At one point I looked over at my wife and said, “Those roads... I’ve been on ones just like them. Those places feel just like places I’ve been. I remember the kids running up, begging for chocolate, MREs, Bic pens, and money.”

She laughed and said, “I bet it brings back memories.”

And I thought... I should do it one more time.

Section 2: The Spark

Deployments and combat themselves suck. There is no romanticizing that part. The heat, the dust, the constant tension, the loss, the fear ... none of it is fun.

But the grand adventures that came with them? Those I miss.

I have stood in Mesopotamia looking at the Tigris River wondering what Trajan, Septimius Severus, and Julian thought as they stood near that same spot. All men think of Rome at least once a day... or so the joke goes. I have prayed within just a few miles of ancient Babylon. In August 1990, en route to Ad Dammam, we landed in Cairo, and the plane refueled, before heading on to Saudi Arabia. Once we landed in Cairo we weren’t allowed off the plane, but the Chalk Commander let us rotate to the door so we could see the pyramids stretching out in the distance. I have moved and communicated deep in the deserts of the Middle East, places most people will only ever see in movies or history books. Those moments, the sheer scale of it all, the feeling of being truly alive in the world, are burned into me.

Now, in my mid-50s, I feel the clock ticking. My body is still strong, still capable, but I know it won’t stay that way forever. In a few years the knees, the back, or just general wear and tear will start saying “no” to three or four months of hard living, rough camping, and real adventure. I actually hate camping. It reminds me too much of trying to sleep in the tank commander’s hatch for thirty minutes before the LT yells for his tank commanders. But I’ll suck up the camping to see the pyramids again.

Watching Long Way Down again lit that fuse. It is not about going back to war. It is about chasing one more grand ride while I still can. One more chance to cross continents, deal with the unknown every single day, and come home with stories that start with “You won’t believe what happened when...”

That is the spark. Not nostalgia for the hard times, but hunger for the adventure that came with them.

Section 3: The Reality Check

Before I ever thought about doing the adventure, I wondered how much it cost to make the show. I guesstimated the budget, that led me down a long rabbit hole of research, and eventually to building a realistic plan for a private version.

I don’t know the real production cost of the 2007 series. No official budget has ever been released. So I made a series of SWAGs — Scientific Wild-Ass Guesses — and then vetted them against actual 2007 prices for fuel in Africa, vehicle costs, crew salaries, filming gear, and everything else I could find. After all the adjustments, my best estimate for the full TV production came out at roughly $2.18 million.

A private trip in 2026 for four mid-50s ex-soldiers looks very different.

The headline is simple: the TV show cost more than six times what a solid private version would cost today. They had cameras rolling the whole time, editors back home, and people getting paid. We won’t.

What surprised me most while building these numbers is how much of the private trip cost comes down to just two things: medical evacuation insurance and the four months of lost salary (opportunity cost). The actual “on the road” expenses are surprisingly manageable when you are not filming a television series.

So yes, it is still real money. But it is not Hollywood money. It is within reach for four guys who have spent decades saving, planning, and executing hard missions.

That realization is what turned “I should do it one more time” from a passing thought into something I am seriously considering.

Section 4: The Plan

What would a realistic private version actually look like in 2026?

Four mid-50s ex-soldiers. Multiple tours between us. Still in decent shape, still mentally sharp, and all carrying the same itch. No film crew. No salaries. Just four guys who know how to move, communicate, and handle hard living.

The Vehicles
Two left-hand-drive Toyota 4Runners. We buy them used in the UK, fit them out with roof racks, bull bars, dual batteries, and long-range tanks, then drive them the whole way and sell them in Cape Town at the end. LHD makes sense because 90% of the trip is on right-side driving roads.

The Route
John o’Groats down through Europe to Sicily, short ferry to Malta for a few days (none of us are missing that stop), then cargo ship the 4Runners from Malta to Alexandria, Egypt. From there we drive south through Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, and into South Africa. We skip Libya and Tunisia due to the level of danger and difficulty getting visas and permission to travel through those countries. We want adventure, not a full blown war. The Malta layover turns a necessary reroute into one of the trip highlights.

A few route numbers:
John o’Groats → London → Calais → Lyon → Rome → Messina → Valleta, Malta is 2,550 miles, 50 hours of driving, probably 10 days duration, and then 4 days on Malta while the 4Runners get shipped to Alexandria.

Alexandria → Aswan Dam → Khartoum → Nairobi → Victoria Falls → Windhoek → Cape Town is another 7,500 miles, 200 hours of driving, probably 50 days duration. And a 20 day buffer for border crossings, maintenance stops, some excursions (like seeing Victoria Falls, Walvis Bay and more). That’s 84 days.

The Style
Staying in 1/3 decent hotels when it makes sense and 2/3 camping. The hotels are as decent as you can find in the places we are going. None of them are gonna be The Four Seasons, more like a Holiday Inn Express. Camp-heavy meals with occasional restaurant stops. We handle our own maintenance, navigation, and security. We already hate camping... but we’ll suck it up for the adventure.

Communications
Starlink for reliable internet in remote areas, ruggedized laptops, and good cellphones with satellite backup capability. And at least one good quality camera to record the adventure. We are not filming a TV show, but we still need to stay in touch with family, handle banking, navigate changing conditions, and call for help if things go seriously wrong.

The Non-Negotiables

• Proper medical and emergency evacuation insurance (the one thing we will not cheap out on)

• Pre-trip refreshers in tactical medicine and hostile environment awareness

• Solid contingency fund and exit plans if things go sideways

• Four guys who actually get along under stress

It is not a vacation. It is a proper expedition. Eighty-five hard days on the road, plus prep time in the UK and the cargo legs. But it is doable.

Section 5: The Numbers

Here is what a realistic 2026 private Long Way Down actually costs for four mid-50s ex-soldiers — no TV crew, no sponsors, no fluff.

Total Cash Out-of-Pocket: $355,000
True Economic Cost (incl. opportunity): $510,000
Per Person: $89,000 cash / $127,500 true cost

It could be cheaper. We could cut hotels, skimp on insurance, buy cheaper vehicles, sleep in the 4Runners every night, and eat nothing but rice and beans. Someone will inevitably show up in the comments with “Akshually, you could do it for $92,000 and here’s how…”

Maybe they could. But at our age, after everything we’ve already done, we are not interested in turning a hard adventure into a sufferfest. Every dollar we are spending is buying safety, reliability, and the ability to actually enjoy the trip instead of just surviving it. We have already done enough suffering in our lives. This time we want the adventure without the unnecessary pain.

Section 6: The Verdict

So, is it crazy?

Yes. Absolutely.

Four mid-50s ex-soldiers spending north of $350,000 cash (and half a million when you count lost wages) to drive two 4Runners from Scotland to South Africa… it is objectively crazy.

But some things are worth being crazy about.

I saw the pyramids from the door of a chartered L-1011 in August 1990, and I want to see them again. I have stood in Mesopotamia and prayed near ancient Babylon. I have lived through moments most people only read about. Now I want one more grand ride while my body will still let me do it properly.

Not as a tourist. Not with a film crew and safety net. Just four brothers-in-arms who know how to handle hard things, chasing one last proper adventure before the window closes.

We are not young men anymore. We understand the risks. We understand the cost. We also understand that one day we will be old men sitting on the porch wondering why we didn’t go when we still could.

I would rather look back and say “We did it” than “We thought about it.”

That is the verdict.

Now I just have to convince three other stubborn old soldiers that they’re as dumb as I am … and start saving the money.

Security n Cigars will remain focused on security, geopolitics, history, the Late Republic, the Modern Minuteman, and related non-fiction.

A lot of you told me in the recent reader survey that you preferred not to have fiction mixed in. Message received.

My creative writing and fiction, especially the growing Bougie Apocalypse serial, now has its own dedicated Substack.

Quick note to my followers: If you enjoy my writing and want the fiction serials, please subscribe to the new Bougie Apocalypse — it only takes a second.

Introducing Bougie Apocalypse

https://bougieapocalypse.substack.com

It’s live right now with the first two chapters posted:

• Chapter 1: The Cough Is Loose

• Chapter 2: Coffee and a Walker

And the rest will be posted shortly.

What to expect:

• Pulp-style zombie survival with high standards (heirloom beans, carbon steel, and a refusal to let the apocalypse turn us into savages).

• Full series plan: The Sergeant’s Ledger (prequel) + three main books: Bougie Apocalypse, Stay Human, and The Zombie War.

• New chapters dropping 2–3 per weekend, all free.

• Later: The Last Romans and The Principate will also live there.

Important Note on Subscriptions

I am importing the Security n Cigars mailing list. You will receive an email invitation from Bougie Apocalypse shortly.

• If fiction isn’t your cup of tea, just unsubscribe from that list — no hard feelings at all.

• If you want both Security n Cigars and Bougie Apocalypse content, you don’t need to do anything. This post is just an FYI.

• If you aren’t already on my mailing list, head on over to Bougie Apocalypse and subscribe :-)

Thanks for reading Security n Cigars. I appreciate every one of you who’s been along for the ride.

Now if you’ll excuse me… I have some beans to pack and Walkers to shoot.

#BougieApocalypse #StayHuman

A daily 1950s pulp-style serial

Chapter 18: The Decision

Who’s in charge when the beans run low

We shoot the Walkers… then we go back to the beans.

The fire crackled low that evening, throwing long shadows across the little clearing we’d come to call home. The percolator hissed steadily on the Coleman stove while a smaller pot of rice and the last of the canned chicken warmed beside it. Supplies were getting tight — we all knew it.

I sat on my usual stump, Wilson Combat holstered, AR leaning nearby. Raych sat to my left. Tom, Sarah, and Mikey completed the circle. For a while we just ate in comfortable silence, the kind we’d grown used to. But I could feel the question building.

I thought I was going to have to say something when I saw Tom make up his mind. So, I waited.

Tom finally spoke, poking the fire with a stick. “We can’t keep doing this forever, Jack. The go-boxes are getting light. We’ve been lucky in the swamp, but if we stay here much longer we’re going to start getting desperate.”

Sarah nodded, glancing at Mikey. “I don’t want to leave either… it feels safer here. But we’re burning through food faster than we expected.”

I took a slow sip of coffee, letting the words settle. I’d been thinking the same thing for days.

Raych looked at me, her voice quiet but direct. “You’ve been making the calls, Jack. Training us. Setting watch. Deciding when we go out and when we stay put. But we’ve never actually said it out loud.”

The circle got quiet. Even Mikey stopped mid-bite.

Tom cleared his throat. “Way I see it… we need a leader. Someone whose word goes when it matters. I vote Jack.”

Sarah didn’t hesitate. “Jack.”

Mikey looked up at me with complete trust. “Yeah. Jack.”

Raych gave me that small fierce smile. “Jack.”

I stared into the fire for a long moment, the weight settling on my shoulders.

Before I could answer, Tom spoke again, voice lower. “And we all need to pay closer attention out there. Those last two Walkers — the ones Jack had to handle with his frying pan — they were moving faster, weren’t they? Not like the slow ones we saw at the beginning.”

I noticed it too, I thought. They were faster. More purposeful. That second one damn near got me before the De Buyer came into play. It could have gone really sideways.

The words hung in the air. A chill went through the group that had nothing to do with the night air.

I nodded slowly. “I noticed it too. They’re changing. We’ll talk more about that tomorrow. But for tonight…” I looked around the circle. “If you’re all willing to have me lead, then yes. I’ll lead. We stay human. We protect each other. We don’t become what the world wants us to be.”

Raych reached over and squeezed my hand. Tom gave a single, respectful nod. Sarah looked relieved. Mikey grinned like I’d just handed him the keys to the whole world.

“Alright then,” I said, raising my coffee cup. “Tomorrow we start planning the next supply run. And we do it smart.”

The percolator kept hissing. The rice and chicken stayed warm.

We weren’t just a group of survivors anymore.

We were a crew.

And for the first time, we had formally said it out loud.

Bougie Apocalypse

A daily serial about heirloom beans, carbon steel skull-crackers, and refusing to let the apocalypse win.

#BougieApocalypse #TheDecision #TheCough #StayHuman

Jack Harlan’s adventures continue right here for now, but the official home for the whole Bougie Apocalypse series is moving.

Come find us at JackHarlanStories.com and BougieApocalypse.com — same beans, same bullets, same stubborn civilization.

I originally posted this on X a few months ago when someone claimed ICE = Hitler’s SA (Brownshirts). The comparison keeps popping up, so I’m expanding it here.

It’s easy to dupe people with selective facts ….. Let’s break this down a bit further.

Röhm was a high ranking member of the Nazi Party. The SA is short for the SturmAbteilung, which was a paramilitary organization that was part of the Nazi Party. It was not part of the German government, nor was Röhm. The SA’s job, actually, was to fight street battles on behalf of the Nazi’s against the German Communists AND the German police.

Unlike the SA, ICE is a government organization within the Department of Homeland Security and is responsible for just what its name says: Immigration and Customs Enforcement. After 9/11, the old Immigration and Naturalization Service and the US Customs Service were merged into a single organization, but with most of the same responsibilities. They are authorized by Federal statute and have specific duties and responsibilities under US Law.

There is a major and distinct difference between the SturmAbteilung and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement organization. Not least of which is that ICE is performing duties authorized by the US government via the people’s elected representatives in Congress. And the SA was a political party organization that went out and busted heads on the street.

What you are suggesting is disgusting and evil, but maybe you should look at BLM and AntiFa if you want a comparable Political Party organization.

The SA were evil. Full stop. Violent street thugs who helped the Nazis terrorize their way into power.

But comparing them to ICE is lazy, dishonest, and falls apart the second you look at actual history.

The SA was a private paramilitary arm of a political party — operating outside the law to intimidate, beat, and murder opponents. ICE is a federal law enforcement agency created by Congress and operating under existing statutes.

Yes, there are legitimate criticisms of how ICE has operated at times. When clear problems emerged, Trump made significant changes. But until Congress changes the law, ICE is legally bound to enforce the immigration statutes on the books. That’s how a constitutional republic functions.

If we’re going to make historical comparisons, here’s a more accurate one: The SA were to the Nazis what the KKK was to the Democrats from Reconstruction through the Wilson administration — a violent enforcement arm deeply tied to a political party, not a legitimate government law enforcement body.

Equating a statutory federal agency to a Nazi Party street militia isn’t serious criticism. It’s emotional hysteria that cheapens real history.

If you want to debate immigration policy or ICE reform, I’m here for it. But let’s stick to facts instead of lazy Nazi analogies.

Thoughts welcome.

A daily 1950s pulp-style serial

Chapter 17: Mikey’s .410

Passing down Jack’s Shotgun

We shoot the Walkers… then we go back to the beans.

The morning was quiet, the kind of quiet that makes you grateful for another day. I had the little Mossberg 500 .410 pump laid out on the 4Runner tailgate next to a box of Federal .410 shells. The gun looked almost toy-like next to the big 12-gauges, but I knew exactly how much it could teach.

Mikey wandered over, eyes locked on the shotgun like it was treasure.

I picked it up and handed it to him, stock first. “This one’s yours now.”

He froze, hands hovering. “For real?”

“For real.” I smiled a little. “My dad bought this for me in 1988. I was about your age. It may look smaller than the 12-gauges, but shooting 3-inch buckshot rounds, it’s still plenty potent. A good hit will put a Walker down just fine.”

Mikey took the gun carefully, shoulders squared the way I’d shown him. The .410 looked almost big in his hands, but he held it right.

I ran him through the basics again — how to load, how to pump, how to be safe. Then we stepped over to the firing line I’d set up with a few cans on a log.

“Slow is smooth,” I told him. “Smooth is fast. Breathe out, squeeze.”

His first shot went wide. Second was better. By the fifth round he was hitting the cans more often than not. Each solid hit made his grin get bigger.

Raych stood off to the side with her coffee, watching us. Sarah and Tom were nearby too. I caught Tom nodding approvingly and Sarah giving her son an encouraging smile.

For a moment I felt that old familiar weight — the same one I used to carry when I was running training for young soldiers. I was making decisions, giving orders, shaping how we did things… but I still wasn’t sure I was actually the leader of this group. Not formally. Not yet.

When we finished, I took the .410 back and showed Mikey how to clean and maintain it — how to run the bore snake, wipe down the receiver, check the action, and lightly oil the moving parts. “A clean gun is a happy gun,” I told him. “You take care of it, and it’ll take care of you.”

Mikey listened intently, nodding with every step like he was receiving sacred knowledge.

That evening around the fire, the percolator hissed and the beans bubbled low. Mikey sat a little straighter, the .410 leaning safely nearby in its soft case. He kept glancing at it like it was the most important thing he’d ever owned.

I looked around the little circle — my wife, our new family — and felt that quiet weight again. I was steering us, making the calls… but I knew the real decision about leadership was still coming.

We weren’t just surviving anymore.

We were passing things down. Tools. Knowledge. Trust.

Even in the middle of the end of the world, we were still building something worth keeping.

Bougie Apocalypse

A daily serial about heirloom beans, carbon steel skull-crackers, and refusing to let the apocalypse win.

#BougieApocalypse #Mikeys410 #TheCough #StayHuman

Jack Harlan’s adventures continue right here for now, but the official home for the whole Bougie Apocalypse series is moving.

Come find us at JackHarlanStories.com and BougieApocalypse.com — same beans, same bullets, same stubborn civilization.

You know the one. the quiet legend whose smoker has seen more seasons than most marriages, who reads the fire like other people read the morning paper. The guy who rolls up with a beat-up cooler, a faded apron, and decades of hard-earned smoke wisdom and produces the BEST brisket you’ve ever had.

For now, I’m still the middle-aged cooker of meat. Kids are grown and gone. Work is closer to the end than the beginning. Life has settled into a different rhythm, with fewer chaotic weekends, more deliberate ones. And I’m spending a good chunk of them right here by the fire.

The Pit Levels Everyone

The smoke doesn’t care about your age, your title, or how many gray hairs you’ve collected. It only asks one thing: Are you paying attention?

I’ve learned a few things on this middle stretch of the journey.

Brisket used to humble me every single time. Now I’ve got a method that works about 80% of the time. Still not cocky enough to call it foolproof (the pit gods hate that), but maybe I’ll finally write it down one of these days.

Ribs are tougher than pork butt. Everyone thinks pork butt is the hard one. Nah. Finding the perfect sweet spot … meat fully done but with just a slight tug before it comes off the bone, never mushy or falling apart … that’s the real challenge. When you hit it just right, people lose their minds.

Sides matter way more than most pitmasters admit. All that savory smoked meat and rich fat needs balance. Sweet and sour is the secret. A bright slaw, a vinegar-tinged sauce, something pickled. It cuts through the fat and makes the whole plate sing.

A few years back I spent four days in the Texas Hill Country with friends. We ate barbecue from morning till late afternoon, chasing the best BBQ joints we could find. Then every evening we’d roll into this little Mexican place, half-covered in smoke and sauce, and crush margaritas and burritos like it was our job. Pure happiness. That trip is still one of my favorite memories.

This Weekend’s Cook

Keeping it straightforward.

Saturday
The back ribs are gonna be cooking low and slow, with a sweet-heat rub, no wrap, no sauce on the meat. If you want sauce, put it on your plate, we don’t do KC style slathered in sauce around here.

And I’ll be out there with a glass of Michter’s Rye, a good cigar, tossing the ball for the dog, and soaking in the late spring air here in Washington state.

The chicken thighs will join them later — dry brined overnight, finished with a Carolina-style mustard-vinegar mop for that crisp skin and juicy bite.

Sides will be simple but essential: proper coleslaw (sweet + tangy), baked beans with whatever burnt bits I can steal, and quick-pickled red onions to cut through all the richness.

Nothing overly complicated. Just fire, smoke, good whiskey, and the kind of quiet Saturday that makes middle age feel pretty damn perfect.

And some more BBQ pictures …. and yes, you should make your own pastrami. It is 1000X better than that stuff you get in the grocery store.

The old man of the pit isn’t born, he’s smoked into existence. One early morning fire, one honest rib, one well balanced plate at a time. I’m not there yet. But I’m closer than I was ten years ago. Grayer, calmer, smokier, and a hell of a lot more patient. Maybe, if I’m lucky, I’ll get there someday.

Until then, I’ll keep doing what us middle-aged guys do best: show up, light the fire, tend it carefully, and cook the best meat I can for the people around the table.

See you out by the pit, friends.

Now if you’ll excuse me … I’ve got a fire to tend.

— Your friendly neighborhood middle-aged (and slightly curmudgeonly) meat cooker

A daily 1950s pulp-style serial

Chapter 16: The First Real Fight

20 Walkers and a Frying Pan

We shoot the Walkers… then we go back to the beans.

The sky was just starting to turn gray when I set the De Buyer on the Coleman stove. The beans were already bubbling from last night — I was turning them into refried beans with some of the last canned chicken and a heavy hand of seasoning. The percolator was doing its thing beside it. Morning ritual. Coffee first, always.

Mikey sat on an overturned bucket nearby, watching me like he always did.

Raych and Sarah had gone down to the water’s edge. Tom was up on the slight rise on watch.

For a moment, it almost felt normal.

Then the splashing started.

A lot of splashing.

Tom’s voice cracked across the camp.

“Contact! Big group! Front tree line!”

I was already moving. I killed the stove, grabbed the AR, and racked a round.

“Mikey — behind the trucks, now!”

The rifles opened up. We were actually getting a handle on them.

Until two Walkers got past everything and came straight at me.

I dropped the first with a clean headshot, but the second was already too close. No time to transition.

My back slammed into the camp table. The thing lunged.

My hand flailed across the table and closed around the handle of my De Buyer Mineral B Pro.

Six and a half pounds of solid carbon steel.

I swung it like a battle axe.

The heavy pan connected with the side of the Walker’s head with a wet, ringing crack. The creature staggered.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered to the pan as I brought it down again. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

Each strike landed with savage force. On the final swing, its skull caved in completely. It collapsed at my feet in a heap.

I stood there breathing hard, pan still raised, black gore dripping from the bottom.

Raych lowered her pistol, staring.

Tom let out a low whistle. “Jesus, Jack… you just killed a zombie with a frying pan.”

I looked down at the De Buyer. The beautiful, perfectly seasoned surface was now streaked with blood, brains, and God knows what else. Then I looked at the ground around the table.

Our precious refried beans were scattered everywhere across the mud and swamp grass.

I exhaled slowly.

“…Now I really hate zombies.”

Raych started laughing first. Then Tom. Even Sarah couldn’t hold it in.

I just shook my head, still gripping the heavy handle.

“Twelve years of seasoning that pan,” I muttered. “And now the beans are decorating the damn swamp.”

Bougie Apocalypse

A daily serial about heirloom beans, carbon steel skull-crackers, and refusing to let the apocalypse win.

#BougieApocalypse #TheFirstRealFight #TheCough #StayHuman

Jack Harlan’s adventures continue right here for now, but the official home for the whole Bougie Apocalypse series is moving.

Come find us at JackHarlanStories.com and BougieApocalypse.com — same beans, same bullets, same stubborn civilization.

A friend and I were talking about where we had actually traveled in the world. We had strict rules: if you just connected through an airport, a port, or never left the plane, it doesn’t count. He was Navy, I was Army, so we both had plenty of “technically been there” moments that got disqualified.

In spite of those rules, I have visited 23 countries so far. And I’m definitely not done. Here they are grouped by why I was there (I still count the old West Germany and post-1991 Germany as separate countries):

Army (stationed or deployed) — West Germany, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Somalia, South Korea

Post-military work — UAE, Australia, Sweden, Finland, Belgium, Turks & Caicos, India

UK, Canada, France — Multiple trips (pure work, pure vacation, and combinations)

Leisure / Vacation Only — Germany (post-1991), The Netherlands, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Mexico

As you can see from my Army and post-military work… my travel has been “interesting.”

Army (stationed or deployed)

West Germany, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Somalia, South Korea

The Army years weren’t all assignments I didn’t choose. For my first duty station, I specifically asked for Europe—I wanted West Germany, and I got it. Those first three years were fantastic. I was young, single, stationed in a place with deep history, great beer, easy travel to neighboring countries, and a front-row seat to the last years of the Cold War. It felt like the best possible start to adult life.

Then the world changed.

I deployed to Saudi Arabia for Desert Shield. Some of us got a 24-hour R&R pass to Bahrain. During Desert Storm I “visited” Iraq, then came back out through Kuwait right after liberation. Somalia in the ‘90s was the poorest place I’ve ever been. When they say the average income is $400 a year, it really means about ten people have all the money and everyone else has close to none. South Korea, by contrast, showed me what a disciplined, determined society can rebuild after war.

Then the world changed again. And I went back to Iraq again.

You see places very differently when you’re there in uniform. Some visits were chosen, others were handed to you by history and orders. In every case, the beauty and the brokenness both hit harder. Those years taught me how quickly “normal” can vanish and how resilient people can be when everything is stacked against them.

Post-military work

UAE, Australia, Sweden, Finland, Belgium, Turks & Caicos, India

These trips were a strange shift after the Army years. Instead of deserts and combat zones, I was suddenly flying to gleaming modern cities, quiet European towns, and island resorts—all for work.

Belgium took me to Kortrijk (not Brussels, and nothing to do with the EU or NATO) for some U.S. Defense Industrial Base manufacturing work. Quiet town, serious mission.

Turks & Caicos still makes people raise an eyebrow. It sounds like a boondoggle, but it wasn’t. It was November 2020, peak COVID chaos. We needed a small international team from four different countries in the same room face-to-face. Our travel specialist checked every possible combination of quarantine and entry rules… and the only two places on the planet that worked were Dubai and Turks & Caicos. We chose the islands. Beautiful setting, very productive meetings, zero vacation vibes.

India was the polar opposite—overwhelming, chaotic, colorful, and impossible to forget. The sheer energy and scale of the place reset my internal baseline for what “crowded” and “resilient” actually mean.

Each trip had its own flavor of “interesting,” but I’ll leave most of the details there.

UK, Canada, France

Multiple trips: pure work, pure vacation, and combinations

These three countries are in their own category because I’ve been to each of them multiple times, for very different reasons.

I’ve flown in for pure work, stayed a few extra days and turned trips into hybrids, and gone back purely for vacation. The UK and Canada feel familiar at first (shared language, similar humor), but the more time you spend there the more you notice the subtle but real differences in how people view government, healthcare, cities, and personal space. France is the country that made me understand why so many Americans fall in love with it—the food, the history, the unapologetic Frenchness.

Having seen them through both work lenses and leisure lenses gave me a much richer picture than any single type of trip would have.

Leisure / Vacation Only

Germany (post-1991), The Netherlands, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Mexico

These were the ones I chose purely for myself (and my wife). No uniform, no work laptop, no schedule handed to me by someone else.

I finally got to see the “other” Germany decades after I’d served in the West. The Netherlands charmed me with its bicycles, canals, and straightforward people. Austria and Italy delivered The Eternal City: Rome, the history, and the kind of meals you still talk about years later. Hungary felt like Central Europe in its purest form—proud, layered, and a little bit melancholy. Mexico reminded me that great food and warm people can make up for almost anything.

These trips were slower, lighter, and often more joyful. They let me see places with completely different eyes.

What I Actually Learned

After 23 countries, a few wars, too many layovers, and one very patient wife, three truths stand out.

1. Individual people are the same everywhere.
Strip away the flags and languages, and the core concerns are universal: family, work, love, safety, friendship. I’ve seen it in a Somali market, a crowded Indian street at rush hour, a Korean shop, and a German beer garden. The hopes and worries don’t really change.

2. Countries and cultures are profoundly different—and those differences matter.
India hit me especially hard with this. The sheer scale, energy, and contradictions within one country forced me to rethink a lot of assumptions. I saw the quiet consensus-driven order of Nordic societies, the tribal realities beneath formal governments in parts of Africa and the Middle East, the cheerful resilience of post-liberation Kuwait, and the relaxed chaos of Mexico. Travel like this doesn’t just broaden your horizons—it makes you examine your own culture more honestly.

3. If you get the chance, do it.
I said yes to deployments that scared me, yes to exhausting-looking work trips (including the one that dropped me in India), and yes to vacations when money was tight. Almost every single time, I came home richer in ways that don’t show up on a balance sheet. The hardest places often taught me the most.

So my advice is simple: collect the stamps. Break a few comfort zones. Take the trip. You won’t regret the countries you visited nearly as much as the ones you didn’t.

Where Next?

At this point I wouldn’t even call it a bucket list anymore. I’ve already blown way past any bucket list I could have imagined when I was 18 and my only real dream was to see West Germany and France someday.

Even so, the map still has plenty of white space that calls to me. Japan and New Zealand are high priorities. I’d love to experience Argentina and get a real taste of South America. A slower, deeper return to Italy is definitely in the cards.

And the big one I’m actively thinking about is recreating the classic route of the Orient Express — Paris through the Alps, Vienna, Budapest, and on to Istanbul. That journey feels like the perfect way to tie together so many threads from the last few decades.

The map isn’t finished, and neither am I.

Every time one of you lab-coated high priests solemnly declares “the science is settled,” I want to reach through time and slap the smug right off your face. Because this isn’t new. We’ve seen this same dumb fucking movie for thousands of years, and it always ends the same way.

Back in Aristotle’s time, the “settled science” said the Earth sat dead still at the center of the universe. Aristotle, who is huge in Greek philosophy, said so, and all the respectable people nodded along. Meanwhile, Aristarchus of Samos was already proposing a Sun-centered system, and Eratosthenes was calculating the Earth’s circumference with sticks and shadows like a goddamn genius. Their response? Crickets and dismissal. The science was settled, after all.

Aristotle totally was the Big Daddy of Greek philosophy, yet when it came to actual science he was spectacularly full of shit. That same garbage thinking, passed down through Hippocrates and Galen, was still killing people two thousand years later. George Washington’s doctors bled him to death in 1799 trying to balance his humors. He might have died anyway, but they killed him faster. That’s what “settled science” looked like in practice.

Which brings us to the old pulp masters.

The Golden Age science fiction writers looked at this recurring human stupidity and said “fuck that.” While the experts of their day were busy declaring frontiers closed, Doc Smith, Heinlein, and Pournelle were out there building sixth-order brains, writing about competent men who ignored the consensus, and spinning cautionary tales about civilizations that lost their nerve. They didn’t wait for permission. They attacked the unknown with glorious, unapologetic curiosity.

Pournelle showed us exactly where this road leads in the CoDominium: a ruling class that freezes science for “stability” and ends up so weak they have to hire barbarians to do their fighting for them.

Doc Smith would’ve built the sixth-order brain anyway. Heinlein would’ve had one stubborn son of a bitch ignore the experts and solve the problem. Tolkien would’ve called it Saruman bullshit.

Science isn’t a cathedral for you to defend. It’s a frontier for angry, curious, difficult people to attack. The moment you declare it settled, you don’t become wise. You become dead weight.

So what the hell should you do?

Stop being stupid.

Stop parroting experts like trained seals. Reclaim your curiosity like your life depends on it. Because it does. You don’t need credentials to be curious. Thomas Edison had no PhD. Ben Franklin started life as an indentured apprentice … basically a time-bound, contractual slave … and still helped invent the modern world. The greatest leaps forward have almost always come from curious bastards who refused to accept the map the “experts” handed them.

Read the old masters. Ask rude questions. Hunt for the places where the priesthood gets angry and evasive. Teach your kids that doubt and wonder are not sins, but despair damn sure is.

Every time you hear “the science is settled,” treat it like a personal insult. Because it is.

The day we accept that garbage is the day humanity stops advancing and starts managing its own dignified decline.

Fuck that noise.

I’m not living in that future. Neither should you.

#SettledScience #ScienceIsNotSettled #GoldenAgeSciFi #QuestionEverything #CuriosityOverConsensus

It’s a Congressional election year. Political tensions are high. Large segments of the left remain furious about the current administration, and history suggests that “mostly peaceful” protests have a habit of turning into riots when the political stakes feel existential. We’ve seen it before — 2020, 2024, and now we’re doing it all over again.

In my recent piece, Don’t Lose Your Nerve, I talked about how free societies endure ideological pressure: by staying calm, enforcing the norms we still have, and refusing to descend into the same darkness we oppose. That principle still holds.

But staying calm doesn’t mean being unprepared.

It means having quiet competence — the ability to move through your day, handle unexpected trouble, and get home to your family without looking like you’re expecting the world to burn down. That’s the entire point of practical, low-profile carry in 2026.

Here’s what my everyday setup looks like right now.

Back in October 2024 I wrote about what I was carrying in my everyday day pack. You can read the original post here:

here. A lot has changed since then — both in the world and in my own setup — so here’s the updated version for 2026.

The Bag

I’ve moved to a generic 28L black rucksack — nothing fancy, just a cheap one you can find on Amazon. Average Joe doesn’t spend $200–$400 on a rucksack for daily carry, and in 2026 that’s actually an advantage. High-end bags from 5.11, GoRuck, or Eberlestock are great pieces of gear, but they can scream “operator” to anyone paying attention. My plain black ruck looks like what half the guys at the hardware store are carrying. That’s the point.

On-Body Carry (Pants Pockets)

• Fenix PD35 flashlight – Excellent general utility light, and in low-light situations it can be used to disorient or distract while you create distance.

• POM OC spray – Sometimes you don’t need to “skin that smoke wagon and see what happens.” OC spray is a solid less-lethal option to stop or deter a threat before it gets that far.

• Leatherman Skeletool – Compact, useful multi-tool.

• P38 can opener – Tiny, lightweight, and surprisingly handy. I’ve had one in my pocket since I was a private in West Germany in the mid-80s. Not planning on stopping now.

The Pistol

Sig Sauer P365XL carried appendix in a PHLster Skeleton holster. It has a 3.7” barrel, which gives modern defensive ammunition the muzzle velocity needed for reliable expansion. I swapped the stock grip module for a Wilson Combat grip and added a Holosun 507K X2 optic with a green reticle. One extra 12-round magazine plus a second box of ammo ride in the bag.

Clothing Integration

• Pants: ATG by Wrangler — tough, lots of pockets, but look like normal jeans or casual pants.

• Shoes: Salomon Forces (XA Pro low and Quest Mid). They meet real military boot standards for durability and support, but they look like typical trail/hiking shoes that 40- to 60-year-old men in the Pacific Northwest actually wear every day.

• Hat: Still my 1998 Reno Air Races hat. Some things you just don’t retire.

• Sunglasses: Oakleys. Never giving these up.

What’s In the Bag (2026 Edition)

My guiding philosophy is simple: I should be able to sustain myself, cut off from home and car, for 24 hours if needed. There’s not a lot of change here.

• Water: 2x 1L bottles

• Food: 6x Kirkland protein bars (≈1200 KCals)

• Compute/Comms: iPad + iPhone used as a hotspot

• Weather Layers: Light dry-fit long sleeve shirt + Salomon rain shell (Pacific Northwest weather is famously changeable)

• Medical: Tacticon IFAK v1 and North American Rescue CAT tourniquet (with CAT holster), trauma shears, and Rhino Rescue 6” Israeli-style pressure bandage. These are items actually used by law enforcement, firefighters, and soldiers. Skip the generic cheap Chinese gear on Amazon.

• Gloves: Magpul patrol gloves

• Light & Tools: Backup flashlight, multi-tool, etc.

• Misc: Cash, power bank, and a few comfort items.

Nothing exotic. Just reliable gear that lets me move through a normal day while staying reasonably prepared if things get ugly.

The Mindset

I don’t carry this because I expect trouble every single day. I carry it because trouble — or just plain bad luck — has a habit of showing up when you least expect it.

In the Pacific Northwest, we’ve seen it play out in many forms. I’ve watched Seattle’s “mostly peaceful” protests turn into nights of riots, arson, and blocked roads. I remember the 2010 snowpocalypse that shut down major highways for six hours or more, leaving thousands of people stranded in their cars. And we all live with the long-term realities of a major Cascadia subduction zone earthquake, a Mt. Rainier lahar, or a tsunami hitting the coast.

Any one of those events can leave you cut off from home for hours — or days. When that happens, being able to sustain yourself for 24 hours isn’t paranoia. It’s basic responsibility.

In tense times, the smartest move is quiet competence: look normal, move normal, but be ready anyway.

Modern Minuteman

Practical preparedness for everyday citizens.
Low-profile. Reliable. Quiet competence.

#Minuteman #EDC #Grayman #Preparedness

All Modern Minuteman posts

A daily 1950s pulp-style serial

Chapter 15: Tom’s Shotgun

An old Winchester tells its story

We shoot the Walkers… then we go back to the beans.

The next morning broke clear and warm. After breakfast — rice with the last of the canned chicken and a sprinkle of seasoning — I nodded toward Tom.

“You mentioned an old hunting shotgun the other night. Mind if I see it?”

Tom gave a slow nod and walked over to his truck. He pulled out a long soft case, unzipped it, and brought the gun over like it was made of glass. It was a beautiful old Winchester Model 12, 12-gauge with the heavy duck barrel. The wood was worn smooth from decades of use, the bluing still dark in places.

He cleared it properly — finger off the trigger, action open — and handed it to me.

“Inherited it from my dad,” Tom said quietly. “He bought it sometime in the early sixties, right before I was born. Used it for ducks mostly. Said it was the best gun he ever owned. I’ve carried it since he passed.”

I turned it over in my hands, appreciating the balance and the way the pump action still felt tight after all these years. “Beautiful piece. Reliable as hell.”

“Always has been,” Tom said.

We ran some dry drills first. He was rusty on the little things but rock-solid on the fundamentals. When we moved to live fire, he put three rounds of Federal 00 Buck into a stump at twenty yards with authority. The heavy barrel soaked up the recoil and the old gun ran like it was brand new.

Mikey watched with wide eyes. “That’s a lot louder than the Glock.”

Tom gave a small, tired smile. “Yeah. But sometimes loud is what you need.”

Later, while we were cleaning weapons, Raych asked the question gently.

“Do you have any other kids besides Sarah?”

I felt a quick pang of guilt. I’d already known the answer from the quiet conversation Tom and I had by the fire the other night, but in all the training and movement and chaos I’d completely forgotten to tell her.

Tom was quiet for a long moment, running a bore snake through the Winchester.

“Two boys,” he finally said. “Ryan and Matt. Ryan’s a Marine Staff Sergeant. Matt’s a teacher… was a teacher. Both called me the first day things got bad. Ryan tried to sound like everything was under control. Matt was scared for his wife and little girl.” He looked down at the shotgun in his hands. “Haven’t heard from either of them since.”

The air got thick. I didn’t push. Neither did anyone else.

Raych handed Tom a fresh cup of coffee. “You ever think about going looking for them?”

“Every damn day,” Tom said. “But I don’t even know where to start. And I’ve got Sarah and Mikey right here. Can’t go running off and leave them.”

I nodded slowly. “We’ll keep an ear out. If we hear anything — anything at all — we’ll figure it out together.”

Tom looked at me for a long second, then gave a single nod. “Appreciate that.”

That evening, as the percolator hissed and the pot of rice and beans bubbled away, I watched the group around the fire. Tom sat a little straighter, the old Winchester resting nearby like a trusted companion. Sarah stayed close to Mikey, but her shoulders looked less tense. Raych leaned against my side, her small fierce smile softening into something warmer.

The old world was gone. Families were scattered or lost. But here, under the stars, with hot food and people we trusted, something new was forming.

I took a slow sip of coffee and thought about Ryan and Matt out there somewhere — and about the two boys Tom had lost track of in the chaos.

Civilization, it turned out, wasn’t just about beans and bullets.

It was about the people you could reach and keep together.

I still hate zombies.

Bougie Apocalypse

A daily serial about heirloom beans, carbon steel skull-crackers, and refusing to let the apocalypse win.

#BougieApocalypse #TomsShotgun #TheCough #StayHuman

Jack Harlan’s adventures continue right here for now, but the official home for the whole Bougie Apocalypse series is moving.

Come find us at JackHarlanStories.com and BougieApocalypse.com — same beans, same bullets, same stubborn civilization.

The inauguration of Marco Rubio was colder and more consequential than any in recent memory. Snow dusted the Capitol dome like ash, while nearly half a million people filled the National Mall. Many had not come merely to celebrate the new President. They had come to witness the formal beginning of something irreversible.

The day before, Donald Trump had delivered his farewell address from the same podium. Uncharacteristically restrained, he had looked out over the frozen crowd and said only: “We started the correction. Now it’s up to you to finish it.”

The decisive turning point had arrived the previous year.

After the brutal redistricting wars in early 2026, the GOP had defied every historical trend and held the House in the 2026 elections. That victory finally shattered the Senate Republican leadership’s institutional paralysis. In a closed caucus meeting that would later be spoken of in hushed tones, enough senators told Leader John Thune that nostalgia for the old rules was now suicide. They forced the filibuster’s effective gutting for major legislation.

With their narrowed but workable majority, they drove the SAVE America Act through both chambers in a single, brutal session: strict national voter ID, proof of citizenship for federal elections, deep structural cuts to the administrative state, and ironclad border security measures. What the old regime called the “Fifth Branch” — that vast, unaccountable administrative apparatus — was not destroyed overnight, but it was broken and forcibly re-subordinated to elected authority.

Two downstream effects reshaped American politics for the next generation.

First, the feared Democratic retaliation never materialized. The structural changes proved durable. Democrats would not control the Senate again for decades.

Second, once states implemented real voter ID and citizenship verification, roughly four million ballots quietly vanished from the system. Later academic studies — often conducted in the deepest blue strongholds — estimated that roughly eighty percent of those vanished votes had been cast for Democrats. The old regime called it “voter suppression.” The emerging Principate called it “honest elections.”

The electoral realignment that followed was tectonic. The coastal enclaves remained hermetically blue. Everywhere else the ground shifted hard. Swing states turned solidly pink. By the early 2030s the new structural reality was undeniable: the GOP could reliably count on a Senate majority of roughly 60–40 and a comfortable working House majority.

Between 2025 and 2029 the administrative state was humbled. USAID was dismantled. The Department of Education was devolved. Careerists who had spent decades treating elected officials as temporary inconveniences suddenly found themselves reporting upward again — or out the door.

Yet the Republic had not returned to some pristine 1789 form. Power had simply shifted. The executive — still formally the President in every public ceremony and legal document — now dominated the federal government in practice. Sixty to seventy percent of real decision-making authority flowed through one man, checked not primarily by the other branches, but by something newer and more primal: the Fourth Branch — the armed, educated, awakened citizenry that had delivered the Long Correction and now stood as both base and ultimate restraint.

This was the Principate in embryo. Republican forms endured. The name “President” endured. But those who mattered understood the new reality.

On that frigid January morning, as Marco Rubio placed his hand on the Bible and took the oath, Daniel “Danny” Reyes stood a precise thirty yards away in the protective cordon, eyes scanning the crowd through tinted lenses. Breath fogged slightly in the cold. His left thumb brushed the blue dial of the Tag Heuer he had bought the week he rotated home from Iran. The luminous hands still reminded him of tracer fire over the Persian Gulf.

Today the Princeps is sworn in, he thought. Tomorrow the real work begins.

Reyes was not yet Director of anything. He was still a senior operator from 1st SFOD-D aka Delta Force, pulled into an advisory role as the new administration hurriedly stood up what would become the Executive Protection Service. The EPS did not exist on paper yet. It was being forged in classified briefings and late-night planning sessions — a lean, lethal fusion of Secret Service professionalism, Special Forces operational tempo, and direct-action capability meant to protect the man who now carried the lion’s share of American power.

Two weeks later, in the Oval Office, President Rubio would look across the Resolute Desk at the quiet, olive-skinned operator with the ice-blue eyes and say: “The War Department agrees. We’re formalizing the EPS. I want you as Director.”

Reyes had simply nodded once. “Yes, Mr. President.”

The snow kept falling on the Mall. The Republic — now something both older and newer — held its breath.

A daily 1950s pulp-style serial

Chapter 14: Bean Shortage Scare

Magic boxes aren’t actually magic

We shoot the Walkers… then we go back to the beans.

The morning after the first real watch felt almost normal. The rain had stopped, the percolator was hissing away, and I was digging through one of the go boxes looking for the last of the real milk when the math finally caught up with me.

There was just this one carton left and it would be gone today. I set it aside with a sigh and confirmed that there was powdered milk in the right box. There was.

I stood there staring at the inventory I’d made the other day and scribbled on the back of an old range card. Five people. Not two. The “magic boxes” I’d packed for Raych and me to shelter in place for four weeks weren’t going to stretch anywhere near that long anymore. The rice and beans would last a while — dry goods are forgiving — but the fresher stuff was disappearing fast. The last of the real milk and creamer would be gone within a day or two. After that it was powdered milk or black coffee, and I knew how much Raych hated black coffee.

I let out a slow breath.

Raych walked up beside me, wiping her hands on a rag. “You’ve got that look again. The one that says the numbers aren’t lying to you.”

“Five mouths,” I said quietly. “I packed these boxes for two. We’re burning through the easy stuff faster than I planned. Real milk and creamer are basically done.”

She leaned against the 4Runner and crossed her arms. “So what’s the verdict, Sergeant?”

“Rice and beans will carry us. The canned chicken helps. But the luxuries — the fresh milk, the little packets of creamer, the good seasoning — those are going to run dry quick. We’re going to have to get serious about stretching everything.”

Tom wandered over, overhearing the last part. “We’ve been eating pretty good for people running from the end of the world.”

I gave a short laugh. “Yeah. That’s the problem. We’ve been eating like people who still think the grocery store might open back up tomorrow.”

Mikey, who had been pretending not to listen while he cleaned his Glock, looked up. “Are we gonna run out of food?”

“Not run out,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “But we’re going to have to get a lot smarter. No more big pots if we don’t need them. Measure everything. Make sure nothing goes to waste.”

Sarah joined the circle, wiping her hands on her pants. “So… no more real creamer after tomorrow?”

I shook my head. “Probably not.”

She actually smiled a little. “Guess we’re all drinking it black from here on out.”

Raych groaned theatrically. “The real tragedy of the apocalypse.”

I reached deeper into the go box and pulled out another sealed bag of rice like a magician producing a rabbit. “Magic box strikes again.”

Tom chuckled. “One of these days you’re gonna open one of those and a whole damn supermarket is gonna fall out.”

We all laughed, but I caught Raych’s eye. She knew the truth. The boxes weren’t actually magic. They were just finite. And we had five people now instead of two.

Later that evening, as the percolator hissed and the pot of rice and canned chicken bubbled away with the last of the good seasoning, I sat back and watched the group.

The old world — with its endless grocery runs and takeout apps and “just run to the store real quick” — was gone.

But we were still here. Still eating hot food. Still making coffee.

Civilization, it turned out, was a lot harder to kill than I’d expected.

Bougie Apocalypse

A daily serial about heirloom beans, carbon steel skull-crackers, and refusing to let the apocalypse win.

#BougieApocalypse #BeanShortageScare #TheCough #StayHuman

Jack Harlan’s adventures continue right here for now, but the official home for the whole Bougie Apocalypse series is moving.

Come find us at JackHarlanStories.com and BougieApocalypse.com — same beans, same bullets, same stubborn civilization.

A daily 1950s pulp-style serial

Chapter 13: The Photo

Ghosts in the Fire

We shoot the Walkers… then we go back to the beans.

The sky had cleared by late afternoon, but the air still felt heavy. I was sitting on the tailgate cleaning my Wilson Combat 1911 when Sarah found the photo.

She’d been digging through her pack for a clean shirt and it slipped out — an old printed picture, edges worn soft. She froze, staring at it like it might bite her.

Raych noticed first. She set her coffee down and moved over without a word, sitting beside Sarah on the log. A few moments later Sarah’s shoulders started to shake.

I stayed back at first, giving them space, but eventually walked over. The photo was of Sarah and a man — her husband — both smiling on a sunny beach somewhere that no longer existed.

“I keep forgetting,” Sarah whispered. “That it’s all just… gone. The pictures. The videos. The stupid texts he used to send me at work. All of it.”

Raych put an arm around her. “I know, honey. It’s okay to miss it.”

I crouched down in front of them, elbows on my knees, still holding the disassembled 1911. “Power’s been out long enough now that even the cell towers are dead. No more Netflix. No more blogs. No more way to know if Glenn’s still alive out there.”

Sarah looked up at me, eyes red but curious. She didn’t laugh — she barely knew me well enough for that — but there was a flicker of surprise at how casually I mentioned it.

Raych glanced at me, her voice quiet but pointed. “You’ve got a lot of ghosts, Jack. You just pretend they don’t exist until something makes you look at them.”

I met her eyes for a second, then gave a small nod. No argument there.

Raych, who did know me, raised an eyebrow. “You and your long-distance internet buddy. You two have been arguing about the Constitution for twenty years. You had burgers and beers with the man in Nashville back in 2016.”

I gave a low, dark chuckle. “Yeah… if the world ended and Glenn Reynolds is still out there somewhere writing blog posts by lantern light… the man would want to know the power’s out. He’d appreciate the update.”

Raych snorted. “Glenn is dead will get his attention.”

Sarah blinked, then let out a small, surprised huff — not quite a laugh, but close enough for someone still finding her footing in the group.

I shrugged. “Hey, if the world ended and Glenn’s still kicking… he’d want the sitrep.”

Later that night, after everyone had turned in, Tom and I sat by the low fire. The percolator hissed between us like it always did.

Tom stared into the flames for a long time before speaking.

“I had two boys,” he said quietly. “Ryan’s a Marine Staff Sergeant. Matt’s a teacher… was a teacher. Both called home the first day of the Cough. Both worried. Ryan tried to sound steady. Matt sounded scared for his wife and little girl.” He shook his head slowly. “Haven’t heard from them since.”

I nodded, saying nothing. There wasn’t much I could say.

Tom took a slow sip of coffee. “First time I’ve stood watch with a kid since I was running night patrols with young Marines… back when my boys were that age.”

The words hung in the damp air. No one pushed.

I looked around the little circle — Sarah curled up near the fire, Mikey already asleep with his head on his pack, Raych leaning against my shoulder.

The old world was gone.

But under the stars, with hot coffee and people I trusted at my back, a new one was starting to take shape.

Bougie Apocalypse

A daily serial about heirloom beans, carbon steel skull-crackers, and refusing to let the apocalypse win.

#BougieApocalypse #ThePhoto #TheCough #StayHuman

Jack Harlan’s adventures continue right here for now, but the official home for the whole Bougie Apocalypse series is moving.

Come find us at JackHarlanStories.com and BougieApocalypse.com — same beans, same bullets, same stubborn civilization.

I’ve carried a gun for decades.
I’ve carried first aid gear for decades.
I’ve given first aid to, used tourniquets on, or bandaged, at least a dozen people in my life.
I’ve shot zero people — outside of combat.

Let that sink in.

If you’re brand new to being prepared for a crisis and you only have time or money for one thing right now, start with medical gear and training. Because that is going to be the single most effective thing you can do to help your fellow humans in a bad situation. A pistol you can’t use effectively (or a gunshot wound you can’t stop) will get you or someone you care about killed just as fast as having no gun at all.

So You Still Want a Pistol

Good. When people ask me at the range or in real life what they should buy as their first serious defensive pistol, here’s what I actually tell them:

Go to a good local gun store you trust. Talk to the staff. Handle a bunch of pistols. Rent several at their range and shoot them for real. What feels good in your hands, runs well for you, and you actually enjoy shooting is usually the right choice. No internet expert (including me) can tell you that from a keyboard.

Quick real-world note from my experience as Chief RSO at a semi-rural gun club in Washington State:
The most common “what gun should I buy for self-defense?” conversations I have are women. It’s extremely rare that a man, even an obvious beginner, asks for advice. That’s just anecdotal, but anecdotes are still data.

Only if someone keeps pushing and says “No, really — what would you buy?” do I give them my personal recommendations.

My Personal Recommendations (If You Insist)

Any Carry to Full Size striker fired 9mm pistol that is made by a quality manufacturer such as Smith & Wesson, Springfield Armory, Sig Sauer, Glock, Ruger, CZ. You will find it far easier to learn the fundamentals of pistol marksmanship with a Full Size pistol than a compact or sub-compact. And, as you will find out at the range, you are not going to pick up a pistol and immediately be John Wick 2.0.

Once you know how to shoot, are comfortable with pistols, and feel ready to carry a concealed pistol, we can move on to a compact pistol intended for concealed carry.

If someone insists on my concealed carry recommendation, here’s what I tell them.

Best All-Around Choice for Most People in 2026:
Sig Sauer P365 XL (or the XMacro if you have bigger hands or want more capacity)

• Compact enough for daily carry, big enough to shoot well

• Decent trigger

• Optics-ready out of the box - and yes, you should put a red dot on it.

• Reliable as hell - I’ve got 2500 rounds through mine without a single failure

Strong Contenders:

• Glock 19 or 43X MOS

• CZ P-10 C

• Smith & Wesson M&P 2.0 Compact

• Springfield Armory Echelon 4.0C or XD-M Elite Compact OSP

If You’re Dead-Set on a 1911…
Which is not a bad choice — I own several of them myself. And carried a 1911 as my daily concealed carry until just recently.

Buy a good one.

• Middle-of-the-pack good: Kimber, Sig Sauer, Ruger, or Springfield Armory. All are solid choices and I would recommend any of them regardless of internet gun culture stuff — that’s based on my own experience.

• Top-of-the-heap good: Wilson Combat or Dan Wesson. If you want the best 1911 money can buy, in the author’s humble opinion, go Wilson Combat.

If you want top-of-the-heap performance with serious capacity, look at the Staccato C (and the growing number of other double-stack 1911s). Hit me up privately if you want to go down that rabbit hole.

What I Actually Carry Daily:
Sig P365 XL with Wilson Combat grip module, Holosun 507K optic, Federal Premium HST.

Quick Note from Experience:
Combat arms soldiers (tankers, scouts, infantry) got much deeper training on practical skills like land navigation and first aid at the beginning of our training than we did on firearms skills. The Army itself clearly sees practical preparedness skills as quite important to guys who are expected to engage in combat.

Real Priority Order

1. Strength training, cardio, and diet — Healthy and strong is incredibly crucial to being prepared. Strong people are harder to kill. Strong people respond better under stress. This is exactly where combat arms basic training starts.

2. IFAK and Tourniquet — This is non-negotiable. Have it on you.

3. First aid training — Knowing how to use it actually matters.

4. A good pistol that you will actually carry every single day.

5. Good holster and magazines.

6. Firearms training and practice.

Bottom Line

Buy the pistol. Train with it. But don’t let the gun internet convince you that another shiny handgun is more important than knowing how to keep someone alive when the worst happens.

The Modern Minuteman isn’t just armed.
He’s prepared.

Modern Minuteman
Practical preparedness for everyday citizens.
Low-profile. Reliable. Quiet competence.

#Minuteman #EDC #Training #Preparedness #FirstAid
All Modern Minuteman posts

The new President had just finished telling the Secret Service they were out of the protection business.

Marco Rubio looked across the Resolute Desk at the man sitting opposite him — slim, olive-skinned, blue-eyed, sandy brown hair cut tight. Danny Reyes, 31 years old, former 5th Group Green Beret, former Delta. Now the first Director of the newly created Executive Protection Service.

“The Secret Service had too many loyalties,” Rubio said. “Too many near-misses. Too many times they almost got the last guy killed while pretending everything was fine. From now on, your people answer only to me. You answer only to me.”

Reyes didn’t blink.

“You understand what this makes you, right?” Rubio asked.

“Yes, sir,” Danny said quietly.

Rubio gave a small, humorless smile.

“Good. Because the press is going to call you my Praetorian Guard by next week. Let them.”

This reading is not merely mistaken. It is the precise opposite of what the Founders intended.

The Founders were Enlightenment philosophers who believed in rights that antedate culture, society, and government. The Second Amendment is not a casual provision or a narrow hunting right. It is a structural safeguard of liberty. It protects a right and creates a responsibility: the individual right of the people to keep and bear arms, and the collective responsibility of a free people to remain armed, trained, and prepared to defend their liberty against both external enemies and internal tyranny.

To recover the original meaning, we must examine three foundational elements. First, how the Constitution and Congress defined who belongs to the militia and how that definition changed over time. Second, the practical implementation of that idea in the Militia Act of 1792. And third, the Supreme Court’s restoration of the Amendment’s true public meaning.

Only then can we understand why the Founders believed an armed and self-reliant citizenry was necessary to the security of a free State. And only then can we see why abandoning that principle endangers the republic they created.

The Militia Defined

The Founders defined the militia in clear and simple terms. The Militia Act of 1792 declared that the militia consisted of able-bodied white males between the ages of 18 and 45.

Over time, the Constitution itself dramatically expanded that definition. The 13th Amendment ended slavery. The 14th Amendment guaranteed equal protection under the law. The 15th Amendment prohibited racial discrimination in voting. The 19th Amendment recognized women as full citizens. And the 26th Amendment lowered the voting age to 18. These amendments collectively transformed the militia from a narrow body of white males into all able-bodied adult citizens.

Modern military recruiting standards and the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) give us a practical benchmark for what “able-bodied” means today. However, the Founders would have found it abhorrent to deny any citizen the right to keep and bear arms simply because they do not meet the standards of formal government military service. These standards help define who forms the core of the militia — they do not limit the fundamental right of any citizen to bear arms.

The Militia Act of 1792 as Foundational

The Founders did not need a long essay to explain the militia. They considered the concept so obvious that the Militia Act of 1792 defined it in just a few clear sentences: the militia consisted of able-bodied white males between the ages of 18 and 45.

This brevity reveals something important. In Article I, Section 8, Clause 18 — the Necessary and Proper Clause — the Constitution grants Congress the power “to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States.” The two Militia Acts of 1792 were Congress exercising exactly that power. They were not about restricting the people’s right to arms. They were about making the armed citizenry effective — organizing it, setting standards for equipment and training, and ensuring it could actually serve as a check on government power. The armed citizenry was the militia itself.

In Federalist No. 46, Madison made his view unmistakable. He pointed to the English experience during the Civil Wars of the 1600s, where governments repeatedly disarmed or neutralized the citizen militias, leaving the people dependent on a professional standing army. To Madison, a virtuous and educated citizenry that no longer saw itself as the militia represented a form of civic degeneration. He would be spitting in disgust at much of modern America.

The Founders’ logic was blunt and inescapable. The Second Amendment declares that a well regulated militia is “necessary to the security of a free State.” Therefore, if the citizens do not keep and bear arms and do not form the militia, then — by the Founders’ own explicit reasoning — it is no longer a free state.

Supreme Court Restoration of Original Meaning

From 1792 until the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Miller (1939), courts and legal scholars uniformly understood the Second Amendment as a primary, fundamental right. That consensus held for nearly 150 years.

After Miller, the Supreme Court went silent on the Second Amendment for nearly seventy years. During that same period, the Court repeatedly heard and decided cases involving every other major provision of the Bill of Rights: free speech, freedom of religion, assembly, search and seizure, self-incrimination, and due process. Those rights were actively tested, refined, and vigorously protected.

The Second Amendment alone received no such attention. This prolonged silence gave lower courts free rein. They invented balancing tests and interest-weighing frameworks that treated the right to keep and bear arms as a second-class right — one that could be restricted whenever a judge decided some government interest “outweighed” it.

The Supreme Court finally corrected this distortion. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, independent of military service, whether in the Federal Army, State National Guards, or a citizen Militia. In McDonald v. Chicago (2010), it extended that protection against state and local governments. Then, in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), the Court delivered the decisive blow. It explicitly rejected the balancing-test approach and ruled that the government must justify any restriction by showing it is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

Bruen restored the original public meaning. “Well-regulated” never meant subject to heavy bureaucratic control. It meant well-equipped, well-trained, and in good working order. The militia is the armed citizenry itself — not a government-managed auxiliary. It exists as the ultimate structural check on government power, the practical embodiment of the Fourth Branch.

Conclusion

The Second Amendment protects a right and creates a responsibility. It protects the individual right of the people to keep and bear arms, and it imposes on a free people the collective responsibility to remain armed, trained, and ready to defend their liberty.

The Founders designed this provision as a structural safeguard. They understood that no free state can long survive if its citizens surrender their arms and their role as the militia to a professional standing army and a permanent administrative class. Government has an ancillary role in national defense, but it cannot perform this core responsibility for the people. We must do it for ourselves. As the Founders made explicit in the text of the Amendment itself, a well regulated militia is “necessary to the security of a free State.” The corollary is equally clear: when the citizenry ceases to keep and bear arms and ceases to function as the militia, the state is no longer truly free.

For too long, lower courts undermined this foundational principle. The Supreme Court has now restored the original meaning. Heller, McDonald, and especially Bruen have reaffirmed that the right belongs to the people, not the government, and that “well-regulated” never meant “well-managed by bureaucrats.”

In the 21st century, honoring the Second Amendment means rejecting the European model Madison warned against. It means embracing an armed, competent, and self-reliant citizenry — the living embodiment of the Fourth Branch. The security of a free state does not depend on government permission or expert management. It depends on the virtue, skill, and resolve of its citizens.

The Founders knew this. The Supreme Court has reaffirmed it. It is long past time we lived it.

Further Reading

• Militia Act of 1792 The original statute that defined the militia in clear, practical terms.

• Federalist No. 46 – James Madison Madison’s direct warning about the danger of a disarmed citizenry and why an armed people are essential to the security of a free state.

• Federalist No. 29 – Alexander Hamilton Hamilton’s strong explanation of why the militia is not the standing army and must remain under civilian control.

• New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022) Justice Thomas’s majority opinion — a powerful restoration of the original public meaning of the Second Amendment, grounded in history and logic.

• District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) The foundational case that affirmed the individual right to keep and bear arms.

Security n Cigars

#SecondAmendment #WellRegulated #Militia #Founders #Constitution #Bruen #Heller

Climate change discussions rarely feel like science — they feel like stepping into a revival tent. True believers defend their position with the same tools religious zealots have used for centuries: logical fallacies, appeals to authority, and emotional rhetoric. Instead of robust evidence and falsifiable claims, they rely on rhetorical shields that evade real scrutiny.

I wrote about common debate errors in my earlier piece, “How to Argue With Me Better”. This article applies that framework directly to climate discourse. When a position leans this heavily on fallacies, it reveals its own weakness.

1. Appeal to Authority: “The Science Is Settled”

This is the big one. “97% of scientists agree.” “The IPCC says…” “The experts have spoken.” End of discussion.

It’s the secular version of “God said so.” Science doesn’t work by papal decree. Real science thrives on skepticism, replication, and challenge. History is full of “settled” consensuses that later collapsed: the geocentric universe, eugenics as sound policy, stress as the main cause of ulcers. Bloodletting is a great example.

Doctors historically bled patients based on the theory of humoralism (or humoral theory), which posited that health depended on a balance of four bodily fluids—blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. Illness was thought to be caused by an excess of one humor, specifically a surplus of blood (plethora), which was deemed the dominant humor.

This continued from the Ancient Greeks into the early 1800’s until it was disproven by germ theory and cellular pathology. During his final illness, George Washington was treated by blood letting, among other now known to be false theories of biology and medicine.

Climate science involves genuine uncertainties — equilibrium sensitivity, cloud feedbacks, regional impacts, the exact weighting of human versus natural factors. Many things claimed to be “Settled Science” in the realm of climate just a few years ago are now proving to be incorrect with new evidence and data. Pointing to expert bodies isn’t automatically wrong, but treating them as infallible prophets is. “The Science” is not a person you can debate; it’s a shield.

2. Moving the Goalposts: Eternal Doomsday Reset

The predicted apocalypse keeps getting new deadlines and new symptoms:

• Polar bears were supposed to be nearly extinct by now.

• The Arctic was supposed to be ice-free.

• Island nations were going underwater.

• We were promised no more snow in the UK.

When those predictions fail or underperform, the narrative quietly shifts to the next crisis: shrinking Greenland ice, “weird weather,” or tighter temperature targets that keep sliding. If you are in a discussion and you point out that there are more polar bears today than 30 years ago, the Climate True Believer will quickly move to another goalpost.

This isn’t science updating itself with better data. It’s rhetorical evasion. A specific, falsifiable claim gets replaced by something vaguer and harder to disprove. Every time reality gets too close, the goalposts sprint forward.

3. Anecdotal Fallacies: Today’s Weather = Climate Proof

“Record heat in Podunk today — climate change is real!”
Or the satirical flip: brutal blizzard hits and someone blames global warming.

Both are nonsense. Weather is not climate. Anecdotes are not data. One hot (or cold) day, one bad fire season, or one dramatic flood tells you almost nothing useful. Serious analysis requires long-term datasets, satellite records, peer-reviewed studies, and proper attribution — not Instagram photos of melting ice or your local heatwave.

I enjoy sarcastically blaming every cold snap on global warming precisely because it exposes how ridiculous the anecdotal game is.

Other Fallacies That Keep Showing Up

• Straw Man: Painting all skeptics as people who deny the greenhouse effect or any warming at all, instead of engaging with real questions about sensitivity, adaptation, or policy trade-offs.

• False Dilemma: “Either we go net-zero by 2035 or the planet dies.” No room for nuclear, adaptation, technological innovation, or cost-benefit analysis. This one is a favorite of politicians, as is the next fallacy.

• Appeal to Fear: Distant, high-uncertainty catastrophic scenarios used to justify immediate, economically painful policies.

• Ad Hominem: Labeling anyone who questions the narrative a “denier,” “fossil fuel shill,” or ignoramus — classic avoidance of the actual arguments.

The Bottom Line

If your case for urgent, radical climate action depends so heavily on logical fallacies, authority worship, and constantly shifting predictions, it is weak. A robust position welcomes scrutiny. It doesn’t need to hide behind “the science is settled” or demonize dissenters.

This isn’t about denying physics or observed warming. It’s about demanding intellectual honesty: treat climate as science, not as a faith. Bring data, acknowledge uncertainties, debate the actual numbers (sensitivity estimates, economic models, adaptation vs. mitigation), and argue in good faith.

True believers, bring your A-game next time. The conversation — and the planet — and the culture — would be better for it.

What fallacies have you noticed most often in climate debates? Drop them in the comments. Let’s keep it logical.

It’s a warm summer evening at a large outdoor music festival in a mid-sized American city. Thousands of people — families, friends, couples — are enjoying the headliner when gunfire suddenly erupts from multiple directions.

The crowd panics and scatters. People are hit. Screams fill the air. Some of the first shots target the main medical tent and entry points. Within minutes, several first responders are down or pinned down. Help is coming, but it will take time — time many wounded people don’t have.

In the middle of the chaos, a retired soldier in his late 50s is with his wife. He’s not Special Forces. He’s not a door-kicker. He’s just a regular guy who decided years ago that he refused to be helpless if the worst happened. He has a concealed pistol, a trauma kit on his belt, and consistent training under his belt.

He doesn’t freeze. He doesn’t wait for instructions.

He acts.

He returns fire to suppress the threat long enough for dozens of people to reach cover. He directs bystanders to safe zones. Then he shifts immediately to aid: applying tourniquets, packing wounds, and organizing a makeshift casualty collection point. He assigns clear tasks to those around him.

He solves problems in real time while the world burns around him.

This is the Modern Minuteman in action.

Not waiting for permission.
Not waiting for the perfect conditions.
Just doing what needs to be done, with the tools and training he has.

You don’t need to be a superhero. You don’t need to look tacticool. You just need to be the kind of person who can handle life when it gets hard.

As Robert Heinlein famously wrote:

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

I don’t know about you, but I’ve done everything on that list except conn a ship — though I’d give it a solid Boy Scout best effort if needed — and I plan to die gallantly when that time eventually comes. I suspect most of you reading this have done more of it than you realize.

What the Modern Minuteman Needs

Being a Modern Minuteman (or woman) isn’t about being a superhero or LARPing 1775. It’s about being a capable, self-reliant adult who refuses to be helpless when seconds matter.

Mindset

• Personal responsibility: No one is coming to save you.

• Calm under pressure: Panic kills more people than the threat itself.

• Willingness to act: Hesitation is a choice.

Core Skills

• Defensive handgun use (draw, shoot, reload, clear malfunctions)

• Basic trauma care (tourniquet, pressure dressing, chest seals)

• Situational awareness and decision-making under stress

• Basic movement and cover usage

• Communication (calling for help clearly and quickly)

Everyday Carry / Immediate Equipment
Here’s what I actually carry and recommend as a solid baseline:

• A good concealed handgun + spare magazine

• A CAT tourniquet (or equivalent)

• Trauma shears

• A compact Individual First Aid Kit (IFAK)

• I keep this combination in a Condor EMT Pouch marked with a white first aid cross.

I have this setup on my person, in each vehicle, and in every daypack my wife and I carry when we leave the house — including when we go to summer concerts at Chateau Ste. Michelle. The key is convenience — it has to be where you can get to it quickly when you need it.

Training Mindset
Regular, realistic practice beats fantasy range time. Dry fire, medical scenarios, and stress inoculation matter far more than collecting gear you never use.

The Modern Minuteman isn’t waiting for society to collapse. They’re living as a competent, prepared citizen right now — because they understand that the world can change in seconds, and they refuse to be helpless when it does.

We will run this poll for 7 days and then I’ll publish the results for all to enjoy :-)

The Modern Minuteman

A series about self-reliance, preparedness, competence, and refusing to be helpless when the world changes in seconds.

#ModernMinuteman #CitizenSoldier #Preparedness #SelfReliance #SecondAmendment #Training #EverydayCarry

A daily 1950s pulp-style serial

Chapter 12: First Watch

The crew stands guard

We shoot the Walkers… then we go back to the beans.

The rain finally eased off sometime after midnight, leaving the swamp dripping and the air thick with the smell of wet earth and cypress.

I’d set the first real watch rotation that evening. One strong team member with one still learning — that was the rule. I paired myself with Sarah for the first shift, Raych with Tom for the second, and Tom with Mikey for the last hour before dawn (with me awake and listening from the 4Runner, just in case).

Sarah and I took the first watch. The two of us stood back-to-back near the edge of the clearing, listening to the night sounds slowly return after the storm. The percolator was still warm on the Coleman stove, a fresh pot of coffee keeping watch with us.

Sarah was quiet at first, then asked, “How do you know when someone’s ready?”

I handed her a cup. “When they stop thinking about being ready and just do the job.”

A little after 0200 we handed off to Raych and Tom. I crawled into the back of the 4Runner and slept lightly, one ear still tuned to the night.

Just before dawn I heard the low murmur of Tom’s voice and Mikey’s softer reply. I stayed lying down but fully awake, 1911 close at hand, listening.

A single shot cracked the quiet.

I was up and moving before the echo faded, Raych right behind me. Sarah was already on her feet.

Tom stood at the edge of the clearing, shotgun still raised. Mikey was crouched low beside him, eyes wide but holding his Glock steady.

“One Walker,” Tom said calmly. “Came straight out of the mist. Mikey spotted it first, called it out clear.”

I looked at the boy. He was pale, breathing fast, but his hands were steady.

“Good eyes,” I told him. “Good call. You did exactly what we trained.”

Sarah exhaled, lowering her pistol. “He stayed calm. Just like you showed him.”

I gave a single nod. “That’s how we do it.”

The sky was just starting to lighten when we all gathered back under the main tarp. The percolator was hissing again. I poured fresh cups while Raych stirred a pot of rice and canned chicken left over from the night before.

Tom sat down heavily, shotgun across his knees. “First time I’ve stood watch with a kid since I was running night patrols with young Marines… back during Desert Storm and Somalia.”

The words hung in the damp air. No one pushed.

I thought to myself, “Yeah, I figured he’d done more than just march around Camp LeJeune.”

Mikey looked up from his coffee. “Did I do okay?”

“You did better than okay,” I said. “You stayed calm, you followed the drill, and you let Tom take the shot when it counted. That’s exactly what I wanted.”

Sarah reached over and squeezed her son’s shoulder, pride and relief mixing on her face.

As the sun finally broke through the trees, I looked around the little circle — Tom cleaning his shotgun with slow, practiced strokes, Sarah checking the Mossberg, Mikey carefully wiping down his Glock the way I’d shown him. Raych leaned against my shoulder, her small fierce smile back in place.

The percolator hissed. The rice and chicken warmed on the stove.

For the first time since they’d joined us, it felt like a real crew standing guard together.

Bougie Apocalypse

A daily serial about heirloom beans, carbon steel skull-crackers, and refusing to let the apocalypse win.

#BougieApocalypse #FirstWatch #TheCough #StayHuman

Jack Harlan’s adventures continue right here for now, but the official home for the whole Bougie Apocalypse series is moving.

Come find us at JackHarlanStories.com and BougieApocalypse.com — same beans, same bullets, same stubborn civilization.