James Rawles - Expatriates

Chuck responded,

“Okay, you start with military manuals, while I gather civilian books. We make two copies of each, plus copies on our laptops, and then mail the redundant copy sticks to each other.”

Forty-eight hours later, Caleb wrote back,

“Great idea. I started out with more than forty Aussie army manuals. I also have access to an Australian Defence Force mirror website of the American military database site called Army Knowledge Online (AKO). It is a treasure trove of information.

“Here are the manuals I was able to download just this evening:

Survival and Evasion, FM 21-76-1

USMC Survival Manual, MCRP 3-02F

Camouflage, FM 5-20

Camouflage of Vehicles, FM 5-20B

Field Hygiene and Sanitation, FM 21-10

Improvised Explosive Devices or IEDs, TM 31-210

Infantry Rifle Platoon-Squad, FM 7-8

Ranger Handbook, SH 21-76

Survivability, FM 5-103

NBC Protection, FM 3-4

NBC Decontamination, FM 3-5

Special Forces Unconventional Warfare, TC 18-01

M16 and M16A1 Rifles Operator’s Manual, TM 9-1005-249-10

Sniper Training, FM 23-10 å

USMC Sniping, MCWP 3-15.3

Counter Guerilla Operations

Jungle Operations

Long Range Surveillance Unit Operations

Military Mountaineering, FM 3-97.61

Special Forces Use of Pack Animals, FM 3-05.213 (FM 31-27)

Claymore Mine, FM 23-23

Obstacles, Mines, Demolitions, FM 90-10

Ordnance and Explosives Response

Ranger Unit Operations, FM 7-85

USMC Scouting and Patrolling, MCWP 3-11

Military First Aid Manual, FM 4-25-11

US Army Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) Correspondence Course


NATO Emergency War Surgery

Combat Lifesaver Home Study Course


Special Operations Forces Medical Handbook (2001)—Note: there is a newer edition, but it isn’t in the online free libraries and it is beaucoup expensive. 


Have you had the chance to search for civvie books?”

Later that evening, Chuck sent an answer:

“You betcha. I already downloaded the LDS Preparedness Manual from the Mormon Church and went to the Hesperian Foundation website and downloaded ‘Where There Is No Doctor’ by David Werner and ‘Where There Is No Dentist’ by Murray Dickson. I also found mention of sites where I can download the following, gratis, and will do so over the course of the next few evenings:

Survival and Austere Medicine: An Introduction

Ship Captain’s Medical Guide

Medical Drugs and Equipment for the Team Physician 


Journal of Special Operations Medicine 


“I also read a recommendation that I get physical copies of these books:

Wilderness Medicine, 5th Edition, by Paul S. Auerbach

2012 Nurse’s Drug Handbook

Ditch Medicine: Advanced Field Procedures for Emergencies by Hugh Coffee

Medicine for the Outdoors by Paul Auerbach

The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy

Primary Surgery: Volume 1: Non-Trauma by Maurice King

Primary Surgery: Volume 2: Trauma by Maurice King

The Sanford Guide to Antimicrobial Therapy 2012 Edited by David Gilbert

Tactical Medicine Essentials by E. John Wipfler

Wilderness Medicine, Beyond First Aid, 5th Edition by William W. Forgey

Wilderness 911 by Eric Weiss

Wounds and Lacerations: Emergency Care and Closure by Alexander T. Trott, MD

The Doom and Bloom Survival Medicine Handbook by Joe Alton, MD and Amy Alton

“Buying all those could blow my budget, especially if I have to order them from book companies in the States. I’ll have to be selective about what I buy. That last one by Joe Alton of ‘Dr. Bones and Nurse Amy’ fame is a real prepper medical book written by a real deal prepper MD. From fish hooks to frostbite, surgery to stockpiling medications—it’s all in there. I will let you know what else I find. OBTW, over the next few evenings, I plan to dig into the following:

“Project Gutenberg: 33,000 free public domain e-books! But be advised that some books there are way out of date, so they do not follow modern fire safety, lab/chemical safety, and machinery safety standards.

The Australian Small Farm Permaculture and Sustainable Living website has lots of free e-books.

E-Books Directory

Steve’s Pages: Another gold mine! Thousands of free firearms manuals and military manuals. At a minimum, we should be sure to download the exploded diagrams and the user manuals for each of our guns.

“I think AKO has only current manuals, so you might check GlobalSecurity.com. They have lots of free military manuals (text only).

“And a civilian site called PR68.com has lots of links for U.S. military FMs and TMs—especially radio manuals.

“Oh, and Wikipedia has some links to PDFs of U.S. military manuals. For advice on stocking up, I downloaded a copy of ‘The Alpha Strategy’ by John Pugsley.
And for some good Christian doctrine and Bible study, the Institute for Christian Economics site, established by Dr. Gary North, has lots of free books. I’ll be getting a lot of those.

“I’m also considering buying the forty-two-year compendium of The Mother Earth News on CD-ROM. Ditto for the compendium of Backwoods Home magazine. Both are American ‘back to the land’ magazines with a wealth of info on self-sufficiency.

“I just had another idea. How about all of those instructional videos (outdoor survival, gardening, shooting schools, etc.) on YouTube? I found a website called YouTube Downloader that has free software, so we can SAVE those videos onto our hard drives or to memory sticks. Way cool.”

The following week, Chuck e-mailed Caleb:

“Just when I thought we had assembled a fairly complete library, I found out that there are a couple of websites that offer ALL of Wikipedia on DVD. There are a couple of options. The skinny version is text only, but the fat one has all the photos and illustrations. This might be a good idea for something to add to our library.”

Caleb replied:

“ Yes, but consider: When they do the Wikipedia download, they had to take a snapshot of the site contents. At any given time, especially Saturday evenings when college students have been drinking, some of those pages are being vandalized. So just consider that the Idi Amin Wikipedia bio page we get on DVD might say, ‘General Idi A. Meany, Notorious Egg Sucker, President of Bananaland…’ ”

Soekirnan Assegaf was excited to get his first command, even if it was one of the smallest ships in the Indonesian Navy. His most recent assignment had been as a weapons officer aboard the large patrol boat KRI Tenggiri. (The ship had formerly been called the Ardent when it was in service with the Royal Australian Navy.) Much of that time had been spent cruising the Strait of Malacca. It had only been three months since Assegaf had been advanced in rank from Letnan Satu (first lieutenant) to Kapten (captain). Unlike most of his contemporaries, who were receiving logistics and staff officer assignments, he was getting his own ship.