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"Show Your Colors"--Recognition Flags for Post-Collapse Travel in Groups?
Jim,
Some friends and I were out on a hike several weeks ago with our bug out
bags, and we were talking about how we could easily identify non-threatening
travelers
or [perhaps even] fellow SurvivalBlog blog readers. Maybe a flag of some type?
Being able to identify ["friendlies"] would be especially helpful in
a TEOTWAWKI situation.
I'm just wondering if anyone else had suggested anything along those lines.
Thanks, - Steven
JWR Replies: Your chances of meeting a fellow SurvivalBlog
readers are slim. (There are only about 282,000
SurvivalBlog readers in the US, scattered in a population
of more than 305 million.) However, recognitions flags,
banners, standards, or guidons carried
by military
units
have a history that stretches back to ancient times, for good reason. In the
modern military context, that emphasizes camouflage, they are an anachronism.
(Guidons are
now only used for formal, in-garrison occasions). Nowadays, in the field, the
only thing that is analogous are ground marking panels--like the
multi-color VS-17 Signal Panel Markers--designed
to prevent friendly fire accidents. But in a post-collapse group defense (or
community defense) context, distinctive flags carried like Pilgramager's banners might be
a good idea for particular circumstances:
1.) If it is for
a group that is large enough to
easily defend
itself (i.e., so they need not travel stealthily), and
2.) Banner SOPs are established well in advance, and
3.) The group is traveling through territory where they are likely to encounter
both friendlies and bad guys, and
4.) If the flag is something quite distinctive,
and hence not easily copied by malo hombres. (Perhaps using a couple
of triangles of very unusual and scarce fabric colors sewn together into
a square. "All hail the Mauve
and
Chartreuse banner of the
Warlord!")
I surmise that a Japanese sashimono-style
battlefield banner attached to a backpack frame (hence, that would not require
someone's hands to be occupied) would be the the most appropriate.
Perhaps some other readers would care to chime in with suggestions.
