Is there any ex-military who been overseas on this forum?

MMm..ok well assuming you asking about military people organizing themselves..?? Our posting to Germany in early 60's was cancelled and we went north instead to Alberta.None the less, organization was part of the prepping that we did under orders. The basement shelter idea, stocked and made into a bunker like environment..which may have evolved into the finished basements that sprang up after over time. Bi monthly drills..a few days setting down in basement not sure if it was drill or actual event. The usual supplies and furniture for a family to eat sleep, bathe, and we now know die a slow painful death together etc..toilet was porta potties..gross out. 🙂 Radios. A rack of 200 bottles of home made red wine which was replenished each year, disappeared somehow ?? 🙂
During the Bay of Pigs events my dad, senior NCO at the time dropped us off at a distant lake camp ground with little of our supplies..a tent..a useless generator with no gas for it 🙂 left us there for 4 or 6 days wondering of the world was going to explode any minute by the way he was so freaked out. Regardless the propaganda about Canada nnot having Nuclear weapons they surely did..I worked on the bunkers that held them for CE Section a couple years after the BOP threat. Wore the little radiation monitor badges. They were USA nukes though so the science of obfuscation was employed cleverly in Ottawa. 🙂
6 years in Europe bombing Germany into the stone age had taken a toll on dad.. he had other experiences with death and destruction that must have been horrific to have survived and tipped him over the edge that time. After many years of nuclear threats and anxiety we settled into a fatalism about it all.. a way the mind prepares after years of anxious expectation regularly, for the seeming inevitable end of our comfortable little world.
Rifle ranges were used a lot with weapons training of sorts. I spent many evenings there blamming at targets. Fire arms were always in our home and I become a hunter for many years and shot my moose yearly starting at age 14. Snaring rabbits for the English officer down the street..:0) ol dad was not fond of them, the Brits :), and used me to deliver his contempt, me thinking gee what a good gesture to send me with a couple rabbits for their families to enjoy, all cleaned and skinned for them..the receptions were not friendly though and eventually he suggested I stop doing that..must have had a strong suggestion from base HQ in hind sight now..:) no wonder they never did warm up to me and forbade their kids from playing with me 🙂 that bad native boy down the street and his "bloody" rabbits :0)
My buds and I went out one summer night and broke into the ammo dump and walked off with a 50. cal machine gun complete with tripod and ammo, SP's were pretty lax guarding the compound if a few 11 year old's can pull that off, set it up in WWII Fuel's basement..locked and loaded..gee maybe that's what killed the Germany posting 🙂 exiled to Cold Lake CFB.:) My bud Jay was forbidden from riding his horse for 2 full weeks.. or perhaps unable :0) hem.
The look on the faces of WWII Fuels face and the SP's when they walked into the basement and saw that man killer set up and ready rock was priceless..3 shades horrified of paleface. 🙂
That's about the type of preparations we did in the military as BRATS :0) heh heh..:0) Invaluable training that 🙂 There were other events we pulled off but that's best left unsaid now.:) Oh the usual judo and air cadets..My career was short there..my Sergeant stomped on my toes one evening during inspection and lost his front teeth for his trouble.. the investigation showed that he was abusive to me quite often and the officers invited me back but I had enough of the military by then and decided to become a terrorist instead :0) joking now :0)

Nice history...thanks!

Refired great story, thanks for sharing

Dude seriously... the happy faces... they are KILLING me!!!!!!!!

@Refired_n_retired63:
Great personal story.
I also thank you for sharing.

@prp_prepper: it's ok, they're not that happy, just pleasant.
😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 now THAT'S happy.

OK...ex British military, ex spec ops....posted to numerous theatres throughout the world....

every theatre is different, every requirement different....however, there is always an answer to a problem and always hope. if some high threat low, probabilty event occurs, no matter what it is you should not prepare for the event itself (thats not practical). you should prepare for you and your family to engage in two courses of action. your either going to 'hole up' or 'bug out'. i prefer the first and if you have an option of the two and can't decided, stay where you are. numerous advantages with staying put.

if you have to go, go!!!....just make sure everyone in your party is on the same page...no hesitation, no second thoughts, grab your kit and go. those first stage of an event people will be in shock as the realization hits them...best time to get out. you want to be avoid those same people three to five days later when food as run out and they're starting to starve...

if and your party members are at different locations (work, school, gym etc) when the SHTF have an rv point near your home base (if your home base is inaccesable)...try to avoid travelling to your bug out location on your own...not only is it safer to travel in numbers, but what if a loved one dosen't arrive at your bug out location after 3 hours, a day, a week....are you going to return to ground zero to search for them? what if they're already dead and your risking your life for nothing? point is find them before you leave! your rv point should avoid locations such as Walmart parking lot etc....you won't be the only people there in troubled times. everyone will be stocking up. my rv point is a local landmark on very high ground, my secondry rv local is approx 10 miles from the first.

most important thing in my prep kit....Glock/ Shotgun and the knowledge and practice in its use...

If I had been posted overseas I could tell you that in a lot of Middle eastern countires they have a fairly typical top down heirachical military organization. And some crazy assed ranks. Worse than LtGen or MGen.

The people are also sub-organized (Not sure if that's the right word) into clans. There is this under lay of clans and clan warfare to be cognizant of. Then there is religion and we're all up on the Sunni/Shi ite thing. The basic loyalty that is in all those facets of them seems to take more loyalty. LIke we're loyla to our friends and family. Our church? Other members of your descent in your country? Not so much. Over there it's very different.

But i'm not going to post if I was there or when or where or in what capacity. You could find that stuff out from other sources. Best take-away is the clan organization. I would love to have loyalty to a large clan of preppers in my town. It's what's needed.

Good question.

Croatia in 1994.
Bosnia in 1997.
Kosovo in 2000.
Afghanistan in 2006.
None of them were fun places to be. Especially for the locals.

Croatia in 1994.
Bosnia in 1997.
Kosovo in 2000.
Afghanistan in 2006.
None of them were fun places to be. Especially for the locals.

hats off to you brother taz....did a four day job in Bosnia in 96....snatched a bad guy, quick in and out. it was a mess then, so god knows what it was like by 97. glad i never got the Stan...(but the SAS guys who instructed me did stints out there in the 80's teaching the Taliban how to fight the Russians!!!)...all the guys i used to work with are private security out there now (and Iraq)....its a mess aparently....get offered a job out there every six months, but i dont need the headaches.

Croatia in 1994.
Bosnia in 1997.
Kosovo in 2000.
Afghanistan in 2006.
None of them were fun places to be. Especially for the locals.

hats off to you brother taz....did a four day job in Bosnia in 96....snatched a bad guy, quick in and out. it was a mess then, so god knows what it was like by 97. glad i never got the Stan...(but the SAS guys who instructed me did stints out there in the 80's teaching the Taliban how to fight the Russians!!!)...all the guys i used to work with are private security out there now (and Iraq)....its a mess aparently....get offered a job out there every six months, but i dont need the headaches.

thinking about it, it was 97...

Bosnia was perhaps the most embarrassing point of my career, mine and a lot of other Canadian troops. We had a protest in the Canadian AOR and Jean Cretin ( didn't misspell) had us stand down and got the Brits to come in and handle it. Meanwhile, the Canadians were sent to clean up garbage in the Brit camp. Needless to say, there was a whole company of Canadian soldiers who were about ready to desert. It was humiliating.
Most of my tour was spent in Zgon.

Bosnia was perhaps the most embarrassing point of my career, mine and a lot of other Canadian troops. We had a protest in the Canadian AOR and Jean Cretin ( didn't misspell) had us stand down and got the Brits to come in and handle it. Meanwhile, the Canadians were sent to clean up garbage in the Brit camp. Needless to say, there was a whole company of Canadian soldiers who were about ready to desert. It was humiliating.
Most of my tour was spent in Zgon.

it is not yours to question why, just to do or die! (been there brother, dealing with decisions that dont make sense)

Somalia 1993
Bosnia 94-95, 98-99, 03-04

You could tell that things did get better in Bosnia as time went by. The first trip was the biggest embarrassment, thanks to the UN. The rules under NATO were a lot more generous.

In 94-95, there were a lot of locals who said that at least some of their family had left Bosnia. Germany was a popular destination (German was taught in Yugoslavian schools). Being a refugee sucks, but at least there was somewhere they could go. Many of those who left did come back. It was pretty obvious in 03-04. Problem was, most of them were coming back to find their house either destroyed or had someone else living in it. Farm fields were often mined (even the threat of mining) or under someone else's crops who had no intention of giving them up. In some cases, people returned to find their property had been sold by someone pretending to have the authority of the owner and the new owner had legal paperwork to back it up. This was exacerbated by the lack of pre-war paperwork in some areas (what happens when you burn down town hall).

What I noticed is that the people would accept what ever hand out they could get, from who ever it came from. Bosnians (Muslims) would accept charity from Christian Aid agencies the same as they would from a Muslim agency. If you could manage to convince the agency that you in fact did not just go home and change and that they should give you another bag of flour, so much the better. You just did not know where the next meal might come from. Nothing went to waste. You cooked just enough to feed everyone. Leftovers are what the foreign soldiers did.

Taz, we had an issue where the Brits had a Serbian tank that was lobbing rounds at a school which was used as an OP by the Brits. So we sent a TOW launcher up and (not so) quietly took care of it. This was so as to not spoil the rapport the Brits had with the local Serbs. They accepted that they had broken the terms of the ceasefire and the visiting Canadians had put paid to their transgressions. It was not spoken of again. I'm not saying we were "saving face", but at least our relationship with the locals wasn't ruined.