Parachute Squad RAC Army Survival Kit

Hello, my name is Bill Whitmore. I am a former army paratrooper, For sqn RAC we did some training with SAS Special Air Service, in desert and jungle, Middle East and Burma.

The SAS drove pink ground vehicles in the desert, believe it or not, the pink mixes with the desert and makes them hard to see. The training was called escape and evasion, this is where they gave us a route to follow and somewhere along the route the SAS would catch us. Then we would be tortured, that is: kept awake by the lack of food for the day and physically and mentally abused. Hoods over our heads, removed from our location, hands tied behind our backs, beaten and like above, looking back was a good experience, we trained hard.

Then we would escape, we stole a Bedford truck and dumped it miles from where we were going, taking what we could carry and use, then we would go to a peaceful place ready to capture the enemy, this was a waddy or an oasis. In the middle of the desert and a small town. This meant digging out our selves and sitting still for days and days with the SAS still looking for us.

We lived in this grave-sized ensemble for a week. This meant living off the land, setting food traps, finding water. We stole food at night and drank from the oases, we had to bag ourselves and leave no trace of ourselves, and there were four of us in this set. It was fun.

Now the point of all this is that we needed a survival kit, which we had sewn onto our clothes. Our survival kit consisted of water-safe tablets, polythene bags, and candle wax matches. Fishing line with parachute cord, fishing hooks, safety pins, needle and cotton, a rope saw, a razor blade, a small sail and a small compass.

When it was not sewn on our clothes, we kept it in a tobacco can, we used this survival kit in many situations in my military career, I was never without it, and sometimes we use it for fishing, setting traps, lighting fires, carrying water, cooking, making shelter and living off the land. I have some who think it’s free, it’s the survival grenade.

What is a “survival grenade”? It’s a compact survival kit that includes 15 essential survival items neatly packaged in a small grenade-shaped package that can be used as a keychain, belt or purse. Valued at $ 24.99