FRONT TOWARD ENEMY

Backpacks are a topic of endless debate and speculation within the survivalist community. What’s in your bug-out bag? Do you have a go-bag in your car? What about a get-home bag at the office? Is your every-day carry bag stocked with survival gear? These are all questions we’ve heard discussed ad infinitum on blogs, forums, social media pages, and at in-person gatherings. There’s nothing wrong with this line of thinking — we’ve written plenty of articles about packs, and even established our Bag Drop column as a recurring feature to delve further into various configurations. However, it’s easy for a laser-like focus on this subset of load-bearing gear to distract us from the fact that there are other viable options for carrying supplies.

It’s no secret that many common practices in the civilian preparedness realm have been derived from the armed forces. Here, too, there’s a lesson we can learn. Take a look at military loadouts around the world, and you’ll notice a common theme — operators aren’t rushing into dangerous environments with nothing but a weapon on a sling and a backpack crammed with all their remaining gear. In a high-intensity battlefield setting, it’s more than a little impractical to take a knee, unshoulder a pack, and dig around for a full magazine, tourniquet, or radio. When those items are necessary, they’re necessary immediately.

Backpacks are great for long-term sustainment gear, but the most critical items in any loadout are always worn on the chest, flanks, and waistband for immediate accessibility. This is a universal constant in military units because of its proven effectiveness, and you’d be remiss to overlook its relevance to emergency preparedness, even in non-combat situations. Carrying gear on the waist via a battle belt will be discussed in a future issue, but for now we’ll focus on the upper body.

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