 Hello, everyone. Dylan Schumacher, Citadel Defense, and we are back with another edition of American Minute Man gear. So I like to keep some of my gear, not all of my gear, because that could kind of be ridiculous depending on how much gear you have. Some of my gear pre-staged. I'm a believer in the concept of the minute man, right? And historically, as an American minute man, it means you're ready to go at a minute's notice. That's kind of the whole deal. So in keeping with that tradition, I have some of my gear always, all the time, pre-stage and ready to go so that I could grab it at a minute's notice. If you're like, hey, Dylan, why do you do that? That's weird. You don't need all your gear pre-staged. You're on the wrong channel. Find a new one. Good luck. Okay, so obviously in that pre-stage gear, right, you have a rifle, whatever your rifle is. This is just one of my go-to rifles that I have. You know, optic light, sling, can, all the normal fun stuff for a rifle, right? So we keep the rifle staged with the gear all the time. Okay, then going into the actual gear itself. First of all, this is a 511 duffel bag and I keep everything in this bag. This is the biggest one. I think it's the Lima, maybe it's like 100 liters, 105 liters, 95 liters. I don't remember. It's big though, okay? It's really big and it holds all my stuff. Now, why do I keep it all in a bag? One, because it keeps everything together. That's always nice. So it's not, you know, loosey-goosey. I have gear stands and I'll keep gear on there. But even then, it's nice to just keep it in a bag. So I know that, hey, it's in that bag. The other reason and the more important reason is that if I had to go to Moments Notice, but I'm going to travel to a location and then stage from there, right? But I need to go right now, but we're going to go somewhere and then prepare and then do whatever. Well, that's nice because I can just grab this whole bag, I can throw it in a pickup truck or in a trunk of a car or whatever, and I'm out the door. I don't need to grab anything else. I grab the bag, I grab a rifle, and I'm gone. And that makes it a lot, lot easier to keep things together. Rather than having to grab, you know, three or four individual pieces or stuff them in your car or oh, did I remember the extra or whatever, I just grab the bag, put it in the car again and we're gone, okay? And then from there, I can take things out of the bag that I will need and leave other stuff in the bag. Now, as always, I should always tell you, right, this is a work in progress. All gear is a work in progress. If you check in with me in six months, this bag will be a little bit different because it's just a constant evolution. So first thing in the top of the bag here, it does have a little zip pocket. I keep an extra tourniquet in here. That's going to go in my cargo pocket or pants pocket. The second one is my eye protection because, you know, that's important. I don't have anything in the third one yet, but I'll probably end up putting some stuff in there. Inside the bag, as you'll be able to see, I keep everything in an old Willy Pete waterproof army bag. Why? Well, not so that this is waterproofable, like I can drive across the river, although I guess if I really cinch the bag up, I could do that. But not for that, but because if I were to throw this again in the back of a pickup truck or something and it's raining or it's snowing a lot, this bag is pretty solid and pretty thick, all right? And it's going to give a lot of protection to the elements, but this is just so that I can put on clean gear. Because if I had to drive through a rainstorm, let's say, and get to wherever I'm going, I don't want to have to open up my bag and put on wet gear. That sounds pretty miserable and not really interested in that. So I try to keep it in the Willy Pete bag so that, again, it's element protection, right? So that when I get to where I'm going and I open this up, all the stuff I have to put on is going to be dry. And that just makes my life, again, a lot easier. First thing that's in here is my helmet because that's important. And I just leave the night vision thing on there all the time. And then I have my ears, which will connect to my radio. So that's what's in here. Next thing up is a pack. We'll go through that in a little bit. Also, I should mention in here, I have my knee pads because if I'm gonna be doing stuff, I want knee pads. That's all that's in the bag. We'll move that out of the way. Just side note before I do that, other things that could go in the bag, right? Come extra bottles of water, maybe an extra cammy shirt. Whatever. You know, the sky's limit. Other stuff that you could have in the bag that you're planning on leaving in the bag but that are extras just to have. A couple extra mags and ammo, whatever. Just other stuff that you could have in here. Again, that you're planning on leaving in the bag but in case you want to plus up or whatever, you could grab that. Haven't gotten that far yet in the system but that's other thing I'm planning on doing in the bag in the future. First thing, chest rig, right? So radio, a snack, because that's nice to have. Multi-tool should say over here, there's a lighter over here. Not sure if you can see that. Lighter, because lighter is important. Tape. This has my compass, which is dummy corded. Turn a kit, because that's important. And this is a smoke grenade because, you know, that's always fun, right? Other than that, blade, four mags and then on the bottom here, this is my iFAC. This is the roll one from Ferro Concepts. That's a cool little deal. I like, because you can put this on a chest rig and put this on a plate carrier. That's just a cool deal. Another thing that probably should be in my bag is my plates. I'm not planning on having those as my default loadout, right? But it'd be probably a good thing to have my bag in case I decide again to plus that up in the moment. But this is just my default loadout of stuff that I always have ready all the time. Also, ranger beads, because those are important. And then back here, I have a map case. I'm not sure if you're gonna be able to see that, but I have a map case in here with a map of the area, right? Because again, that's important, okay? So that's just my fighting load there. Last thing I would like to say about the chest rig is that right now the chest rig is my default because I assume something I will be doing is most likely to involve vehicles. And because of that, I default to a chest rig and not the standard, what I call my battle rattle, right? But basically like the old Alice belt setup, like a hip belt and suspenders. If you've been following this series at all, this entire series started because I did a semester at One Shepherd and I wore kind of an Alice-like gear setup, right? With just a battle belt with suspenders and that really changed the way I looked at a lot of gear and it was super helpful and I would encourage you to go do that. And I do still have that setup and I think it's a great setup. However, the one major drawback is that if you were gonna be in a vehicle wearing that belt and keeping all your kit around your hips, absolutely sucks. So because most likely where I'm at, it's something gonna be vehicle oriented. There's gonna be a vehicle portion for some point at time, point and time, I default to a chest rig because it's much more comfortable to wear inside a vehicle. So most likely for you, that's probably the case. It's gonna include a vehicle. So you gotta decide for you what that means. If you just wanna suck it up and deal with it and you're gonna roll with the hip belt because it's so superior when you're actually walking, well, I understand that. But for me, I've defaulted to the chest rig right now because when it comes to vehicles, this is much, much more conducive than a hip belt. So that's why I'm at the chest rig right now and who knows, you check back in again in a year and it might change. Maybe this whole series would be worthless and we're gonna come full circle all the way back to the GWAT gear. All right, moving on to the pack. So this is a 511 Rush 12 pack. I do have a 24-hour pack from First Beer that I really like. However, I'm trying to carry less stuff and so I wanted to default to a smaller pack because whatever pack you have, I guarantee you, you will put enough stuff in there to fill it. So that's my attempt to limit myself in stuff to carry because carrying stuff sucks. So in this exterior admin pouch here, I have an extra two mags. I do need to have an extra mag in the big bag. That would be helpful so that I can have a total of seven. Why seven? Just because, because I feel like it. That's really the only answer to that. You know, that's the standard army loadout, right? A seven mags. For you, it might be 15. For you, it might be four. Whatever you feel comfortable with, I feel comfortable with seven. So that's what I'm gonna go with. Also in here, I have a signaling missile. This would probably, if I'm gonna use that, right? That's gonna get attached to my chest rig or put in my pocket or whatever. Chem lights, red and green. What else do I got in here? Some lube for my rifle because again, that's important. You gotta keep the gun up and running or you're gonna be in trouble. In here is a little bit of face camo paint and then another lighter with duct tape. Then just a run of the mill pen. Back here, I have a bunch of zip ties and then I also have, just for repairing gear, fixing pouches, whatever. I also have this thing with a bunch of bits on it and this pairs with my multi-tool. So this I will use if I needed to tighten a screw of M-lock, right? Or something like that so I can make field repairs. So that's why that's in there. Again, my rifle, someone else's rifle, whatever. Be stupid to lose your sling because if one screw of M-lock gets loose and you don't have a way to fix it. Now hopefully you're maintaining your gear, right? Cause you're always checking it, aren't ya? And you've lock-tighted all that stuff down so that shouldn't happen. But in case someone else didn't do that and wasn't responsible, you can be the hero. Up in this top pouch here, this is just a watch cap, right? In case it gets cold. Especially as it moves into the colder months. Make sure to winterize your gear, right? There are still some changes I probably should make here like I should put a couple more thermal layers in the big bag. But have your gear conducive to the environment and the weather that you're gonna be in so that, again, you don't get out there and you're like, oh man, I'm freezing because I have all my summer gear in here and not my winter gear. So opening this sucker up. Right in the rain, notepad and pen, right? This will go in one of my pockets. But I keep that in here so I don't forget it so that I don't open up the bag, grab my stuff and go. And then I'm like, oh no, where's my notepad? Well, it's in the bag. That way I can always remember to grab it. This is just a little booboo kit, band-aids, aspirin, stuff like that. Night vision, because that's always fun. You never know what time of day it might be. I have two liters of water here. Usually in the summer months and the warm months I like to carry a camelback in here. It's much more conducive. However, because it's cold and the camelback's the hose is freeze, I just have two large Nalgene bottles. That way I'm not gonna have that problem. Gore-Tex top layer because, again, rainy, snowy, just generally cold, I just need an extra layer. Gore-Tex is gonna do a good job there to help me out. And then lastly, just an MRE that gets stuffed in here. Because again, eight to 12 hours, probably gonna get hungry somewhere in there, right? So that way I have foods. Coming over here in this bottom mesh zip pouch here. Gloves, again, I keep them in the bag so that if I forget to grab my gloves I don't wanna forget them in my big bag, right? I always wanna have gloves on me. So that's where my gloves goes in here. Those will come out and go on my hands as things get fun. This is a dry bag with batteries, right? So that my batteries will absolutely never get wet. But this is, you know, AA, AAA, whatever, CR123, just extra batteries for all my stuff. It'd be stupid to lose your comms because your ear batteries, the batteries for your ear pro die, right? And now all of a sudden your radio doesn't work. That would be silly. Top zip pouch here. This is just some personal care wipes, right? Because eight to 12 hours, you might have to take care of some business. So that's important. And then headlamp, right? Just for, again, you don't know what time of day it'll be. So that's always helpful to keep on your person. And that is really it. I try to keep it as stripped down as possible because, again, I don't wanna carry a bunch of stuff but I want just enough stuff to get me to that eight to 12 hour mark. And then I will have to, you know, do something else at that point, right? Again, this isn't like a grab this bag and I'm gonna be good for the next four days. This is a grab this bag and I know I'm good for eight to 12 hours and I'm ready to party. So that is all of my gear. I would recommend to you to keep some of your gear. Again, not all of it because it depends on how much gear you have, right? That could get a little ridiculous. But some of your gear in a constant state of readiness. And that can get difficult because you go up to that range day or you're gonna make a little video and now you gotta pack everything back up. You gotta make sure it's all ready to go and you gotta ensure that you keep it in that constant state of readiness and that takes both mental and physical energy to do. So I can understand why people don't default to doing that because I just got back from the range and I'm tired and I wanna snack and I just wanna sit down and have a gear. But keeping your gear ready to go all the time to help embrace that martial American heritage of being a minute man. So I hope that's helpful. I hope it gives you some ideas and keeps you better prepared to keep your gear ready to go all the time. Do brave deeds and endure.