“Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli.” (Loosely translated: “According to the capabilities of their readers, books have their destinies.”)
—Terentianus Maurus, De Litteris, Syllabis, et Metris
Chuck Nolan and Caleb Burroughs were both news junkies and watched world events closely. When it became apparent that another global credit crisis like 2008 was approaching, they began sending each other permalink URLs for articles from news websites like DrudgeReport.com and WorldNetDaily.com. Links from these sites led them to “hard money” investing websites like TheDailyReckoning.com, ZeroHedge.com, SovereignMan.com, and GaryNorth.com. Investment websites then provided entrée to a plethora of Austrian economics, libertarian, and survivalist sites.
Four months into this shared web wandering, Caleb declared in one of his e-mails, “I’ve taken the Red Pill, bro. I can now see that the mainstream media has been feeding us horse by-products. We need to get ready. There’s a storm coming.”
Chuck sent a reply. “I concur. It looks like it’s going to hit the fan in less than two years, and possibly much sooner. We need to get smart on bartering, gardening, self-sufficiency, commo, advanced first aid, the whole works. Suggestions?”
“I vote that we start out with resources out there that are free for the picking. I can download hundreds of military manuals as PDFs. There are also thousands of free books on the Internet. We should download those and put them on redundant memory sticks. The cost of storage media like thumb drives has gotten ridiculously low. I just saw an ad for a sixteen gigabyte stick for just twenty-two AUD. That’s about the same price as a sixteen megabyte stick was just a few years ago! Just one stick could fit many hundreds of books and manuals, especially if they are compressed.”
Chuck responded, “Okay, you start with military manuals, while I gather civilian books. We make two copies of each, plus copies on our laptops, and then mail the redundant copy sticks to each other.”
Forty-eight hours later, Caleb wrote back, “Great idea. I started out with more than forty Aussie army manuals. I also have access to an Australian Defence Force mirror website of the American military database site called Army Knowledge Online (AKO). It is a treasure trove of information.
“Here are the manuals I was able to download just this evening:
Survival and Evasion, FM 21-76-1
USMC Survival Manual, MCRP 3-02F
Camouflage, FM 5-20
Camouflage of Vehicles, FM 5-20B
Field Hygiene and Sanitation, FM 21-10
Improvised Explosive Devices or IEDs, TM 31-210
Infantry Rifle Platoon-Squad, FM 7-8
Ranger Handbook, SH 21-76
Survivability, FM 5-103
NBC Protection, FM 3-4
NBC Decontamination, FM 3-5
Special Forces Unconventional Warfare, TC 18-01
M16 and M16A1 Rifles Operator’s Manual, TM 9-1005-249-10
Sniper Training, FM 23-10 å
USMC Sniping, MCWP 3-15.3
Counter Guerilla Operations
Jungle Operations
Long Range Surveillance Unit Operations
Military Mountaineering, FM 3-97.61
Special Forces Use of Pack Animals, FM 3-05.213 (FM 31-27)
Claymore Mine, FM 23-23
Obstacles, Mines, Demolitions, FM 90-10
Ordnance and Explosives Response
Ranger Unit Operations, FM 7-85
USMC Scouting and Patrolling, MCWP 3-11
Military First Aid Manual, FM 4-25-11
US Army Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) Correspondence Course
NATO Emergency War Surgery
Combat Lifesaver Home Study Course
Special Operations Forces Medical Handbook (2001)—Note: there is a newer edition, but it isn’t in the online free libraries and it is beaucoup expensive.
Have you had the chance to search for civvie books?”
Later that evening, Chuck sent an answer: “You betcha. I already downloaded the LDS Preparedness Manual from the Mormon Church and went to the Hesperian Foundation website and downloaded ‘Where There Is No Doctor’ by David Werner and ‘Where There Is No Dentist’ by Murray Dickson. I also found mention of sites where I can download the following, gratis, and will do so over the course of the next few evenings:
Survival and Austere Medicine: An Introduction
Ship Captain’s Medical Guide
Medical Drugs and Equipment for the Team Physician
Journal of Special Operations Medicine
“I also read a recommendation that I get physical copies of these books:
Wilderness Medicine, 5th Edition, by Paul S. Auerbach
2012 Nurse’s Drug Handbook
Ditch Medicine: Advanced Field Procedures for Emergencies by Hugh Coffee
Medicine for the Outdoors by Paul Auerbach
The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy
Primary Surgery: Volume 1: Non-Trauma by Maurice King
Primary Surgery: Volume 2: Trauma by Maurice King
The Sanford Guide to Antimicrobial Therapy 2012 Edited by David Gilbert
Tactical Medicine Essentials by E. John Wipfler
Wilderness Medicine, Beyond First Aid, 5th Edition by William W. Forgey
Wilderness 911 by Eric Weiss
Wounds and Lacerations: Emergency Care and Closure by Alexander T. Trott, MD
The Doom and Bloom Survival Medicine Handbook by Joe Alton, MD and Amy Alton
“Buying all those could blow my budget, especially if I have to order them from book companies in the States. I’ll have to be selective about what I buy. That last one by Joe Alton of ‘Dr. Bones and Nurse Amy’ fame is a real prepper medical book written by a real deal prepper MD. From fish hooks to frostbite, surgery to stockpiling medications—it’s all in there. I will let you know what else I find. OBTW, over the next few evenings, I plan to dig into the following:
“Project Gutenberg: 33,000 free public domain e-books! But be advised that some books there are way out of date, so they do not follow modern fire safety, lab/chemical safety, and machinery safety standards.
The Australian Small Farm Permaculture and Sustainable Living website has lots of free e-books.
E-Books Directory
Steve’s Pages: Another gold mine! Thousands of free firearms manuals and military manuals. At a minimum, we should be sure to download the exploded diagrams and the user manuals for each of our guns.
“I think AKO has only current manuals, so you might check GlobalSecurity.com. They have lots of free military manuals (text only).
“And a civilian site called PR68.com has lots of links for U.S. military FMs and TMs—especially radio manuals.
“Oh, and Wikipedia has some links to PDFs of U.S. military manuals. For advice on stocking up, I downloaded a copy of ‘The Alpha Strategy’ by John Pugsley. And for some good Christian doctrine and Bible study, the Institute for Christian Economics site, established by Dr. Gary North, has lots of free books. I’ll be getting a lot of those.
“I’m also considering buying the forty-two-year compendium of The Mother Earth News on CD-ROM. Ditto for the compendium of Backwoods Home magazine. Both are American ‘back to the land’ magazines with a wealth of info on self-sufficiency.
“I just had another idea. How about all of those instructional videos (outdoor survival, gardening, shooting schools, etc.) on YouTube? I found a website called YouTube Downloader that has free software, so we can SAVE those videos onto our hard drives or to memory sticks. Way cool.”
The following week, Chuck e-mailed Caleb: “Just when I thought we had assembled a fairly complete library, I found out that there are a couple of websites that offer ALL of Wikipedia on DVD. There are a couple of options. The skinny version is text only, but the fat one has all the photos and illustrations. This might be a good idea for something to add to our library.”
Caleb replied: “<Snarkasm On> Yes, but consider: When they do the Wikipedia download, they had to take a snapshot of the site contents. At any given time, especially Saturday evenings when college students have been drinking, some of those pages are being vandalized. So just consider that the Idi Amin Wikipedia bio page we get on DVD might say, ‘General Idi A. Meany, Notorious Egg Sucker, President of Bananaland . . .’ <Snarkasm Off>”