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Hello and welcome to Swift | Silent | Deadly, a personal blog by me, Justin “Graveyard” Fields. As a former Marine Corps Special Operations member, government contractor, and professional trainer, I’m on a mission to help others become more capable and competent human beings. Read more about me.
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The Latest
Preparedness Part III: Be Financially Prepared
In my last two posts on preparedness I have discussed preparing your body and preparing your mind. Today I am going to talk about yet another unpopular preparedness topic: financial preparedness. This is a very simple, two-step process: reduce expenses and increase reserves but don’t worry – I’ll go into a bit more detail.
Know a Knot: Bowline on a Bight
This weekend I was considering what knot to run this week. I dug back through the previous knots and was a little surprised I hadn’t mentioned the Bowline-on-a-Bight. It’s an interesting knot, and a really easy one to tie.
Humaning 101: Basic Hand Tools, Part II
In Part I of this article I talked about some basic hand tools every household should have. The were basic PPE, screwdrivers, pliers, hex keys, hammer, measuring and marking tools, and saws. Those tools should get just about everyone started. Today I’m going to talk about a few more that I think are more or less essential and are still well within the realm of “basic” hand tools (and I wax philosophical here and there). Enjoy.
Housekeeping: SAR, Technical Rescue, Paramedic
Today I want to provide a personal update and let you know why I have been less active on the blog. As some of you may have noticed I have recently slowed down a bit on the blog posts. There are some reasons for that. I attempt to run this blog with some transparency so I’ll let you know exactly what those reasons are.
Know a Knot! The Scaffold Knot
Welcome back to Know a Knot! I know it has been a few weeks since I’ve posted a knot article and for that I apologize. This week I’m back with a reader request: could you demonstrate a knot that slips? Yes (based on some other text in his email I believe he mean “slip”as the ability to loosen or tighten the loop) I can! There are a lot of knots that slip but I really like this one because it is a very strong knot and you already know how to tie it. It’s called the scaffold knot.
Humaning 101: Basic Hand Tools, Part I
I recently got a reader request for an article on tool maintenance. I’m not necessarily the expert on tool maintenance but I’m willing to take a stab at it. Before I do that I think we should talk about one of those things every halfway competent human should possess: a set of basic hand tools.
Dry Fire Tools: The MantisX
I have written extensively about dry practice. I’m not even going to attempt to link to dry practice articles here because this blog is littered with them. I will, however, quickly extol the virtues of dry practice. It is very inexpensive, it is accessible in areas not optimized for live fire, it allows you to practice things your range doesn’t allow. As awesome as dry practice is, there are tools that can make it objectively better. Today I am going to talk about one of them: the MantisX.