Anyone who has paid any attention to the products coming out of Hollywood knows that they are the world’s greatest teachers. The experts in Hollywood can teach you anything they want you to know and convince you that they’re telling the truth. The only problem is, they have a horrible tendency to get their information wrong. In an attempt to make it look good for the silver screen, they tend to allow accuracy to go by the wayside.
This can be dangerous when people take what they see in movies and television shows too seriously. Yet, rather than taking the time to learn the truth, there are many people who assume that what they’ve seen in their favorite movie or TV show is true and follow that as if it were advice from an expert… only, it’s not. Often times, it’s the exact opposite.
I don’t claim to be an expert on Hollywood or even on making movies; I don’t even watch television all that often. On the other hand, I do know a thing or two about survival. At least, I know enough to spot many an error while I watch actors take on the world. Here are a few of them.
#1. Guns
Let’s face it, if there’s anything that Hollywood gets wrong, it is guns. From not understanding how they work to not understanding how to make best use of them; they mess up on a regular basis. Anyone who has watched anything with guns in it has probably seen just about every mistake you can make, from holding the gun wrong to shooting it wrong.
I hate to say it, but even Duke Wayne made a lot of mistakes with guns. I remember countless times when he snapped off a shot in such a way that there was no way he could have hit anything. Granted, he was supposedly shooting instinctively, but even then your barrel has to be pointed at the target, not up in the air, sending the bullet 20 feet over their heads.
I will have to say though, I would like to have one of those Hollywood guns that never misses and never runs out of ammunition. That’s for the good guys guns, that is; somehow the bad guys always seem to get the guns that never hit their target.
The other big thing that Hollywood gets wrong about guns is when you can legally use them. If any of us were to pull the antics the “heroes” in Hollywood do with a gun, you can be sure we’d end up in jail and there would be new cries for gun control. If you’re going to be using guns, even in a survival situation, you have to be cognizant of what the law allows and what it doesn’t. Otherwise, you’ll get a long vacation in sub-standard government housing, with some pretty seedy neighbors.
#2. Wearing Cotton Clothing
Cotton is one of the most common fibers used in clothing. T-shirts and blue jeans both use cotton extensively. But cotton is one of the worst fabrics to use for survival. In fact, if you want to survive, I’d suggest using just about anything but cotton or cotton-mixed clothing.
The basic problem is that cotton is highly absorbent, holding up to 27 times its weight in water. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about sweat from your body or water from falling in a stream;your cotton T-shirt and jeans will soak it up and hold onto it longer than just about any other fabric.
Why is that an issue? Because those wet clothes will draw a lot of heat out of your body, in order to cause the water to evaporate. That’s okay if it’s hot out, but as soon as the sun sets, you’re going to find that you need that heat. Leaving those wet clothes on will bring on hypothermia, the number one killer in the wild.
#3. Heavy Down Jackets
About the only thing that could be worse than cotton is a down ski jacket. All those feathers are great for soaking up water… lots of water. Filled with water like that, that pretty down ski jacket will cause you to lose body heat 300 times faster than if you were standing there naked!
Actually, the best fabric for keeping you warm in cold weather is wool. While a wool coat may not keep you as warm as that down jacket, it will retain half of its insulating value, even when soaking wet. It’s the only fabric that does. So if there’s any chance of you getting wet out there in the winter wonderland, you’re better off being dressed in wool.
Related: How to Make The Coolest Wool Boots Ever, Easily
#4. Hard Physical Work in Cold Weather
You don’t have to fall in the river to get wet; you can do it through your own sweat. There are many hypothermia cases every year, which come about from people working or even just hiking in cold weather. Physical activity causes our muscles to produce heat, keeping us warm. But when our bodies can’t shed that heat adequately enough, we perspire, providing a natural means of cooling.
Perspiration and cold weather are a bad combination, because once you stop working and your body begins to cool, that sweat can freeze against your skin. Once it freezes, it draws too much heat out of your body, cooling you too quickly and possibly leading to hypothermia.
There are two things to do to help avoid this. The first is to dress in layers, so that you can remove layers of clothing as needed, while you are working. Ideally, you want to be a bit cool when working outside in cold weather. That way, you won’t sweat. If you’re not cool, then there’s a risk of sweating; take off something so your body will cool without the perspiration.
The other thing to do is to pace yourself so that you aren’t overworking. This is different for different people, so don’t gauge yourself by others. Rather, find a good working pace for yourself and stick to it.
#5. Treating Hypothermia Lightly
Hollywood seems to think that people freezing to death is good drama, when in fact, it’s dangerous. As I’ve already said, hypothermia is the biggest killer in the wild. It isn’t something to be taken lightly. Yet we see scene after scene in movie after movie where people are out in cold weather, improperly dressed and quite probably in situations where the chances of hypothermia are extremely high.
It doesn’t stop there though. It’s not uncommon for actors to be doused in water, while filming winter scenes outdoors. Granted, they’ve got someplace warm to take that actor and warm them back up, but they’re taking an unnecessary risk.
One of the big names in TV survival shows actually got into a lot of hot water with his producer over this. They wanted to create a scene in one of their “reality shows” where they initiated hypothermia, so that he could show on camera how to overcome it. Without someone who knows what they are doing to recognize the signs of hypothermia and take care of him, he could have ended up dead in that situation. Once hypothermia sets in, many victims aren’t cognizant enough to rescue themselves.
Related: What You Really Need in Your SHTF First Aid Kit
#6. Starting a Fire Indoors
I don’t care if you’re talking about a home, a warehouse, a garage or a cave, starting a fire indoors is dangerous; yet we see it all the time. People are cold, so they light a fire in the abandoned building they’re hiding in.
Granted, our ancestors lit fires in their homes to keep warm, but they did it with proper preparation. Having a fireplace and chimney makes all the difference in the world. They prevent the fire from reaching flammable materials and even more importantly, they provide a place for the smoke to escape, so that it doesn’t asphyxiate the people who lit the fire.
Any fire requires good airflow, both into the building, room or cave and out of it through a chimney. Any temporary setup needs to take that into account. It’s not enough to stop the spread of the fire, you’ve got to have air to breathe.
#7. Starting Fires in General
So many shows make it seem easy to start a fire; yet as any of us know, starting a fire in the wild is challenging at the least. If it’s wet out, it’s a whole lot more than challenging. Yet if you look at your average movie, fire seems to spring from one match or flick of a lighter into a full blaze in seconds.
Why is this dangerous? Because it makes people think they can take care of themselves in a survival situation, without taking the time to learn how. Yet this is one of the most important survival skills there is.
Related: How to Get a Year Supply of Firewood for $10!
#8. Drinking Untreated Water
Once upon a time, I’m sure it was safe to drink from clear-running mountain streams. Yet that day is long gone. There is no water source I can think of in a survival situation, which I would call safe to drink. Any water source has to be purified, especially in a survival situation.
Sadly, this has come about due to carelessness on the part of those who have come before. When I was a young man, I could drink from Colorado mountain streams without any risk of disease. But no more. Too many people have used those streams as toilets, contaminating the water with bacteria that can cause serious problems. Yet Hollywood still shows people drinking from them, as if it wasn’t a problem.
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There’s even a great line that John Wayne said in “True Grit,” where he tells the Texas Ranger, Le Boeuf, “If I ever meet one of you Texas waddies who hasn’t drunk water from a muddy hoofprint, I think I’ll… I’ll shake their hand or buy them a Daniel Webster cigar.” I suppose if you’re desperate enough you might try it, but I sure wouldn’t recommend it.
#9. Eating Snow
There are countless times when I’ve seen people eating snow, when they needed water to drink. That seems almost logical, considering that snow is just frozen water. But if you try that in real life, chances are it will kill you.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing dangerous about a bite or two of snow, when you’re out enjoying fresh fallen snow. But that’s not the same as eating it for water, when you’re in a survival situation. While snow is water, it’s about one-tenth the volume of water. So to get one eight-ounce glass of water, you’ve got to eat a half-gallon of nice cold snow. That half-gallon of snow is right at 32°F, so it will sap a lot of heat out of your body, just trying to melt it and bring it up to body temperature.
If snow is your only source of water, you need to melt the snow in a pot, over a fire. Be sure to stir it while you’re doing so though, as melting snow can actually scald in those circumstances.
#10. Leaving Food Laying Around
You’ve probably seen this one without even realizing it. Some group of people is out in the wilderness and cooks their dinner over the campfire. Once they get done, people get tired and start dozing off, all the time leaving their food over that fire, which burns down.
If ever there was a way to attract a bear, this is it. Most species of bears will eat just about anything and cooking just makes the smell of that food travel farther. So if you’re trying to get a bear to come into camp, that’s a good plan. But you’d better be ready to deal with the bear, once it gets there.
If you don’t have airtight containers to store your food in or aren’t storing it in the trunk of your car, put it in a cloth or fishnet bag and hang it from a tree branch, at least 10 feet off the ground. That way, even if it does attract a bear, the bear shouldn’t be able to get your food. But when they come, it might be a good idea for you to use the moment of their being distracted by that food to make your own exit.
#11. Jumping from a Speeding Vehicle
Many times an action picture has someone jumping out of a fast-moving vehicle at some point in time. Seems like a great strategy if you’re ever kidnapped. That is, it’s a good strategy if you have the inflatable cushions to land on that stunt men use.
A vehicle doesn’t have to be moving very fast for it to be dangerous to jump out of it. Chances are you’ll either hit the door on the way out, hit a rock when you land or just hit hard ground that will scrape you up. On top of that, your forward momentum will make you roll down the road a ways, giving the road and rocks more chances to get at you.
If you feel that you absolutely have to jump out of a moving car sometime, then be sure to open the door as wide as you can and roll yourself in a ball, to minimize the chances of breaking a limb. Wait for a moment when the driver has to slow down, like when they’re going around a corner. The slower they are going, the better your chances will be.
Related: Bug Out Vehicles – Why Most People Get it Wrong
#12. Running Aimlessly When Lost
People do the craziest things in the movies, when they are lost. Most of the time, those actions will do nothing more than get you in more trouble, regardless of what you see in the movies. If you are lost, the best thing you can do is to sit down, calm down and formulate a plan to get out of trouble. Then you can move.
If you’ve done things properly, you should have told someone where you were going and when you would get back. That way, when you don’t return on time, they can let the authorities know and someone can start searching for you.
#13. Ignoring Warning Signs
This one is so common as to almost be a joke; actors in the movies invariably ignore danger signs, regardless of what they are. It’s amazing that any of them manage to survive.
If there’s a sign there, it’s there for a reason. Your situation may be serious enough that you decide that you’re going to have to ignore that sign anyway; but that should be a reasoned decision, where you measure the risks of going into that danger against the risks you are facing without going into it. If you do end up going in there, you’ll at least have an idea that you need to be extra careful. That might help you avoid some of the situations that those actors end up in.
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I can remember dipping a tin cup in a beautiful, clear stream, for a drink. Backpacking in the Sierras. MANY decades ago. It was safe and a true wilderness experience. God bless those experiences, for we will never have them again!
I remember doing the same in a stream in Wales. Half a mile upstream there was a dead decomposing sheep in the water. Lucky not to get sick.
“Always remember to drink upstream from the herd”…found in a collection of Baxter Black writings.
When our family was hiking the John Muir Trail in the high sierras of California in the 1950’s, we might go 2 or 3 days without seeing anyone. When we did, we stopped and asked about their trip, how the fishing was, etc, Nowadays it is only an hour or two. And yes, the water was good/OK in those days.
i´ve never had the privelege to drink out of a stream without risk of some god-awful disease,but i have had a few experiences that i´ll likely never have again, a couple years ago i was swimming in one of the few lakes we have here in arizona,i was near the bottom and ended up catching a fish with my knife (because i always keep one with me. even when swimming…..dont wanna take a risk) and that fish was the biggest catch that weekend, i was so proud of myself, man looking back on the good parts of the past is the best.
I was on outward bound in Tuolumne Meadows and we had to boil our water all the time – beavers are ALWAYS upsteam and they don’t exit the stream to excrete.
I grew with the rhyme, ” freshwater flows where watercress grows” and I never had any problems.
Believe it or not my dad was actually able to fire a hand gun like the stunt actors and not miss! Bear in mind he lived thru WWII! So he learned to hit his target to stay alive!
Know what you mean, my dad would hold his pistol to the back of his hand, then throw the gun against his trigger finger, he’d have one of us throw rocks of a target into the air, and he would hit it almost every time!! Never understood it!!!
WOW, Eddie!
Your dad was a ‘Crack shot’
!!♡♡!!
Ww2 taught him to stunt shoot ?.
As a kid, long, long ago and far far away, all of us kids used to drink from streams all the time. The urban legend of the day was that if it was fast moving water over rocks and was clear it was okay to drink. There is a little bit of science to that in that fast moving water over rocks is oxygenated which does reduce some bacteria by minuscule amounts. I don’t know if the water was clean (which I highly doubt) or we were lucky (which is more likely). It might also be that because we did it regularly, we developed a kind of immunity to what might have lurked in the water.
There is a school of thought that says the polio epidemics of the late 40s and 50s were caused by a sudden upsurge in chlorinated water in cities and because children drank clean water, they didn’t develop immunities that they previously had developed. I know it was after WWII that we switched over from the artesian well that was under the house to city water. Of course the artesian well wasn’t chlorinated. As far as I know, it was never even tested for anything harmful. I don’t think those tests were available to anyone other than government entities.
That school of thought started in WWII in Egypt. British soldiers stationed in Egypt were highly susceptible to polio. Native Egyptians, not so much. What’s up with that? Well, the Brits had grown up in a country where things were fairly sanitary. The Egyptians, not so much. The theory was they had developed an immunity by being exposed to the causative agent from childhood.
I can remember the polio epidemics and they were scary. We didn’t go to movies. We didn’t go to swimming pools. We didn’t go to church. We flat didn’t go anywhere that groups of people gathered.
Yet anti vaxxers will run rampant about how polio doesnt exist.
Eh if you watch any bear gryles expect to die
It does hardly exist due to — cover your eyes, dirty word — vaccination. The folks who rant about vaccines today don’t remember the days of scarlet fever and whooping cough, measles, diphtheria. and a whole host of other childhood diseases that swept in epidemics through the population.
I have a very dim recollection of cards being put on doors when I was very young that indicated that the house had someone with a contagious disease living there.
That’s the extent of my recollection. I did a short search about quarantine cards but could find no reference to same, so maybe my recollection is faulty.
If there is some sort of end of the world scenario, we will once again be visited by a whole host of debilitating diseases that now are almost non-existent.
I wonder what the anti-vaxxers have to say about the polio-like disease that was rampant this summer in the Midwest that left kids paralyzed. I guess it’s just hysteria on the part of the kids.
Yo, yes. Yeah, If anyone of a lot of now-preventable diseases were found in a family, they nailed a quarantine sign on the door. My parents generation lost a lot of school time to that, but because of cowpox https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/jenner-tests-smallpox-vaccine, they were considered immune. That, of course, was the only one. The USSR had developed strains of bacteria that feed exclusively on viral infections and many other bacteria, but it was dropped when penicillin and other treatments came along. Now they’re back at it because too abuse over the years led to diseases immune treatments. There have been measles outbreaks, again, and other things once thought dead. This is one big thing to watch for, because ecoterrorism is growing, and has allies in research labs where these diseases are still studied. niio
Wow, Red, sure know how to make a guy feel his age. Your parents remember the quarantine cards. That makes me old enough to be your father. Well, considering that my son is going to retire in January 2020 and my daughter two years later, I guess perhaps I am old enough to be your father. Kind of brings one up short when it hits you right between the eyes like that.
LLC: Bah, you’re too young to retire. Remember Oh, God, what Burns told Denver about the ages of Adam and Eve? 17. It’s the perfect age to be. Stay 17 and stay young at heart. The rest follows. Dad was born in 1917 and Mom 1927. Me, 1957 and still only 17 (pst! and holding!) Remember, there’s a lot of good places across the country if you want to escape kali-fornia. Arizona is a sovereign state, thanks to Gov. Brewer. It may not mean much if Hillary get elected (the prophecy says she would get back in), but there won’t be an America, anyway. Now, if only we could get rid of kali-fornia east, Tucson…niio, kid!
Quite a presumptuous statement, “Anti-Vaxxers will run rampant about how polio doesn’t exist”. I have yet to find one person on either side that would make such a claim. Wondering where you tend to source your information from?
Vaccinations then and now are juuuuust a tad different…in content, frequency, type, and timing.
Well, I don’t know. As a youngster, I had gotten a complete set of inoculations that were in vogue at that time. I got a complete set of whatever was extent at the time in June of 1955. In December, I was supposed to ship overseas and got another complete set.There wasn’t enough room on that overseas draft and I got bumped. In January, I was set for another overseas draft and got another complete set of inoculations for whatever inoculations were extent in that year. Three years later I was set for rotation back to the CONUS and in order to be processed out, I again got another complete set of whatever inoculations were extent. Although after my first set I protested that I had, within recent history, gotten a complete set of inoculations, my protests were overridden by, “The orders are everybody who is in category X gets them and you are in category X. Shut up and get in line/”
I had already been inoculated for smallpox when I was a youngster and got four more inoculations against that disease in a fairly short period of time. The last few didn’t even leave any indication of a scab. I supposed that I had been so inoculated against smallpox that it was almost impossible for me to contract the disease. Maybe I am wrong. One inoculation was supposed to provide a lifetime of protection against the dreaded disease. I’ve got at least four lifetimes protection — maybe five lifetimes.
I am not some kind of super person. I have had life-threatening illnesses several times in the 80+ years I have been on this planet. One would think if there were some sort of adverse reaction to innoculations, I would be the walking, talking advertisement for those adverse reactions. Certainly I was over inoculated during my tour with Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children but I never developed any adverse reaction to the over liberal administration of inoculations other than a red spot on my arm.
Of course, with over 300 million people in this country from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, my anecdotal experience proves absolutely nothing, just some food for thought.
It has long been my thought that with the rise in recreational drug use and the rise in purported adverse reactions to inoculations, there may be some link. Of course, with the huge push to legalize the use of recreational drugs, none of which have been really scientifically tested against accepted testing protocols but are relying mainly on anecdotal evidence, real scientific testing is not popular and therefore not funded, so we are still left to anecdotal testimony as to the effectiveness of recreational drugs without any testing to see what possible downsides there are to such.
Now for elderly folks with accepted terminal illnesses, I see no harm in them using whatever substances relieve their pain no matter what the “long term adverse effects” might be.
If my 87 year old mother is suffering from some disease entity that every medical person in the world agrees is terminal. There is no known cure And the pain from the disease entity is overpowering. I think she should be entitled to whatever medication will relieve that pain. I had a CO who used to say, “You don’t have to practice to be miserable. You can be perfectly miserable the very first time you try.”
In my opinion that was a very sage observation. I don’t care if my 87 year old mother gets a morphine habit. If it relieves her terminal pain, so what? She should be entitled shuck off this mortal shell in as much comfort as possible. Unlike some religions who believe that suffering terminal agony is the path to salvation, I don’t accept that tenant and with separation of church and state guaranteed in the Constitution, I am entitled to have her receive the medication that relieves her agony. I am not bound by the religious belief of some other person that agony is good for the soul.
Wow! I sure got off topic there with that lengthy diatribe. For those who feel offended by my lengthy discourse, I would remind you that there is always the delete key or the back to the previous screen key. If you found my lengthy discourse food for thought, well, I am happy that I prodded you to think about a difficult, contentious topic.
In my view, there is no correct answer. It is a subject that each of us needs to contemplate and reach the best decision we can based on our own individual circumstance.
Yes, good post. I never got the scab from the military or civvie smallpox vaccines, either. I had cowpox when a small kid from milking. Not a diatribe, but passing on info we need. niio
Right on, Chuck..
Sir, it’s amazing how much I learn from you. If you lived in the Arkansas River Valley I’d visit you often. Have you ever thought about writing a book or doing your own website? God bless you and yours…
RJ: Thank you for the kind words. They are really appreciated. I try to be informative. As for starting a new career, right now I am very busy taking care of my 80+ wife. I wish I lived in the Arkansas River Valley too rather than here on the left coast where I am a stranger in a strange world. Thanks again for the kind words.
LCC: Robert Heinlein applauds you. His were the first ‘survival’ books I had read to me as a pre-schooler..Keep posting, we need your wisdom. My very best to you and your lady. niio
Don’t ride like they do in the movies, you’ll kill your horse. In fact one of the stupidest things I’ve seen in the movies was Russel Crowe leading his cavalry in a charge through a forest. That Maximus was rocking wolf fur before the Starks did is great, and the music is inspiring, but the tactics are terrible as the trees would, in real life, disperse his troops and make the charge ineffective. Worse, I can say from experience that if you go galloping horseback through the woods you need to keep your butt up slightly off the saddle and your head lower than your horse’s head because the goofy critter will find every low tree branch possible and you will be lucky to lose only your hat. And horses ain’t particularly smart, I’ve seen them run head on into trees.
I’m another who drank from clear running creeks out in the country, I don’t even drink tap water now.
I’m amazed I have lived a long life out of doors and am still alive since I never wear anything but cotton.
Horses are like that. I got a knee smashed into a fence post by one.
And, on water, how old were you? Younger means you can throw off things faster, or force them to hide. Native Americans always made filters, and whenever possible, boiled water before drinking. This is a major why tobacco became popular so fast, it kills internal parasites when taken internally. Tobacco seed and leaf has been found in Alaska north of the Aleutians and the Teirra del Fuego, neither area has a season long enough to raise it. I mentioned to a friend in Mexico years aback about drinking tap water. We were in a rural area, a nice village that was being modernized. He frowned and said you must never do that again. What of hepatitis and many vile things.” Then he made me drink a lot of tequila to stave off the ill effects of drinking tap water without boiling. 12 hours later, I got up off the floor, folded the quilt, and had breakfast. His wife put a lot of salsa picante on basted eggs, “To look like your eyes.” I do not drink like that, but have never turned down a sol con clamato…You know, the neighbor’s limes are getting ripe, and there are plenty of tomatoes in his garden, too, and then there’s his hound and that damnable shotgun…Mebbe if I helped his set up a small still…Then there’s the other neighbors with blue agave in the yard…and shotguns. niio
I don’t recall anyone claiming water was safe, ever. The ancestors made filters of moss or plant fibers to filter out bugs, dirt. Feces are common in water, always because Bambi, Thumper, and Stinky haven’t a clue about water safety. We use an old fountain as a bird bath, and one thing it needs is cleaning almost every day. Bird crap, of course, makes a good fertilizer. We have clor tabs and other means to sterilize water. Use them. A lot of people got tape worms and worse from drinking out of a stream or unfiltered water off the roof.
Snow: A bite or two and them warm it in the mouth, then go till your mouth is warm again before taking more, and for the love o’ mike, STAY AWAY FROM THE YELLOW SNOW! It’s not lemon flavored. niio
I notice that “Duke” has his booger hook in the trigger guard of that Winchester he is holding. Perhaps he is going to shoot geese or ducks with his thuty-thuty. And do it without looking too. Man, I have a hard enough time hitting ’em with a shotgun when I am staring at their beady little eyes.
Who cares if he has his finger on the trigger….its a picture you have a 99 percent chance of not getting shot by a picture…..
The modern technique of keeping the finger off the trigger until actually shooting stems from the beginning of the Glock pistol era. Prior to that, having the finger resting on the trigger was normal practice. I have nothing against Glocks(have a few myself) but one should always take into consideration what was common practice for the time period depicted.
I have to disagree there. When my grandfather taught me to shoot, long before Glocks existed, he made sure I knew to keep my finger off the trigger until I was taking aim. It’s definitely relevant if you’re talking about the Glock’s lack of a safety catch, but it’s not like it’s the first gun that doesn’t have one. Most revolvers don’t, for example. Neither does the Henry rifle or any flintlock or percussion muzzle loader.
I have to agree with you, Claude. While the rumor that the Marine Corps was using muzzle loaders during my tour with them is false, if we had our finger in the trigger guard at an inappropriate time, the range officer who was always a very senior CWO would not be bashful about pointing out our faux pas only those weren’t the words he generally used to describe what apparently was a crime against nature. That was long before Gaston Glock was even dreaming about his revolutionary firearm. That was back in the day when guns were steel and real wood and fired man-sized bullets and bayonets were considered a necessary accoutrement for combat.
LCC: Sergeants are such loving and gentle critters, for rabid grizzly bears. I got on well with mine, after having a boot or two removed from a sensitive part of the anatomy. I had an in most didn’t, Dad was a sergeant in WWII, and all those uncles, as well, from WWII to Vietnam. Number One priority of trainers is, teach you how to survive and not be a statistic. That was priority A, no matter how they seemed to be evil (Hell Week, wow!). Like one told me, We want you to come home and suffer with the rest of us. Good men and women, all. Without respect, there is no love. niio
Same here. I learned on an old single shot .22 and if Dad caught any of us, even the girls, ‘hanging on the trigger’ we got a very severe, your sergeant is God look. If you did it again, you got your knuckles cracked. Since they began to use it, that guard has saved a lot of lives from friendly fire. niio
While he is holding a Winchester lever action rifle/carbine, it is not a .30-30. It is a Model 92 which was never made in that caliber. It never ceases to amaze me that so many people think all lever actions are thirty-thirty caliber. Model 92 Winchesters are practically ubiquitous in the old ‘Westerns’ they came along too late for the days of the “frontier”.
History Nut: You are correct. According to Wikipedia the 92 was Wayne’s favorite shoulder weapon and he mostly used that model.
I’m going to defend The Duke. There are a number of movies, and True Grit is a fine example, in which John Wayne attacks a bowl of beans holding a big spoon in his fist, bends over the bowl, and starts to shoveling! That is perfect technique, my Sweety marvels when I eat like that, especially if we’re in public, although I guess from her point of view it is a survival behavior that could get me killed. By Sweety of course.
Mike: that rocks!
Absolute worst way to shoot a handgun, hold it flat with your thumb pointing at the ground like the gang bangers do.good luck hitting any thing other than air.
Sorry guys but I have eaten snow and untreated water a loot and unbelievable I am still alive
We used to make snow ice cream but then the H bomb tests started and they told us not to eat any more snow because of the fallout.
When we were sugaring in the maple brush, we would make snow candy by trickling the boiling sap in snow. Boiled syrup with lemon, apple cider, and so on, too. It was never the same doing it in town. Thank God for competent dentists 🙂 niio
Alinuc, me, too, but thank God I never caught anything like giardiasis or tape worms.And, when in Mexico, I drink the water–only when in rural areas and from wells or springs. If there’s a lot of animal life, no, then not. Old-timers reverenced copper and brass, using it for pots and cups, because it’s toxic to bacteria and (brass) to viruses. You, too, if you don’t keep it clean. One thing I always do in Mexico, is stock up on chew before going. Odd thing, because Mexico is where people first chewed it. Same when a stomach virus flares. A little goes a long way. When the dog starts to get wormy (he never met a rodent he didn’t want to invite to dinner) one old copper penny in his water for a few days. Unless he starts stealing cigarette butts, which is often how I know he’s wormy. Ranchers use copper in salt because it can knock out even tape worms and liver flukes, neither of which respond well to chemicals. niio
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I don’t know how to stop getting emails except to stop posting. niio
Wait a minute. What about that infamous perpetual soup you leave simmering over the campfire 24/7? Who cares about bears just keep cooking it. This article is reaching for things to talk about. I think common sense kicks in with most of this. And I will repeat what I said in the perpetual soup article, ain’t gonna do it.
Nah, we grew up on it. It’s not permanent. When you harvest and on round up, everyone works. It’s too much trouble to stop and cook 3 meals a day. The last thing Ma wanted after a jolly day castrating calves or bent over picking spuds was to cook. At the longest, the stew would go on for a week with something new added every day near noon to be ready for supper. Then while we ate, half of us would fall asleep at the table. 🙂 Until dessert, anyway. niio
You add the bear to the pot if one shows up. I haven’t done any kind of a survey, but I suspect if the pot is on an open fire, albeit a small one, the bear may snuff around it but won’t go near the fire. Don’t have any firsthand extensive experience in that regard, but knowing how animals are around fire, my suspicion is the bear would leave it alone. Be advised, sometimes my suspicions have proven false.
Hemingway, in his letters, says one method of hunting Grizzlies was to drag a dead horse up into the mountains, open it up and build a fire inside it, that the cooking meat smell was a great lure. I do most of my camping in the Texas hill country now where black bears are very few and very far between, but you have to absolutely secure every scrap of food in a container with a strong latch or risk having cute little raccoons run off with it.
My Sweety grew up in East L.A., when I met her she was singing in a blues band, living the nightlife, the most Urban child I could imagine, but on one of the two times she had ever been camping she had already been attacked by a black bear. Go figure.
Mike: the stench alone from rotting meat would draw a bear. I never thought much of Hemingway or his writing 🙂 No animal will willingly do to a fire unless trained to, like a dog will or a cat. Or a coyote raised in town. They will, when they smell a barbecue.
Bears in the hills, javalina and coyotes in the brush. It doesn’t matter where we wind up, there are no Elysian Fields. That suits me.
Do you know a sacred person? Not a plastic shamen, but the real thing. Donno if it would interest your babe, but if she’s into healing, black bear is Healer. the old-timers say it’s a call from Healer, just a ‘gentle’ nudge, a reminder.
When my uncles and father came home from WWII, my grandmother would draw the pain out and listen. It would end with, “If God wanted us bored to tears, we’d all still be in Eden.” niio
Apparently Pooh Bear is attracted to Sweet(y’s)s
Polio Hoax
Perhaps you’ve seen those fierce trolling vaccine shills pop into comment sections of articles that report truthfully on vaccines. They often talk about vaccine merits that heavily outweigh any risks from adverse effects that they don’t even believe actually exist. Though by now everyone should at least know there are risks to vaccinations.
A common argument used to throw people off is that polio was eradicated by vaccinating entire populations with polio vaccines. You may think for a moment that it’s a valid argument, one which you cannot counter. But that’s simply not true.
You may want to strengthen your own anti-vaccination resolve or fortify your arguments by printing and using several quotes from real physicians, scientists, and other medical professionals commenting on vaccine failure in the Vaccines Uncensored site. Most of these kinds of sites are attacked in various ways, but offer some insightful information.
‘The Change the Name Game’
The disappearance of iron lungs, those huge devices resembling miniature, individually customized decompression chambers in which polio victims were placed to help them breathe, has led most to believe the problem of polio is over. But the iron lung has merely been replaced with another, much smaller portable medical device known as the ventilator. Ventilators are used now to help those stricken with any form of breathing restrictions, whether from completely congested lungs, polio, or other paralysis that makes it impossible to breathe normally.
According to Dr. Suzanne Humphries M.D., shortly after 1955, a cover-up was created to hide the fact that the polio vaccine was even spreading polio. Dr. Humphries went on to explain how a deadly live polio virus strain had infected the Salk vaccines and created an epidemic of polio-type diseases labeled aseptic meningitis or Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP). The term AFP includes Guillain-Barre’ syndrome aka “French Polio”, traumatic neuritis, Reye’s syndrome, enteroviral encephalitis, transverse myelitis, and poliomyelitis.
Dr. Humphries displayed a graph in her article showing how reports of polio leveled out while AFP cases continually soared since the mid-1990s, demonstrating that polio has not disappeared.
Dr. Lorraine Day, who healed herself from cancer naturally, away from mainstream medicine’s harsh interventions after she was “sent home to die”, also explained that vaccines don’t work in a video interview you can view here.
Related Read: Saying ‘No’ to Vaccines – Your Rights
After polio vaccinations had begun, polio was assigned different names to hide the vaccines’ ineffectiveness. Dr. Day asserts that 80 to 100 percent of polio cases were created by the vaccine itself. But few knew this because the name was changed to aseptic meningitis.
Polio peaked in the early 1950s and was on its way out prior to the introduction of the Salk polio vaccine.
Then came the oral polio vaccine (OPV) invented by Albert Sabin using attenuated live viruses. This was designed to create “viral shedding” from those vaccinated to those not vaccinated, thus immunizing them also.
Nice theory, but the reality was live viruses contained in OPVs tended to recombine and mutate into a fourth, more virulent wild virus polio strain. There have even been cases in the United States where parents were stricken with polio from OPV viruses while changing their vaccinated babies’ diapers.
The dangerous oral polio vaccines were eventually banned in America and other industrialized nations, but the vaccine manufacturers managed to push them off to third world countries that not only paid for them, but agreed to enforce the OPVs on their populations.
A Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation program in India was promoted as “The Last Mile: Eradicating Polio in India.” The promotional video displayed numbers showing thousands of cases of polio in India decades ago, with the number of cases dropping to 42 by 2010.
But those wild polio virus stats have been traded for vaccine induced polio cases with a different name, non-polio acute flaccid paralysis (NPAFP).
Again, simply change the name of a disease and it disappears while another one appears with the same symptoms! Great for the vaccine industry’s PR campaigns to sell their junk to third world and developing nations.
In case you’re wondering why the mainstream media helps the pharmaceutical industry hide this dirt, realize the media protects the status-quo as well as its large source of advertising revenue from the pharmaceutical industry.