Hey Joe,

Nice to see you over here at ETS. I am quite familiar with your thread over at BF. I read through it quite thoroughly before purchasing the knife. You make some very good points about blade shape, thickness, geometry etc, and these are certainly valid points. I have recently found myself in an increasing number of environments where firearms carry (yes fully licensed civillian carry) is not permitted however carrying a knife still is. Where I live a knife is perfectly legal to carry almost anywhere (obviously not in schools, court houses and a few other exceptions) as long as it is not a thorwing knife, switch blade or buttlerfly knife, is single-edged and has a blade of less than 5.5". With this in mind, I purchased my SERE Operator more for defensive uses than for survival although I feel strongly that any knife I carry needs to be capable of handling a survival situation. After initial examination I was certainly curious why it is considered a 'pure fighter' by most people. You have done a lot to explain that. I must say that all-in-all I am quite impressed with this blade. It was well worth the $130 I paid for it. Oh and BTW... I don't think I'll be batoning any logs with mine either unless I have to in order to survive, in which case I think it will stand up to the test. I'll stick with my CRK Shadow III for hiking and camping.