So here it is folks. Our unit has been tasked with running an upcoming survival exercise in late spring. On the last survival exercise I was so disgusted with the incompetence of the instructor that I called him an idiot and walked out of his class. Since then guys from my unit have found out who I am on this forum and have been reading my posts . My boss reads this forum from time to time as well and figured out who I am.(not exactly like I try and hide it) Guess who the instructor for the next survival course will be ?

I will be giving a full day of classroom lessons followed by a 72 hour exercise in the field. The exercise is still not confirmed as of yet (due to training funding allocations etc) but I will be ready if it does. These are the guidelines for the exercise and scenario:

Each student will be ONLY allowed to take:
1.a single knife of their choosing
2.issued multi-tool(S.O.G)
3.issued sunnto compass/map
4.issued first aid items-(shell dressings, C-A-T tourniquet, gloves, CPR mask, quick clot)
5.Issued flash light
6.penjector with flares(red) x 3
7.Issued camel- bak, 3 L
8.issued sidearm. 9mm NATO(may be a notional item for safety )
9. Issued IMP x 1
10.PSK (all items MUST fit inside a standard sized soap dish, and are
of the students choice)
The above items are what any soldier is expected to have on him at all times besides the normal fighting order(at the very least) while deployed.

This is the scenario in brief:

You are on the way back from a tactical operation B.E.L when your chopper gets hit. You go down. You are alive and unhurt somehow, but everyone else is dead. The chopper is on fire so you get away from the wreck. The Enemy will be here soon to check the wreckage for survivors so you need to move fast. You know from your brief that there is an area of relative safety 5 clicks away from here (an emergency LZ). Your guys will be looking for you soon, but you have to get out of here. Your rifle was in the chopper which is now engulfed in flames. You only have made it out of the chopper with your TAC vest, FRAG vest and helmet. You decide to ditch these items and take only what you need as you must travel light and fast. You take only the items listed above and ditch the rest (FRAG VEST, helmet, TAC vest, Rifle ammo, etc) you have used your FRAG grenades and smoke earlier. All and any other gear which you may have used is burning in the chopper (GPS, radio, crash pack, etc , etc)

Using the map and compass you manage to get to the emergency LZ. You are unsure if the Enemy suspects that you have survived the crash, but you don't want to take that chance of being spotted before rescue arrives. It is late spring and the weather is mild at the moment, but may turn at any second. Day time temp is an average of between + 15-25 deg cel with the night dropping to an average of 3-10 deg cel. You are in a lightly forested area. You are wearing your issued combat clothing, Gore-tex Wet weather boots, and leather combat gloves(your gore-tex jacket, rain gear and other spare snivel kit was burned in the crash)
It is best to stay in this location unless you are compromised as this is where the rescue team is likely to look first. Nothing to do now but hold out until help arrives. Time to dig out the PSK ......................................


If this exercise is a go, Each of the troops gets put in a location away from everyone else for 72 hours and will be told to stay put, but first, there is a forced march of 8-10 K to make sure everyone is tired and sweaty first. they will be allowed a 100 m area to best choose for shelter location etc but must stay within that limit for safety and control.(there will be a water source in that distance) They will be checked up on every so often and at any time there is a real threat they will have a flare gun and a few red flares to signal for help. Someone from the staff will be on constant watch just in case. Training is well and good but you don't want someone REALLY get hurt.

I have done this course as a student already and it was an awesome eye opener. What you decide to bring in the soap dish is up to you but you need to live with that decision for three days in the cold/wet. As a student, this is what I brought.

My knife of choice was my Gerber LMF II

These are the items I carried in my soap disk PSK:

Military survival sheet (silver on one side, OD on the other)
spark-lite with 4 tinder
6 wind/waterproof matches with striker strip
12 feet of braided mine string
4 feet of snare wire
large zip lock bag
Micro-pur(MP-1) water purification tablets x 8
4 foot length of GUN tape, wrapped around two double headed nails.
Large needle
4 large safety pins
A flexible straw
A mini-spool of mil spec sewing thread(VERY strong stuff)
1 x large fishing hook, 2 x small fishing hooks
survival whistle, jetscream
A sheet of tin foil 2 feet x 8 inches
A picture of the wife and kid
A scalpel blade
(this is all I could cram into the dish)

With these items I did fine. Once you have a good, concealed shelter in place and a means of getting water then basically you have three days of boredom to cope with while your belly growls and you come up with all sorts of interesting games to play to beat out the clock while attempting to stay out of sight(like trying to find food) The biggest problems were that only red light could be used, lighting a fire had to be concealed underground in a Dakota fire pit(works quite well, but the smoke is a problem) and the stupid, G++++++++, F++++++ little black flies that were relentless no matter how you tried to cover up. And then of course, the rain


As well you are not allowed to have a watch. The safety staff makes checks at random intervals but the student usually won’t even know he/she is being observed. Since there is a tactical side to this, if you are spotted at a distance of over 200 m from what would be the Enemies point of view (due to light, smoke etc) then you will fail the scenario. You can fire off a red flare in an emergency and you will be rescued in an emergency (getting stung and having an allergic reaction, or real serious injury etc) BUTS THAT'S ABOUT IT. If you try to take the easy way out because you are cold and wimpy you will be simply told to suck it up as you get a new flare and watch the truck drive away again.(they will leave you there but you will still fail the exercise) The reason for the soap dish is that it gives every student a set standard so no one can have an unfair advantage over the other and usually for a military survival kit space is very limited anyway, so it is very realistic.

I figure this forum would be a great way to generate healthy discussion and ideas on this topic. I am looking forward to teaching on this course and I really hope we get the go ahead from higher. If you were faced with this situation and could bring a PSK in which all items had to be kept to a size limit of what you could fit in a soap dish.................

What would YOU bring???