I believe knowledge exists in the questions you ask, not the statements you make. The origin of this statement is unknown to me but it remains true as long as I remember using it. Students are always looking for answers in courses and our instructors are great at having them turn those questions inward. The Socratic seminar and roundtable discussion, therefore, is a common way we teach classroom courses here at Fieldcraft Training. Recently, we hosted Bug Out Planning for the first time here in Aberdeen, NC. Bugging out is not a new concept and if you search the internet, you’ll find countless videos on what you should pack, where you should go, opinions here and opinions there, and a whole lot of noise. When it comes to bugging out, there’s no shortage of strong statements and personalities claiming their way is THE way. We wanted to take a different approach and walk the students through a very simple planning formula that is reproducible, sustainable, flexible, and easy to comprehend. We directed many of their questions back at them with a bit of reframing to help them determine their best interest and courses of action. What follows are some of the takeaways from a very jam-packed 2-day course.

Compression

Compression is a concept. You can compress a sleeping bag down from a larger size to a smaller stuffed package. You can compress a full-length movie down to an entertaining preview trailer. You can also take a very broad concept like bugging out and distill it down to a 2 Day 16 hour course. That last act of compression wasn’t easily done. When I sat down with Brian E. to discuss what we are going to teach, it took multiple sessions looking over notes to determine how we could fit so many ideas into a manageable class. In the end, Brian and I created a presentation that offered students plenty of repetitions of running through their planning process along with the tools provided to them. Students learned how to examine equipment after determining the need for it first. With tables of gear and student load-outs spread over the floor, they realized they could only carry so much and they would have to identify what was absolutely critical or “needed” to have items over the ones that are nice to have. The training was an exercise in cutting excess, maximizing performance, and avoiding the pitfalls of all around too much bugging out.

Grounded in Reality
At Fieldcraft Training, we live by the expression “Real training for real people.” Bugging out has been a reality throughout recorded history. Look to any war with refugees that form a human train to the nearest border. Look at the blackout in NYC in the early 2000s or Hurricane Katrina or even the residents of Kenosha that boarded up their homes and businesses and got away from civil unrest that took place at night. Most recently, the chemical Chornobyl train derailment from early February 2023 in East Palestine, OH highlights the importance of having a bug-out plan. At the time of the course, the train derailment had affected the area for 3 weeks and since many of the local residents were not back home yet, we had students plan for 30 days in a bug-out scenario. There have been longer bug-out events and as planners, we didn’t want to give the students an easy way out by just addressing the most common 72-hour event. Aside from a few jokes about a weirdo with a cuckoo clock collection, we kept the scenarios and the most likely courses of action grounded.

Don’t Be Tied To One Idea

If you have to put distance between you and a push factor causing your bug out, our guess is you will most likely use your vehicle. Your daily driver, in most circumstances, is what you will be in or near and you’ll cover ground quickly if you get ahead of the pack. Mobility is a concept and it is easy to get tied to the idea you must stay with your vehicle. Vehicles are property and that property can be replaced while human life cannot. During bug-out planning, we had students plan for detaching from their vehicles at any moment. Instead of assuming they would always have the kit they carry on their roof, trunk, or inside the cab, students learned the importance of redundant layers and being able to walk away from a mobility platform if bugging out on foot was the better and more effective way. Also, since travel by foot is often an option some students selected, we made sure to impart the idea they could find another platform, catch a ride, or upgrade their means of transportation.

Methodology
As students found out, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to bugging out. Brian was able to adapt military planning to create a template for students to follow with beginning state, end state, ways/means, and risk. Students applied this formula to create a plan that is about 75% complete with the remaining 25% of specialization that can be addressed at the moment by grabbing select gear and applying one of many premade plans. We wanted students to have a baseline set of knowledge and even topics like medical training were geared specifically to bugging out. Take for example Gerry’s (@younggerryyoung) medical block that covered foot-related injuries, some overview of the M.A.R.C.H. assessment, and how to address the most common injuries to hands and eyes. There is only so much we can provide students but all instructors were confident the content provided was useful in many scenarios that could be encountered. Throughout the weekend, students learned many ways and were given the flexibility to determine the way that works best for them. Toward the end of the weekend, students were given the opportunity to do a group planning exercise and they found they synced on many decisions. While there was some variation in planning at crossroads, for the most part, they all left with the framework to adapt what they learned to their own unique scenarios at home.

Bugging out is one of the two common options for survival in an emergency. Bugging in or locking down is another. Some of the students who signed up for Bug Out Planning are already signed up to get the second half of the training with us in June. That course will take a lengthy process of planning and we will apply the same realistic standards to that one as we did this one. For more information on the “Lock Down” course, please visit our training page and look under the “Survival” tab.