Editor’s EDC Gear Overhaul – New Year, New Me

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Photos by Patrick McCarthy

It’s a new year, and a new decade. A time to reflect on successes, shortcomings and what we learned from each. Over the last month or so, I have made some significant changes to my EDC loadout – in some cases, ditching or altering gear that I have been using for most of the last decade. I figured that maybe some of the lessons I’ve learned, and the logic behind my changes, might be useful to some of you. So, without further ado, here’s what I’ll be carrying into the new decade…

Watch

Old: Casio G-Shock

New: Same watch, upgraded

Lessons Learned: I saw no need to get a new watch. This particular G-Shock survived 13 deployments to Afghanistan with me as a Private Military Contractor. It has a stopwatch, dual-time-zone function, military time and backlight. That’s pretty much everything I need a watch to do. However, I did bulk it up a little bit with two accessories.

The first is a Suunto Clipper compass. This traditional button compass is a clip-on, no-frills accessory that does…well…compass things. I have always been directionally challenged. (Veterans: insert your favorite jokes about Lieutenants and LandNav) And since my watch does not have a built-in GPS function, I figured I should at least have a way — besides the sun — to orient on the cardinal directions.

The other is the A-K Band, by Gearward. The Anti-Kidnapping band is a length of bike tire innertube that slides over your watch band to conceal a few key escape and evasion tools, which are included as a package. Specifically, a plastic handcuff key, a length of Kevlar line, and a ceramic razorblade. These tools, combined, give you methods to overcome the three most common restraints: handcuffs, zip ties and duct tape. The A-K band is far from invisible, but it’s more discreet than a paracord bracelet.

Fixed Blade

Old: None

New: JB Knife & Tool Ditch Pik

Lessons Learned: I’ve wanted to carry a small fixed blade for self-defense for years. I’ve tried several, none lasting more than a week or two before being put in the spare gear box in the garage. My two top priorities are a double-edged blade and a grip shape that facilitates both point up (saber) and point down (ice pick) grips. Nothing I came across seemed to do what I wanted while still being comfortable to carry – until I found JB Knife & Tool. Their fixed-blade collaboration with OFFGRID alumni Ed Calderon has turned out to be my Goldilocks knife. It’s slim, lightweight, razor sharp on both edges and comes with a kydex sheath that can be configured for multiple modes of carry. The one you see here was recently “proofed” in one of Ed’s Organic Medium classes, wherein I was able to repeatedly sink this blade into a pig torso wrapped in Level IIIA soft body armor, with no issues except a small ding in the tip and a little discoloration. (Both of which will be remedied shortly.)

Light

Old: SureFire EDCL1-T

New: SureFire G2X LE with Thyrm Switchback ring

Note: The G2X LE and Switchback (pictured above) hadn't arrived at the time our pictures were taken. As a result, the old EDCL1-T is shown in our photos throughout this article.

Lessons Learned: The EDCL1-T is an awesome, dual output single-cell carry light with built-in pocket clip. Output is 500 lumens on high, 5 on low. Refer to our previous review of the light for more info on it. The only gripe I have with this light is the switching. This features SureFire’s “tactical” tail cap arrangement: press halfway for low, press all the way down for high, twist down for constant on. As much as I like the L1-T it seems I could never find that pressure sweet spot to get low mode on quickly. More often than not I end up blinding myself with a blast of high output before easing my thumb off just enough to get low. For this reason, I have always been a huge fan of “clicky” tail caps, which are standard on the G2X line.

The G2X button is press halfway for momentary, press fully for a hard click constant-on. The “LE” version is setup to offer high-output on first click for emergency use. To reach low mode, click off and back on in less than 2 seconds. (The G2X Pro runs the opposite, with low mode being the first output.) I prefer having high-output on tap, which drew me to the LE variant. I also added a Thyrm Switchback 2.0, which allows use of the light while maintaining a two-handed grip on a pistol – much more difficult to do with a traditional pocket clip. The 2.0 update of the Switchback includes a break-away feature which allows the ring to open up and free itself, as opposed to breaking your finger in a grappling match.

Pistol

Old: Gen 3 Glock 19, modified by TMT Tactical (above left)

New: Gen 3 Glock 19, modified by Sonoran Defense and Southwest Precision (above right)

My previous EDC Glock 19 build has served me well for many years.

Lessons Learned: Our TMT Glock has served a stellar career as an EDC pistol that ran through countless range sessions, multiple thousand-round classes and any other pistol-centric event I’ve attended in the last decade. The modifications to the slide and grip were spec’ed out by me directly with TMT, to deliver exactly what I wanted: enhanced grip traction on the front and back straps with the sides left slick for comfort during AIWB carry. The slide includes textured areas at the front and rear to increase traction during manipulations, regardless of what grip or method is used to run the slide.

But as the years have gone on, two very significant features previously considered boutique have become commonplace on duty and defensive pistols. The first is miniature red dot sights. Long maligned as unreliable and slower to acquire at close range, developments in both technology and training have made these complaints all but fictitious in today’s pistol-slinging market. This slide, milled by Southwest Precision Arms and coated by P4 Coatings, included a cut to accommodate the Holosun 508T which features a 35 MOA ring around a 2 MOA dot for rapid sight picture at even across-the-table distances, as well as titanium housing for lightweight ruggedness.

The other feature is recoil reduction. This has come primarily in the form of thread-on compensators to divert exhaust gasses from the muzzle in such a way to reduce muzzle flip and felt recoil. There are dozens of these comps on the market in a variety of sizes, shapes and designs. But all add length to the gun, which could require a new holster or changing your method of carry. But Southwest Precision’s Shoot Flat ported barrel package offers aggressive recoil reduction without adding a millimeter of length to the pistol. The package includes this barrel, as well as a stainless steel guide rod and reduced-weight (13-pound) recoil spring for smoother functioning.

The frame work here is from Sonoran Defense, which actually uses lasers to texture frames. This is their Hybrid Atrox package which, again, features a more aggressive texture on the front and back straps with a less aggressive texture on the rest of the frame.

One thing I did not change was the trigger. I started out with an amazing trigger from Johnny Custom Glocks, which I have been running exclusively since about 2014. This trigger is so effective for me that I transplanted it from my TMT Glock into the new Sonoran/Southwest hybrid gun. You will notice that the triggers look different. This is because Johnny recently released flat-faced, branded trigger shoes. When it came time to move the trigger into the new gun, I had this shoe added in. But the internals were unaltered in the move — they were perfect (for me) as-is. While a Johnny Glocks trigger is one of the pricier options on the market, it might also be the last Glock trigger you ever have to buy. To us, it is an overwhelmingly worthwhile investment.

Holster

Old: T-Rex Arms Sidecar (above left)

New: LAS Concealment Ronin 3.0 (above right)

Lessons Learned: I have been, and will remain, a fan of appendix carry. It keeps my pistol close to center line, and my body type allows total concealment with a t-shirt. But the LAS Ronin’s design offers some superior design features – primarily the flexible joint between holster and spare mag pouch. This allows the holster to move with my body, making it more comfortable for longer wear. It also is molded to accept red dot optics and suppressor height sights out of the box. The steel belt clips are, admittedly, a bit of a pain to get off at the end of the day. But the flip side of that is the confidence of knowing once your holster is clipped in, it’s not going anywhere for any reason unless you make it.

Med Kit

Old: USPALM AFAK (above left)

New: Live The Creed Pocket IFAK (above right)

Lessons learned: The now-defunct USPALM was one of several companies producing a velcro-and-elastic trauma kit for wear around the ankle. This particular kit worked really well for me awhile. It offers a lot of carry capacity, but did require some wardrobe considerations. It’s not really any good with shorts, which makes it a hassle in Arizona summers. Also, it requires the use of taller, thicker socks than I normally wear. Your mileage may vary on these constrictions, depending on your natural wardrobe trends. But the ankle kit is also a little too bulky to transition well to off-body carry when I choose to do that.

My chosen replacement kit comes from Live The Creed. Their pocket IFAK is barely larger than my wallet, which makes it beautifully convenient to drop into the back pocket of my jeans, or in the admin pocket of a backpack or purse. However, you do lose some load capacity. For me, the biggest downside is not being able to carry a “hard” tourniquet (the CAT is my preferred). In its pre-loaded configuration, the LTC kit comes with a SWAT-T, which functions as both a tourniquet and pressure dressing. This dual-use potential maximizes utility while keeping bulk/weight to a minimum. But I still prefer a dedicated hard tourniquet, and have mitigated this by carrying one in my day pack. In higher-threat situations, a CAT or SOF-T can be carried horizontally on your belt with a rubber band. (I carried like this for several years while contracting overseas.) All in all though, the LTC pocket IFAK is a much leaner, more convenient way to carry trauma medical supplies and I suspect I’ll be sticking with it for the duration.

Accessories

Finally, I clipped two new accessories on my Tuff Writer carabiner/key ring. One is the Carbon Tactics TiSlice. This well-machined little chunk of titanium and brass is basically a miniature box cutter. This gives me a dedicated “household chores” blade to avoid dulling the blade on my Ditch Pik or defensive folder.

The other accessory is another Gearward gadget – the Ranger Bic lighter holder. The Ranger Bic is specifically designed to hold a mini-Bic lighter, inside a section of bike tire inner tube with a grommet at one end to attach a lanyard or key ring. When you insert the lighter top first, it offers a waterproof seal and the rubber material itself can be cut up and burned as tinder.

The ability to create fire on demand is a primary, immediate-need capability in both bushcraft and urban survival scenarios. While I usually carry a cigar lighter for recreational use, having a dedicated survival lighter, and built-in tinder in a package that dangles from my key ring is a key redundancy to have.

Well Informed: Things to Know Before Building a Well

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A fitness guru once said, “If you’re craving something and you don’t know what, it’s water. It’s always water.”

Indeed, water is our most basic human need, a resource that we’d only survive for three days without, so water availability naturally ranks high on wish lists of the self-reliant. Local governments have lobbied hard over the last decades to carry public water to even the most rural areas. As a result, 87 percent of the U.S. population has access to a public water supply, which explains why we never hear home seekers on those real estate-themed reality shows ask, “Does this place have water?”

If your chosen dwelling has access to a municipal water supply, an argument can be made for embracing that. The federal government regulates public water to ensure its quality against bacteria, heavy metals, and other contaminants, but when it comes to the purity of well water, the property owner is essentially on his or her own.

But 13-million homes in the U.S. still rely on wells, whether by necessity or choice. If you aren’t blessed with a spring or an idyllic mountain stream in your backyard and you desire to meet or supplement your family’s water needs without “city water,” then a well could be a viable option. Furthermore, with proper construction and regular monitoring of water quality, it’s entirely possible to have well water that’s as safe and reliable as your neighbors’ public supply.

Not all wells will require a storage tank, but it is an option.

“In some regions, there may be a large cost barrier for drilling a well, maintaining it, and treating the water,” explains Ryan Bushong, president and owner of Bushong Drilling LLC in Marysville, Ohio, and a fourth-generation driller. “For the most part, however, a complete private water well system will cost less to install than a private septic system, and the toughest barrier to overcome is the age-old stigma that well water is stinky, stains everything it contacts, tastes bad, and is unsafe.”

How Wells Work

A hand-cranked well is simple, but can be susceptible to contamination. Photo by Elizabeth Farris.

A portion of surface water will make its way deeper and deeper into the ground, eventually accumulating in the pores and fractures of a layer of soil and rock. This accumulated water is known as an aquifer, and aquifers can be classified as either confined — bound both above and below by impermeable layers — or unconfined.

Confined aquifers tend to be deeper than unconfined, and because the water can’t move directly down into them, it may enter from a considerable distance away. The water contained in a confined aquifer may be thousands of years old.

A well is simply a drilled or dug hole that intersects that aquifer, allowing the water to accumulate in the bottom of the hole to be carried to the surface as needed by a well bucket or a pumping system.

A forgotten well can be both a safety hazard and a source of groundwater contamination.

Depending on the depth of the well and the hydrogeology of the site, it may take hours or years for water to move from the surface into the aquifer. Therefore, a seasonal drought won’t necessarily impact the availability of water in the well, at least not immediately.

Generally, the closer to the surface the aquifer, the more the water will be influenced by surface conditions, such as pollution or climate. Unconfined aquifers are more prone to contamination from the surface, due to the limited buffer between what goes on above and what makes its way below.

Types of Wells

There are three types of wells that may be used in supplying water to a home: bored, driven, and drilled.

Bored or dug wells are what most of us past a certain age may remember from our childhoods. Imagine the picturesque, stone-lined wells with a bucket on a rope dangling at the top. These are typically only 10 to 30 feet deep, with a relatively large diameter. Again, because they tend to be accessing aquifers that are relatively close to the surface, this type of well is most directly impacted by surface activity.

Driven wells are the result of a pipe being driven 30 to 50 feet into the ground. This is usually done in areas with large deposits of sand or gravel, where the depth to the groundwater table is only 15 feet or less. As with bored wells, contamination from the surface is a moderate to high risk.

“Most people want a drilled well, so it’s drilled into bedrock with casing at the top,” explains John Jemison, an extension professor for soil and water quality at the University of Maine. “The well head sits up above the ground, and it has to be separated from the septic system.”

Drilled wells typically extend 500 feet or less, but modern drilling technology makes it possible to drill in excess of 1,000 feet.

Preliminary Steps

Bushong suggests a bit of homework for anyone contemplating a well, including requesting a database of historic well records for your area from your state’s department of natural resources. This will provide an idea of the quantity and quality of water, as well as average depth. This is also a good time to talk with neighbors, as their experiences with the process and with certain contractors can be invaluable.

“Be careful to ask others in the area how productive their wells are,” advises Jemison. “If your well recharge is less than a gallon a minute, you may need to install a cistern to hold water in times of greater use.”

In determining the placement of the well, the contractor’s expertise in the local hydrogeology will guide you toward the most reliable water. Beyond that, the goal is to avoid anything that could contaminate your water supply.

Vet any contractors and speak to previous clients to determine the quality of their work before hiring them.

“Well placement is usually done based on access, distance from septic systems, and drainage,” says Jemison. “You would not want to drill where water might sit around the well head.”

Distances can vary from region to region, but as an example, Texas law requires wells to be at least 50 feet from septic tanks, cisterns, non-potable water, and property lines; 100 feet from septic leach lines and drain fields; 150 feet from where fertilizer, pesticides, and animal feeds are stored and from pet and livestock yards; and 250 feet from any liquid waste disposal area.

During this fact-finding phase, consider any old wells on the property, which can provide a direct link from the surface to the aquifer, in addition to being hazardous to people, pets, and livestock. If old, unused wells are present, it would be wise to factor their decommissioning into the overall project cost.

Finally, a phone call to the local courthouse or reputable contractor can help determine what permits and other paperwork, such as a well completion report, may be applicable. The red tape can be confusing. Legal requirements vary from state to state and even across counties, so enlist someone in the know to help navigate. If a permit is needed in your situation, that’s likely to cost a few hundred dollars.

Construction

The website of the National Groundwater Association (NGWA), wellowner.org, has a contractor lookup feature, allowing users to pinpoint professionals based on location and certification.

“Contractors who are actively involved in their industry — and who undergo continuing education — are more likely to construct a well in compliance with industry standards and governmental regulations,” explains Bushong, “and more likely to construct for you a water well that can last a lifetime.”

He furthermore suggests that potential well owners seek a contractor who’s certified by NGWA and who’s licensed and/or registered and bonded through the appropriate state. Don’t be afraid to ask for references when seeking a contractor and speak with two or three customers about their experiences.

The process of constructing a well will include the actual drilling, followed by the installation of the casing, a steel or plastic tube that protects the borehole from contamination.

“In most areas with abundant water from precipitation,” says Jemison, “the key is getting a good seal — getting the casing fitted into the bedrock so that water can’t run right down the well head and drip into the well without getting adequately filtered. That’s the biggest issue I have found over time with new wells.”

The space between the casing and the sides of the drilled hole will be “grouted” with cement or bentonite. The depth of the casing and grouting will be determined by the geology of the site and/or by local or state law.

Finally, a watertight well cap can prevent contamination. Older types of well caps allowed insects to move inside, thereby transferring any bacteria or chemicals to which those bugs had been exposed. Modern well caps exclude that type of exposure and may be required by local ordinances.

In some instances, water flowing downward into a confined aquifer will create enough pressure to push water to the surface without the aid of a pump. This is known as a flowing artesian well. However, most water wells will require some type of pump, be it electric, solar, manual, or wind-powered.

A pump house is one way to both protect the investment and lessenliability.

Says Bushong, “Pump technology has come quite a long way in the last hundred years — from hand pumps to jet pumps to submersible pumps to variable frequency drive (VFD) pumps. The conventional pump systems of yesteryear could provide pressure varying between 30 and 50 psi, and later, between 40 and 60 psi. Today’s VFDs are constant pressure systems that can provide a constant 70 psi at every tap.”

When the well is up and running, a minimum flow rate of 6 gallons per hour (gpm) should be sufficient to meet the demands of most households. However, even with lower gpm, a plastic or concrete storage tank or cistern can ensure that water is available during peak demand.

Well construction costs alone will range from $2,500 to $8,000, not counting the pumping system and water treatment. According to Bushong, expect to invest an additional $2,500 to $4,500 on a pumping system and $1,800 to $4,900 on water treatment.

Keeping it Clean

The quality of well water isn’t static, but can be influenced by a number of factors. The hydrogeology of the area can certainly influence water quality, as can construction, agricultural, mining, and other surface activities near the well. The integrity of the well itself, as well as the condition of household plumbing can have negative impacts on water quality.

Yet, with all these variables that can lower drinking water purity, it’s estimated that 80 percent of wells have never had a maintenance inspection. Most well owners tend to fall into the rut of being reactive, addressing maintenance only when a problem is noted.

It’s important to handle samples according to the lab’s instructions.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency monitors the public drinking water supply via the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act, setting standards for biological and inorganic contaminants, but private wells are unregulated at the federal level. That means the well owner is solely responsible for ensuring the quality of his or her drinking water.

Testing for coliform bacteria should be conducted annually. Coliform bacteria isn’t harmful in and of itself, but it’s an indicator organism that can signal that surface water is moving into the well, and more serious bacteria such as E. coli could be present.

Every three years, the pH of the water should be checked, and a sample should be tested for total dissolved solids (TDS). Depending on observed water issues or surrounding land use, other testing may focus on lead, arsenic, copper, iron, manganese, nitrates, water hardness, sulfates, fluoride, iron, and sodium.

Well water testing through a land-grant university looks at several parameters of water quality.

Some land-grant universities offer formal well-owner education through their Cooperative Extension program. Texas A&M University, Pennsylvania State University, Montana State University, and Virginia Tech all offer programs that include classroom training on well construction and maintenance, as well as water testing. Water sampling may cost in the neighborhood of $300 through a private lab, but can run considerably less than $100 through one of these programs.

To find out if this type of outreach is available near you, do an internet search for “[your state] extension well water program,” or ask Cooperative Extension personnel who serve your county.

Specific Contamination Issues

  • Lead: Likely due to older plumbing; there’s no acceptable level.
  • Arsenic: Naturally occurring in some types of rock; linked to cancer, stomach pain, paralysis, blindness.
  • Copper: Blue-green staining; nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps; children and infants most susceptible.
  • Iron and manganese: Often occur together; reddish-brown staining; metallic taste; not usually a health concern.
  • Sodium: Salty taste; corrosion of plumbing.
  • Nitrate: Could indicate contamination by sewage, livestock manure, fertilizers; serious health threat to infants.
  • Hydrogen sulfide: Rotten egg smell; naturally present near coal or oil fields.
  • Fluoride: Naturally occurring, as well as added to public water supplies; long-term exposure linked to bone cancer.
  • Total dissolved solids: General indicator of water quality; sources may be either natural or man-made.
  • Hardness: High levels of calcium and magnesium; not a health risk; shortens lifespan of plumbing and fixtures.
  • pH: Mainly associated with the geology of site; general indicator of water quality.

Is Dowsing a Real Thing?

Dowsing or “water witching” is the process by which an individual walks across a parcel of land with a forked stick or bent wires in search of water. The claim is that, once the person walks over top of water, some form of subtle energy causes the stick to bend downward or the wires to cross.

The scientifically minded will argue that the practice is based on the outdated belief in underground rivers. The fact is that, in an area that receives sufficient rainfall, water will be encountered practically anywhere you dig, so the spot signaled by the water witch is no better or worse than a spot 100 feet away.

On the other hand, believers share stories of the almost supernatural success that their own dowsers had in finding just the right spot. See “Debunked” in RECOIL OFFGRID Issue 28 for more on this topic.

Conclusion

Constructing a water well is within the realm of possibility for most folks in the U.S., but it isn’t a do-it-yourself project, nor is it a drill-it-and-forget-it endeavor. It will take an investment and ongoing commitment, but the prize is the one thing that life on this planet needs the most.

Says Bushong, “Please understand, especially if you are a self-reliant type, you can own your own personal low-maintenance water plant on your own property for a reasonable cost that provides you and your family with water pressure and quality that meets or exceeds municipal water pressure and quality. Knowing this, why would anyone want to rely on a public water system when you can tap into Earth’s most precious resource right beneath you?”

Video: DIY Magazine-Fed Pump-Action Slingshot

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It's all too easy to think about survival weapons in terms of commercially-made items you can buy at a local gun store or hunting gear retailer. However, there may come a day when what you can buy is less important than what you can make. If you're able to use some ingenuity to build a tool for small-game hunting or even self-defense in your garage, you won't be dependent on store-bought consumables. German YouTuber Joerg Sprave is famous for creating many such weapons, especially DIY slingshots and bows.

We've previously written about some of Sprave's grin-inducing inventions, such as the full-auto crossbow he built based on a power drill. In his most recent video, he shows off a magazine-fed, pump-action slingshot he named the Instant Rufus after famed slingshot marksman Rufus Hussey. The Instant Rufus slingshot is an extremely cool device, and is designed to fire 12mm steel ball bearings in quick succession.

Clever touches like the magnetic feed mechanism, thumb trigger, and metal barrel appear to make this into a reliable and accurate weapon. Sprave says it also avoids legal issues because it's not classified as a firearm under Germany's weapon laws, but is instead part of the same category as blowguns. Although it's not as powerful as it could be given its short pump length, he says with a smile that it's “powerful enough” — after watching it in action, we'd definitely agree with this assessment. We want one.

Red Teaming Retrospective: Survival with an Adversarial Mindset

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Red teaming (sometimes abbreviated as just RT) can be described as executing an operation against a corporation or government entity to identify various gaps in their security policies. This could cover physical security, digital security, personnel/employee screening, and so on. The goal of a professional Red Team is to find as many shortcomings as possible so they can be brought to light and fixed before they can be exploited by a bad guy.

Taken down to the individual level, RT can also be used as a way to take an inward look into yourself to find a solution to an internal struggle you’re dealing with. Ultimately, anything and everything can be red teamed. It’s not all code, MultiCam, and tradecraft. It can be as simple as looking at an issue or situation and assessing it from various angles.

In this article, we focus on the mindset used by “red teamers.” When it comes to this way of thinking, it’s commonly referred to as the adversarial mindset — which is a fancy way of saying “think like a bad guy.” Now, why would the adversarial mindset be helpful to the average person? How can you filter this down to make it useful for the prepared citizen? If you approach your personal security (or PERSEC) not from your own perspective, but from the vantage point of a potential bad guy, you’ll be able to defend yourself, your family, and your property more effectively.

I’ll give you a simple example. Let’s say you’re thinking about installing a CCTV camera somewhere on your property. Where would you put it? Probably someplace that has the best view of the area you wish to monitor, right? But would you mount it at a height of 6 feet? No? Why not? Maybe because it would be easy for someone to reach and tamper with? That’s a good point. Congratulations, you just used the adversarial mindset. Now, how many other ways you can apply that same line of thinking to protect yourself either at home or in your workplace? The following are a couple of lessons that I’ve learned from red team assignments throughout my career. Hopefully they can provide a foundation for you to take a hard look at your routine and find some safety gaps to fill.

When I was asked to do this article, I was posed this initial question: “What are some of the lessons learned from your work on a red team?” My immediate response was “Lessons learned are simple; it’s really easy to park a car somewhere and blow it up. Everyone’s too busy looking at their phones to notice a guy park a Buick in the always-open handicapped spot and start walking across the street to another waiting car and take off.” Although accurate, this scenario was hypothetical. The rest of these events actually took place.

A Hardhat, a T-Shirt Transfer, and a Clipboard Can Get You Anywhere

Is this a legitimate utility company representative, or a fast-talking con man?

How often has a service provider or utility company employee knocked on your door unannounced to read a meter, check your internet cable, offer you a today-only discount on extermination services after a free on-the-spot assessment? How do you know they were actual employees with sincere intentions? Was it their attire? Or the plastic ID badge they had on? Was this enough for you to let them in your home? One of my favorite red team covers or MOs (modus operandi) is to pose as a utility worker. An MO is generally defined as “someone’s habits of working.”

What do you know about a utility worker’s MO? Probably not much, when you think about it. Just that they usually wear a hardhat and have a clipboard — both are cheap and very easy to obtain. Usually they have a shirt with “Electric Company” on it. Maybe a logo, which is also easily obtained off of the company’s website. With a quick trip to the local office supply store, I can print said logo onto transfer paper, and iron the name and logo onto a shirt. While working on an assignment, I was able to gain entry to the client’s office building while dressed as utility worker.

When I checked in with security, I provided a fake company ID and driver’s license. The guard attempted to scan the bar code on the back of the ID, which didn’t work. But I had already created a very convincing crack in the ID which explained the lack of scanning ability. I told him I had cracked it while attending a baseball game after sticking it into my pocket without a wallet. I also built in an ample amount of “aging” to my fake ID by lightly rubbing the freshly printed card on my blacktop driveway prior to deployment. The guard then entered my info manually, took my picture, and I was granted entry under the guise of “checking feeder line equipment.” Don’t know what that is? Neither did he.

The gist: Perception isn’t reality. As Ronald Reagan once said, “Trust, but verify.” If an unfamiliar or unannounced person comes to your home or place of business and wishes to be granted entry, you can be kind but cautious. Look at their attire and identification, then verify it. If you’re at your place of business, contact your security staff if you have one. Or, based on the person’s perceived business (utility worker, construction foreman, etc.), contact that specific department to see if they’re expecting anyone.

Ultimately, if a visitor is granted entry to your place of business, they should never be without an escort. If you’re at home, check their attire and identification (company issued and driver’s license). Make sure the names and pictures match and the license is local, then ask for their main office number so you can verify their identity. Before dialing the number, type it into Google to make sure it’s not a cell phone and that the number is prominently published on the company’s website. Never accept cell phones or unpublished numbers as a means of verification.

Above: Generic “Security” badges can be bought online. When paired with matching shirt and slacks, a false air of authority can ease most people’s suspicions. Don’t be afraid to question. 

Don’t take the “that’s my supervisor’s cell phone” excuse. Once you’re able to verify the person’s intent and identity, it’s still up to you if wish to grant them entry. If you’re a stay-at-home mother with children running around or napping in the next room, schedule an appointment when your spouse is home. Especially when there are two or more people requesting to enter your home, don’t put yourself in a situation behind closed doors where you’re outnumbered. And above all, trust your intuition.

Even if everything checks out and you have that “bad feeling” or the hairs on the back of your neck start to stand up, listen and dismiss the unannounced visitor(s). Remember, most companies advertise that their personnel are “background checked,” but there are many different types of background checks and they aren’t all created equal. Every bad guy who has ever lived has had a clean background at one time or another. A clear background means the person doesn’t have a known history of criminal activity, nothing more.

Tip: Check to see if your locale has “solicitation licenses.” Many areas have started requiring these for door-to-door salesmen and the like. They usually require a background check prior to issuance. In many cases, just asking if they have a solicitor’s license will cause them to leave. If they do, ask to see it and then call your local police department’s non-emergency number and ask them to verify the license, then check with business that they’re supposedly representing to verify their identity (just as I described above). Also see if your area has a “no-knock list.” This is something else that many locales have started using to cut down on the number of people going door to door unannounced. If your area has one, take steps to get your address on it.

A Backstory, a Smile, and the Fog of Legitimacy

During a job, I was asked by the client to measure the risk of the “ex-employee route” to see if I could gain entry to their facility while having a moderate understanding of what the business’s culture was like — their internal system for identification, access control, etc. They wanted to know if I could circumvent their physical security using only internal information about day-to-day operations — the kind of information any current or former employee would know. After taking some time to understand how the business functioned, I noticed that in many cases, associates who predominantly worked from home, or worked closely with clients, weren’t normally issued access badges since they weren’t coming into the office on a regular basis. That meant there was a good possibility that the security guards had no idea what some of these people looked like.

On top of that, in many cases the company’s internal employee directory system provided no individual photos either. So, if you were a remote employee who knew specific internal information, you’d be granted entry. I then chose an employee who worked on the opposite side of the country who was a “remote employee” as my cover and fabricated the remainder of the MO. I created a fake driver’s license from my cover’s home state (harder to identify since it’s not local and unfamiliar), memorized his employee ID number, and created a backstory about why I needed to be there.

When I approached the receptionist, I explained who I was (the cover’s name, an active employee); gave her my (fake) license; provided the employee ID number; explained that I was on vacation, a deal with a client was going south, and that I needed to access the LAN (local area network) to assist my team. I then off-handedly complained about my hotel’s Wi-Fi. Because I had a driver’s license with the correct name, as well as an employee ID number that was valid and matched the name in the employee directory, I was eventually granted entry. There was no picture available to provide verification and no one called the employee’s supervisor to verify my identity. Just a backstory, a smile, and the fog of legitimacy. They even offered to create an access badge for me so I could access that building, or any of the client’s other sites, going forward.

The gist: If someone wishes to gain access to your place of business and they present themselves as a fellow employee, that doesn’t mean they aren’t a former employee who has knowledge of internal information. Take all appropriate steps to verify their identity — a name and an employee ID number aren’t enough. A picture should be included in the verification process (and if it isn’t, you should take steps to have your business leadership implement a system that includes pictures). If you’re provided an unfamiliar or out-of-state license, a quick Google search of that state’s name followed by “driver’s license” should bring you to that state’s DMV or similar department. Then verify that it’s a current license type.

Also, be sure to utilize internal assets to verify the employee’s perceived identity. In the scenario above, if the receptionist had placed a call to the supervisor of the individual of which I assumed his identity, my cover would have been completely blown. Also, if your business utilizes an internal messaging system, check to see if that person is logged in. Also check to see if the individual has an out-of-office message on their email or internal phone number. In many business and corporate settings, it’s considered bad form to go on vacation without setting an out-of-office message on your voicemail and email.

Curiosity Killed the Katz

Let’s remove physical access from the picture altogether and focus on digital information security. Could you let someone in your home or workplace without even opening a door, or even giving them a key? Of course you can. Digital intrusion is the way of the future. If I can gain entry to your life without having to worry about creating an MO or spending large amounts of time on preplanning or reconnaissance, why wouldn’t I?

(Note: This isn’t my technique, I didn’t invent it, but I’ve used it and so have many others.) What if you found a memory card or USB stick laying on the ground in a public place or in the cafeteria in your office? Would you want to be the Good Samaritan and return it to the rightful owner? Would you maybe be curious about what’s on it? It’s the modern-day equivalent of finding a blank VHS tape. Let’s say curiosity, or your intentions of trying to find a “rightful owner,” get the best of you, and you insert the device into your computer. You know enough to know not to download or run any software or program files since that could install a virus.

When you open up the device on your computer, it only looks to be pictures and video files. You commence to opening the pictures and they open just fine. But you’re not installing anything, right? Wrong! The pictures had malicious code in them and they’re creating a “back door” for me to access your computer. Ah, but you have virus protection software and a whole gaggle of cyber-security software that’ll protect you. Maybe. Or maybe not, since there are plenty of ways to subvert these applications and malware designers are constantly evolving and updating their code. The news showcases examples of this on prime time what seems to be almost monthly. So, if I gain entry to your home or office computer, what do I have access to? Think about what’s stored on those computers and what could be done with that information. All because you looked at a picture.

The gist: Be just as suspect of things that you plug into a computer as you would of people who you grant entry into your home or place of business. No amount of curiosity should supersede your goals of maintaining your personal or professional INFOSEC (information security). If trusted friends or family give you a memory stick to copy family photos, then you’re most likely safe, just be sure your virus and digital security software are up to date. Beyond that, only use memory sticks that you’ve purchased yourself from a trusted source, and ensure they’re unopened and show no signs of tampering. Never use USB devices that are sent through the mail for promotional purposes. Promotional material is very easy to fake and doesn’t even have to be sent through the mail, it can be easily placed in your mailbox while you’re at work.

There are several examples of this being successfully executed across the globe. In 2017, a major U.S. insurance provider created the perfect opportunity for this attack to be launched on a large scale, but luckily no one, to my knowledge, exploited it. Someone thought it would be a good idea to provide USB devices in a mailer that would give you information on the services you could expect from their insurance company. Because of the sheer number of these that were mailed out and the very real danger that it posed, INFOSEC professionals and digitally savvy civilians alike took to the internet to scold this prominent insurance provider of their clear violation of what should be common sense protocols.

Perhaps the most famous use of the technique was discovered in 2010, allegedly part of a multinational cyber-warfare initiative. The Iranian nuclear program was disrupted after a sophisticated malware known as Stuxnet targeted its uranium enrichment centrifuges, causing them to fail to produce usable nuclear material. Analysts believe the malware was covertly introduced to those secure facilities on infected USB sticks.

If you didn’t buy it, it didn’t come from a trusted source, or has been exposed to the general public out of your control (left at a coffee shop or received in the mail from your new insurance provider) consider the device compromised and destroy it. It’s not worth the risk.

Conclusion

Utilizing the adversarial mindset in your everyday life comes down to applying a few different “lenses” to your outlook: observing what’s happening around you, thinking about how actions or decisions could be exploited by those with ill intent, being kind but cautious when dealing with people you don’t know, and the old adage of “trust but verify.” Every day, we go to work and are posed with problems that we are tasked with solving. The adversarial mindset allows you to be proactive, troubleshooting the problems before they arise so you, your family, and your workplace can be as safe as possible. Never forget to think like a bad guy.

Review: Elk Mountain Tent – An Extended-Duration Shelter

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Finding shelter is not only vital to one's survival, it's also vital for peace of mind. Be it for hunting, recreation, or in a survival situation, having a good tent that’s easy to set up makes life easier. If you plan on living out of a tent for an extended period of time, having a comfortable, safe place to unwind and relax at the end of the day is crucial. It’s also ideal to have plenty of space for fellow travelers and gear, rather than returning to a cramped shelter at the end of a long day. There are plenty of manufacturers of large canvas tents on the market, but Elk Mountain Tents decided to do things a little differently.

Whether the primary use for the tent is hunting, camping with family, or as an emergency shelter, these tents offer a roomy space to keep your family and gear out of the elements. We decided to check out an assortment of items from Elk Mountain’s shelter lineup, evaluating first-time setup and long-term viability. This included the following items:

An example of how much you can do inside one of these tents — interior decorator not included.

Each tent includes the canvas structure with storage bag, frame angle kit with its own storage bag, wire support system, fiberglass stove pipe jack with cover, eave ropes and tensioners, and eight 18-inch steel stakes. Elk Mountain sells the frame poles and floor separately, which is nice if you have a specific need for the tent, or if you’d rather build your own frame or omit the floor kit to save some cash. We also picked up an optional large canvas storage bag, which is easier to pack the tent into than the compact bag it arrived in.

All packed up, the tent takes up very little room and weighs around 125 pounds total.

So, let's take a look at this tent to see what makes it stand out.

Elk Mountain Tent Materials

Before setting up the tent for the first time, it's a good idea to get acquainted with all the components.

As opposed to traditional cotton canvas, Elk Mountain Tents are made from a polyester synthetic that closely resembles a cotton-blend fabric. This solves several issues present with cotton tents. First, there's no need to weather it before use. This usually requires leaving a new cotton tent out in the rain or soaking it with water and letting it dry, then repeating the process several times to make it waterproof. The second major issue with cotton tents is mildew. Storing a damp cotton tent is not advisable and will quickly ruin a rather expensive tent. The one benefit that cotton offers over polyester is its breathability, not only to let air in but also to help prevent condensation. To address this, Elk Mountain Tents uses a proprietary blend of polyester fibers that are designed to prevent condensation build up.

These tents can be used with or without an Elk Mountain metal frame. The tent comes with the necessary angle kit corner pieces for the frame. These pieces have wing bolts integrated into them to tighten down on the conduit pipes after assembly. To complete the frame, a list of lengths of 3/4″ EMT conduit is provided. You’ll need to buy and cut this material before building the shelter.

The frame locks into the included corner pieces with wing bolts to help with rigidity.

Alternatively, Elk Mountain offers a full frame kit for purchase. The nice thing about this frame kit is that the poles come with pole clips installed inside them to enable the frame to snap together, making assembly by yourself a breeze. It took us about 45 minutes to assemble the frame the first time. However, much of that time was spent trying to figure out which pieces went where — a common process with any new tent. We are confident we could get that time down to around 20 minutes.

Optional Accessories

Along with the tents and frame kits, Elk Mountain Tents offers a selection of accessories for purchase. These include a rubberized PVC floor kit that ties into the base of the frame. You may be asking yourself, how can a tent come without a floor? Well, having no integrated floor makes assembly much easier, saves on cost of the tent itself, and allows you to remove the floor and wash it separately. Other accessories include storage bags, stoves, tent flies, and other upgraded equipment.

Initial Assembly

It is essential with any piece of equipment to familiarize yourself with it before you intend on actually using it. With that in mind, we decided to do a dry run and assemble the tent before our first trip in it. This was a wise choice, because it took some time to figure it all out.

The directions that came with the tent were not very well written or descriptive. So, after taking inventory of the components, we began assembly by laying out the floor pieces. We then built the individual rafters and assembled them into the roof of the tent.

We assembled the base of the frame first, then the rafters, and finally connected them with the six side poles.

Before lifting the roof up and installing the side poles, we connected all of the tensioning cables from one side to the other. This stiffens up the whole tent overall and helps it keep its shape. Finally, we lifted the roof up and inserted the side poles into the floor frame and roof.

The cable tension system in the ridge of the frame keeps the frame square and secure.

Once the frame was fully assembled, we grabbed a helper and laid the canvas over the frame. This was a challenging task as the canvas weighs roughly 50 pounds and was quite unwieldy. We’re sure it would be a real struggle if the wind picked up. However, you probably won’t be alone if you’re setting up a tent this large — make use of all those helping hands.

Extra material creates eaves over the walls to prevent water from running down the side of the tent.

With the canvas fully draped over the frame, which was done with the poles on one side removed for ease of placement, we adjusted the canvas to fit properly. Then the corner and side tie straps were tied around the frame. To finish it off, the tie-downs were staked into the ground and pulled taut.

Once it was all set up and secured, the tent was very stable. This was a good feeling knowing that our potential home for an extended period of time would not be blown down by a stiff breeze.

These heavy-duty stakes keep your tent secure. Eight came with our 13×13 tent.

Added Features

The floor kit extends out past the front of the tent to create a porch area to store gear away from the dirt.

The Elk Mountain Tents canvas wall tent has a lot of useful features to help make long stays inside quite comfortable. Our model features a full front screen door. This is great for summer and early fall trips.

Above: Our 13×13 tent included two windows on each side of the tent. One thing to note is that these can only be opened or closed from the outside.

All of the company's tents feature Velcro opening windows — our 13×13 tent includes 4 windows, each with built-in screens. For trips during colder months, all of their canvas tents include stove jacks built into the roof, which can be cut to the size of your stove pipe and then covered with an included Velcro cover. The walls on the tent have an extra six inches of cloth at the bottom to create a sod cloth to seal the bottom of the tent.

Above: Every Elk Mountain canvas tent comes with a stove jack that can be cut out to be used with a stove pipe. There is also a Velcro cover that seals it if not in use.

Ridge openings at the front and back can be opened and closed with a string system for added ventilation. This also helps prevent the aforementioned condensation buildup issue. Unfortunately, these ridge vents do not have screens built in, which is quite odd seeing as that would be an open invitation to bugs, especially the biting variety. Overall, however, the tent was well made, fit the frame beautifully, and was very secure and most importantly water-tight. This will give us a comfortable place to stay with the whole family during any season.

Above: Both front and back ridges have openings to help ventilate the tent. We wish these were screened to help keep bugs out in the warmer months.

Closing Thoughts

Elk Mountain Tents sought to take a new approach to a traditional canvas tent with some useful added features. We have to say they accomplished that goal. If you're looking for a large canvas tent and dread the thought of maintaining cotton fabric, check out what Elk Mountain Tents has to offer. For more information on this tent and all of Elk Mountain Tents' other products, visit them online at elkmountaintents.com.

Pros:

  • Polyester offers many benefits over cotton, including natural weather-resistance
  • Lots of well-thought-out features make the design more livable
  • Entire system is customizable to your needs and budget
  • Packs down to a relatively small, transportable footprint

Cons:

  • The instructions were not very well written or helpful, leading to trial and error during initial setup*
  • We wish the ridge openings were screened to keep out insects
  • It would be nice if the windows opened from the inside, rather than the outside

*Update – 12/24/19: Elk Mountain Tents let us know that the instructions for the tents have recently been revised with more detailed diagrams. We're glad to hear they're listening to user feedback and implementing it to improve their products.

John Nores Spotlight: The Patron Saint of Mother Nature

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Photos by Mike Weaver

There’s a huge misconception that game wardens are nothing more than glorified park rangers. Spend a few minutes talking to Lt. John Nores, and you’ll quickly realize nothing could be further from the truth. During his service with California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), he was on the front lines of illegal grow sites embedded in our national parks and forests that not only seek to avoid government regulation, but do so at the cost of our precious resources. Stream diversions, highly toxic banned pesticides, and anti-personnel boobytraps were just a smattering of the devastation Nores encountered during his 28-year tenure.

When people think of California’s illegal marijuana trade, images might come to mind of the recent series Murder Mountain or cops serving a warrant at some tract home rigged up with a greenhouse hidden in a garage — but there’s a much larger war going on that’s hidden in plain sight and rapidly escalating. The environmental impact and danger to nearby residents gets little, if any, mass media coverage. On August 5, 2005, Nores and his colleagues came under fire while preparing to raid an illegal marijuana grow operation in the densely wooded hills of California’s prestigious Silicon Valley. Nores’ partner sustained life-threatening injuries after taking a bullet through both legs from a cartel member’s AK-47.

Although the 2005 bust netted a large seizure of drugs and his partner survived, it gave everyone involved just an inkling of the cartel’s willingness to engage in violence and ecological degradation to make a few bucks. It also led to a recalibration of how to handle this ongoing problem, with the formation of the CDFW’s first dedicated Marijuana Enforcement Team (MET) aimed at targeting trespass grow sites throughout the west. After Nores shared his firsthand knowledge of this conflict with us, we walked away with a sobering realization that it’s not happening in some far-off land. It’s entrenched in locations only miles from major cities, where average citizens may inadvertently stumble upon a drug trafficking operation that could cost them their lives.

John Nores Interview

RECOIL OFFGRID: What made you want to go to work for California Department of Fish and Wildlife?

The Nores Wolfpack

John Nores: It really started with my grandfather’s influence. He was a Navy diesel mechanic and engineer on one of the cruisers in Pearl Harbor and survived that. Before he deployed, he and his high school buddies discovered Montana, and it blew their mind. When he got out of the service, he bought some property up there to make it a homestead for the family and anyone else who wanted to come. My dad, who has since passed away, got that whole service mentality, conservation, hunting, and shooting from him; really all my aunts and uncles did, and that trickled down through the generations. I was shooting trap and skeet at 9 years old; I passed the hunter’s safety course at 9 with dad’s help. My dad was a champion trap and skeet shooter and hunted everything from waterfowl to big game, so he was my hero.

John Sr. and Jr. — first white-tailed deer, 1992

I grew up in a rural part of south Silicon Valley in a little town called San Martin. When I was in college at San Jose State University in 1986, I wasn’t really feeling passionate about the civil engineering courses I was pursuing, but on winter break that first semester, my childhood friend and I took a pack horse and went on a 75-mile loop through Henry Coe State Park, which is 105,000 acres of epic wildlands. We took off on a Friday night in a downpour and hiked 13 miles through the night, getting soaked.

The next morning, we got this fire going because we were trying to dry off, and there was no one else around because no one was dumb enough to go there in the middle of winter [laughs]. Then, here comes this green 4×4 just winding down this really steep trail to get to us, and it was a game warden who thought we might be deer poaching. After he realized we weren’t a threat, I kept him there for two hours asking questions. He said it was an amazing career. I was like on fire and really inspired by that. As soon as I got home, I went back to school and talked to a criminal justice program advisor, told him my predicament — and it was perfect because San Jose State has one of the best criminal justice schools in the country.

I changed my major, targeting the profession, and that was it. In ’92, they had slots for four civilians who scored high enough that weren’t military veterans or other law enforcement officers to lateral over, and I got into the academy at Napa College. I was in working on my master’s and got halfway through that and put it on hold temporarily to take that opportunity. I passed everything and then off to the races, and that was almost 30 years ago.

RTO Nores: Cadet Academy Inspection, 2005

What’s your advice to people looking to enter that line of work?

JN: Know what the job really entails. Joe Rogan said this before I went on his show, and everybody says this. When they think of a game warden, they think of someone driving around in a truck checking a fishing or hunting license, looking for illegal fish, and telling hunter education stories — things like that. Understand that it’s a very challenging law enforcement profession now. You deal with a lot of violent people periodically. Now, granted, 90-plus percent of everyone you deal with are people you really want to see. They’re lawful firearms users being stewards of the environment. It’s that 1 or 2 percent you run into who might be heavily armed and dangerous, so you need to treat it like any other law enforcement officer, because you might be by yourself with backup two to three hours away.

I recommend that people not only go through the hiring process, but talk to a recruiting officer in any state they want to be in. I’m getting a lot of inquiries from across the country right now as a result of all the podcasts, book tours, and things we’ve been doing. It’s been really cool, but don’t just start the application online. Look at the state you want to apply in, talk to somebody in the recruiting office, and get a few ride-alongs with game wardens in the particular state or area you want to work to see what they do, because the job is so much more diverse than people think.

Teaching wildlife investigations in Cambodia, 2007

It’s gotten more challenging in the last 20 years. There’s the cartel/foreign invasion/marijuana/poison issue that I kind of specialized in, but there’s also the wildlife trafficking and ivory trade coming in from all over the world. Now there’s wildlife trafficking teams fighting that fight within a Fish and Game agency that was mandated under the Obama administration — and rightfully so to make sure every state had teams doing that if they didn’t. Those are just a few different things that only came up in the last few years that weren’t around when I started.

Tell me about the books you’ve written.

JN: I’ve got two. War in the Woods wasn’t planned. It came about at the request of people starting to see the cartel/trespass marijuana-grow front and black market stuff in Silicon Valley. I found my first grow site in 2004. When I went into that site and saw the level of devastation environmentally and the public safety threat from the growers we witnessed and didn’t have any contact with that day, that completely changed my perception of what my efforts and our agency’s efforts needed to be.

The first chapter of War in the Woods goes into this. A very good friend of mine who’s a wildlife biologist was working on his master’s thesis, by observing this transect of two creeks in Coe Park that spanned about three miles and is one of our last viable migrating steelhead channels left in the Bay area. He was studying frogs and their vitality, and I got a call in April from him that the creeks were running the previous week just fine, and all of a sudden one side of it was bone dry and everything in it was dead. Keep in mind that steelhead trout are endangered species, so I was super concerned about this. He found black pieces of plastic and other debris that had washed down and didn’t know what it was.

The next day we went up to the top of the canyon to get to the creek at its source. I expected to see an illegal water diversion from maybe a rancher or a development where someone was trying to create their own pond. We dropped down the canyon and found this beautiful creek dammed up with a garden hose and siphoner in it that was basically diverting it down the edge of the creek. So, we started following the diversion about 100 yards down, and I started to see some 2- to 3-foot marijuana plants.

EPA banned poison-tainted cartel MJ grow — Bodfish Creek, 2012

Then, we saw a couple cartel growers, and these guys had long rifles — one had an AK, they had knives on their hips, and were in battle dress gear. This was on public land and an “oh crap” moment, because I had a civilian with me and we’re hiding on the bank of a creek. I had the red-dot on my AR carbine aimed at these guys, and I’m thinking if we got into a gunfight, it might be the crappiest moment of my career, if not the end of it. Fortunately, they didn’t see us, but I realized by the way they were operating that they weren’t the typical poachers.

We got out of there, called narcotics task forces, and started to integrate with drug teams — we became the guides to help those guys get into that canyon, do the eradication, and hopefully arrest these growers. We had a couple game wardens, the Santa Clara County Sheriff, and multiple different agencies. When we went in and did that raid they didn’t really put a lot of emphasis on catching these guys that I knew could’ve been caught and they ran off. We eradicated all the plants; it was a 7,000-plant grow. I’d already been on about 15 years and had done a lot of operations, but I’d never seen anything this devastating — and it was in my backyard. It was also against a type of poacher who was very violent, well-armed, and had complete disregard for public safety and environmental purity.

After we eradicated all these plants, we left and I looked around at the team leaders and remarked that there was still propane, a diverted waterway, the creek’s still dry, all these fish are dead, and there was all this trash. I didn’t even know yet about all the banned toxics that were there, and we had no idea we were potentially exposed to it. But they were like, “We don’t clean this stuff up, that’s not our job.” I thought that was total bullsh*t. The fact that we didn’t do any reclamation on the site to protect our wildlife and deter these guys from coming back really upset me. I talked to my chief at the time about it, and she agreed that if we’re going to get involved, we have to bring in that environmental component. That’s when we started to ramp up, and a handful of us began specializing in this with the sheriff’s department, Forestry Service, and other federal agents on these types of grow operations.

Cartel grower gunman — Croy Creek, 2012

Fast-forward to August 5, 2005, which was only about the third operation we’d done after this one. We walked into a very fortified, very calculated grow site. My partner was shot through both legs by a grower who was lying in wait to defend their site before harvest time. It was a lot bigger than we thought. It was like 11,000 plants in one area and 32,000 for the whole mountainside, all spread out. So we probably got 20 growers, all armed, in a location that probably had no law enforcement presence in over a decade. The one shot that hit my partner did a lot of damage. I probably worked on him for three hours, trying to keep him from bleeding out before we had an air rescue. That gunfight shook up the perception of what game wardens do. The governor’s office was in disbelief about it. Nancy Foley, our chief at the time and very progressive, stuck to her guns and did a lot of TV interviews explaining that we were tactically trained just like every other officer and discussed that this wasn’t some mom-and-pop marijuana garden.

After we got ambushed that day, I knew we needed a specialized team with more trauma gear, more support, K9s, more air assets, and training to catch these guys safely and get them out of circulation. It changed everything, not only for us in California, but nationally. It was a long process of over a decade to get to the point where  Hidden War, the second book, goes into. Another of my mentors who helped craft my career became chief in 2013 after Nancy’s retirement. I and another captain had a meeting with him and agreed we needed to test a tactical unit dedicated to doing this with no red tape, no traditional patrol duties, that worked strictly for headquarters with straight-line supervision to the top, basically modeled after SOCOM in the military.

I got to handpick 12 of us and incorporate our two best K9 handlers. Building that team and testing it proved it was effective, and six weeks into our pilot program we were just running out of money and looking for funding to keep doing what we were doing. We developed an operation called “Pristine,” where we worked every day of the month because the counter-drug 129th Rescue Wing out of Moffett Field had an airship or two and two ground crews to assist any law enforcement agency in California on an operation dealing with the cartels. They wanted to pick an agency who was really going to work hard to not only go chop down dope, but bring in the apprehension and environmental element — so they asked us.

Toxically tainted weed processed for sale in cartel MJ grow — Silicon Valley foothills, 2012

In Operation Pristine alone, I think it was like 500,000 of these toxically tainted cannabis plants we eradicated, we caught around 200 guys, confiscated several hundred weapons, and did a lot of restoration. We proved ourselves throughout that process, and word got out very quickly because the military was talking up what we did together. There were so many things we’ve learned that I teach now to law enforcement and civilian groups.

War in the Woods goes into just finding the problem as a game warden, working side by side with other agencies, and being looked at as equals. We weren’t just the bird and bunny cops anymore. They saw us for the trained professionals we were, who could do a lot of hiking, hold up in the heat, and move around quietly, because we’d all grown up in the woods and learned how to track. In Hidden War, when we got to build the specific agency game warden team, some agencies and people within our own couldn’t get past the stereotype of what it was that we did — and that changed. It took about two years. We went full time January of 2014. The chiefs didn’t want to wait. They told us to develop all the protocol for testing, and that we’d be equipped and get all the support we needed. The gloves were off. We ran with it, and it was really effective.

Since it’s been really successful; we don’t have that resistance anymore. When I speak to other conservation agencies throughout the country, it’s amazing to see how much this problem is popping up in other states and how ill-equipped they are to handle it. The whole thin-green-line thing that I’m all about in retirement is putting a good message out there, and I’m getting a lot of support for it. Hidden War goes into all the politics of building a non-traditional team and doing something that hadn’t been done before.

What do you think the biggest threats are to the resources you were tasked with protecting?

JN: Water, for sure. When it comes to the trespass marijuana grow problem, they’re diverting and putting the worst types of poisons in our waterways at the source headwaters. This carbofuran that’s banned in America and is a felony to possess, is the one thing besides the growers that the cartels need to smuggle up here. The other infrastructure they need is already here. Two tablespoons of this stuff can kill several miles of every living thing in a creek. Growers put a couple drops of it out in tuna cans for bears to find before they can get to the plants, and that’s enough to kill a 400-pound black bear.

It gets in the soil, the water that they pump to the plants; it’s sprayed all over the plants and looks like liquid paper. That’s not only an environmental crime, but it’s poisoning cannabis consumers because they’re ingesting it. It dissipates a little and falls off after it’s cut down, so you don’t necessarily see it, but it’s there. I’ve never seen so much concentrated dead wildlife, from big to small, in these grow sites.

Being a lifelong hunter, I know how critical genetics are in one area for deer to have a thriving population and a buck to have good genetics to put back big deer into the system. In one grow site, sometimes you see five or six trophy-sized animals that have ingested poison and their heads are on sticks like trophy caps. They’re just getting killed so they don’t impact their cash crop. That’s killing a herd for miles, because it can kill on contact and affects all the other biodiversity in the area.

Cartel grow MET mission — filming for Patriot Profiles, 2016

Have you had any game wardens or others working these sites get affected by these toxins?

JN: We haven’t had anyone die, but we have had exposures where guys almost died. In fact, two years ago, a couple federal officers who were back east were exposed to carbofuran on plants, had temporary respiratory failure, and went partially blind. They were in the hospital for days. Had they not been immediately evacuated from the site and had the right injections, they likely would’ve died. When that happened, OSHA came in and looked at the protocol of how we deal with grow sites on a federal level, because this stuff is in forests all over the country, and we started to come up with more personal protection equipment requirements. That was the first wake-up call.

Even though there were others who’d had exposures that hadn’t made the news, we had two officers in California who had dropped into a grow and started to feel headaches, nausea, blurry vision, but they were OK because they got out quickly and were treated. We know now that a lot more people are getting exposed in the law enforcement realm and still having symptoms months after treatment. When the growers dilute it with liquids, it usually looks like Pepto-Bismol, and they carry it around in a water bottle in their backpack with a sprayer. They call it el diablo, which means “the devil.” They know it’s nasty, but they use it because it’s so effective at keeping everything off the plants. Since they’re not a legitimate cannabis group, they don’t care about health issues. They just know it’s really potent weed and is about half of what anything else costs on the black market, and they sell it all over the nation.

What do you think the biggest misconceptions are that the public has about the war on drugs?

JN: When people think of marijuana, many think it’s a waste of time. People wonder why we’re spending time on it with game wardens, and since it’s legal to leave it alone and the problem will go away. They think the war on drugs is a farce for revenue generation and to get cops jobs. These same organized crime groups out of Mexico are dealing in tainted cannabis all the country, but also in the off-season they’re cooking meth, dealing in fentanyl that’s killing thousands, dealing in human trafficking, and gun running to fuel the fight down in Mexico, so this is a bigger issue than just cannabis.

CDFW-MET team, 2018

To talk about the war on drugs issue, the biggest misconception is that it’s not just a war on drugs, it’s a war on environmental destruction and threatening our public safety. Let’s not make it about drugs, let’s make it about environmental purity, the security of Americans within our borders, and the safety of everyone, even internationally. This whole issue isn’t necessarily about drugs; that just happens to be the black market product that’s fueling all this violence, environmental destruction, and is making it unsafe to be out in our wildlands. I was quoted by the Associated Press not long ago saying that if cherry tomatoes were on the black market and the demand was so high that they were $4,000 per pound, we’d probably have poisons on them, gunfights, and some war on vegetables. You could make it about any product there’s a desire to have, there’s no regulation, and you can’t get on the open market. The war on drugs has validity from the standpoint of environmental protection and public safety. Are we doing it correctly? Not necessarily. Is there any easy solution? In the last chapter of Hidden War, I go into the challenges of regulation and if it will it help in the cannabis world.

Like I spoke to Joe Rogan about on his show, because he’s obviously an advocate, if we’re going to legalize and regulate, we need to do it right. We need to do whatever we can do to eliminate a black market that’s gotten so big it’s generating massive amounts of environmental crime and public safety threats. If we’re going to do it, we’re going to have to do it in such a way that we don’t encourage more of a black market — which we’ve started to see in California and in other states with red tape, fees, and lack of trust in government by growers who’ve traditionally been in the black market after Prop 215 that goes back 20 years. They’re not registering or regulating because it’s too costly for them to do so. They’re staying in the black market still, but they’re not putting a bunch of poisons on their crops. There’s still that demand in many other states that want good weed, and they can’t get it through legitimate channels.

In addition to that, since we have regulated for two years in California, the cartel thing hasn’t slowed down at all. Those guys have just continued to see that the black market is thriving, and now there’s all this enforcement attention on growers who are regulating and getting registered. About one-quarter of the game wardens in my old agency are dedicated to cannabis enforcement. We were a tactical elite unit dealing with the cartel threat, so we’re not the private land inspection teams, but there’s watershed enforcement teams, marijuana permitting teams, all funded to just regulate and make sure everything’s done right under the new requirements. That’s taken a lot of enforcement pressure away from the cartels in public lands. We’re one of the few teams doing it. The Forestry Service is doing it, sheriff’s departments, and a lot of other regulatory units like DEA and BLM in certain cases, but they’re too overwhelmed to handle the unregulated growers.

Nores MET Reclamation Op, 2018

The penalties for public land trespass grows went from a felony to a misdemeanor, and a misdemeanor to an infraction for a juvenile cartel grower. We’re seeing a lot of teenagers within the organization working with the older, vetted grow bosses on these sites, and they’ve watered down their crimes. The DAs can’t even prosecute this without environmental enhancements so we bring that in to get felony status of water pollution, deer poaching, or whatever the case may be. So when someone says, “Let’s just legalize it, and the problem will go away,” it’s not that simple. It’s something we have to look at federally and not just state by state. Every time we do something right in one state, another state sucks in the black market from the state that made a change, and it becomes a revolving cycle of never being unilaterally successful.

It seems like with proliferation and incremental legalization that the war on drugs is tougher now than it was 30 years ago. What do you attribute that to?

JN: The thin-green-line officers of Border Patrol agents, conservation officers, military, and park rangers haven’t grown in numbers, but public demand has. Population in America has skyrocketed in the last 30 years. I’m approximating, but the last statistic I read was 40-million-plus cannabis users in America, and that’s growing every day. A lot of that is black market users in states where you don’t have regulation. Law enforcement is taxed so much in other areas with limited numbers; I think that’s why it’s gotten worse.

California Senate-Assembly MET and K-9 Phebe Resolution Award, 2017

One of the things we did in Hidden War was a comparison from when War in the Woods was published. We did a breakdown of how many game wardens were in each state, the total number nationally, and the population in each state. It’s been exactly 10 years in between books. We did that same analysis, and it’s crazy. We’ve gone up like 1,000 game wardens nationally, and you can only imagine how population growth and the impacts it’s had on our wildland areas. It’s kind of free game for the cartels, because they realize law enforcement is so overwhelmed. They keep doing their thing and understand they’re going to lose a few grows, but even if it’s two out of 10, they’re still going to make like $100,000,000 or more. Law enforcement just can’t keep up with it.

There’s tons of money being poured into the border wall. What kind of effect, if any, do you think it’ll have?

JN: I think a wall could slow things down if it was built the right way, but it’s not just surface level we’re dealing with. There’s an established tunnel system underground, stuff coming in from the coast on panga boats delivering dope, people, and weapons from Mexico into America. A wall could slow the flood down a little bit, but I don’t think it’ll solve the problem. In gathering intelligence and talking with the people we’ve captured, they laugh when we talk about border control. At best, it’s a speedbump on the I-5 freeway.

If they put up a few hundred-thousand dollars, they’ll get their operatives into America and pay a small amount for the money they’ll generate. Case in point, we’ve had multiple deported felons, classified as such because of heavy criminal history, and have deported them well into the double digits from site to site — and they keep coming back. Different K9s have apprehended the same guy multiple times. That makes me skeptical that a wall will solve the problem. The bigger thing we have to look at is what’s happening on both sides of the border. How can we hopefully have an impact down there with Mexico helping us on the problem?

Why do you think there’s so much resistance to federal legalization?

JN: I think it’s frame of reference and different contexts of what people consider drug abuse or how they classify marijuana. You have certain states with varied perceptions and, until we get the testing and things happen federally or more progressive states work together to address this problem, we won’t get on the same page of how we perceive what cannabis really is. Things like what the medical benefits are and if we’re going to test it federally to validate that it has medical benefits. If it’s going to happen federally, it’s not going to happen overnight, so what can we do on the ground to hold back the tide as best we can right now? Whether you’re for or against, let’s just take all that out of the equation and look at what’s going to be good for our public safety and environmental purity throughout the country. Let’s try to make some decisions based on that.

What involvement do game wardens have with wildlife trafficking in the U.S.?

JN: California is one of the most progressive Fish and Game agencies in the country with its training level, resources, and diversity of teams. In California, you have a little bit of everything. You have the coast, with abalone which are heavily threatened and there’s a black market for. Sturgeon eggs are very high dollar on the black market. There’s the ivory trade in L.A. and San Francisco, with people wanting legitimate ivory pieces for multiple reasons. All the states have these problems, and that’s why these teams were built. In California, we’d been doing that even before the formalized wildlife trafficking team had been built. It came about right after our MET team got built, and it’s been very effective to the point they’re out there doing covert buy busts and surveillance, catching everything from the things I just mentioned to people selling black bear gallbladders.

The ivory trade, though — that’s where these animals are so impacted over in Africa because there’s such a huge amount paid for a rhino horn or elephant tusk. By the time it gets into the black market, you’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more, on just a few animals. That’s where we’ve embedded and are working very closely with the African officials and their game wardens. We’re sending people over there, communicating, and sharing information at the source. When we start communicating country to country and get into these black market circles, we now have a team that can go anywhere in the state and embed on a particular suspect as long as they need to, and basically intercept the ivory coming in. We’ve really stepped up the game with our federal colleagues.

I used to do a lot of covert undercover work on wildlife illegal sales and buys with our special operations unit. What we’ve learned is when you catch a guy like that red-handed at the source, the ripple effect it has on national and international commercial poachers is overwhelming because you never know who’s who. It doesn’t have to be ivory; it can also be prohibited reptiles or primates. We’ve had celebrities with an illegal primate that’s endangered and not supposed to be here, but they paid a huge amount of money and it got into the black market. There’s a black market for everything wildlife; it’s nuts. There’s tons of money in it, and second only to the drug trade when you look at the statistics.

What can private citizens do to aid in the conservation effort?

JN: Be aware, know who to contact if you run across this, and spread the message. The more people who can spread that message, the better. So few people know this is really going on and the magnitude of it. One thing we need to do is unify. The more people get involved and shed light on it, then you see more funding, more education, it getting in the press more. Then, we start to feel more empowered as citizens to stand up and say we’re not going to allow this. That’s how they can be a force multiplier. Hunters, fishermen, and outdoorsmen and women are our best reporting parties through things like the CalTIP Program to turn in poachers and polluters. Every conservation agency has a turn-in-a-poacher hotline. Use it. Help your game wardens out.

Explain how legal, regulated hunting and fishing assists in the conservation effort.

JN: Glad you asked that. What we need to remember is, even if you’re not a consumptive user of wildlife or don’t believe in hunting or fishing, try not to chastise those who do it ethically and legally. Conservation is based on a balance of species, natural depredation in the wild, and environmental changes. Ethical and legal hunters and anglers are actually helping all of those species numbers, because they’re buying into a program that has studied the population and determines how many need to be taken to keep the population in balance so too many don’t die of starvation or from predatory kills. That meat is being eaten, appreciated, respected, and done so humanely.

All of us as conservationists who hunt and fish — our license fees, ammunition, firearms, and the equipment we buy, percentages of that fund go right into agencies like California Department of Fish and Wildlife to study and make sure that population thrives. When we talk about the increase of urbanization and population, which leads to less open spaces, once we start to impact that through development, we’re impacting wildlife many times in a negative way because we’re leaving less habitat for larger numbers of animals within particular species to thrive. If we don’t manage, help, or support a species in a population increase where it’s depleted, as conservationists from all that funding at the agency level, it couldn’t be done without anglers, hunters, and conservationists.

That’s not saying everyone should be a hunter. I’ve spoken to preservation groups on the animal rights front as much as I’ve talked to people who are like-minded. It’s interesting when I talk to the Humane Society, PETA, or Mountain Lion Society in California and give a presentation on the cannabis thing and all the dead wildlife. We don’t get into a debate about it, because whether you hunt and fish legally and ethically or absolutely don’t want to, no one wants to see an animal die this way from a banned poison by someone who isn’t even here legally and working for groups committing felonious crimes all over the world, especially here in America. A majority of our tips to find these grows come from hunters, anglers, and hikers getting into those pristine waterways to check them out. They’re making one of the biggest dents by finding it and turning this stuff in for the sake of everyone’s wildlife, no matter where you sit on the spectrum.

What other non-drug-related threats should people know about that you’ve encountered in your line of work?

JN: You also have the environmental issues as well, with everything from rattlesnakes to wild animal attacks. Something that’s drug related that we didn’t really talk about is stuff like pungi pits, tripwires, boobytraps, and hidden holes. All outdoor public should know to be careful of where they’re at. Be aware of your surroundings and know that some of this stuff is on trails. There are boobytraps in and around roads, and it doesn’t even have to be drug related. It can be felons on the run, and they can have some nomadic camp where they’re trying not to be found. The public can run into that to. It’s a small amount of people who can be that threatening, but they’re out there.

I ran across that a lot, and we still do. We get the guy who has an arrest warrant or there’s a group of criminals doing something. Where are they going to go to get off the grid into an area that has as little law enforcement as possible? They’re going to get into our wildlands and remote areas. Who’s going to run into them? It’s going to be someone like the game warden.

About John Nores

Age: 51

Hometown: Silicon Valley, CA

Required reading list:

  • Fearless by Eric Blehm
  • Ghost Rider: Travelling the Healing Road by Neil Peart
  • River by Colin Fletcher
  • Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
  • Marine Sniper by Charles Hendersen
  • Time to Hunt by Stephen Hunter

Favorite quotes:

  1. The woods are my church
  2. Change is inevitable, but growth is optional.

Favorite hunting: Big game

Favorite fishing: River or high altitude in Montana

Favorite firearm: Axial Precision Convergence and Himalayan rifles; Glock handguns

Favorite knife: My upcoming signature blade, the Thin Green Line Trailblazer folder co-developed, manufactured, and marketed by Mike Vellekamp’s VNIVES

Accolades:

  • California Governor’s Medal of Valor
  • San Jose State’s Criminal Justice Hall of Fame induction, 2018
  • Regional Officer of the Year, 1999
  • Nores’ MET and K9 Phebe were recognized in both the California Senate and Assembly in January 2017 with Resolution Awards for service, the first congressional resolution for our officers in the agency’s history

Childhood idol: Dad

URL: www.johnnores.com

Instagram: @johnnores

Infographic: 50 Tips for Productivity

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We've all experienced the feeling that there aren't enough hours in the day, whether it's related to work tasks, household projects, or improving emergency preparedness. The latter can be especially difficult to find time for, since paying the bills and spending time with family are often higher priorities (understandably so). Still, making time to prep and study useful skills is essential, and it shouldn't have to fall by the wayside. It's therefore a smart move to take steps to improve your productivity and discipline — you can't make more hours in the day, but you can certainly make the most of those you have.

The following infographic from TitleMax includes 50 tips that can help you increase your overall productivity and find more time to prep, study, get in shape, or even relax after a long day. Some are quotes to keep in mind, while others are more concrete action steps. Obviously, integrating every one of these into your lifestyle at once would be overwhelming, but if you can pick a few to try out, you may find yourself making more progress.

What If You Stumbled Upon a Potential Home Burglary?

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Illustrations by Joe Oesterle

Even if you’re not usually absent-minded, you’ve probably felt the momentary confusion of arriving at home only to find a light was left on. You thought you’d turned it off before you left, but did you just have a brain fart and forget? Did your spouse or one of the kids leave it on? These common oversights can often make your skin crawl for a few moments as you wonder if someone was inside while you were gone. Coming home to an open front door, however, is a more concerning sign that something or someone has been there. You’re incredibly vigilant about locking everything up before you leave, but here comes that eerie feeling again. Did you screw up and forget to lock it this time, or are you about to walk in on an intruder?

You swallow and step back to see if you notice anything else out of place. You think about calling out “Hello?” for a second, but hesitate since you could potentially be alerting an uninvited (and possibly armed) guest to your presence. You’d hoped this would be a simple house-sitting gig for a friend, but you may now have stumbled upon a burglary in progress. What do you do?

The Scenario

Situation Type
Possible burglary

Your Crew
You

Location
Your friend’s house

Season
Winter

Weather
Snowy and windy; high 38 degrees F, low 12 degrees F

The Setup: A wealthy friend of yours has gone out of town for the holidays and left their house in your care while they’re on vacation visiting relatives. You agreed to check on it every day until they return (except Christmas) to feed the cat, make sure the heater hasn’t broken down, collect mail and any packages that’ve arrived, and perform a general inspection to make sure nothing is out of order. Your friend has told you that they’ve been the victim of porch pirates more than once, so this being the holiday season, the potential for theft is higher.

The house is a bit secluded, and up a winding mountain road with no neighbors in the immediate line of sight or within earshot of any potential disturbances. It’s also a three-story house that’s over 5,000 square feet with numerous rooms, but you’ll only need to be in the kitchen and living room area while you’re there. The house has an alarm system that provides armed security response, but times in the past that the alarm has been tripped have yielded a slow response from the company … if any.

Your friend will only be gone for a few days, so you plan on a handful of routine visits until they return. You’re also told that the only others who have access to the house are the security company who has the alarm code, but no key, and the housekeeper, who has both. You’re also told the housekeeper will not be visiting while the family is away, and that they’re practically a member of the family, having worked for them for the last 20 years with no incidents. You’re also told there is a hide-a-key in what looks like a rock near the front porch. Although you have your own key for the visit, and you don’t know exactly what the rock looks like, the family made mention that it doesn’t look like the other rocks in the vicinity, so it should be easy to spot if you need to gain access. You’ve also been given a login to watch security footage of the house from your phone, using the cameras installed around the perimeter.

The Complication: It’s Christmas Eve and nearing dusk. You decide to make one last pass of the house before coming back in a couple days since there’ll be no mail delivery tomorrow. You can leave the cat some extra food to hold it over through Christmas day. As you arrive, you can see what looks like fresh tracks in the snow, but you attribute it to a few last-minute deliveries or the mail carrier. You’ve arrived a little earlier than normal to get this finished before moving on to your own holiday arrangements, but you begin to notice some things that concern you. As you go to collect the mail from the mailbox, you find it empty and wonder if the mail carrier hasn’t arrived yet or had nothing to deliver. There are also no packages in their usual place by the front door — you were certain that some would arrive today. Maybe the delivery is running late as well? You also notice that the light in the upstairs bedroom is off. You know that light in particular is on a timer and wonder if it hasn’t kicked on yet because you’re here earlier than normal.

As you approach the front door, you see that it’s slightly ajar. Did you forget to lock it and the wind managed to blow it open? Is someone here? The blinking red light on the alarm panel shows that the alarm has been activated and that alone makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. You look around frantically for something that looks like the hide-a-key rock you were told about, but you don’t see anything that resembles the description you were given. Did someone manage to find it and get inside? Did the housekeeper show up unexpectedly to drop something off for the family? You decide to investigate further, but feel hesitant since you haven’t explored the house in its entirety and don’t know the layout.

Your cell phone reception up here is spotty and dropped calls have happened to you here before. The house also doesn’t have a landline that you’re aware of. You walk into the kitchen and see nothing that looks out of order. As you swing back to head toward the front door, there’s a noticeable “thump” upstairs. Is this a burglar? Is it the cat? Is it someone else who has a key to the house you weren’t told about? If someone is there, who are they and what do they want? Should you call the police or the security company and wait for their arrival? Either way, it’s unlikely that they’ll respond quickly given your remote location — if you can get through to anyone at all. Should you attempt to clear the house and risk coming face-to-face with an armed intruder? Should you run to your car to go get help?

Firearms Instructor Sheena Green’s Approach

Preparation

When I’ve been asked to house-sit in the past, whether my friends knew it or not, they usually provided me with a general baseline about their environment. Routines such as the neighbor is a home-body and goes out for a morning walk around 7:30, trash is picked up on Mondays; mail gets delivered in the afternoon, sometimes the girl down the street rides her bike over to see if our kids can play on Saturdays are things that have been relayed to me. While seemingly trivial, those are notes to keep and compare during visits to the house.

Extra questions I could ask if the information wasn’t already volunteered would be: Have you had any issues with crime other than the porch pirates? Are there any weirdos or stray animals in the neighborhood I need to look out for? Has anything serious been posted in your neighborhood Facebook group recently (besides people mistaking cars backfiring for gunshots)?

Making sure I understand the security system and how it works would be at the top of my list. I wouldn’t want to trouble my friend with a call from the security company if I didn’t disarm the system in time. This would prompt a few more questions: What is the notification process if I don’t disarm the system in time? Does it alert your family in addition to the security company? Have you ever had law enforcement show up to a tripped alarm? Do you know what the response time was?

To avoid being mistaken for a burglar, I’d suggest my friend make a contact list for me to keep of family/friends/neighbors who have been made aware of my responsibility to care for the cat and property. This also makes me feel more at ease knowing I have people I can contact who are more familiar with the house in case there’s some sort of mishap.

My cell phone gets crappy reception in real life, so something I do when visiting friends is ask for the Wi-Fi password and connect when I’m there. Having the Wi-Fi password sent via a text and saved to your notes on your phone as a backup is helpful as well.

Something I recommend everyone do regardless of the amount of risk in your daily life is set up your SOS and emergency contacts on your smartphone. Depending on the phone brand and operating system, how the SOS is activated could be different, so make sure you’re familiar with your own. It’s also helpful to know how to dial 911 from the lock screen, so you won’t have to fumble with the keypad when seconds count.

Knowing I needed to go to a secluded home where emergency response times could be lengthy, I’d ask someone to accompany me every time I planned to check on the house. Even if the person I ask is not someone who carries a firearm, a second person is always better than being alone. I’d ask my friend to wait in the driver seat with the vehicle running and have their cell phone at the ready in case we need to make a quick exit.

Because of my crappy phone reception, frequency of travel, and preferring to work from a secure internet connection, one option I’ve explored is the Solis X by SkyRoam. It’s a portable Wi-Fi hotspot and has a built-in camera.

On Site

Thanks to the info relayed to me by my friends, I already have the sneaking suspicion that something is a little off and would spend more time observing the scene and outside of the house. If there are tire tracks in the snow, did anyone get out of the vehicle? How many pairs of footprints are there? Where do they lead? Do the tracks look like someone was dropped off? Does it look like the vehicle came and went with no one getting out? The information that I can glean from those questions may sway my actions to either play it safe and review security footage or go ahead and approach the house.

Upon finding the door ajar, now I know I’ve got a problem, which instantly starts a swirl of thoughts and decisions to make. The first one is going to be whether or not someone is on the other side. The second one is trying to decide to peek around the door or hurry up and go back to the car. Then, at some point, a random reminder for the reason for the visit, “Oh sh*t, did the cat escape?”

Even though I can legally carry a firearm, I’d choose to go back to the car, lock the doors, and tell my friend what I saw. From the safety of the locked car, positioned in a safer distance from the house, I’d have my friend call the police on speakerphone while I pull up surveillance footage and wait for law enforcement to arrive.

Crisis

Knowing our own skills, capabilities, and limits can keep us safe, so I’m not even going to entertain the idea of clearing the house. It’s not something I have sought out training for and the idea of me, an armed civilian clearing a 5,000-square-foot house I don’t know the layout of is outside the realm of reasonable actions for me.

It’s not safe to assume that burglars are non-violent, and therefore caution should be exercised if found face-to-face with the intruder. The training I’ve received over the years to prepare myself for violent encounters will come into play if and when that story unfolds.

By choosing not to enter the home, as evidenced on the security cameras and my friend as a witness, I save myself a whole lot of legal headache and blame. If burglars had, in fact, ransacked the house and left before we arrived, most of the scene would be untouched and untampered. Hopefully this would make it easier for police to do their job in finding clues and catching the bad guy(s).

Combatives Expert Chad McBroom’s Approach

Preparation

Area Orientation: The first part of my preparation phase for this type of scenario would be to have my friend give me a detailed tour of the house and property. I’d want to know the locations of all the exterior doors and any other large opening that might serve as an entry or exit point. I’d also note the locations of all security system triggers, such as door and window sensors, glass-break sensors, and motion detectors, as well as the locations of all interior and exterior cameras. Having access to the cameras via my cell phone will allow me to check in and around the house to have the greatest situational awareness prior to entering. It’ll also help in identifying any intruders and thieves if a situation does arise.

I’d also want to know if there’s a safe room in the house, where it’s located, and what supplies are there. Although I plan on having my own equipment on my person, it’s good to know where I might be able to find additional supplies. If there’s a well-planned safe room inside the house, it’ll likely have an alternate form of communication, such as a reliable cell phone or landline separate from the main line.

Establish a Baseline: Next, I’d establish a baseline of the house and surrounding area. What are the normal traffic patterns? What are the local norms? Are there any identified criminal enterprises operating in the area? What’s the typical law enforcement response to crime in this area? What are the local habitual areas (public gathering places) and natural lines of drift (shortcuts)? What’s the baseline atmosphere (“feeling”) of the area?

I’d take a second walk-through of the interior and exterior of the house by myself to eliminate all distractions and observe the lay of the land. What are the natural and manmade obstacles (terrain, walls, fences, cameras, etc.) that would divert or funnel human traffic trying to enter the property surreptitiously? I’d also identify the hide-a-key rock to see where and how it’s currently oriented.

Having this established baseline will allow me to identify any anomalies that present themselves when I go to check on the house. An atmospheric shift, disturbance of the area, a vehicle out of place, items moved from their normal location, or a housekeeper’s vehicle parked outside at an odd hour are examples of detectable anomalies that could indicate potential danger upon arriving at the residence.

Personal Preparation: My personal equipment would consist of my normal EDC, to include a concealed handgun, knife, flashlight, and cell phone. My phone would have my friend’s phone number, the number for the local police department and security monitoring company, and the numbers of any nearby friends or neighbors that might serve as emergency contacts should a situation arise. My secondary communications plan would be my friend’s landline if there’s one, and the identified safe-room communications would be my contingent communications plan. My emergency communications plan would be to drive to the nearest neighbor or convenience store to use their phone.

When checking on the house, I’d place a phone call to my wife to let her know my location and arrival time so she’d know if I was on site longer than reasonable. She’d know to call and check on me if I was there longer than normal, and to contact the authorities if I didn’t answer or return her call within a reasonable amount of time.

On Site

Prior to approaching the house, I’d follow my established protocols that I would’ve followed with each prior visit. This would include remotely reviewing the security footage and checking to see if any alarms have been triggered using the alarm system app.

During my drive in, I’d be looking for any baseline anomalies. Are there any vehicles that appear to be out of place? A vehicle and driver looking out of place could be an indication of potential criminal activity in the general area. Are the local residents engaged in their normal activities? People will often intentionally or unknowingly respond to their “gut” and change their routine when there’s a predator hunting in the area. Are there any law-enforcement vehicles patrolling the area? A police presence might act as a deterrent or cause a perpetrator to change their modus operandi on the fly.

Upon arriving at the house, I’d look for other anomalies around the premises. Are there any rocks or vegetation that have been recently disturbed? Are there any footprints or tire tracks in the snow? Are there any lights on or off inside the house that shouldn’t be? Have the window coverings been disturbed?

After discovering the front door is ajar and the hide-a-key rock is missing, and assuming my review of the security footage prior to my approach didn’t reveal the presence of any intruders, I’d assess the situation to determine the best course of action. The blinking red light on the alarm panel indicating the alarm has been activated rules out the likelihood that the housekeeper is making an unscheduled visit, since she would’ve disarmed the system using the alarm code.

Given there were no alarm indications or intruders on the video feed prior to my final approach of the house — otherwise I wouldn’t be at the front door — the most innocuous scenario at this point is that I had somehow left the front door unsecured and the wind dislodged the door just prior to my arrival. The most dangerous scenario is that an intruder had made entry just prior to my arrival. I’ll treat this situation as though it were the latter until I can prove it was the former.

Crisis

My immediate priority is to find a position of cover and concealment while I complete some administrative tasks. If I’m able to get a cellular or Wi-Fi signal with my cell phone, I’ll review the security camera footage from the time I last checked it to the present. If I’m able to see any intruders on the video feed, I will be sure to download the video and take screenshots of the perpetrators for later identification. I’d also immediately call 911, report the incident, and wait for law enforcement to arrive.

If I review the video footage and don’t see any indication of a break-in, I’d place a call to my wife to inform her of the situation. Based on the information I’ve gathered to this point, I believe my best course of action is to clear the house myself, as there’s no additional evidence of any intruders.

After entering the house and seeing nothing out of order in the kitchen, the likelihood that I screwed up and forgot to secure the door during my previous visit is looking more and more plausible, until I hear the “thump” upstairs. At that point, I’d call 911 and report a possible break-in. Maybe it’s the cat falling off the bed, but I’m not taking any chances.

Although I have the legal right to be on the premises and no duty to retreat in my state, the only other people in the house, if any, are the bad guys. If there were innocent people in the house, then my priority would be to ensure their safety and clear the house, but since there are none, there’s no reason for me to remain inside the house, and doing so would place me at a tactical disadvantage. My best option at this point would be to vacate the house and observe the front door from a safe distance to see if anyone leaves the house while I wait for the police to arrive.

If I do see anyone leave the house, I’ll record as many details as I can (height, weight, sex, clothing, identifying marks, physical impairments, etc.) to give to the police. I didn’t see a vehicle parked nearby, so they must have walked in or been dropped off by a getaway vehicle. I’d be watching to see which route they take when they leave the house, if they’re carrying anything, if a vehicle picks them up, and their direction of travel.

Taking this approach to this situation is the best way to ensure my own safety. There’s nothing in my friend’s house worth dying for, especially not the cat. It’s possible that police have already been alerted by the alarm company, so they might show up at any moment. Staying outside is the best way to prevent being mistaken for a burglar when they arrive, and to avoid implicating myself in what may be a crime in progress.

Conclusion

The entire purpose of this column is to get you, the reader, to think about what you’d do if you were in this situation. It requires some self-awareness and honesty about how you’d be willing to deal with certain situations that have a huge question mark. There are probably individuals out there who’d feel totally comfortable clearing a 5,000-square-foot house alone, but even though you’ve accepted the responsibility of overseeing and caring for a friend’s home and cat, possessions (including dearly beloved pets) are not a higher priority than your own life.

With all the little red flags triggering concerns outside the home, this is one situation where you should be keenly aware of the potential problems that could occur before walking through the door and into an unknown situation. Whether it’s your own house or a friend’s house that you’ve been asked to watch while they’re out town, clearing a house with a potential threat is a huge risk. If the lives of innocents are at stake, it may be justifiable, but it’s unwise to put your life on the line for replaceable possessions. Establishing baselines through observation and orientation and looking for anomalies is the best way to stay in front of a dangerous situation. Avoidance is always the best defense.

Meet Our Panel

Sheena Green

Sheena Green is a perpetual student, prior manager at CrossRoads Shooting Sports, and certified firearms instructor. She has attended many shooting, edged weapons, and self-defense classes by well-respected instructors such as Steve Fisher, Steve Tarani, Ed Calderon, and others. She co-leads the Des Moines, Iowa, chapter of The Well Armed Woman. In addition to defensive training, she also enjoys competitive pistol and shotgun sports. p3atraining.com

Chad McBroom

Chad McBroom is a 22-year veteran law enforcement officer with most of his time spent in the tactical unit. He has spent over 30 years studying various combative systems and focuses on the science of close combat. Chad is the owner of Comprehensive Fighting Systems, offering training in empty-hand tactics, edged weapons, impact weapons, and firearms tactics. He’s also a regular contributor to RECOIL. Check out more at comprehensivefightingsystems.com

Tips for Successful Use of Pepper Spray

Written by

Lead photo by Dave Merrill for Concealment Magazine

A concealed firearm is a powerful tool for self-defense, but there are many defensive scenarios which may not call for lethal force. It's therefore a good idea to diversify your defensive options with a less-lethal tool such as pepper spray or OC spray. These chemical compounds can inflict immediate pain and disorientation upon an attacker, creating a window for you to escape or prepare a lethal response if it becomes necessary.

In a recent article on Active Response Training, Greg Ellifritz wrote about an incident involving pepper spray that was captured on a convenience store security camera in Canada. In this incident, two masked men entered the store and demanded cash from the register. The owner told the Ottawa Sun that he thought it was a joke at first, but then one of the men pulled a knife. The store owner grabbed a can of pepper spray (reportedly bear spray) and used it on the robbers, scaring off one of them and disorienting the other.

The original video in the Ottawa Sun article appears to have been deleted, but you can get the gist of it from the second-hand recording below:

Thankfully, the store personnel weren't injured, but as Ellifritz noted, this situation wasn't handled as well as it could've been. He expands on a few basic tips in his blog article:

  1. Keep your spray accessible, not set aside on a cluttered counter or buried in a purse.
  2. Practice with your spray, especially with inert training canisters.
  3. Have a backup plan in case the spray fails to stop the threat quickly.
  4. Know your reaction to inadvertent exposure or overspray.
  5. Be ready to decontaminate yourself after the fight.

For more details on each of these points, we'd recommend you read the article in its entirety on ActiveResponseTraining.net.

Also, be sure to check out this article from Concealment magazine, which provides an overview of pepper spray selection and use.

Gear Up Issue 35

Written by

5.11 Tactical Icon Pant

Colors
Black, Dark Navy, Flint, Kangaroo, Khaki, Ranger Green

MSRP
$75

URL
511tactical.com

Notes
While wearing these slacks isn’t the same as humping a three-day pack, the Icon Pant does offer a lot more carrying capacity than your average pair of skinny jeans. It has a whopping 12 pockets, including front utility pockets and two cargo pockets with internal dividers. Plus, with knee articulation, gusset construction, and Flex-Tac mechanical stretch ripstop, this 5.11 pant provides an excellent blend of mobility and durability that few competitors can match, if at all. The 6.8-ounce fabric is made of 80-percent polyester and 20-percent cotton with a Teflon finish, keeping spills and stains at bay.

Outdoor Vitals Dominion 1P Ultralight Backpacking Tent

Pack Size
20 by 5 by 5 inches

MSRP
$200

URL
outdoorvitals.com

Notes
If you’re looking for a compact, lightweight shelter for a solo adventure or bug-out scenario, Outdoor Vitals offers the Dominion. It’s aimed at backpackers and others who want to keep their gear as light as possible. The Dominion features DAC Featherlite aluminum poles and ultralight 15-denier siliconized fabrics. And if you want to shave more off the 2-pound, 9-ounce trail weight, its modular design lets you leave the tent body behind so you can go in ultralight mode (just rainfly, poles, and footprint) at 2 pounds flat. The Dominion has two storage pockets, a ventilated double-wall construction, tie-outs and guy-outs for windy conditions, and an easy-to-use storage compression bag.

First Lite Men’s Wick Long Boxer Brief

Colors
Black, Conifer, Dry Earth, First Lite Cipher, and First Lite Fusion

MSRP
$45

URL
firstlite.com

Notes
Don’t let the camo pattern fool you; you’re not meant to wear only these skivvies when stalking your next meal in the backcountry. But you could certainly wear this as a baselayer for pretty much anything you set out to do — be it hunting, running, camping, or web surfing. Why? Because it’s made from First Lite’s wool blend called Aerowool. And as we mentioned in the description for the Varusteleka jacket on this page, sheep’s fleece is one of the best materials to wear for outdoor adventuring. Moisture-wicking, odor-resistant, insulating — wool will almost always outperform any fabric humans can create. This boxer brief features a 10-inch inseam with a next-to-skin fit to prevent the legs from riding up, while the jacquard waistband provides a comfortable mix of tautness and flexibility.

Varusteleka Sarma TST Woolshell Jacket

Colors
Green, Grey, Woodland Camo

MSRP
$186

URL
varusteleka.com

Notes
Varusteleka might be the best gear and apparel company you’ve never heard of. Started in 2003, this Finnish firm has since became the biggest military supply store in Europe and has even created its own lineup of clothes, packs, and more. The Sarma TST Woolshell Jacket is one such example. It looks like a tactical softshell jacket, but is made of a wool blend. Why wool? Because it’s Mother Nature’s super material, it breathes (unlike some synthetic fabrics), is naturally flame- and odor-resistant (making it great for active pursuits), and continues to provide insulation even when wet (unlike cotton). This jacket is loaded with user-friendly features, including an adjustable hood, hook-and-loop cuffs, underarm ventilation zippers, and elbow reinforcements with pockets for pads (not included). Plus, there are two upper-arm zippered pockets and two side pockets, both of which sit at rib height, so they don’t get in the way of your backpack’s waist belt.

HOKA ONE ONE Kaha GTX

Sizes
Men’s 7 to 14
Women’s 5 to 11

MSRP
$220

URL
hokaoneone.com

Notes
The appropriately titled Kaha GTX (the word “kaha” means strength in Maori) provides some serious support for backpackers carrying heavy loads across long distances. This means these hiking boots are primed for preppers and survivalists who might need to trek with their bugout bags through harsh conditions. Inside, the EVA top layer provides a comfy bed for your foot while the Rangi bottom foam offers both durable cushioning and responsiveness. Moreover, the Vibram Megagrip outsole has 5mm multidirectional lugs for superior traction in all sorts of terrain. While not meant specifically for frigid temps, the Kaha GTX does feature a Gore-Tex waterproof bootie and a full-grain waterproof leather upper to keep your feet dry and comfortable.

Ruffwear Climate Changer Pullover

Colors
Canyonlands Orange, Blossom and Cedar Green

MSRP
$50

URL
ruffwear.com

Notes
If you’re forced to flee a disaster in winter, you’ll want to make sure your canine sidekick can make the journey out of Dodge, too. For a smaller dog or a breed that doesn’t do as well in cold weather, this pullover sweater from Ruffwear adds an extra layer without restricting movement. Made of a nylon-spandex blend and a water-repellent finish, the lower panel retains body heat, sheds rain, snow, and dirt, and stretches to conform to various chest sizes. On top, the upper panel is made of polyester fleece that dries quickly and captures warmth without the bulk. The cap sleeves allow for a greater range of motion while fitting dogs with broad shoulders and thick chests. For added safety, there’s a loop for attaching a small light and reflective trim for visibility in dark conditions.

Gerber Gear Freescape Camp Saw

Frame Steel
2Cr13 stainless steel

MSRP
$58

URL
gerbergear.com

Notes
There’s no denying that, in the hands of a skilled woodsman, a two-handed ax can do some serious damage to a tree. But there’s also no denying that for the average Joe, a saw is a much more precise tool at cutting a thick branch. The only problem with both of these tools is that they can often be too cumbersome to pack when cargo space is at a premium. Enter the Freescape Camp Saw. This innovative tool looks similar to a hacksaw but folds down flat into a baton-like object that’s just a little over a foot long — and without any additional tool or disassembly. When opened, it has four pivot points to effectively cut larger diameter wood using the full length of its 12-inch blade, which can be easily replaced if needed. And its handle is textured for added “grippyness” and accented with bright green so it’s easy to spot amongst your other tools.

Aclim8 COMBAR Pro

OAL
15.75 inches

MSRP
$600

URL
aclim8.com

Notes
The COMBAR combines an ax, saw, knife, spade, and hammer — all housed in a single grip that’s roughly the size and weight of a pipe wrench. While the hammer is always at the ready, the ax and spade are easy to deploy — just lift the safety lever and rotate whichever tool you need. The knife and saw, however, are stored inside the hollow handle and require a few more steps to get to. A basic version without the latter two tools runs for $425. If you’re on a budget, both the basic and this Pro version shown here will be cost prohibitive. Still, if you have the dough, it’s an innovative multi-tool worth considering. Created by two former Israeli special operations officers, the COMBAR is meant to withstand tough conditions — whether you’re a soldier, survivalist, or outdoor adventurer. A holster ($45) and an overbuilt soft case ($95) are available for it, both sold separately.

Midland USA X-Talker T290VP4

Range
Up to 40 miles

MSRP
$90

URL
midlandusa.com

Notes
In some survival scenarios, communication is life. Whether you need to find a lost member of your party or you need to signal that danger’s approaching basecamp, a pair of two-way radios can be key. The X-Talker T290VP4 is a GMRS radio that has Midland’s trademark Weather Scan + Alert Technology — which cycles through 10 available weather band channels and locks onto the one with the stronger signal — alerting you of severe conditions in your area. It features 22 channels, 14 extra privacy code channels, 121 privacy codes, and a range of up to 40 miles. This set comes with two radios, belt clips, a pair of headsets, and rechargeable batteries. Unfortunately, it’s not USB compatible, but it does come with a desktop charger.

Hunter’s Blend Coffee Black Powder Roast

Weight
12 ounces

MSRP
$15

URL
huntersblendcoffee.com

Notes
For many, coffee is life. For those who don’t get it, don’t worry. Just stock up on coffee anyway, because in a post-apocalyptic scenario, it’ll become a valuable commodity that you can use to trade for food, supplies, or your drink of choice. Until then, enjoy the Black Powder Roast from Hunter’s Blend Coffee. This mix of beans from Central America and east Asia will help fire up your morning, bringing that invigorating aroma and caffeine without the burnt taste that many other dark roasts have. Hunter’s Blend ethically acquires its beans via direct trade — cutting out the middle men and lobbyists who might not support the hunting and Second Amendment lifestyle — then has them roasted in small batches in Ohio.

Thyrm DarkVault Critical Gear Case

Dimensions
7.2 by 5.43 by 1.67 inches

MSRP
$90

URL
thyrm.com

Notes
The DarkVault was created with active-duty military and federal law enforcement in mind as a means to keep communication devices immediately accessible, thoroughly protected, and yet undetectable by blocking radio frequency signals. Sure, it’s not a true Faraday cage, which would require the case to be extremely large or quite metallic. But Thyrm says it’s been tested to block normal cellphone calls and data, as well as GPS signals, meeting the requirements of its government customers. Each case is made of battlefield-grade polymer with a gasket seal to keep out dirt, dust, and moisture. It also has a lockable latch, interior and external Velcro panels, and a quick-detach system that’s MOLLE compatible. The DarkVault Comms, the non-blocking version, is available for $60. Both made in the USA.

Ruike Knives P127-CB

OAL
8.46 inches

MSRP
$55

URL
shop.gearforlife.com

Notes
The P127-CB is a kwaiken-style folding knife with the business end made of 14C28N, a Swedish stainless steel that offers toughness, long-lasting sharpness, and strong corrosion resistance. We also like that the tanto profile is more functional and less angular than many popular tanto blades. It opens quickly and smoothly thanks to the high-carbon chromium ball bearings and has Ruike’s Thumb Up Safety Lock (similar to CRKT’s locking liner safety), which can lock the blade closed if you don’t want it to accidentally open or lock it open if you want to make it a virtual fixed blade. The slim handle has G10 scales with a carbon-fiber overlay and a tungsten glass-breaker on the end for emergency rescues or improvised pummeling. A model with only G10 scales is available for $50.