Words have meanings. Part Two

In part one (please read first if you haven’t already), we discuss the “roles” of the III Community vice the “names” that are commonly used to call ourselves.

We discussed the notion of a nationwide revolutionary army and some sort of resistance fighters.  In part two we’ll discuss some sort of home defense force (remember part one – call it what you want to, but at the end of the day functions and missions are what’s important, not the name).

Your local area has to be the base of anything else that you plan to do.  Your local area should afford you many advantages over your opponents.

First off, people should know each other.  If they don’t know you and you don’t know them, then you have some work to do.  Start building your tribe.

We in the III movement usually start from the premise that we will find a bunch of III type folks and form our tribe.  If you are lucky enough to have a group of like-minded IIIs living in your neighborhood then you’ve got it made.

Most of us don’t though, and that’s where tribe building runs into its first obstacle.  When we can’t find enough IIIs, we don’t bother starting a tribe.

We need to build and train our own tribe!

One of the best ways to create a tribe is incrementally.  If you start recruiting without building a bond and creating a common sense of interest, at best you will fail.  At worst they’ll think you are crazy and call the police on you.

I think a home defense force should be the model.  Starting with a community watch is the best way to build towards a home defense force.

Organizing a community watch first allows for some great opportunities.  Most folks see it as harmless and don’t feel threatened.  You’ll be able to implement some things without a lot of discussion.  You’ll find out quickly who wants to work and who just wants to be on the team.

Unless you’ve had some increases in crime in your neighborhood, you might not be able to organize it from the beginning.  No problem; develop something that everyone (or the majority) can agree is useful.  Building a coalition of folks who can agree on something is a great start.  It can be a political cause, your local volunteer fire department, or even a high school sports team booster club, the local FFA, etc.

A social setting is a great place to start building the coalition.  Obviously the exact “what” of a social setting depends on your local situation, but you need to find something that you all have in common in order to start.  It could be farming, hunting, fishing, military experience, you name it.

Once you’ve all built up some sort of bond, the evolution to a community watch should be simpler.  With a community watch in place it will be the time to start talking about the upcoming troubles and what can be done to make your selves more resistant to the problems.  If you’ve done the initial preps correctly, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what skills your neighbors have.

Everyone can have a role in your home defense force.  As you develop your potential roster of folks start assigning folks to different categories.

You’ll need:

1. Armed security folks
   1. Internal defense – capable of defending the perimeter both mounted and dismounted. Older folks and even children can be useful in this role.
   2. External defense – capable of responding to threats inside and outside the perimeter; capable of short distance recon along avenues of approach and potential threats. Generally higher skilled and requires a higher degree of physical fitness.
2. Logistics
   1. Communications/Intel – Monitoring local, regional and nationwide news. At a basic level, it’s monitoring radio nets (internal and external) and goes all the way up to more advanced HF radio comms
   2. Food and field sanitation – Procuring, preparing and distributing food supplies.
   3. Medical
      1. Routine
      2. First Aid
      3. Emergency
   4. Vehicle maintenance
   5. Weapon maintenance
   6. Resupply folks

As you analyze your neighbor’s skills, I recommend a three tier grading system:

A – Has a mastery of the skills required and likes doing

B – Likes the skills required; less than mastery skill level

C – Doesn’t like the skill and doesn’t want to do it

As your force develops, you’ll be able to fine-tune these first assessments.

Folks with multiple mastery level skills will have to be utilized in the most critical one.  Folks in the B category will have to be analyzed to see if getting them to mastery level requires skills training and/or equipment.  Folks that can’t be trained for anything will have to be utilized in some role that requires little skill.  It might be a function of age, intellect, etc.  Nonetheless, everyone can do something.

The one skill that I haven’t talked about yet is leadership.  If you are doing the organizing, you’ll be the original leader.  At this point in the process, your organizational skills will be the major requirement.  You’ll be expected to be able to “massage” egos and come up with a consensus on overall goals and standards.  At this point a moral compass on what you expect the end state to look like if this force is needed is critical.

Now is the time to discuss racial, religious and other social differences.  A liberty outcome means liberty for all who will embrace it.  If you have folks that don’t like a particular race, religion or other social difference, sorting it out when things go bad would be  virtually impossible.

The prize is freedom.  You’ll have to be the beacon of liberty.

As the tribe continues to grow, there may come a point where organizational skills get eclipsed by other concerns.  People may gravitate to the leadership of the armed part of your group.  It may be a logistician.  Now is the time for you to recognize that Liberty is the goal, not your ego.  The tribe will evolve to the leadership it needs during whatever current crisis is being faced.  Remember that Winston Churchill did not win reelection after WWII was over!

Once you have your group of folks, you need to figure out how to hone them into an efficient force!  Your force could be as small as 10 and as large as 50.  Now you get to organize them into a team.

You need to have some basics that everyone is capable of performing.  In an ideal world the leadership of each of the sub-groups would have a primary and secondary leader.

In the next part, we’ll look at each of the categories and start establishing a skills hierarchy of basic skills, all the way up to master level.