3,500 U.S. troops just arrived in the Middle East

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I cleaned out my closet last weekend and found four different fire-starting kits. Four. I also realized I had not actually started a fire with any of them in over a year. I had the gear. I did not have the reps. That pretty much sums up the problem most of us have, and it is the reason this week's issue might be the most important one I have written so far.

What You Know Beats What You Own

There is a reason experienced preppers eventually slow down on buying gear. At some point, you look at the pile and realize that owning a water filter you have never tested is not the same as knowing how to find and treat water. The difference between equipment and capability is practice.

This is not an argument against gear. Good tools matter. But tools without skill are just weight. A $300 trauma kit does nothing for someone who has never practiced applying a tourniquet under stress. A fire steel sitting in a drawer does not mean you can start a fire in the rain. The most common pattern in preparedness spending is to keep adding stuff while avoiding the less comfortable work of actually using it.

Five skills deserve your time before your next purchase. The first is fire-making. Not with a lighter on a sunny day, but with a ferro rod, in wind, using natural tinder you gathered yourself. The second is water treatment. Know at least two methods beyond "use a filter," such as boiling, chemical treatment with purification tablets, and solar disinfection. The third is basic first aid, and not from a YouTube video. Take the Red Cross course. Practice on a real person with a real tourniquet. The fourth is navigation without GPS. Get a compass, learn to use it with a paper map of your area, and practice a route you know so you can verify your accuracy. The fifth is knot-tying. Four or five reliable knots will let you build shelter, secure loads, rig a tarp, and improvise solutions to problems you have not thought of yet.

Each of these can be learned in an afternoon and improved over a lifetime. The investment is time, not money. A ferro rod costs eight dollars. A compass costs twelve. A Red Cross first aid course is often free through your local chapter. Rope and a printout from animatedknots.com costs almost nothing.

The shift from consumer to practitioner is the single biggest upgrade available to anyone who takes preparedness seriously. You do not need another gadget. You need an afternoon in the backyard.

Pick one skill from the list above and practice it for fifteen minutes.

3,500+ U.S. Troops Arrive in Middle East as Houthis Enter the War

More than 3,500 U.S. troops arrived in the Middle East on March 28 as the Iran conflict expanded on multiple fronts simultaneously. Approximately 2,500 Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit arrived aboard the USS Tripoli. The Pentagon is weighing deployment of up to 10,000 additional ground troops. At least 15 U.S. service members were wounded Friday in an Iranian strike on a Saudi air base — the first direct casualties on Saudi soil. Hours later, the Houthis launched ballistic missiles toward Israel, triggering air raid sirens in Beersheba.

This is a multi-front war. Fuel supply chains, prescription drug logistics, and financial markets are all exposed to further escalation. The question for your household is not whether this affects you — it is how many links in your supply chain run through the Middle East.

Sources: Antiwar.com, NPR, CBS News, March 28, 2026

Mykel Hawke, a former Green Beret captain, has spent decades teaching survival to both military personnel and families. In Hawke's Special Forces Survival Handbook, he lays out a principle that runs through all Special Forces training: the more you know, the less you need to carry. Hawke writes that in the field, the most dangerous operator is not the one with the heaviest pack but the one who can improvise with minimal equipment. For civilians, this means prioritizing competence over collection. Every hour you spend practicing a core skill effectively lightens your load, because you stop relying on a specific tool and start relying on what is between your ears. That is a resource no one can take from you.

100,000+ San Diego Customers Lost Power in 75-Minute Outage

More than 100,000 SDG&E customers in North San Diego County and parts of Southern Orange County — including Carlsbad, Encinitas, Escondido, Mission Viejo, and San Juan Capistrano — lost power on the evening of March 27. The outage ran approximately 75 minutes, from 7:41 to 8:56 p.m. SDG&E confirmed the event originated on the regional transmission system; built-in safety measures automatically interrupted service to protect the broader grid. A full investigation is ongoing. This follows a separate SDG&E outage on February 27. That is two major outages in 30 days affecting the same service area.

The preparedness angle is straightforward: a grid failure that lasts 75 minutes is an inconvenience. One that lasts 75 hours changes everything for a household with no backup power, no stored water, and food in a refrigerator. Last night was a reminder to check what your plan actually is when the lights go out.

Sources: NBC San Diego, Fox 5 San Diego

Bayite 4-Inch Ferro Rod Fire Starter

Around

1 on Amazon. This is one of the most straightforward fire-starting tools you can own — a 4-inch ferrocerium rod that throws a shower of 5,400°F sparks with a single strike. It works wet, it works cold, and it does not run out of fuel. The rod ships with a steel striker and a paracord lanyard. This is exactly the kind of tool that rewards practice: ten minutes in your backyard is worth more than having it sit unused in a drawer for a year.

Overrated: Expensive multi-tools with thirty functions. Most people use three of them. A quality fixed-blade knife and a separate pair of pliers will serve you better and last longer.

Underrated: Animated Knots by Grog (animatedknots.com). A free website that teaches every practical knot with step-by-step animations. Worth an hour of your time this week.

Animated Knots — Every knot you could need, with clear step-by-step animations. Bookmark this one.

Darebee.com — Free workout programs and fitness challenges. No gym required. Complements a skills-over-stuff approach to physical readiness.

Red Cross: First Aid Training — Find a free or low-cost first aid course near you. Hands-on practice beats reading every time.

Primitive Technology (YouTube) — A man builds things from scratch in the woods. No narration, just pure skill demonstration. Oddly calming.

iNaturalist — Free plant and wildlife identification app. A practical foraging and nature awareness tool.

GoRuck: What Is Rucking — Walking with weight. The simplest functional fitness for preparedness. Free to start with any backpack.

We have more good stuff coming. Next issue kicks off a new rotation of topics, including some reader-requested deep dives. Stay tuned, and as always, keep building on what you have already started.