206 MAG Lives Matter - Mutual Assistance Groups w/ Brent Weir

Tonight, We’re talking about MAGs – Mutual Assistance Groups. What they are… Why they’re important… and, How to create or join one. We first introduced you guys to MAGs back in February on Episode 181 during our series on Prepper Groups. Well tonight, we’re doing a deep dive into Mutual Assistance Groups with someone who knows all about them. He’s lived it, built it, teaches it, and is writing a book about it… Fireman, Captain, Survivalist, Homesteader, Author, and Podcaster… Brent Weir. 

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Transcript

So tonight we're talking about mags, mutual assistant groups.

00:01:27.90
Keith
What are they? um Why they're important? How to create or join one? Maybe ah we first introduced you guys to mags back in February on episode 181 during our series on prepper groups.

00:01:41.81
Keith
Talked about a little bit. ah Well, tonight we're doing a deep dive into mutual assistant groups with someone who knows all about them. He lives it, built it, teaches it. He's writing a book about it.

00:01:52.73
Keith
ah Retired fireman, captain, survivalist, homesteader, author, and podcaster, amongst many other things. Brent Weir is on with us tonight. Brent, welcome to the show. It's great to have you, man.

00:02:03.46
Brent
Thank you very much and not retired anymore. They brought me back on here.

00:02:06.84
Keith
Oh, okay. Okay.

00:02:09.21
Brent
a year and a half ago. And so now I'm back. I'm a captain on a on engine five and they also have a technical rescue rig and ladder truck that's under my ah like command every day. So yeah, I'm back at it.

00:02:21.27
Keith
So and I read that on your bio that I don't even know if we can't talk about that's fine. But they after like 20 years, you got you got fired from the fire department because of ah mandatory COVID-19 vaccination.

00:02:34.42
Brent
Oh, we can talk about it all day. Yeah, no. 19 and a half years on, I was one of the first guys to get COVID up in this neck of the woods and got it, was sick for a couple days, got better.

00:02:47.69
Brent
And then for the next year and a half, was going into houses, apartments, full of sick people. And I didn't get sick one time. We took care of all these people during the cold COVID thing.

00:02:58.39
Brent
Then our governor here, Inslee decided that he wanted to put out a mandate that a healthcare workers needed to get the vaccine. And, um, our ah fire department said, hey you need to get the vaccine.

00:03:09.26
Brent
And I personally didn't think that, uh, I didn't need it. Number one, that natural immunity, I went got tested, but also too, I thought, you know this thing's not, this is not a tested vaccine. This is not. um That's a whole other story, right? My brother's involved with medical testing of drugs and things of that nature.

00:03:25.63
Brent
And he's like, this is not good. This has not been tested properly. And they were trying to force us. So I i asked for an exemption. They said, well, we can give you your exemption, but we can't accommodate you.

00:03:36.41
Brent
And so we're going to fire you. And they they fired me and three other guys from our department. And they wanted us to sign. We signed off all our rights and admitted that we're willing to be to go away, that they give us extra money. And I probably lost about 25 grand because I said, nope, I'm not signing anything.

00:03:52.92
Brent
And yeah they they fired me. I was off for 13 months. And then they realized that Every day they got the vaccine was still getting sick and I was healthy healthy as can be. And they were short people and they were short experience. And they said, ah would you come back? And I said, sure, I'll come back. So, yep, back to work.

00:04:09.11
Keith
I heard stories about that, but never actually talked to somebody who's been through it. And it's just horrible. I'm not a fan, first of all, of the, of the vaccines. I didn't get any. And I was in for the entire time through COVID. I was in, uh, uh, uh, new construction of, of, um,

00:04:26.35
Keith
of apartments and, you know, things like that, multi multifamily living. And I was in and out of people's apartments and I was around construction, hundreds of construction people ah face to face all day long. And I never got COVID.

00:04:37.85
Keith
Never, not even once, never even felt sick. And I never got the vaccine. And I have friends and family who have gotten the vaccine and not only got COVID again, once or twice after the vaccine, but they also haven't felt very great since they got the vaccine. I'm not a fan of it, man you know And I'm definitely not a fan of of of mandatory vaccination.

00:04:55.44
Brent
and Imagine that.

00:04:58.44
Keith
Yeah, imagine that.

00:04:58.84
Brent
imagine Imagine that. Let me ask you this. Do you have a O or O positive blood?

00:05:06.07
Keith
ok So I don't know about this stuff. What I do know is I have the one that's rare. Does that make sense?

00:05:11.30
Brent
Yeah. Okay.

00:05:11.68
Keith
The one that nobody else has and everybody needs?

00:05:12.10
Brent
Well, i know that I know that a lot of people, if they have O positive or O blood, that they they were less likely to get it. So I i was just curious. But yeah.

00:05:20.58
Buddy
Oh, I got O positive.

00:05:21.40
Brent
No, it's...

00:05:22.57
Buddy
um um Yeah, but I got it twice, though.

00:05:24.42
Brent
So... Yeah, well, you know, and a lot of people have gotten it right it's kind of like the flu, it's kind of like ah a different strain of flu.

00:05:25.81
Keith
Oh, man.

00:05:30.09
Brent
But yeah, that's it.

00:05:30.45
Buddy
It did feel like the flu, man.

00:05:30.51
Keith
Sure.

00:05:32.13
Buddy
that's ah Yeah, so we could talk about that all night long.

00:05:34.30
Brent
mean yeah And then we all see we all saw what happened. and We saw what happened through that, right? you know The vaccine didn't work like they said they did. And yeah a lot of people still got sick. And you know who knows what the long-term effects are, whether through ah you know infertility or other other issues that people may have. So I pray and hope that people heal up and that they don't do that to us again.

00:05:57.24
Keith
Yeah, there's no way to tell what was being injected into people. It's just, yeah, it's not good.

00:06:00.63
Brent
Okay. Well, I'm about personal freedom, right? Like if somebody wants to get that vaccine, okay, go ahead. But don't force me to do it, right? It's about liberty and about freedom.

00:06:12.57
Brent
And if I say, hey I don't want it, shouldn't I shouldn't be forced to get that. And I have friends that got it and You know, I don't think anything less of them. you know You can argue the effectiveness of it and all that, whether it was tested properly, but I'm not going to hold that against them. But don't force me to do it by threatening to take away my livelihood, throwing me out on the streets and my family with no health care and no no no paycheck. That's just that's wrong to me.

00:06:36.41
Keith
Yeah, and threatening to not give you a hospital bed over somebody else who did get vaccinated. Things like that.

00:06:41.16
Brent
Oh, that was bad. Yep.

00:06:42.42
Keith
Terrible.

00:06:43.75
Brent
Yep.

00:06:44.70
Buddy
I saw that firsthand with a friend.

00:06:45.08
Keith
So...

00:06:46.46
Buddy
He, he got denied from a hospital and dude was about to die.

00:06:49.88
Keith
Crazy.

00:06:51.20
Buddy
And, uh, luckily, Ivermectin to the rescue. so a vet, a veteran, you know, a horse doctor actually

00:06:55.84
Brent
There you

00:06:57.22
Keith
Shit. Right after taking that, he should went straight to a lawyer.

00:07:00.16
Buddy
they saved his life.

00:07:02.50
Brent
go.

00:07:03.03
Buddy
Yeah. Um, oh yeah. Yeah.

00:07:06.46
Keith
You know, but, um, that's right.

00:07:06.53
Brent
Yeah. Anyways, but you know, we move on in life, right? And hopefully we've learned lessons and hopefully people saw that and won't be fooled again. Right. We'll see how that goes.

00:07:16.31
Keith
What? Yeah. When the next, when the next big thing comes.

00:07:19.20
Brent
Yeah.

00:07:19.38
Keith
So, so are you writing a book about mags mutual so assistant groups?

00:07:23.97
Brent
Yeah, well, I'll tell you give a little history. So Project 223 Preparedness, that's my my little company that i got here. And I have a podcast, the Project 223 podcast.

00:07:35.12
Brent
And back kind of 2020, remember the Antifa and the BLM riots and all that and defund the police.

00:07:42.16
Buddy
one looks like

00:07:42.15
Brent
And it looked like the world was falling apart. And a bunch of us were like, gosh, man, this is this is crazy. And at my church, you know, I went to Calvary Chapel church up here in my town up in the Pacific Northwest.

00:07:48.38
Buddy
Bye.

00:07:52.93
Brent
My pastor is a great guy, a former Marine. And we were talking one day and we said, I said, hey, what would happen if there's no food on the shelves in the stores? Because, you know, what there was shortages and talks about maybe what if the trucks stop running and with just-in-time inventories.

00:08:08.27
Brent
You know, there's a very, there's not a lot of food in the back of the back of the stores, right? They have food coming in every day. So we're like, what happens if there's not enough food there? And he's like, yeah I'm not sure. You know, we have these Vienna sausages and granola bars that we give the homeless people. And I go, yeah, I don't think that's going to cut it. You know,

00:08:25.34
Brent
people in the church start showing up and don't have enough food. And I go, you know, the Mormons, they they've been pretty good at that in the past. They would encourage their people to have a year's worth of supplies to take care of themselves. I said, what if we started some training and trained up the people in our church to be ready for a disaster and emergency you know to have um a food pantry um to be able to communicate with each other should the cell phones go down and the internet go down to be able to have power supply to for when the power goes out and heat if the heat's not working in their home some alternate means of these things so we started teaching classes to our church and and we'd have he was doing a bible study sunday night so he goes like let's change it over to preparedness training

00:09:07.51
Brent
We had a huge amount of people started showing up. And so one day he comes to me and he says, hey, do you know what proveb Proverbs 22.3 says? And I go, no, I don't. He goes, the wise man sees trouble and prepares, but the fool keeps going and suffers.

00:09:24.49
Brent
And I said, oh, that's good. goes, yeah, we call it Project 223. And I'm like, oh, that's pretty cool. So that's how the name was born from Proverbs 22.3. So we started teaching classes in our church.

00:09:36.16
Brent
And then I started connecting with some other guys. Are you guys familiar with American Contingency?

00:09:42.47
Buddy
Oh yeah. Yep. My Glover.

00:09:43.20
Brent
Yeah, Mike Glover started that up, Fieldcraft Survival, you know right about that time. And he kind of had his famous get off the bench video and was basically saying, hey you know you need to start meeting people in your local areas. You need to start forming neighborhood groups, you know neighborhood watches,

00:10:00.23
Brent
you know forming groups of people that can take care of each other and help each other out in times of trouble. So I actually joined his organization and met a few guys and we started connecting and we kind of moved away from that. We're not as really as involved with that as much, but we we formed a kind of a cool team.

00:10:18.20
Brent
And so that team over the the next year got pretty strong and then we started building it up and we kind of moved away from just the Amcon, but we just kind of had our own thing going. and And we had guys, we had,

00:10:28.80
Brent
you know, a Green Beret. We had an um Air Force SEER instructor. We ended up having a Navy SEAL, former Navy SEAL, retired guy in our group. Another Army officer from West Point. All these different guys with different skills and backgrounds.

00:10:43.55
Brent
And then just regular Joes too. Contractors, you know, people that work in tech, computer guys. And just the group just started building. And it was pretty darn cool. So as we were building this group up, our Navy SEAL buddy, I'm not going say his name, but he's ah he's this awesome dude. And he said, he kind of sat us down and said, you guys are great. you know You guys can get lots of skills and talents. You're pretty good, but you don't really have a plan.

00:11:10.03
Brent
You know, you don't have a long term plan. You don't have anything written down. You don't kind of have. And so we ended up so I started forming this this training plan and I ended up calling it the group preparedness plan, the GPP.

00:11:22.85
Brent
And we have six areas that we train in, train in basic personal and family preparedness, planning, logistics, medical comms. personal protection, self-defense, and last one is mobility.

00:11:37.81
Brent
So we had those six areas and then we formed three tiers in each area. So tier one is the very basics, right? Everybody should be at a tier one level. And then the tier two is a little more advanced in each one of those topics.

00:11:49.71
Brent
And then tier three is like expert level. So, you know, you're probably not going to be a tier three in medical unless you're like a trauma surgeon with combat experience or comms, right? Unless you're like a general ham operator who, you know, is an RTO in the military, you're probably not going to reach level three comms. But so we wanted to make it really challenging. So there's always room for people to grow.

00:12:10.18
Brent
So yeah, so I'm putting that into a book and i'm forming that up. And it works really well because in a group, we started using that artrician. So you just train in each one of these different levels and people get a checklist where they can check off different different tasks that they want to do.

00:12:25.15
Brent
And then there's a skills module that tells you how to how to complete each one of those tasks. So it's kind of cool.

00:12:31.37
Buddy
That's awesome. And, ah

00:12:32.86
Keith
and And you do these do these classes at your church? Is that where training at?

00:12:36.89
Brent
Yep. So, so we started off doing them at our church and we got, and it's amazing. Some of these people that went from nothing to now you go talk to and they've got, you know, a three month preparedness pantry. They've got, you know, freeze dried foods. They've got, you know, reserve of fuel. They've got all this. And you're like, they went from nothing. and they're like, yeah, look where I'm at now. And it's it's really cool to see how people took off with it.

00:12:59.69
Brent
And so we did it our church. And then, I also started putting that together with our group. And so our group, were're we're pretty organized and we started every month. We'd have a different topic we'd work on. And then I actually have some other churches that have hired me to come and and teach classes at their place. So, yeah, it's just been growing and whoever's open.

00:13:18.46
Brent
Also work with Joe Dolio from Tactical Wisdom, the author, and he's ah he's a great guy. And we just taught a medical class back in Montana at Shield Arms Shield Field Days.

00:13:29.28
Brent
then also i have a local company here i work with called Training Northwest. Tobin is the owner of that and he teaches ah rifle training and different stuff. We just have the three day rifleman camp and where it's kind of like a modern day Minuteman training where you guys show up with their all their stuff in their bag and their rifle.

00:13:47.95
Brent
They have to have everything with them in their bag. Like they're going to be out on patrol for, you know, couple of weeks. And so yeah lived out of the packs for three days. I teach the medical portion and the comms portion radios. So yeah, it's a lot of fun.

00:14:01.04
Brent
Just keeps it keeps growing and expanding.

00:14:04.34
Keith
Were there ah non-military people at that, what you just said?

00:14:08.87
Brent
Oh, yeah. Rifle McCamp. it is it is it is not aimed towards military people. This is aimed towards the everyday citizen. And Tobin, was ah he was a ranger, um was in in the Ranger Regiment, and also did some stuff after that with it with the agency.

00:14:24.91
Brent
But the the instructors, him and two other instructors, one was an Army infantry guy. The other guy was in the Ranger Regiment with him as well. And then myself, no combat experience.

00:14:37.54
Brent
I've got some, I've gone to quite a bit of, you know, firearms training. I'm an and NRA instructor for pistol rifle and taking a lot of, tactical shooting classes and stuff, but I'm not a combat veteran, but you know, I'm have 23 years of experience with medical.

00:14:51.93
Brent
So we did some of the T triple C training and then, uh, you know, radios. I really enjoy the comms portion, done a lot of training with a brush beater. NC scout with, and so I'm taking the RTO and advanced RTO classes. I'm a ham radio technician. I'm working on my general license right now, but really enjoy the comms portion of it I don't really, I don't really nerd out on comms. Like,

00:15:15.36
Brent
You get the guys the propellers on their heads that are all into the antenna theory and all that. And for me, it's a mean to the ends, right? It's I want to know comms so that I can communicate with my wife, my family, my my my team.

00:15:31.37
Brent
Should the SHTF and the cell phones are down, the ISPs are down. I want to be able to communicate with my people. So that's why I like radios.

00:15:40.65
Buddy
Yeah, we preach that, you know, shit is the fan communication. I actually teach classes with ah a buddy mine, Jay, and we preach. We're we're students of Brushbeater as well. We haven't ah attended any of his classes yet. where We mean to, but we've read his books. And mean, that's our Bibles and and our our field manuals to, you know, go do the things. We watch his videos as well.

00:16:04.55
Buddy
um But

00:16:05.02
Keith
And all this time we've we've talked, I've never heard you say anything about brush beaters. i don't know what that is.

00:16:10.17
Buddy
Oh, well, we're going to have to look them up.

00:16:12.75
Keith
I'm going to have to.

00:16:12.77
Buddy
You got to get on the Googles. Yeah. And I think we, early on, I gave you some of his, I showed you some of his books, all self-taught, but hey, well but you they will be in the show notes for sure.

00:16:21.05
Keith
oh okay. Okay.

00:16:25.06
Buddy
We'll put it in Dolio's books too. I have them all. He even signed a few of them for me. So that's good to go. so

00:16:32.27
Brent
Another good resource for comms is AMRON, American Redoubt Radio Operators Network.

00:16:32.73
Keith
ah

00:16:38.08
Brent
I'm not sure if you're familiar with them at all.

00:16:39.91
Buddy
Oh, yeah, we worked with them in Helene.

00:16:42.21
Brent
Yeah, John Jacob Schmidt.

00:16:42.29
Buddy
ah We had some Amron guys. they send

00:16:44.43
Brent
Oh, yeah.

00:16:45.23
Buddy
They sent people down. We had, at any time, we had at least two, um up to five at a time. And they they were real ah pivotal.

00:16:55.73
Buddy
We knew, me, my team, we we flew drones. And my team, ah we had the communications thing down. We, you know, we, we it was just another day in the in the field for us.

00:17:08.08
Buddy
But, yeah. those guys really unfucked a lot of things for, the people we were there with. So it was, it was, it was a good show. I mean, they, they, they did, they worked hard and they educated a lot of people and, and, uh, sold me on the ham thing. So, and Nivis is, is my next, uh, big, you know, elephant to, to try to eat. So,

00:17:32.14
Brent
Oh yeah, Envis, yeah.

00:17:32.66
Keith
And I'm very new. I'm very new at at the, I've got a couple of bow fangs and I've applied for the registration, I think it was for for the, for your, your name and all that, but I never got anything back actually.

00:17:47.08
Keith
I'm have to look into it for the GMRS.

00:17:47.67
Buddy
I'll have to check that out.

00:17:48.93
Brent
You talking about for ah for your GMRS license?

00:17:49.14
Buddy
Yeah. For your GMRS license. Yeah.

00:17:51.85
Keith
Yeah.

00:17:52.46
Brent
Yeah, that is awesome.

00:17:53.62
Keith
Yeah, i went I went through it.

00:17:53.80
Brent
and

00:17:54.57
Keith
I did fill out all the paperwork, did all that. but And it said I would receive something in the mail, and I never did. And it said I was going to receive something in email, and never did. And I paid for it. I just never got anything. so

00:18:03.39
Brent
You might check your spam folder. It might have went in there.

00:18:06.66
Keith
Because it's a pretty good organization.

00:18:06.66
Brent
But yeah.

00:18:07.98
Keith
they don't It's not like they're trying to scam me.

00:18:08.99
Brent
Yes, the FCC. Oh, yeah.

00:18:10.83
Keith
Yeah. Yeah.

00:18:11.54
Brent
Well, and for people out in the audience that are listening.

00:18:11.96
Buddy
Yeah.

00:18:13.56
Brent
So so there's different different types of radios. Just really quick, right? The FRS radios, the bubble pack ones from your Walmart, the ones that people for your campgrounds and stuff don't take any kind of a license.

00:18:25.46
Brent
Next level up, GMRS license like we're talking about for $35.00. send your name, put your name in on the FCC website, you get an FRN number, you apply for that GMRS license, and no test involved.

00:18:38.38
Brent
And then they' within a week or two, you should get your license. It applies your whole family, good for 10 years. Your wife, your kids, your uncle, your stepbrother, they can all use that license.

00:18:48.85
Buddy
What a bargain.

00:18:48.86
Brent
The thing that's cool about that, what's that?

00:18:51.01
Buddy
What a bargain.

00:18:51.98
Brent
Yeah, yeah, right? And it's good for 10 years. And the thing that's cool about that is, is that no test involved. Now you can use repeaters. And the beauty of repeaters is is most of those radios without a license, you're only you're limited to simplex, which is just radio to radio.

00:19:08.43
Brent
And so depending on the curvature of the earth and hills and buildings, you can only talk a short distance. But if I'm using repeaters now from where i I'm at, I can hit one on a mountain north of me and talk almost to the Canadian border.

00:19:21.47
Brent
I can talk on another mountain to the kind of southeast of me and it goes down, you know, another...

00:19:23.49
Keith
Whoa, that's cool.

00:19:27.48
Brent
you know, 50, 60 miles south of me. So by using those repeaters, that that extremely expands your reach. Now you're still limited by infrastructure.

00:19:38.93
Brent
The repeater has to be up. has to be charged, there has to be power to it and all that. But like, I think, buddy, were you talking about the NVIS just a minute ago?

00:19:46.05
Buddy
Yes, yeah.

00:19:46.88
Brent
Yeah, right. Near vertical incident sky wave. So that's getting into HF communications. And so then now you have to have a general license for ham to use that theoretically. Right.

00:19:59.56
Brent
But with that, you really start to get into independent communications because you don't need any infrastructure. And those the way that works is your antenna goes out goes out horizontally and you shoot those those radio waves up to the sky. They hit the ionosphere.

00:20:15.80
Brent
They rain back down kind of like in an umbrella format. So now you can talk 300 or 400 miles away from you without any repeaters. And that's starting to get really independent in your communications.

00:20:27.12
Brent
It takes like a little more technology involved, a little more expensive equipment. And if you want to do it legally, you need to have your general license, which takes some studying.

00:20:38.03
Brent
But if you start getting into that, then you really are going to be independent on your communications.

00:20:43.18
Keith
Very, very cool. I want I want to like to not on this, this show because it's not that subject, but I would love to dive deep into what you just talked about that. That sounds really cool.

00:20:53.08
Brent
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, yeah, yeah we we're going to bounce all over the place. But, you know, yeah, back to our mutual assistance groups, right?

00:21:01.74
Keith
Well, if you, know if you, if you ever listened to our, go ahead, go ahead.

00:21:01.95
Brent
But you know what But that's cool.

00:21:02.14
Buddy
that

00:21:02.91
Brent
is it is it Yeah, i no in and part of a mutual assistance group is is you you have all these different topics that you want to learn. And and we have guys in our group that are ham radio licensed.

00:21:15.56
Brent
Some guys that are just like, tell me, tell me what channel to go on, man.

00:21:16.54
Keith
That's right.

00:21:19.38
Brent
Right. We have other guys that are, that you know, really good shooters and really good tactical other guys that are like, yeah, I don't even have a, you know, you know, ah anything to put a magazine in a holster or anything. Right.

00:21:32.03
Brent
So yeah, you have different skills that come together and then you kind of each, each guy can work as a trainer for the group and start to bring people up to the same level.

00:21:41.71
Buddy
You know, that's like it's an important point. A lot of people, especially, you know, that started, at least the people I know, they all started during the pandemic and ah in their prepper, you know, journey.

00:21:55.06
Buddy
And they watched a bunch of videos. And I know for myself, you know, with a military background, it was a little bit easier for me to adjust to it. But um because there's some things already knew.

00:22:09.09
Buddy
And I identified some of my shortfalls pretty quickly and I started trying to tackle them. But a lot of people just, you know, if you're a you know, a civilian that doesn't have any of this, you know, military experience or, you know, infantry background or anything like that, you don't really know where to start.

00:22:25.93
Buddy
And it sounds like with your, your system that you've come up with that it, it takes a lot of that, you know, unknowns out of the equation.

00:22:36.93
Buddy
you know it sounds It sounds like a really cool you know thing for people, and i can't wait to read your book.

00:22:42.92
Brent
Yeah, that's awesome.

00:22:43.69
Keith
yeah me Yeah, me too, because I'm i'm that guy.

00:22:43.95
Brent
Yeah. what

00:22:46.09
Keith
I'm the, ah just tell me what channel to get on. That's, I need i need the learnings bad.

00:22:52.37
Brent
yeah Yeah. And then, you know, like, ah like, like our buddy Navy SEAL Mike, you know, he said, Hey, you guys, you guys need a plan. You need to have something, you know, it a direction to go. And so, you know, we had some guys originally on in the group that were like, Oh man, we don't want to train. We just want to get, you know, there's guys that have some similar interests, you know, like to talk about guns and stuff. And that's cool. And other guys were like, man, we got to train. We got to get organized. We got to be ready to go, you know, time's short and blah, blah, blah. And so,

00:23:20.19
Brent
You know, you're always going to get people on the different extremes and have their own ideas of how things should go. And that's one of the biggest things think we're talking about tonight would be with the mutual assistance group, how hard it is to bring people together and then keep them on a track working together as a team.

00:23:39.66
Brent
You talk to a lot of people and I've, different different forums, you know, different, whether it's like Mike Shelby and his Forward Observer, you know, different different people you talk to and they're like, it is so hard to put together ah group or a team of people and and keep them together because there's egos involved.

00:23:57.64
Brent
People want to do this. People want to do that. And it's a challenge, right? We've had over for over four years, we've had this group and we've been building it up and up. And we've really started to focus on basically We're a CERT team. don't know if you're sure sure if you've heard of CERT before. So kimer community emergency response team.

00:24:15.17
Brent
it's say or It's a program set up by the federal government through FEMA and Homeland Security. So it's a, you know got the blessing of your, you know, local snowman.

00:24:26.36
Brent
For us, it's our Department of Emergency Management. And they support us. And I say, hey, can I get some manuals for my group? And they go, sure, here you go. And the local fire departments actually hold classes to teach citizens how to be prepared for disaster and emergency.

00:24:42.15
Brent
And that's all we're doing, right? So some people are like, oh, you know, what do you say? Some kind of militia? It's like, no, we're not. We're a group of people in our area that want to prepare for disasters and emergency.

00:24:53.00
Brent
Do I think militias are bad? No, there's areas, you know, and you go up to North Idaho and you know we go up there to the Panhandle Preparedness Expo, it's coming up in October and meet all kinds of great people and the North Idaho militia has got a booth there.

00:25:05.62
Brent
They're great people, you know and so but but you get some places and it's got this negative connotation, right? So we're just a cert team you know and we may have few extra you know skills and abilities and than some other cert teams, but it makes it pretty pretty simple.

00:25:22.17
Buddy
So it sounds like, ah and I'm um'm just starting out with my CERT training. We have a nonprofit that me and we're starting and getting off the ground and stuff. And that's part of the curriculum we're going to need.

00:25:33.71
Buddy
And I think for people out there and the listening audience that really don't know, you know, they're they're the lone ranger out there trying to prepare. And we've had a couple different podcasts about, you know, communities, networking, mags, and so on tribes, you know, there's different names for different, different things. These people were, you know, they don't know where to go in order to find like-minded people.

00:26:00.62
Buddy
You know, they might be new to an area or they just really don't know they're, they're introverts or whatever. And so I think, you know, you might've cracked a code with that cert training or, you know, you're going to meet like-minded people if you go to cert trainings and stuff.

00:26:15.44
Buddy
am i Am I off there? Is that is that kind of... Okay.

00:26:18.46
Brent
You're right on the money.

00:26:19.77
Buddy
okay

00:26:19.81
Brent
And you know, you always get that feeling now, so like you hit hit it on the head, right? Some people are a little more introverted there. You know, I met one guy at a, had a class and and I could tell he would he was a very competent guy.

00:26:33.01
Brent
i could tell he was pretty squared away. and I'm like, hmm, that's good guy to connect with. I started chatting with him. He goes, he's like, yeah, you know, I've been kind of praying for, you know, to have some friends and more people that I could hang out with for a long time, but I just never had anybody.

00:26:46.52
Brent
And so I started reaching out to him and I started building that relationship. ah Sometimes, you know, it it just takes somebody to step up and be willing to put themselves out there a little bit to try to be a leader.

00:26:57.84
Brent
and in it and to be ah And leadership is a whole other topic to get on. But this is for people in the audience where you feel maybe you feel called to to put something together and you really want to do it, but you're struggling with it.

00:27:10.46
Brent
And if you have a call to be a leader, you have to be vulnerable. And it takes it takes putting yourself out there a little bit. And I've had... people that you talk to and you're like, you know, hey, you know, and like when we were when we were part of AMCON, right?

00:27:25.22
Brent
And that was it was just put out there as connecting citizens together. And then that whole thing came about where they tried to, FBI tried to make Mike Glover out to be some kind of a, you know, military violent extremist.

00:27:37.31
Brent
And they put his name on this list.

00:27:37.74
Buddy
Oh, yeah.

00:27:39.31
Brent
And he's like, what the heck are you talking about, man?

00:27:39.51
Buddy
You're on the list.

00:27:41.97
Brent
I'm trying to connect people in their communities. And actually we had to go through and they they actually took him off of that. And we're like, oh yeah, this was wrong. but But you can see how you can be misconstrued as something that you're not.

00:27:53.99
Brent
I think that's the important thing to make it really clear to people is that we're not doing anything legal and we're not doing anything moral. And so as long as you get people that come in and try to be part of your group and they start to want to do things that's illegal right away, you should just be like that. You're out of here.

00:28:11.08
Brent
Nope.

00:28:11.19
Buddy
Red flag, red flag.

00:28:11.48
Brent
were not going to take it.

00:28:12.64
Buddy
Yeah.

00:28:12.68
Brent
Yeah. Because what happened, you know, back in the day with like Randy Weaver, some people might know his story, right?

00:28:17.94
Buddy
Yeah.

00:28:19.16
Brent
These guys came to him and like, Oh, hey, man, could you do this for me? He's like, no, I don't want to do it. They they pushed him and pushed him and they got him to, think it was have a shotgun cut off a little shorter than legal.

00:28:29.89
Brent
And then that was their excuse to go in. was that thing in in ah Michigan, if you remember a while back, where they

00:28:35.58
Buddy
Yeah.

00:28:36.26
Brent
got those guys to ah plot to kidnap the governor or whatever. I think in their group, there was like more fed infiltrators than there actually was people in the group. Right.

00:28:46.92
Brent
And you have these three guys that are just like, oh, you guys at let's do this thing.

00:28:47.26
Buddy
yeah like Well,

00:28:51.35
Brent
They're just like, what? No.

00:28:53.12
Keith
You're talking about Ruby Ridge?

00:28:55.20
Brent
Well, that was with Randy.

00:28:56.41
Buddy
that was the first one.

00:28:56.40
Brent
We were with.

00:28:57.35
Buddy
Yeah.

00:28:57.82
Brent
But this other one, this plot was not too long ago here was to kidnap. I think it was Gretchen Whitmer. And they got those three guys.

00:29:04.37
Buddy
Yep.

00:29:05.62
Brent
They they basically entrapped him and, and then, you know, tried to, it was, there's federal informants that were coming in and but they were the ones coming up with the plan. These guys didn't have a plan to do it. They just tried to trick them into doing it.

00:29:18.89
Brent
So I think the the point I'm making is, is that anybody that wants to do anything illegal or anything immoral, you know, you just, just know you're not part of this group. And we make it really clear. we Anybody that wants to come in and be part of our community.

00:29:33.11
Brent
It's like, Hey, we're, you know, we have a set of standards. You know, you can't be somebody that, you know, drinks or does drugs to the point where it causes a problem in your life. You know, we talk about honesty and having morals.

00:29:46.60
Brent
We talk about, you know respecting each other's privacy, you know, and so stuff like that. We have very, very strict standards. And if somebody's doing something that could cause a problem, it's going to be, you know, we just give them the boot. You're just not part of the group anymore.

00:30:02.58
Brent
So.

00:30:04.80
Keith
Yeah.

00:30:05.50
Brent
as a board And so you talk about talk about being willing to, you know, how can you find somebody? So if I encourage people, if you if you want to do this, you just got to get a little creative. So one thing you can do is, and I've heard people say this, if you have somebody that's, if you can't see them from from your porch, right, and and shout at them from your porch, are they really going to be able to mutually assist you, right?

00:30:27.10
Brent
So if the big earthquake hits or whatever something happens and somebody lives a long ways away from you, you know, are they going to be able to help you when the S hitch the, you know, fan, right?

00:30:38.49
Brent
And so try to keep it fairly local to you. Like for us, we tried to keep it in our county. And so we had some guys that were up in the next county and they're like, Hey, you know, good friends. And they're like, we want to be part of the group.

00:30:49.56
Brent
Like, well, you just live too far away. Try to start something up where you're at. And they would try and they had a hard time. So finally we're just like, okay, we'll include you. So we've expanded a little bit. But one thing I encourage people like,

00:31:02.53
Brent
the first thing you should do is what's your area of operation? And your area of operation is going to be around your house and in your neighborhood. And that's pretty important. If you haven't read Mike Shelby, right, his book, SHTF Intelligence, you should get that. And he talks about doing an area study. and That's really important.

00:31:21.58
Brent
But one thing you can do is start a, ah have a barbecue in your house and and invite people in your neighborhood over for a barbecue. And you just ah start talking to people and you can kind of tell pretty quick people that are like-minded, like I have some neighbors that live near me and I can kind of tell, you know, their political affiliation and their mindsets and whether or not there's somebody that I can really, you know, count on or want to build a group with. Right.

00:31:44.80
Brent
But, um, you know, start meeting people, um, going to the cert class. I I've, I've taught certain classes for years. And, and the last one, I had a couple of guys from my group that said, Hey, we want to go get the the actual certification. So they went and I was teaching one of the sessions and they look at me and they're like,

00:32:02.12
Brent
Brent, man, this is this is bad. We go through way deeper stuff than this in our own group. And I go, yeah, I know. But if you want to get that you know the certification, you got to go through the class. But in that class, out of maybe 10 or 15 people that were there, there was maybe like three or four that I thought this person's a capable person who I'd maybe want to invite to join our group.

00:32:24.57
Brent
So you got to kind of you know you just kind of always got to have your eye out for people. And when you see somebody that's interesting, start talking to them, start building a relationship.

00:32:34.15
Buddy
So when a question about your CERT training, so you're with your background, I can see that you'd be a CERT trainer, but if somebody is out there looking for CERT training, where do they go look for it?

00:32:49.55
Buddy
Besides online, I mean, yeah there's some stuff online.

00:32:50.85
Brent
That's a great question. So yeah, so what you do is if you want to specifically do the CERT training, you go to the, I think it's um Homeland Security, Department Homeland Security, FEMA, and you just Google it, right? Or, you know, or duck, duck, go it, right?

00:33:04.25
Brent
um CERT training, it'll pop up and you can say, my check my local area and it will show your area and it pops up for my county and it'll say, hey, this, lot of times it's a fire department that do it.

00:33:17.43
Brent
It might be ah local city that does it. Like it used to be for my city, it used to be run through our fire department and then they actually bumped it up and moved it through the city. So then you had a city emergency manager running it.

00:33:30.26
Brent
the And then she's done a horrible job. It's just not not really interested at at all. Our county has a person who has cert as their certs underneath them. The thing about it is, and this is what's interesting about cert is that it's kind of like one of the lowest priorities on their list, right?

00:33:46.46
Brent
It's like training like the average citizens to be able to do stuff. They don't put a lot of energy and effort into it and they don't really monitor it that well. So if unless you have somebody like in that fire department, like like there's a another fire department that's down south of us that's really into it.

00:34:04.85
Brent
And they've got they put money into it. They've got people that are running it. And they really are interested in it. but But you don't have to be you' have to go through a fire department. You can go through, they say even on the website, it can be a local homeowners association.

00:34:20.01
Brent
It could be you know ah um you know a ah ah bicycle club that decides they want to make a cert team. So there's really a lot of leeway there. So you can just say, hey, my local neighborhood group, we want to have a, you know, my neighborhood cert team.

00:34:36.42
Brent
We want to build that up.

00:34:37.04
Keith
you So like like a neighborhood watch could become a cert team.

00:34:40.65
Brent
one hundred percent and And who's to tell you, no, you're not a cert team. Now there's there's the actual certification. And then like you can actually be deployed as a cert team. So when I got the went to the for Washington State, it's a three-day class, was taught by this guy. He he was actually former Green Beret, but he's actually kind of a ah lefty that works up and down Olympia.

00:35:04.00
Keith
Is that right?

00:35:04.15
Brent
his his office His office is down the hall from, at the time, Governor Inslee. Now it's Bob Ferguson, which, oh my gosh, don't get it going. But, uh, but, but he was, he's, he's, ah the top guy in this, in, you know, in the state level.

00:35:18.53
Brent
And he was teaching me how to ah to train the trainer for cert. And so I'm getting the certification from him. And, um, but you know, ah they don't really, they don't, anybody can kind of be their cert team and they don't.

00:35:31.21
Brent
So they would actually, they said, yeah, they'll deploy or mobilize sometimes. So if you got a a really organized cert team from some fire department, they, and there was some kind of a disaster, like, like Colleen down there or in Texas, they might say, Hey, we're going put you guys together and mobilize you.

00:35:46.64
Brent
And you'd probably do something like be sitting at an aid station and maybe, you know, with a,

00:35:52.13
Keith
direct traffic. Right.

00:35:53.08
Brent
Yeah, with a clipboard, people coming in and they want some aid, you write their name down and you give them a case of water or something. It's going to be like the lowest level stuff.

00:35:59.52
Keith
right

00:36:02.12
Brent
But so I don't want to be deployed by the government. I don't want to be working under them. I want to be able to do what I want to do. Right. And yes, groups like the Cajun Navy, like Grindstone Ministries.

00:36:14.28
Brent
These people that have capabilities and are are more advanced than just a regular cert team, and they're going to do the things that they want to do. So you can be a cert team, but you don't have to to deploy with you know with the government. You can do what you need to do in your neighborhood, your community.

00:36:31.22
Buddy
Good stuff there. I actually, we, we deployed with, uh, grindstone.

00:36:33.91
Brent
Yeah.

00:36:37.57
Buddy
Uh, we, were we had a separate entity going, but they, they asked us to come down because of our special capabilities, but, um, part of their new trainings, uh, if you want to deploy with grindstone, you, you got to start your search training.

00:36:43.30
Brent
Yeah.

00:36:49.16
Buddy
So, um,

00:36:50.32
Brent
Yeah, and they have and it's a good foundation, right? I mean, they go through ah medical. They go through search and rescue. They go through you know lifting heavy objects with pry bars and cribbing.

00:37:02.06
Brent
They go through you know the incident incident management system. IMS is what they call it. So anytime if you've got... you know, the fire department on scene or it's ah some kind of disaster emergency, they're going to have the the IMS systems, which has, you know, the the chain of command and there's organization to the whole thing. So you kind of need to know what's going on that way.

00:37:23.16
Brent
So that's all part of that training you know and it allows you to be helpful. And then in our city, um they actually had a thing where if you wanted to submit yourself for a background check, they give you ah city emergency worker card.

00:37:38.87
Brent
So imagine there's a massive disaster, earthquake, something like that. You've got the local sheriff that's blocking a road that's saying, hey, we don't want people going in here, but you need to get in there for some reason to help you know one of the guys on your team or to do some kind of an errand.

00:37:56.12
Brent
And you show up and they're like, yeah, you can't go, hey, i'm um'm aer I'm part of the CERT team. Here's my emergency worker card. I don't know, something like that might get you access where otherwise you wouldn't have access. So who knows?

00:38:08.07
Buddy
Yeah.

00:38:08.44
Keith
Right, right.

00:38:09.66
Buddy
You become part of the solution and not the problem. So i don't see, you know.

00:38:12.27
Brent
Yeah, right?

00:38:14.20
Keith
And the organizations like ah Grindstone and ah these bigger, well-managed groups, they're great, but they don't really interest me and ah my wife.

00:38:14.26
Brent
Exactly.

00:38:14.51
Buddy
Yeah.

00:38:28.62
Keith
we we want to We want to have more of ah of a small group of neighbors. And we're we're new to our area, which is why I'm saying want to. We haven't we haven't put together a group here yet.

00:38:39.67
Keith
So, but that's what we're interested in, more neighborhood-y type of a thing, rather than a, you know, certified, ah experienced a group of people that know all their stuff, you know.

00:38:52.12
Keith
We'll leave that to professionals.

00:38:54.24
Brent
Well, yeah. And then also, too, there's going to be limitations on you as well. So, you know, a big organized group like that, you're going to be kind of like shoved into a certain role.

00:39:05.00
Brent
And that's where you're to be. i like what you're saying, too. If you have your own group. then you can do what you want to do and you can you can make it grow like you want it to. like Like Buddy was saying, you know he likes doing drones.

00:39:17.62
Brent
Well, in our in our group, we have but we call ah strategic what we call specialty training groups, s STGs, right? So you've got the main group, but then there's guys that are really interested in drones.

00:39:30.35
Brent
So they might be the drone team. There's guys that have boats and we live near the water. So now we've got the Marine team. There's guys over here that are more interested in self-defense and the skills that are involved there.

00:39:41.09
Brent
So they might be.

00:39:41.66
Keith
Or ham radio or that kind of thing.

00:39:42.95
Brent
Are they radio comms team? So by having by having your own group and then having these different subject matter experts in these different categories, now those guys that are really good at those things, they can have they can hold a training. So we would have our um medical training. Well, guess who put on the medical training?

00:40:01.01
Brent
It was the paramedic. It was the firefighter EMT. and you know Those are the guys that did the medical training. Who did the self-defense training? It was the former Green Beret, the former Navy SEAL, right?

00:40:13.19
Brent
ah And so by having different people with skill sets like that, they can hold trainings and bring your group up to a certain level.

00:40:20.86
Keith
we had i had a group years and years ago. and I've talked about it many times on the podcast. I won't go deep into it, but just for your sake, Brent, ah in Texas. And we there was about 22 of us. And right off the the bat, everybody got along pretty well.

00:40:36.82
Keith
But right off the bat, I can tell that there was – um There was a different mindset. because I mean, let's put it this way. Half of everybody had, you know, like these Baofeng radios or these GMRS radios and not a single one of them knew how to even turn them on.

00:40:50.63
Keith
you know, it was that kind of a thing. And, you know, we had some military people and they were very good at what they do. And I'm still friendly with some of them. But um the the problem was everybody wanted to be boss.

00:41:04.17
Keith
Everybody wanted to be leader. Everybody wanted to be a shooter. and everybody wanted to be a shooter You know, ah everybody wants to be on that team. You know, nobody wanted to be the medical. Nobody wanted to be the trapper, the cooker, the forager, hunter gatherer, you know, the builder, the electrician.

00:41:21.31
Keith
Nobody wanted to do that stuff. They all want everybody wanted to do the fun thing, grab the gun and protect stuff. And it's like that's that's not how it works.

00:41:26.85
Brent
sounds real familiar

00:41:28.35
Keith
Right.

00:41:29.06
Buddy
That's how you get the girl, man. You got to do that romantic shit, you know?

00:41:33.20
Keith
Right.

00:41:33.46
Brent
yeah Yeah, we started holding trainings, you know, when it was when it was a area study or, you know, food and water, things of that nature. um You didn't get as many people showing up. But sure enough, you hold a, ah you know, a rifle training or a pistol training and you get guys coming out.

00:41:48.55
Brent
Right. So. So here's here's my theory on that. Right. Is that. as a as a leader as somebody who's trying to build this group up and trying to motivate people and try to inspire people right um ims inspire motivate and support your people right and that's an important thing to do so you to inspire motivate and support so what i did what i figured out is that hey i I appreciate that.

00:42:12.35
Brent
these are These aren't professional soldiers. They're not in a paramilitary organization. They're just regular average citizens that have families, that have jobs. Right. And so you got to to think about that and think, OK, but what's my goal?

00:42:25.92
Brent
And I really wanted to have this group of people that I can count on. that that could all bring me up to a certain level. When the need arises, we can mobilize together. One of the things that's cool is we've helped so many on just regular everyday things. It's amazing. Every year we kind of take a poll.

00:42:44.42
Brent
How many times have people been helped by the group this year? And you'll get 30, 40 responses. you know My water line was broke and three guys came over and helped me dig a new water line.

00:42:56.67
Brent
um my My HVAC system went out and the guy that one of our guys is an HVAC tech and he came over and saved me 10 grand, helped me put in a new heat pump. um My daughter's car went around the corner and almost went into a big ditch.

00:43:10.80
Brent
And six to eight people showed up with a winch on the truck and stopped traffic and winched her out of this big ditch. I mean, it every year never fails.

00:43:19.91
Keith
is Isn't that what it's all about?

00:43:19.87
Brent
there That's what it's all about.

00:43:23.06
Keith
That's what it's all about. Because I mean, the the end of the world could happen, but really what it's all about is the everyday emergencies. You know, of course, were we're going to have tornadoes and floods and hurricanes, earthquakes, all those types of things. We're going to have those civil unrest, all that kind of stuff. But ah really the really the everyday emergencies is why you want to have a, a a mutual assistant group.

00:43:46.06
Brent
one hundred percent

00:43:46.32
Keith
You know, it's, it's, Hey, Hey Johnny, I'm over here. I got a flat tire and man, I didn't bring any of my stuff. I have, like I got nothing. I can't go. I can't do anything. Can you help me out? Of course. That's your mutual assistant group.

00:43:59.72
Buddy
it's also a good lit litmus test. You know, somebody is not going to show up to help you with, ah you know, you strand on the side the road, ah you know, are they really going to show up when the, you know, when the shit hits the fan? I mean, you know, so...

00:44:12.21
Keith
Yeah, my neighbor my neighbor texted me, and and we don't know know each other that well because we just moved to the neighborhood, you know. And he's way down the road, Peace. And he texted me and said, hey, do you have anything that could do you have anything that can move a big, heavy ah ah wood-burning stove?

00:44:28.67
Keith
I said, no, I don't, but I got my arms. I can come help. And there I never got a response back. I mean, it could could have been like, oh, hey, we got plenty we got plenty of guys, but we appreciate the you know the offer.

00:44:40.68
Keith
But that that's like, hey, that's maybe I'm not to invite that person into the mutual assistant group. I don't know.

00:44:45.96
Brent
yeah Yeah, there's there's something to be said about loyalty and and being there. We we have an emergency traffic channel, so we use it we use a messaging app to talk back and forth. right We have chat groups and they're all all manner of topics. right and One of them is emergency traffic.

00:45:04.15
Brent
And so that's kind of the 911 for the group. Boy, went if somebody posts in there, it's amazing. It's almost like guys are like, they get just getting get hard on to go and and help, right?

00:45:16.30
Brent
It's like, it's like, it's like eight or 10 guys.

00:45:16.36
Buddy
Oh, yeah. but

00:45:19.82
Brent
Okay, I'll be there, you know, and people are like racing to see who can get there first to help each other.

00:45:25.66
Keith
Right, right.

00:45:25.72
Brent
ah And, you know, and that's the kind of people that you want to go after.

00:45:26.72
Buddy
so

00:45:28.47
Brent
You want to go after those people that are like the sheepdogs. You guys all know the analogy, right? That there's the sheep, right?

00:45:33.72
Buddy
so yeah

00:45:35.09
Brent
People out there just kind of going along, right? There's the wolves, there's the bad guys that are, They're out trying to hurt other people and take advantage people. And there's the sheepdogs. they They kind of look like the wolves. They might look a little dangerous, but they're the ones that are out to try to help the sheep, right? Protect the sheep, fight against the wolves.

00:45:51.99
Brent
And those are kind of people that you want. And that's kind of people we got in my group. We got a bunch of sheepdogs. Boy, if if somebody's in need, these guys jump, man. And it's just, it's amazing. I love seeing that.

00:46:02.39
Brent
but I mean, I hate seeing it because you know it's trouble, but you see that id emergency channel traffic pop up and all of a sudden you got... all these guys, I could be there in 10 minutes, you know, and they're just racing to get there to help.

00:46:11.51
Keith
Right, right.

00:46:12.21
Brent
you It's awesome.

00:46:12.85
Buddy
so So that's part of your pace plan then. You've got that emergency channel where, you know, ah that I'm assuming that's part of your pace plan.

00:46:22.45
Brent
Yeah, well, that's well, sure. And also then now. So, yeah, pace plan and for people out there and you probably talked about it on your podcast, I talk about it online, right? Primary alternate contingency and emergency. So.

00:46:34.37
Brent
So for this, for particularly, Um, you know, we have a communications pace plan. So part of that is having the the chat group on there and stuff. But, um, yeah, when it murders like, okay, so let's think about this. Um, yeah, if something bad happens in your life, right? Somebody gets hurt, somebody stuck in a ditch. What are people normally going to do?

00:46:54.95
Brent
Probably call 911, right?

00:46:56.55
Buddy
Oh, AAA or whatever.

00:46:56.99
Brent
Or call a tow truck or triple a. Yeah, exactly.

00:46:58.74
Buddy
Oh,

00:47:00.01
Brent
Um, and so basically we, you know, we kind of changed that. I mean, we take care of ourselves. And that's why I like to talk about is being your own first responder. you know can you, can you, are you reliant on 911?

00:47:09.00
Buddy
oh yeah.

00:47:11.50
Brent
nine one one Are you relying on the police to protect you? Are you relying on fire department or ambulance to come in and help you if you have an injury?

00:47:22.17
Brent
And I'll tell you, this is kind of funny. um Today is all day today. And yesterday I'm teaching them teaching for our fire department, special operations training. for for the for the whole department so over the next yesterday today tomorrow and the next day um all the engines and all the firefighters in the whole department are coming through my class so we're teaching it's called rescue systems one and it was designed during the big earthquakes down in loma pietra earthquakes down in california kind of program came out of there it's training everyday firefighters just using an engine that they have to you do rescues without special equipment and so

00:47:59.73
Buddy
wow

00:48:00.55
Brent
so I'm talking to these firefighters and i'm like, okay, up here in the Northwest, we have what's called the Cascadia subduction zone. It's a big giant fault that runs kind of from Northern California up along the coast up to Alaska. and Every about 250 years, there's a big earthquake that happens, like really big earthquake, talking 9.0 level, and we're due for one.

00:48:24.09
Brent
And they call it the full rip, right? and So if that earthquake hits, it's going to be chaos up here. So I'm kind of talking to these guys about what would happen you know if that full rip hits. And guess what I hear, the comment I hear all day, I'm leaving and going home and taking care of my family.

00:48:40.18
Brent
So these are the guys, the this is 911, these are the firefighters. And they're like, yeah, if the big one hits, I'm going to take care of my family. So if you think

00:48:47.13
Keith
we've We've talked about that on the pat on the podcast before. i believe I believe that you're going to see that a lot with first responders because their families have to be first in their in their mind, their mindset, their thought process, their heart.

00:49:02.29
Brent
Exactly. They're normal people, right?

00:49:04.89
Keith
Yeah.

00:49:04.99
Brent
And if their wife and kids are in trouble, um cops, you know firefighters, I mean, they're they're normal normal they're normal people. And if you think they're going to put other people's families ahead of their own, now they'll you know who knows what there's always all varying levels of problems and and trouble but but that's the thing right is that and that's for me what preparedness is about is it's being self-reliant it's being able to take care of my own needs without being relying on someone else

00:49:23.18
Keith
Sure.

00:49:35.09
Keith
Right. Hey, did you say that you're up in the Pacific Northwest?

00:49:38.73
Brent
yep yep puget sound area just just north and north of seattle

00:49:41.06
Keith
Oh, I did not. I did not know that. I thought for some reason I was thinking East Coast. You're on the West Coast.

00:49:46.66
Brent
Oh, no, we're West Coast. I'm West Coast, baby.

00:49:49.40
Keith
So, you know, Bigfoot.

00:49:51.19
Brent
Oh, yeah.

00:49:52.52
Keith
That's awesome, man. We got talk about some Bigfoot stories one day.

00:49:54.10
Brent
You know you know ah Bigfoot and Sasquatch sometimes get mixed up, but Yeti doesn't mind.

00:50:01.30
Buddy
Oh,

00:50:02.59
Keith
and That's fantastic.

00:50:03.95
Buddy
oh yeah.

00:50:04.19
Keith
That's a t-shirt, man.

00:50:04.99
Brent
Sorry, that's a dead dad joke.

00:50:07.21
Keith
ah Well, you know, and that's and that's where we get our our podcast name. Our our ah mascot is Sasquatch Patty, actually.

00:50:12.66
Brent
Yeah, I know.

00:50:14.44
Keith
And the reason why is because if there truly is a Sasquatch Bigfoot out there in the world, they would be the original prepper survivalist tops.

00:50:20.03
Buddy
There he

00:50:22.53
Brent
Heck yeah, dude.

00:50:24.02
Buddy
There he is.

00:50:24.17
Keith
So.

00:50:24.78
Buddy
i mean, come on. We talked about this.

00:50:27.04
Keith
Yeah, we know.

00:50:27.32
Brent
He can survive.

00:50:30.28
Keith
Yep.

00:50:30.55
Brent
but That's awesome. But yeah, so so being being able to take care of your own problems should something happen is really important, right? ah Even just nowadays, if there's a big fire, right? Like our whole city will, you know, it's like moths do a flame on a big fire. I've seen it where there's two big incidents that happen and we're tapped out and I've had you know We've had engines and you know ladder trucks coming from you know two or three counties a away to come try to fill in because you know your your resources get tapped out pretty quick. There's only so many fire engines and cops out there, right?

00:51:05.85
Brent
And if there's some kind of coordinated terrorist attack or some kind of major disaster or an EMP, something like that, there's not enough...

00:51:09.82
Buddy
Oh, yeah. Oh,

00:51:15.42
Brent
cops and firefighters to take care of your medical, the medical needs of everybody in the security needs. You guys heard of the thin blue line, right? I get some people that they talk about like, oh, that means that the cops watch each other's backs.

00:51:23.76
Buddy
ah yeah.

00:51:27.56
Brent
And I'm like, man I don't think that's what it means. It's the thin blue line was was is that, you know, that that there's this um feeling that, hey, if I break the law, if I do something wrong, I'm going to get in trouble.

00:51:29.96
Keith
No.

00:51:39.99
Brent
And it's this thin blue line that's holding people to civility. right but We even start to see little little bits of it nowadays where you get these you know street takeovers or you get in some of these inner cities where you get a whole bunch of these youth and they just overwhelm a store and rob it and just go in and take everything. right When there's no fear of the law and that you're going to get in trouble and go to jail, anything will go.

00:52:06.16
Brent
But it's that thin blue line that kind of holds back, holds people into some form of civility. But man, when that goes away and people realize, hey, we saw it in 2020, right?

00:52:16.65
Brent
With the ANIFA and the BLM rights and all that and Ferguson and all those things.

00:52:17.23
Buddy
Oh, yeah.

00:52:21.15
Brent
As soon as people realize, hey, I can do whatever I want, what do they do? They loot, they rob, they burn things down. So you know that that to me, I think that's more of what the thin blue line is.

00:52:32.11
Keith
No, no rule of law is ah is a dangerous recipe.

00:52:32.44
Brent
and its It's that very...

00:52:36.53
Brent
Oh, yeah.

00:52:36.93
Keith
It's just there's too much that can happen is too much in there for chaos.

00:52:37.08
Brent
100%.

00:52:42.04
Brent
Yeah.

00:52:42.21
Keith
You know, when you know that you can't, you can't get in trouble, it's like the purge movies and you know, you got, you can't get in trouble.

00:52:42.22
Brent
Exactly.

00:52:46.27
Brent
Oh, yeah. You want to move on?

00:52:47.27
Keith
You're, you got people are just going to do whatever they want, you know?

00:52:50.61
Brent
exactly

00:52:50.80
Keith
So you're up there in the Pacific Northwest. You've got, mean, you're in the ring of fire. So you, you got forest fires, earthquakes, you got volcanoes up there. You've also got the threat of ah tsunamis against ah the the shoreline of your, your, of your state, you know, because you, you've got all those earthquakes out in the, ah out in the ocean.

00:53:05.82
Brent
yeah now and Yeah, now we're in we're in the Puget Sound there. So, you know, you come through the Strait of Juana Fuca and the Sound. So we don't get it hit directly like the coast would.

00:53:16.67
Brent
But there is definitely there's definitely, yeah, water can come in and, and you know, there's there's different types of tsunamis where the water can slosh back and forth in the Sound and and cause problems.

00:53:17.06
Keith
You got a barrier.

00:53:25.94
Keith
Sure. Yeah.

00:53:27.29
Brent
So, yeah you know, and and so it's not too bad as far as the tsunami goes. But yeah, there's definitely, with the earthquakes, it's definitely a big threat.

00:53:36.47
Keith
Wow.

00:53:37.30
Brent
Yeah. So, yeah. So, you know, that's why what we do is that we we try to build this group up so that we can, you know, take care of our own needs first. So you talked about pace plans. I think that's really important, right? we As a group, we have a comms pace plan.

00:53:50.63
Brent
So we as a team, we're like, hey, what's our primary means of communication? Well, we text each other or we call each other um or we use a, you know, we use a signal messaging app.

00:53:59.25
Keith
cell phones.

00:54:00.20
Brent
Yeah, cell phones. And it's like, okay, well, what happens if the s cell towers are down? What do we do next? Right? And so then to me, it's like, hey, I could use, if the internet's still up, like I can try sending texts.

00:54:12.68
Brent
Texts go through a little bit better than then calls do. um So you can send a text. But if the internet's up, I can try sending an email. So we actually have you know alternate. We have some stuff down for an alternate with the ISP still up.

00:54:26.28
Brent
What about a contingency? Cell phones are down. Internet's down. Now what? Start getting into two-way radios, right? So we're getting using repeaters, certain channels, and then you get into a um some type of a comms plan, right?

00:54:40.43
Brent
The SOI signals operating instructions. So you say, hey, we're going like they have the channel three project. have you guys heard of that?

00:54:48.31
Buddy
No, I haven't heard of it.

00:54:48.62
Keith
no

00:54:49.24
Brent
and Amron kind of puts that out, but they basically say, Go to channel three for two minutes every one hour. So three, two, one. So they say it's it's MERS channel three, CB channel three, GMRS channel three.

00:55:06.75
Brent
And then they have a simplex. I believe it's like 146 point something, something. And so they so they have. Go onto those channels and try to make contact with people. So they have it's kind of a protocol. that There's another protocol called the wilderness protocol. So if you're lost in the woods and people are trying to find you, they say between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.

00:55:28.07
Brent
every three hours, you're going to go online. You're going to go on the radio for like five minutes every three hours. and And what that does is it gives you like a comms window. So you come on try to make contact.

00:55:40.92
Brent
If you can't, then you just shut it off. That way you save your batteries. so you're not just sitting there waiting with the battery on.

00:55:45.56
Keith
That's outstanding.

00:55:47.12
Brent
And then you wait until the next comms window and then you power on. And then hopefully you can try to reach them in one of those windows.

00:55:53.08
Keith
Right.

00:55:53.16
Brent
So we have our own protocol that we have certain times that we have a window.

00:55:53.25
Buddy
yeah we

00:55:57.39
Brent
And then we try to make contact. We have certain channels that we use. And then for the emergency, we have things like dead drops. We have areas where each guy has an area near his home where he can leave a message.

00:56:08.98
Brent
If he has to flee, you know, his home gets overrun by criminals or burned down or whatever.

00:56:12.96
Buddy
That's gangster, man. Holy shit. I like that.

00:56:15.12
Keith
that That is awesome. Yeah.

00:56:17.01
Brent
have an area where he can leave a little cylinder with a little waterproof cylinder, leave a note in it in the dead drop area, or maybe a bulletin board where he can leave a coded note on there. And then that way, if he's gone and his team buddy comes and tries to find him and his house is burned down or is or somebody's raided it and attacked it, they can go and he can find an area where that they you got a message left for him.

00:56:38.29
Brent
So yeah, that's part of the PACE plan, right? Having alternate and contingency and emergency means to communicate.

00:56:45.43
Buddy
I've never heard of dead drop. that's that's That's money right there.

00:56:49.05
Keith
Well, when he was going through the pace ah configuration and I was trying to think of of emergency before he was talking about it, I was thinking what would be the emergency? And I never would have thought of that. A dead drop. That's awesome.

00:57:00.69
Brent
Because it has to be something that's the emergency has to be foolproof, right? Like you can't rely on, you know, a repeater or radios that take batteries or the internet or cell towers, right?

00:57:13.45
Brent
any Any kind of a pace plan you use, that emergency has to be that foolproof method.

00:57:18.48
Keith
Right.

00:57:18.59
Brent
and So if you...

00:57:18.81
Buddy
Well, about ah baly ah what February 22nd, I think it was, a year and a half ago, um there was a nationwide outage and some of the 911 centers got taken out.

00:57:19.45
Brent
ah view

00:57:32.66
Buddy
um I think you know mostly every every cell was out. A lot of the Wi-Fi was out. So that opened my eyes up to a lot of things. And I i don't really...

00:57:48.12
Buddy
I can't remember exactly.

00:57:48.50
Keith
that was that Was that the 18? I didn't have an outage. i didn't experience it.

00:57:52.90
Buddy
Okay. Yeah. We, we had to, we had an outage where it was weird because, uh, an Android phone, I had more, I could actually get on the wifi and,

00:58:04.49
Buddy
but my daughter who had, uh, Apple phone, she couldn't get on the wifi or the cell. And, uh, I mean, it opened my eyes up because, you know, there's, there's a possibility that everything goes down, you know, cell towers go out, you know, you're, you're basically you're, you're on the FM waves with your, you know, radios and stuff from that point. But, you know, a lot of people really rely on their, their wifi or their cellular and stuff. And, and,

00:58:34.43
Buddy
I mean, I've, I had, I did some consultations with people that are like, well, what do I do? You know, will these radios talk to my daughter 50 miles away? And it's like, well, no, it's only Balfang radio, a five watt, you know, you're not going to get that far.

00:58:48.43
Buddy
But, uh, I think that's a good point to, you know, with that dead drop. I mean, that would be, and, and your comms windows. i mean, we used to do it in the military, uh, where we had comm windows and, uh, wow.

00:59:03.63
Buddy
it's i think that's that's gonna open up some eyes

00:59:06.77
Brent
Yeah. So a couple of things that people can look at, they they can search from the internet, look in YouTube. I want to encourage people, the university of YouTube is amazing. You can learn so much on there.

00:59:17.60
Brent
And so, you know, you can go on there, um type in channel three project. I think a video from Amron will come up and they'll talk. There's actually, they actually have a video that it's pretty old, but it's get your comms up and it's John Jacob Schmidt.

00:59:30.70
Brent
And he's talking about, and actually have a little dramatization on how this gal uses it to, to meet, you know, to to save her when she's, you know, trapped in the, you know, lost in the wilderness and stuff.

00:59:41.61
Brent
But um yeah, it's, you know, and find something like that. And just to kind of hit back a little bit, focusing our mags again, people may say, well, yeah, yeah know we talked a little bit about how to how to connect with other people.

00:59:54.89
Brent
I was just thinking about as we were talking. So we talked about CERT training, right? Like sign up for a local search training. You'll meet people there. Look for some people that are kind of like-minded to you, you know, and and then connect with those people and say, hey, I'd like to kind of build this a little more and do and meet a little more often and talk about this stuff, right?

01:00:13.81
Brent
At your church, hopefully you go to church that's a, you know, God-fearing, liberty-loving patriots. I know our church, man, you probably have at least... 10 to 15 guys concealed carrying every day. um So find a church that's like minded to you um and then you try and then connect with some people in there and ask talk about preparedness.

01:00:24.13
Buddy
Oh, yeah.

01:00:27.02
Keith
That's right.

01:00:31.40
Brent
um Training companies like, for example, I work with Training Northwest is a company up here. And then so they do classes. And so I go I help teach some of these classes and I see the same guys showing up. And these are guys that are interested in training and you can watch them and you can see them in action.

01:00:49.31
Brent
I go, hey, That guy's cool. He's a good dude. He doesn't get drunk and act like an idiot. he He can shoot. He can move. and start talking to him get to meet him a little bit. I'm like, hey, man, you want to come and do some extra training with us so you can recruit people from training classes, right?

01:01:06.39
Brent
Training Northwest. There's NC Scout does his RTO classes and stuff like that. So find a ah training company in your area that that does that kind of stuff, maybe like a gun club or something like that and start meeting people there.

01:01:22.69
Brent
different groups. There's a group called PrepperNet. You guys ever heard of that?

01:01:26.01
Buddy
Oh, yeah.

01:01:27.05
Brent
Yeah, PrepperNet. They're all over the United States and they have groups. And now I haven't really dug into that and in my area, but you know that might be a place to to look look at. Now, you want to be really careful, right?

01:01:38.54
Brent
You want to vet people. You want to make sure you don't you know just start giving out a whole bunch of your information and not knowing who these people are. So we're very serious about about vetting people. We want to know who this person is, get some of their background.

01:01:53.52
Brent
and We always want to see people's driver's license and their concealed carry permit.

01:01:57.17
Keith
you

01:01:57.13
Brent
So we we make them show us that if they want to be part of our group and they want to go through the vetting process, kind of see who they are. And then ideally you find people that you've known for a while or somebody else knows, not just some random person that just pops up.

01:02:11.34
Brent
So try to find people that you know and and start bringing them into your group. But your your church and then ah Amron, join a BAM Ron and find people that are in your, in your area, but you know, they're going like-minded people.

01:02:23.28
Brent
So those are just some ideas that I was wanting to throw out there as far as places that, you know American contingency, it's still a good, still a good option.

01:02:23.61
Buddy
Oh, yeah.

01:02:30.27
Brent
Like me and my other buddy from my, from our group, we're like the moderators for our County up here for American contingency. if somebody pops on there, we see them and we've got a couple of guys in our group.

01:02:41.69
Brent
They, they popped into the group, the chat thing and, They're like, hey, you know, I'm a local guy here in this area. And I'm like, cool. You want to get together and meet? And it's funny. You find the people that just want to be the cheer-borne warriors and the keyboard warriors. And they want to be on the internet, but they don't want to meet. for Oh, yeah. I don't know. I'm pretty busy.

01:03:01.34
Brent
Right? So don't waste your time with.

01:03:02.31
Buddy
You can be star on the chat rooms.

01:03:02.44
Keith
Bye.

01:03:05.25
Buddy
can an absolute all-star. on the chat rooms you know but

01:03:09.49
Brent
That's right.

01:03:09.62
Buddy
you can be absolute allstar

01:03:12.01
Brent
And I don't waste my time with those people. It's like some people, they just live to sit and chat it up and they're always commenting or always chatting. And he said, Hey, you want to meet with this one guy? And I was like, he met him he's like, Oh, you know, yeah, I'm up in your area. I'm like, cool. Let's get together. And he's like, Oh yeah. Well, uh, I go, my name is Brent, blah, blah, blah. And here's what, here's what I do. I work for this fire department. like He's like, Whoa, uh, you know, my mom and dad taught me not to just give away my name to random people on the internet.

01:03:38.57
Buddy
wow And I said,

01:03:39.10
Brent
And I was like, dude, What do you mean?

01:03:41.87
Keith
Uh...

01:03:41.98
Brent
I mean, um'm give i'm I'm being vulnerable to you.

01:03:43.35
Keith
yeah

01:03:45.15
Brent
Well, you know, you can't blame me.

01:03:45.35
Buddy
but

01:03:46.87
Brent
So I thought, okay, guess what? I'm going to find out who this guy is. So I started using open source intelligence and I i found the his little picture, his little icon on his picture. And I kind of blew that up and I could see ah in a reflection, I could see his face.

01:04:02.05
Brent
And then I was able to, by using some stuff in in his picture, I was able to find out where he was at. And then I started doing some just open source stuff. And then I was like, wait a minute, dude, you already have been talking to me and gave your name in another chat with another group. So I go, your name's this, you live here, you do this. And he's like, Oh yeah.

01:04:24.41
Keith
I think they call those trollers.

01:04:24.63
Brent
So I was like, was like, come on, man.

01:04:25.97
Keith
I don't know, but.

01:04:28.93
Brent
But ah I just thought it was kind of funny because people think, you know, I'm going to be all secret squirrel. And I'm like, do you really think you're that important that, But the federal government going to come after you. I mean, you know, and if they do, it's like, you know, you just got to be smart about things.

01:04:42.91
Brent
And if you're not doing anything the illegal or immoral and you just sort just being in yourself, um you know, you just got to kind of put yourself out there a little bit sometimes.

01:04:52.08
Keith
Yeah. So Brent, we're coming up on the end here. Was there anything else that you wanted to talk about with Mags or do you want to give a, I don't know, some kind of closing thoughts or anything like that?

01:04:55.38
Brent
Yeah.

01:05:02.26
Brent
Well, sure. Well, I really appreciate getting to chat with you guys. and I've enjoyed your podcast. um You guys got a lot of good information out there. So thanks for thanks for doing it.

01:05:10.83
Keith
Thank you. Appreciate that.

01:05:12.28
Brent
Yeah, thanks for doing it. And I'm going to be a longtime listener in there and continue to follow you both. um It's great hearing like-minded people sharing good information out there. So thanks for doing that.

01:05:23.32
Brent
Yeah, check out Project 223 podcast. Once you've listened to the Topps Bunker, come over and give it a listen. Lots of good information. Just encourage you to, yeah, if if you feel the call to start a group and to build up a team, you know, it like say, it's a calling.

01:05:40.10
Brent
And it it takes a lot of effort and a lot of sacrifice. But in the end, it's really worth it. And you gotta be kind of a little bit of a politician. You gotta to be you know a peacemaker sometimes. you know Recently we had a guy whose wife had a business and somebody from the group's wife went to the business and there was a misunderstanding and the guy got mad and was gonna quit. i was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And you know when I had to get this guy talking to this guy and figure out what went wrong and and we worked it out. But it takes work you know and it takes humility too.

01:06:13.16
Brent
And so you want to build a group, a team of strong, talented people, but also people that have humility and that are willing to be more givers than they are takers.

01:06:23.67
Brent
And it's hard to do.

01:06:24.16
Buddy
that's a, that's a great point. The the humility thing. Uh, a lot of people just totally overlook that, you know, but it's, it's, uh, you know, you gotta go in humble, you know, especially when you've got to deal with other personalities. So, um,

01:06:39.97
Brent
100%. 100%. So yeah. but percent

01:06:41.37
Buddy
There's, you know, you know,

01:06:42.59
Brent
so yeah Yeah. And so then just and then just working hard to bring the whole team up, being willing to you know share knowledge you have and then receive knowledge other people have.

01:06:54.55
Brent
And that's what we do is we just say, okay, we want everybody to be at a certain level on comms, everybody to at a certain level with their firearms. And we just work hard to try to get everybody up to that. And then we just keep increasing our training. So yeah, know it like I say, it's it's a lot of work, but it's definitely worth it.

01:07:09.39
Brent
And remember, Nobody's going to come to save you when the S it's the hits the fan, right? So you need to be ready and to be resilient and self-reliant.