Menstrual Cups

A menstrual cup is a type of cup or barrier worn by a woman inside her vagina during menstruation to collect menstrual fluid. Unlike tampons, which are also worn internally during menstruation, the menstrual cup does not absorb the menstrual fluid. The fluid is contained within the cup until the woman goes to the toilet, removes the cup, and pours the contents into the lavatory.

Introduction to Basic Outdoor Survival

This manual is based entirely on the keyword SURVIVAL. The letters in this word can help guide you in your actions in any survival situation. Whenever faced with a survival situation, remember the word SURVIVAL.

Psychology of Basic Outdoor Survival

It takes much more than the knowledge and skills to build shelters, get food, make fires, and travel without the aid of standard navigational devices to live successfully through a survival situation.

Basic Outdoor Survival Planning and Survival Kits

Survival planning is nothing more than realizing something could happen that would put you in a survival situation and, with that in mind, taking steps to increase your chances of survival. Thus, survival planning means preparation.

Basic Outdoor Survival Medicine

Foremost among the many problems that can compromise a survivor's ability to return to safety are medical problems resulting from parachute descent and landing, extreme climates, ground combat, evasion, and illnesses contracted in captivity.

Shelters Intro & Basic Outdoor Survival

A shelter can protect you from the sun, insects, wind, rain, snow, hot or cold temperatures, and enemy observation. It can give you a feeling of well-being. It can help you maintain your will to survive. In some areas, your need for shelter may take precedence over your need for food and possibly even your need for water.

Obtaining Water & Basic Outdoor Survival

Water is one of your most urgent needs in a survival situation. You can' t live long without it, especially in hot areas where you lose water rapidly through perspiration.

Firecraft & Basic Outdoor Survival

In many survival situations, the ability to start a fire can make the difference between living and dying. Fire can fulfill many needs. It can provide warmth and comfort. It not only cooks and preserves food, it also provides warmth in the form of heated food that saves calories our body normally uses to produce body heat.

Obtaining Food & Basic Outdoor Survival

After water, man's most urgent requirement is food. In contemplating virtually any hypothetical survival situation, the mind immediately turns to thoughts of food. Unless the situation occurs in an arid environment, even water, which is more important to maintaining body functions, will almost always follow food in our initial thoughts.

Use of Plants & Basic Outdoor Survival

After having solved the problems of finding water, shelter, and animal food, you will have to consider the use of plants you can eat. In a survival situation you should always be on the lookout for familiar wild foods and live off the land whenever possible.

Poisonous Plants & Basic Outdoor Survival

Successful use of plants in a survival situation depends on positive identification. Knowing poisonous plants is as important to a survivor as knowing edible plants. Knowing the poisonous plants will help you avoid sustaining injuries from them.

Dangerous Animals & Basic Outdoor Survival

Animals rarely are as threatening to the survivor as the rest of the environment. Common sense tells the survivor to avoid encounters with lions, bears, and other large or dangerous animals.

Field-Expedient Weapons, Tools, and Equipment

As a soldier you know the importance of proper care and use of your weapons, tools, and equipment. This is especially true of your knife. You must always keep it sharp and ready to use. A knife is your most valuable tool in a survival situation. Imagine being in a survival situation without any weapons, tools, or equipment except your knife.

Desert Survival & Basic Outdoor Survival

To survive and evade in arid or desert areas, you must understand and prepare for the environment you will face.

Tropical Survival & Basic Outdoor Survival

Most people think of the tropics as a huge and forbidding tropical rain forest through which every step taken must be hacked out, and where every inch of the way is crawling with danger. Actually, over half of the land in the tropics is cultivated in some way.

Cold Weather Survival

One of the most difficult survival situations is a cold weather scenario. Remember, cold weather is an adversary that can be as dangerous as an enemy soldier. Every time you venture into the cold, you are pitting yourself against the elements. With a little knowledge of the environment, proper plans, and appropriate equipment, you can overcome the elements.

Basic Sea Survival

Perhaps the most difficult survival situation to be in is sea survival. Short-or long-term survival depends upon rations and equipment available and your ingenuity. You must be resourceful to survive.

Water Crossings & Basic Outdoor Survival

In a survival situation, you may have to cross a water obstacle. It may be in the form of a river, a stream, a lake, a bog, quicksand, quagmire, or muskeg. Even in the desert, flash floods occur, making streams an obstacle. Whatever it is, you need to know how to cross it safely.

Field-Expedient Direction Finding

In a survival situation, you will be extremely fortunate if you happen to have a map and compass. If you do have these two pieces of equipment, you will most likely be able to move toward help. If you are not proficient in using a map and compass, you must take the steps to gain this skill.

Signaling Techniques & Outdoor Survival

One of your first concerns when you find yourself in a survival situation is to communicate with your friends or allies. Generally, communication is the giving and receiving of information. As a survivor, you must get your rescuer's attention first, and second, send a message your rescuer understands.

Survival Movement in Hostile Areas

The "rescue at any cost" philosophy of previous conflicts is not likely to be possible in future conflicts. Our potential adversaries have made great progress in air defense measures and radio direction finding (RDF) techniques.

Camoflage & Basic Outdoor Survival

In a survival situation, especially in a hostile environment, you may find it necessary to camouflage yourself, your equipment, and your movement. It may mean the difference between survival and capture by the enemy. Camouflage and movement techniques, such as stalking, will also help you get animals or game for food using primitive weapons and skills.

Contact with People & Survival

Some of the best and most frequently given advice, when dealing with local peoples, is for the survivor to accept, respect, and adapt to their ways. Thus, "when in Rome, do as the Romans do." This is excellent advice, but there are several considerations involved in putting this advice into practice.

Survival in Man-made Hazards

Nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons have become potential realities on any modern battlefield. Recent experience in Afghanistan, Cambodia, and other areas of conflict has proved the use of chemical and biological weapons (such as mycotoxins).

Survival Kits: Reference A

The Army has several basic survival kits, primarily for issue to aviators. There are kits for cold climates, hot climates, and overwater. There is also an individual survival kit with general packet and medical packet. The cold climate, hot climate, and overwater kits are in canvas carrying bags. These kits are normally stowed in the helicopter's cargo/passenger area.

Edible and Medicinal Plants: Reference B

In a survival situation, plants can provide food and medicine. Their safe usage requires absolutely positive identification, knowing how to prepare them for eating, and knowing any dangerous properties they might have. Familiarity with botanical structures of plants and information on where they grow will make them easier to locate and identify.

Dangerous Plants - Reference C

Plants basically poison on contact, ingestion, or by absorption or inhalation. They cause painful skin irritations upon contact, they cause internal poisoning when eaten, and they poison through skin absorption or inhalation in respiratory system.

Dangerous Insects and Arachnids

Insects are often overlooked as a danger to the survivor. More people in the United States die each year from bee stings, and resulting anaphylactic shock, than from snake bites. A few other insects are venomous enough to kill, but often the greatest danger is the transmission of disease.

Poisonous Snakes & Lizards: Reference E

If you fear snakes, it is probably because you are unfamiliar with them or you have wrong information about them. There is no need for you to fear snakes if you know:

Dangerous Fish & Mollusks: Reference F

Since fish and mollusks may be one of your major sources of food, it is wise to know which ones are dangerous to you should you catch them. Know which ones are dangerous, what the dangers of the various fish are, what precautions to take, and what to do if you are injured by one of these fish.

Clouds: Foretellers of Weather: Reference G

About 200 years ago an Englishman classified clouds ac cording to what they looked like to a person seeing them from the ground. He grouped them into three classes and gave them Latin names: cirrus, cumulus, and stratus. These three names, alone and combined with other Latin words, are still used to identify different cloud formations. By being familiar with the different cloud formation and what weather they portend, you can take appropriate action for your protection.