Community

Will it be there when you need it?

What is community?

By definition 1. It’s a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common. Example, “the scientific community” 2. A feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests and goals. “The sense of community that organized religion can provide.”

Most experts on the subject pertaining to when the SHTF (excrement hits the fan) that community is by far the most important aspect of survival. And I feel that number two above is the definition that they are going to use for defining community.

Their take? If you try and go it alone, you’ll get squished, unalived fairly quickly.

The key to having a community to rely on is to build it NOW. When there’s relative peace in the land and you have time to do so.

You can help Bob, your neighbor, with some chore or something even simpler, such as having him over to dinner. Get to know your neighbors. Know them so you know which ones will be reliable, the ones you can count on and which ones to steer clear of when things go bad.

Find out who has skills that can translate to the new world you’ll find yourself in. Like John has chickens, that lay eggs and has a beautiful garden. Those are valuable skills to have. You may be the gun guy. You have multiple guns, and have the training and ability to protect John’s family and his chickens. So, you help each other.

He provides eggs, you provide long distance communication.

This community mind set isn’t just about an invasion from without, or a civil war. It could include civil unrest – rioting for whatever reason, a natural disaster ie. Tornado, earthquake, flood, etc.

The point is to build that community, which in turn, translates into trust and a strong network of help and support before something catastrophic happens.

If and when it does, you’re set. Not just you but your community. And this community may not encompass your neighborhood, it may be portions or certain neighbors. But you’ve built your community, you have a plan and resources that you all can rely on.

This strategy is employed in The Reason Book Series with each militia. There’s an equally strong community of non-active fighters. Meaning they aren’t the first line of defense, but they are trained to fight, to defend and they are quite literally the reserves.

The community is the foundation of the militia. If it’s strong and stable, then the militia is. The most important job of the community is supporting the fighters.

They provide services, food (animals, gardening) just to name two aspects.

In the Reason series, The Militia/Community has a council form of government with the tactical/militia arm for engaging with the enemies of America and winning back lost territory. They actually do not protect the community per se as this falls onto the security section to perform. There’s an overall head of security.

There’s a head of medical, education, infrastructure, transportation, and an community head who’s in charge of the staff and community well-being over all.

Lastly there’s a council that is kind of a watch dog over the militia leadership. To make sure that the leadership doesn’t go dictator on everyone. It is worth saying here that no one other than the ones in charge of the militia have a say over tactical decisions. The members of the oversight council are members of the community.

So, as you can see, the community can be seen as more important than the actual militia, the fighting arm.

Hearts and minds are more important than a high body count. And that’s something that the over leader of the militias, “Leonidas” has stressed since before the invasion.

“You take care of your people, and they’ll take care of you.”