 Hey everyone, Dylan Schumacher, Citadel Defense, and today we're gonna talk about kind of the little odds and ends of gear. So this is part five on our Minuteman series, and in this one we're just gonna kind of cover the little stuff that doesn't bear a whole lot of required thinking about, but should take some intentionality and some thought that goes into it because it can make differences to make your life better slash easier, and who doesn't want that. So the first thing we're gonna talk about is uniforms, right? Just wearing some kind of uniform. Now the first thing I'm gonna say is you want to pick a, and I use that word loosely, okay, uniform, because you're basically picking a camouflage shirt, okay? That's essentially what you're picking, and maybe some camouflage pants if you wanna go all in. And you really need to consider two, maybe three things with it. The first thing you need to consider is what is a pattern that works in your environment, okay? Now I will say I don't know of anywhere in all of North America that can't be covered by two to three patterns. You can get woodland, just the old school woodland camouflage. You can get the woodland, right? Just the standard woodland camouflage that's been around since the 80s or something, or maybe a green, just a plain green, okay? Believe it or not, at a distance of about 25 yards, you can't tell the difference between these two. If you think I'm wrong, dress up some of your buddies and stand about 25-ish yards away in a semi-wooded environment, and you're really not gonna be able to tell the difference. So as far as effectiveness goes in my book, these kind of rank the same. So this is one option, right? Like between these two, or multicam, which I'm sure you're familiar with multicam, between those two patterns, you can cover pretty much anywhere in North America. Are there other pattern choices, or is someone gonna say, oh, Dylan, this pattern's better? Yeah, sure, fine, whatever. I'm just saying, if you had a uniform with woodland or greens and you had a uniform with multicam, between those two, I don't think there's anywhere in North America that those couldn't cover effectively. Maybe there's some weird thing and I'm not counting out winter months, that's gonna be a separate video. But during the kind of summer, springtime-ish, six to eight months out of the year, depending on where you live, those patterns can pretty much cover you anywhere. So I would consider that. What's a pattern that's gonna be effective in your environment? And just draw like a hundred yard or a hundred yard, a hundred mile radius around where you live and say, hey, what's the most effective pattern here? And then like I said, if you wanna branch out and get, if it's multicam, and get the multicam, and if it's woodland, and then get the woodland, and if you wanna branch out and get the other one, just so you're good for all of North America, then knock yourself out. But really, I think that's consideration one. An effective pattern for your environment. The second consideration is team recognition, right? Identify friend or foe, IFF. So if you're rolling with some other guys and you're regularly practicing with some other people, you guys wanna all wear the same uniform. There's a couple reasons for that. One, the most important is to be able to recognize your people on your team. Because again, remember, bullets are flying, things are going bad, there's some distance between you and your team. You wanna be able to recognize them and having a uniform that's readily recognizable is gonna be helpful in that regard. You know what I mean? So that's one thing that's helpful to be able to recognize your buddies. And then the second thing, of course, is there is, and the larger group of people you get together, there's actually, is a thing, a spree decor kind of thing that happens, and a pride in being part of a unit. That might sound silly and like, listen, I'm above that, I'm a smart thinker, I know better, but we're all human. And it is a thing. And having a spree decor really kind of contributes to what you're trying to accomplish. And that we're all on the same team, we're all part of the same thing. That's actually a mental factor that I think is worth considering. So that's kind of the reason I would recommend a uniform. So like we talked about, I realized we're just everyday American people here and we're just picking stuff that's effective. And we're light infantry, guerrillas, however you wanna phrase that. But as an everyday American, who wants to embrace your martial American heritage, having some kind of uniform for those reasons can be helpful. The third consideration I would throw in there when choosing uniform is, what kind of connects with you? I mean, that sounds kind of silly and kind of stupid, but there's a lot of good patterns out there. There's a lot of good patterns. And if you find someone that you like, just cause you like and it matches your environment, knock yourself out, go with it. And if you can convince your other buddies in on it, great, so much more the better. So really, I think those are kind of the three main considerations I would look at when I'm selecting a uniform and what's gonna be the most helpful. Second thing we're gonna talk about is boots. You need a good pair of boots, okay? Now again, there's lots of options and it doesn't necessarily need to be a combat boot, right? You could get like a good hiking or hunting boot. But I would recommend something that's gonna come above the ankle, okay? That's gonna be the most helpful for you to get a little bit of extra support. These boots, in case you're interested, are my summer boots and these are Garmont boots, G-A-R-M-O-N-T. I think they cost me like 130, 140 bucks. I love these boots. I think they're fantastic. They are not waterproof. Most summer combat boots are not gonna be waterproof because they're going for breathability. But I like these boots. I would highly recommend, no matter what kind of boots you get, try to get them in a kind of dark brown, that coyote brownish color, because that's gonna blend better than just about anything else. So having a good pair of boots, it does make a difference. And you might already have a good pair of hunting boots or whatever. Knock yourself out. They're your feet, they're your choice. But just remember, there's something that you're probably putting in miles on. So they bear some consideration and some money. In addition to your summer boots, you of course will need a set of winter boots. Now that's gonna be a different video, a different thing, and to be honest with you, I don't have a set of winter boots yet that I like, that I'm happy with, that I think would work the best. So different video when we talk about winter considerations. Just general PPE gear. So you're gonna wanna set of gloves. These are just submission first tactical. Again, there are a gazillion different gloves out there. Buy some gloves that you like that are gonna hold up decently, okay? That's really it. I'm not gonna tell you what gloves to buy there again. You probably already have several pairs of gloves. If you've ever shot a rifle in a class or something, you realize the importance of gloves, if only because the gun gets hot and you need some gloves to give you some protection there so you can effectively do the class, right? So wear gloves. Again, getting a cut out in the field can be a big deal. So we definitely wanna have some kind of protection. The other thing under PPE gear, there would be knee pads. You're gonna want a set of knee pads. Buy a set of knee pads. Again, gazillion options out there. Knock yourself out. In general, I try to get something that's camouflage-ish colored. Get a set of knee pads. When you're walking around patrolling and taking knees or you're running around in urban environment or whatever, you don't wanna get your knees all banged up. Again, you can be like, oh, Dylan, I can take it. It's not a big deal. I'll be on adrenaline. Yeah, maybe, but again, comfort is gonna be a helpful thing for you and you don't wanna hurt yourself unnecessarily. If you come down on a rock or something and damage your knee and now you're limping, well, now you've destroyed everything, right? So you're no longer combat effective at that point. Or at least you're decreased in your combat effectiveness. Last thing under PPE, elbow pads, if you want, some of the modern combat uniforms, right? Like this one, they have pockets that you can put elbow pads in. I don't know if you're gonna be able to tell that right here, but this is a Velcro pocket that comes open and you can insert a elbow pad in here. So like that. So yeah, you can put an elbow pad in here. That'd be cool just to have some kind of additional elbow protection. For the same reason we have knee protection, right? If you're going prone or whatever, you're gonna be a lot more comfortable and a lot less likely to hurt yourself with some extra elbow pads. Last thing that I would put under PPE there is eye protection, I think, which is often overlooked. Again, if you're gonna be in an environment where things are dynamic and bad and pieces of metal are flying through the air, eye protection is a bad idea. You could say, listen, Dylan, if I'm gonna take a bullet through the eye, eye protection is gonna make any difference. And I'd say, yeah, okay, but that's not exactly the point. We're talking about like shrapnel and things flying, or just patrolling through the woods at night and taking a branch across the eye. Things like that can happen. So I would highly recommend a good set of eye protection and I would recommend clear lenses, not sunglasses, not something tinted, not some kind of weird yellow enhance your vision thing, just clear lenses. Because again, if you're going in and out of buildings or if you're going in and out of tree cover, tinted lenses just aren't gonna be doing you any favors. So I would go with clear lenses. Additionally, if you're operating at night, clear lenses are gonna be very beneficial, right? You're not gonna wanna wear sunglasses at night. The next thing I would talk about is some kind of face paint. You're gonna want to have, again, litany of options out there, but you're gonna wanna have some kind of face paint. If you're really getting all geared up and dressed up to go out and do some gangster shit, you probably want to paint your face and have some kind of face paint. Again, especially at night, your face is gonna glow in the darkness, especially if you're lighter skinned like myself, right? So you're gonna want something that's gonna cover your face, that's gonna distort that image. The human brain is programmed to recognize faces. And the more we can break up that outline, the better you're gonna do at fooling the human brain in order to not recognize you. If you're not gonna wear gloves, bad idea. But if you're not gonna do that, I would paint your hands, I'd paint any part of your arms if you're gonna do your sleeves rolled up to be cool guy because you don't wanna sweat or whatever, I get it, but paint anything, any exposed skin you're gonna wanna paint so that, again, it doesn't glow, especially at night. The last thing we'll talk about is some kind of headgear, head covering. You got two major options here, right? First thing is you need a head covering. You need a head covering of some kind. Again, going back to that, distorting the face and the head is part of that, right? You want to distort that and break that up so you need a hat to cover that. The second thing is if you're at all balding, like myself, again, your head's gonna glow so you're gonna wanna cover that up. Third thing is hair is actually super recognizable. So you, again, you want to cover that up and you wanna cover your head. You need to camouflage your head and I think that's often overlooked and forgotten about. I would recommend something like a boony cap, right? These kind of, my wife always makes fun of me for these silly boony caps, but these do a really good job. They also are gonna helpfully keep the rain off of you, which is nice. Or if you just wanna go with a simple baseball cap, but something that I would have some self-respect and I would have my hat match my uniform so I look presentable, but some kind of hat in order to camouflage your head. So if you don't wanna go the hat route, you can always go the helmet route and you can get a ballistic or bump helmet. I would highly recommend going the helmet route over the hat route and there's a couple reasons for that. One, I would say get a ballistic helmet, okay? This is a hard-head veterans helmet. I think it was 500 bucks, 550, something like that. I'm not sure what they're going for now. Highly recommend, haven't tested it out by shooting it, so take that for what it's worth, but I like having ballistic protection on my head. Again, if you're gonna be in a dynamic environment doing gangster stuff, you're probably gonna want some kind of protection for your head because taking a piece of shrapnel or a bullet through the brain is gonna kinda end your day. So having some kind of helmet, again, even if I'm not wearing plates and all that other stuff, I would still probably choose a helmet. One, to mount those night visions to. Two, to have the extra added protection for my head, which is super helpful. And then three, to be able to mount my ear pro too. Now, am I always gonna have my ear pro on? I don't know, maybe not, I'd probably get uncomfortable and hot. However, the other really nice thing about having ear pro on is one, when the shooting starts, you can protect your hearing, which you might be like, again, hey, Dylan, that doesn't matter, it's a fight, we'll deal with it later. Okay, but having added extra ear protection is gonna preserve your hearing and preserve your ability to keep fighting longer, better, okay? Especially if you're shooting indoors and stuff like that. I would just prefer to have ears on when I'm shooting. The other thing I really like about it is you can route your comms through your ear protection. And so your radio now becomes a silent tool. With having your comms secured in that sense, meaning just routing directly into your ear pro is gonna allow you to be a lot quieter and your radio won't be going off or you won't get a radio transmission at a really inopportune time for you, but it'll be a lot quieter. So I'm a big fan of having a helmet for all those reasons that I can mount the accessories of the ears and the night vision to and use this really as a platform to increase my capabilities. Again, it also protects me from being shot. Now, if you wanna go the cheaper route and just get a bump helmet, you can totally do that. You know, again, knock yourself out. But I like to, if I'm gonna wear a helmet, I might as well carry the extra ballistic protection anyway. The other thing I will say then is you can get different covers for the helmet, right? So I have one helmet and then I'll have a green cover and I have a white one for the winter. Again, we'll get to that in the winter video, but you can swap out the camouflage on your helmet easier, which is just a nice ability to have. So I'm sure there's some other odds and ends that I probably forgotten here, didn't think about, but those are kind of the general things that I think bear a little bit of thinking about, a little bit of intentionality. And when you do that, they can really improve your gear game overall in order to contribute to your, like I said, your light inventory, everyday, minute man tactics that you're trying to do here. Hope that's helpful. Do brave deeds and endure.