12 Military Principles That Improve Our Preparedness Plan

What can preppers learn from the military? In this episode, we look at 12 proven military principles that can strengthen your preparedness plan. From logistics and redundancy to teamwork, fitness, and mental resilience, these lessons will help you move beyond collecting gear and start building a system that actually works when it matters most. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

When disaster hits, it doesn't care how much gear you've got stacked in the garage. Equipment alone won't save you. It exposes the gaps in your plan and your skills fast. The military survives chaos because they expect things to go wrong. They plan ahead, build systems, train under stress, and constantly refine what works. In today's episode, we're looking at those lessons and how to apply them to make our own preparedness plan stronger, simpler, and more realistic.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Welcome to Practical Prepping. Today is June 1st, 2026, and this is episode 556. This is the prepping podcast with no bunkers, no zombies, and no alien invasions. Just practical prepping, where we teach everyday people how to prepare for life's emergencies, disasters, and crises, and we're here to help you get prepared. I'm Krista.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

And I'm Mark. If you'd like the expanded notes for this episode, go to practicalprepping.info forward slash five five six, and we'll have a couple of links in there that we mentioned in today's show as well. Krista and I were talking the other day, and she asked, What lessons can preppers learn from the military? So we started doing some research and we found 12 lessons that we can learn from the military, and we're calling this episode 12 military principles that improve our preparedness plan.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

First of all, you should have a clear mission. You know, in the military, every action supports a defined objective. So preppers should clearly define their likely scenarios, like doing threat assessments, which for us would be natural disasters or grid failures, could be economic disruptions or even some sort of evacuation event.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

You need to decide in advance whether the goal is to shelter in place or to evacuate. And what's the trigger? When will you stay or go? The saying is you stay as long as it's safe, and when you can't, you leave. But what triggers that? If you're in a hurricane-prone zone, you need to have your line drawn in the sand. Okay, I'm leaving if it hits a three, or I'm leaving if it hits a four, or whatever yours is. My particular one is if it starts with an H hurricane. I'm leaving.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

But we don't have them. Well, we have had one here where we live. But our gear should support a specific plan, not be accumulated randomly. And I've done that as well back years ago.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Sure. And that kind of leads us to the second principle, and that's to prioritize your logistics over your tactics. I'll tell you that military success depends very heavily on the food, the water, the fuel, the medical supplies, and the maintenance.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

I think it was Patton that said something to the effect of an army moves on its stomach.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Actually, it was Napoleon.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

It was Napoleon.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

It was Patton probably quoted him back.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

It had a lot to do with the logistics of being able to provide food, water, and things like that as they traveled along. But for preppers, this means focusing on our water storage and purification. It means rotating food is necessary, tracking expiration dates on things that truly have expiration dates. It means maintaining our equipment. We've all been guilty of slacking off on that sometimes. Well, yeah. We were in a discussion with Krista's sister this afternoon about the difference in electric versus gasoline operated tools for lawn management.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Yeah, we're talking about weed eaters and trimmers and mowers and chainsaws.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Now I'm going to stick with a gasoline tractor, but when it comes to weed eaters, when it comes to string trimmers, when it comes to chainsaws, I've gone all electric on that. And I'm very happy with that. And I can take the battery out, put it over in the corner for a year if I have to, and come back and it starts up just as well as the day I put it there. That doesn't always happen with gasolines. They have to be maintained very closely. But we also need to plan for resupply.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Very important.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Resupply is very important, especially in extreme long-term grid-down situations.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

Which we hope none of us ever has to endure. But hey, that's why we do this. One never knows. And realize this that consumables matter a whole lot more than tools alone. You know, amateurs talk about gear, but professionals, and we can include the military here, they talk logistics.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

That's really who we're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Now those guys will talk to you about gear, too.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Yeah, oh sure, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

You got some gear heads there, and they do love to talk about it. But professionals do talk a lot about the logistics. Third, we want to build redundancy. The military assumes that systems will fail.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

You know, it's that practical rule. Two is one and one is none.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

Yep. So we need to have multiple methods for water purification. We need backup power options. We need more than one way to communicate, and that is not just getting messages out, but that's receiving. Sure. Like we've talked about having a Noah weather radio and weather apps for receiving weather information, and the television is a third backup there that we can have. But we also need those spare critical items such as batteries and medications. True. The failure is expected. So backup plans are mandatory.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

The fourth on the list would be to train under realistic conditions, of course, if possible. Naturally, the military trains repeatedly, so their skills will hold up under all kinds of stress.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Yeah, but preppers need to practice starting fires in bad weather.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

I'm not sure I've ever done that, to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

I have.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Years ago.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

It meant staying alive.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

I understand.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

Running evacuation drills.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Mm-hmm. How to get out, when and where, and all those different Can you get out of the house in total darkness? Can you get out of your house in more than one way?

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Do some night training. In the sheriff's department and police departments, we were always doing, uh we would alternate some with daytime uh training and nighttime training. Things look a lot different at night. Yep. And when it comes to weaponry, and it's a lot of difference at night. You also need to practice cooking with stored food.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Yeah, you need to have those prepper meal weekends once in a while.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

And Krista does this quite regularly. She uses up our stored food and replaces what she's used so it's rotating. And she goes through it at such a rate that we really don't have to look at any best buy dates. I mean, we we stay pretty well within that. Run radio checks. Use your radios. Exactly. You know, a lot of people have bought those Bayofangs and thrown them over there in the bag just in case. Well, if it happens, it's a paperweight. If you don't already know what you're doing with it and have practiced with it, first aid scenarios. These are good. You can get the kids involved. You can get the kids wrapping bandaging each other up. You don't have to have real wounds for this, but practice some first aid scenarios. Because skills that are not practiced regularly degrade quickly. If you haven't practiced it, you don't really have it.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

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SPEAKER_00 8:23

Number five, keep our systems simple. The military emphasizes clarity and standardization.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

That's why there's no confusion under a stressful time.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

You know what you're going to do at a given time.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

And preppers need to also avoid very overly complex setups. Choose some durable and proven tools, the things that you're really going to use and really need. Standardize items such as calibers.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

That's a very important thing. Now, a whole lot of folks have standardized on the 9mm, and it's a good round. And I do carry a 9mm quite regularly. But one of the things that the Sheriff's Department that I worked for here in North Alabama did was they standardized on one pistol.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

And they issued that pistol and they issued the magazines to go with it. You were required to carry so many. But what that did by standardizing not just the ammunition, but standardizing the magazines is if somebody is in a gunfight running low on ammo and says, throw me a magazine, they don't have to empty your magazine and load their magazine. It would plug right into their pistol. Everybody's was standardized exactly the same. And they've done the same thing now with optics on their handguns.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Something else you can standardize would be your battery types and the sizes.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Yeah, and connectors. I love different quick disconnects for our radios, and I've standardized on one. Anderson Power Poles is a great one. That's not the one that I went with back when I started putting so many quick disconnects on equipment. But standardize those connectors so that you can plug in any radio to your backup power system, such as that. Standardize your fuel types.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

What does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 10:20

It means go with gasoline, go with as much as you can, stay with gasoline, or go with propane and as much as you can, stay with propane. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Let's see what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

That kind of thing. So standardize that. You're probably not going to get away with just having one fuel to run everything.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Because you're going to have gasoline or diesel in your vehicle, uh, maybe in your lawn tractor. But when it comes to grills, when it comes to auxiliary heat, when it comes to generators, it's great to have those all standardized on one fuel.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

While we're still in this particular topic area, you want to label and organize your things as well, because clear labeling and good organization certainly reduce confusion during the emergencies when you're at your highest level of stress and you just don't need to be monkeying around with guessing games.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Yep. Keep it simple. Number six, maintain situational awareness. Military members constantly assess their environment, their resources, and their risks. We talk about it in the prepper community. We talk about it in walking around in daily life. Have that head on a swivel. Preppers need to monitor their surroundings. One of the places that I talk the most about really being aware of what's going on around you is at a gas pump. So many people get out of their car and they start pumping their gas and they never look anywhere else. We were driving yesterday and we had to stop and get fuel, and the man in front of us was pumping his fuel, and he never took his eyes off of the total of the amount of fuel.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Yeah, he never moved to the floor. He never looked around.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Not at all. That kind of a situation, somebody can sneak up on you. So keep those surroundings monitored. Do the same thing when you're entering and exiting buildings. You go into the building, look around. As you approach that building, look all around the front entrance of that building. When you come out of that building, look left, look right, look center, scan your surroundings so that you are observant.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Get off your phone. How many times have you seen somebody walking in or out of a building? Nose to the phone.

unknown 12:48

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

They're barely even aware that some people have actually bonked their head on the door.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

There's some cute videos out there of people walking into light poles, people walking into fountains, fountains, yeah, those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Get off the phone.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

But hey, you can get hit by a car out there if you got your head in your phone.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Well, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

But you don't want to become an alarmist.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

No.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

But remain observant.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

You need to monitor some of these weather forecasts as well. Get a little bit better prepared at being able to read the weather systems, read the forecasting systems. It's going to help give you information on how to dress, where to go, where the risky areas may be for flood, for lightning, for landslide, mudslide, all the types of risks that can happen if weather is starting to kind of tune up on you.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

Yeah, and you need to understand those local infrastructure vulnerabilities. Where we live, there is a road not too far from us. And if we get an inch of rain, it's over that roadway.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Yeah, it is. They've even closed that roadway.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

They've closed that roadway, and it's a long way around it, but it sure is better than driving off into it. But understand those local vulnerabilities. What is major to you? Stay informed about regional risks. There are some regional risks and that we just need to keep our eyes on. But understand your neighborhood dynamic. There are things going on, and if you if you'll pay attention, you can read the neighborhood with the things that are going on in neighborhoods.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

But stay informed without panic.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

The whole reason we prepare is to lessen the effect of panicking or maybe do away with it altogether.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Yeah, yeah. Not to be surprised by something that causes us to panic and avoid tunnel vision. And that's where we just, you know, we're walking out the store and we put our eyes on our car, and that's all we keep an eye on. We need to avoid that tunnel vision because preparedness is 50% awareness. We are aware of the things that we've talked about here in the last minute or so. We'll be 50% prepared just doing that.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

It's better than 0%.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

The seventh on the list would be to invest in physical fitness. Now, our military is well known for this. Anyone that's ever been through boot camp or has been stationed somewhere, you know that physical aptitude and physical fitness is pretty much the name of the game, and you don't get a choice on it. You are going to participate. So they work on strength, they work on endurance, and they work on their mobility. I mean, it's nothing for them to be announcing right after lineup that we're going on a 10-mile run.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

And they don't mean walk, they mean run.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

When they say run, they mean run. When we get into emergencies, preppers may be required to carry water or supplies or walk long distances or lift heavy objects. And I've done pretty much all of those in some type of disaster situations that we've been in. And another thing that emergencies may require of us is operating with limited sleep. Strength, endurance, and mobility significantly improve resilience during crisis. Prepping without fitness is incomplete.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

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SPEAKER_00 16:54

Here's number eight. Value teamwork. Small teams beat lone wolves.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

Every time.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

Military operations rely on coordinated teams.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

Now I know it's some people will naysay this, but preppers do benefit from trusted networks. And it's very important that you find some mutual aid groups. They call them MAGs.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Yeah, and it may just be one or two or three other people you're close to and that you can trust. But going it alone makes it so much harder than doing it as a team.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Well, one thing you can do is you can coordinate your varying skills because you may have a medical pro, you may have a mechanical pro, a communications pro, you may have somebody that knows how to cook, how to sew, how to take care of children, how to do all different kinds of things that no one person can do at all. And having those defined roles within those families or those mutual aid groups certainly helps you weather the storm a whole lot better.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

Community resilience is stronger than isolated individual efforts. So avoid an isolation mentality. Develop clear roles in family units and mag groups. That's exactly what the military is. Who's going to do what?

SPEAKER_01 18:09

Yeah, the military is often about, you know, the brotherhood and the sisterhood of the action that they're facing, and they just aren't going to go it alone. And when somebody does get isolated, the chances for their coming out positively are far less than if you stick with that buddy.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Ninth is conduct after action reviews.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Oh, now that is important.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Now we've done that here even with a four-hour power outage. Sure. That that we said, okay, it got dark, and we brought out our lights out kit.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

We sort of went into what we call our exit notes. You know, what did we learn from this experience?

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Exactly. What worked, what didn't, and what was supposed to happen, what actually happened, what went well, and what needs improvement. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

So preppers need to review those same responses to the storms, the power outages, the drills, or whatever your crisis might be. And you need to adjust your plans accordingly and be available at being flexible with that. Continuously refine your systems. You've got to be as fluid as the crisis may be.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

Number 10, build mental resilience.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

You know, we've done an entire podcast on just that word, resilience.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

Yep. But the military trains mindset. They train for adaptability, emotional control, decision making under stress, acceptance of uncertainty. And preppers need to develop some of those same stress management skills. We need to remain calm during uncertainty because calm people survive longer than panicked people.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

That's a proven fact. You need to avoid fear-based decision making. You're generally not going to make the best move if you're just reacting out of emotions and fear. So keep clear thinking under the pressure that you're in and avoid fear-based decision making if you can. What does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 20:07

Well, the military relies on early warning, barriers, observation, and then response capabilities.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

Oh, okay, I gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 20:14

And you look at security teams, school security, for example. You have layers. You want to keep the threat outside. You want detection before it gets there. You want cameras, those kinds of things that tell you an early warning. The military's got some pretty good early warning devices. But they depend on that early warning and they have barriers. They have things that you can't cross. Just look at the front of a military installation, the gates going in and out. You don't drive through there.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

No, you're going to be stopped, and you're probably going to be stopped personally.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

But preppers can apply this through lighting. We could have outward-facing lighting as well as inward-facing lighting in our yard. That means not just shining out into the yard, but up on the house or the doors. Right, but there's some floodlights that are shining back toward the front of the house.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

Yeah, it would make your movements or anyone's movements around the perimeter quite visible.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Exactly. And even your neighbors could see the shadows moving around there.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Cameras, dogs. Dogs are a great early warning device.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

And it doesn't have to be a big rough dog. If it's a barking dog, it can be an intruder deterrent for real.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

And hardening our houses, three-inch screws and door frames and lock strike plates. You know, I pulled ours out when we moved into this house. I pulled the ones out of the striker plate to replace them. And they were about three quarters of an inch long.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

Yeah, they're just the the bare minimum. The bare minimum to hold a frame up.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

It held the striker plate where it needed to be, but it won good solid kick, and that striker plate would give way. Way. Sure. Not now.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

The frame and everything would tear out without that.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

You really could. Thorny bushes under windows. Yeah, like a hollybush, rose bush, something with lots of stickers. Someone was talking the other day and said plant uh blackberry bushes under the uh not going through that. And avoid advertising your supplies. Now, what I really mean by that is be is use some common sense when it comes to what you put on the road for one thing.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

Like for like garbage and boxes and things.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

84-inch TV box.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Yes, who just got an 84-inch TV. Exactly. That neighbor.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Putting a generator box on the street.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

Yeah, you're you're kind of letting people that do drive up and down in the neighborhood, they're going to have some awareness that, oh, you've got some new expensive toys I might like to have.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Yep, it sure can.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

So just don't advertise that.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

But deterrent often prevents the problems.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

Now, the twelfth and final military uh principle that we think is very um applicable to preppers would be to stay adaptable. I think I mentioned it before. Adaptable means you can flex, you can change, you can you can switch your plan if need be, because military plans are designed to change as the conditions evolve. You know, no plan survives first contact.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

Yeah, Mike Tyson said everybody has a plan until you get hit in the face.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

Yeah, then sometimes the plan changes.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

The plan changes.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

So preppers need to stay flexible. When I was teaching disaster relief, I said uh stay fluid because flexible may be too stiff.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

That's true. You were, I mean, you really need to flex sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

You just have to stay flexible. You have to adjust to changing conditions because circumstances change and avoid the emotional attachment to one scenario.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Yeah. Don't let your ego start guiding you here. This is not about ego.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

We said plans fail. Right. So now we need to go to plan B, plan C, maybe to plan D.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Maybe to somebody else's plan. You have to also sometimes bow to the intelligence of another.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

But be ready to pivot.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Pivot. Some people will know the reference.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Yeah, friends. Pivot. Preparation is a system, is not a pile of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

You know why the military survives? It's because of planning, logistics, training, teamwork, discipline, adaptability, and none of this is just equipment alone. This is where you're really training the human being to be the survivor, the one who is going to use these as a tool, but ultimately it's for their good and their survival.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

Yeah, equipment is nothing but a tool. Gear makes things easier.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Certainly. But the person who with the training and the guidance and the intellect to be fluid and flexible, that's a prepper that's going to survive.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

So there you have it 12 military principles that improve our preparedness plan. We do appreciate you being here today. And as Krista always says stuff happens.

SPEAKER_01 25:14

Stay prepared.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

And we'll see you next time.