Prepared

 Prepared, by Mike Glover, Portfolio/Penguin 2023

Duck and cover?  Pull over to the side of the road? Run!  Run faster! Or how about laying in a few dozen MRE's and some extra firewood?  Maybe that's what we think we should do to prepare for the next catastrophe, but former U.S. Army Special Forces and CIA  contractor Mike Glover says "NO! Sit down and listen," because Prepared is written to get you to a real world safety zone.  

Surprisingly simple, author Glover lays out The Plan for survival in only seven chapters:

1.  The Resilient Mindset

2.  Planning

3.  Situation Awareness

4.  Decision Point

5.  Everyday Carry (EDC)

6.  Mobility

7.  Homestead

You will want to read a couple of these chapters twice, maybe post the main points on an index card for review, just in case...Glover says you are going to want to protect two main survival areas, your homestead, and your car.  Where we might have thought we've built the moat and fortressed the castle, the list, it turns out, is longer than we thought!  Likewise for the vehicle - the author covers smarter mobility as well as how to plan for and react to unavoidable accidents - what if there is no cell service, what if nobody knows you hit a deer one night and went off the road?  Scary scenarios that we need to be ready for!

Finally, Glover gives us something hard to work on - focus - controlling the freeze response and stress control he practiced during his twenty years of Army and Special Forces, plus CIA contractor work.  The author calls this skill "brain chemistry," and it is a working model that, he says, can be developed.  Glover worked hard through fifteen deployments ranging from Iraq and Afghanistan to Libya and Yemen.  What he saw and experienced we hope to never see, but listen to his story about survival in Sadr City Iraq, 2006 - I grabbed a couple machine gun teams from the regular army unit to breach the front door, and we quickly made our way to the roof to set up what was basically an overwatch position, with gunners on every corner of the building.... 

Suddenly a US F-16 jet overhead looped around to prepare to fire on the US troops below, and that's when Glover had to think fast.

When I saw the jet come around and begin its run, I ripped into my kit and pulled out a VS17 panel and laid it out in the middle of the rooftop.  A VS17 panel is a highly reflective fluorescent orange-and-pink cloth panel that is used in the military to identify friendly forces. I've packed this piece of cloth, almost unconsciously, as a matter of muscle memory, in the same spot in my kit for nearly every mission in my twenty years of service.  I can count on one hand the number of times I've needed to use it.  This was the first.  Thank God the pilot saw it.

I'm sold.  If you like action pictures, and feeling less helpless, and the news is starting to get to you... get this book.

Patricia E. Moody

FORTUNE magazine  "Pioneering Woman in Mfg" 

IndustryWeek IdeaXchange Xpert

A Mill Girl at Blue Heron Journal, on-line resource for business thought-leaders and decision-makers,  patriciaemoody@gmail.com