In every career or personal journey, there are some essential fundamentals that underlay and inform almost all decisions and actions faced by an individual in that field.
For instance, the medical profession has the Hippocratic Oath and Police Officers “Serve and Protect”. For others, the skills and knowledge of personal safety are at the very core of their work. Virtually all undertakings grow out of very definable roots.
In my assigned career as an intelligence operative, without question, full-spectrum survival is the most rudimentary skill set and knowledge base for any of us whoever launched oTn a special mission.
The knowledge, training, tools and experience of the entire realm of survival is essential in my life – to preserve my life. Therefore, it is critical to be able to recognize BS when you hear/see/read it. I call BS to a lot of the survival books, shows, articles and even government publications on the market right now.
In my training, I have had to undergo oxygen deprivation (hypoxia), dehydration, starvation, sleep deprivation, hypo and hyperthermia, induced chronic diarrhea, re-hydration sickness, countless forms of torture and many other practical training and experiential exercises. Here is what I know from my training and from painful personal experience:
1. You cannot go without air for three minutes.
2. You cannot go without water for three days.
3. You dang sure cannot go without food for three weeks.
Here is the truth: In medical theory, those are the extremes that healthy adults can tolerate just before dying.
Here are some real-world examples for you to try out yourself.
1. Hold your breath; at about the two-minute mark, calculate the loan maturity date on a principal of $130,000 amortized at 6% with monthly payments of $425.
Why? Because whatever situation caused you to be going without air/oxygen for two minutes is going to require some strained brain power to resolve it before you die in the next minute.
2. Try going one full day without liquids/water and then run a marathon on the next day. Sound like fun? Let’s kick it up a notch. Go two days without water before your run.
Chances are that whatever happened to prevent you from drinking water for 24- 48 hours is going to require a rather huge expenditure of energy to solve the problem. And, by the way, it takes 24 hours before any fluid intake begins to correct dehydration.
3. Fast for one week and then hump a 35-pound pack up a 3,000-foot heavily wooded hillside at double time. Next, try it after two weeks without food.
Even if you have only had to go a couple of days without food, the work you are likely to have to perform to get food will require copious amounts of strength and energy.
Do not take advice from folks who have reduced survival to an academic concept. Do yourself the greatest favor by thinking for yourself and avoiding “survival pundits.” Test your gear and test yourself as often as you can.
