith remain strong and answers to the unknown provided. God is good and may our prayers blanket and protect you and your circumstances. I pray for each, and every one of our Patriots.
May we pray for all the blessings and things in life to be thankful about and continued hope for revival around the world. We must continually pray for the unsaved, our family and friends who live each day without the protection for eternal life and salvation.
We have Patriots with personal prayer needs and/or family members with prayer needs as well.
Please pray for our Patriot brother in Northern Alabama who is suffering from Covid-19 and has been hospitalized over nearly a month. Thanks to everyone who continues to pray for him and his family.
Please keep our Patriot sister in Western, NC in our prayers for a complete recovery from health issues she suffered from over the past week. Prayers also to her husband and doctors going forward.
Please pray for our brothers and sisters in Western NC as they try to locate missing residents and then work to find homes and a place to shelter while the disaster cleanup occurs. This is a terrible situation for so many.
Please pray for Haiti and the people who against must suffer through post-disaster crime and corrupt government leadership that fails to protect the citizens.
We also must pray for the situation ongoing in Afghanistan. This topic has so many prayer needs.
As we have prayer needs for answers to health and family matters we also have prayers of thanks for recent health answers and recoveries.
We all must pray strong and often for the citizens of our great nation. Many of our sisters and brothers are struggling daily with things they witness, encounter, and are surprised with out of the norm. Many times we are in unchartered areas, however, we still must keep our faith and focus on the big picture. Our prayers and faithful strength together will be required often to battle the evils being thrown upon all of us minute by minute.
As Patriots we must stay strong and never give up. Our home, community and nation needs us now more than ever. Stay focused on your local community and things that will impact you around the nation. Don't allow the events around you to create fear in your life. Build your own self-reliance and focus on hope. Remember we are a blessed nation and we must continue to be great people today and make a better tomorrow. Keep charging."
Blessings,
Bravo Echo Out,
