 Yes, you should buy night vision. Hey everyone, Dylan Schumacher, Citadel Defense, and today we're gonna talk about why you should buy night vision. I'm not gonna stand here and hold this the whole time because that's just kinda awkward, but night vision, you should get some. Let's talk about why. So this video isn't necessarily a review of a certain night vision product or company or anything like that, but rather it's here to convince you that you should buy night vision. I've been weaning to make this video for a while and so it just kind of fits well within this Minuteman series that we're doing right now. And why you, as just an everyday Schmo, should have night vision. If I could go back and do it all again and kinda start my gun journey from the beginning, I would buy a Glock 19, I'd buy a rifle, I'd buy some supporting equipment, you know, maybe like a chest rig or a battle rattle, like we've talked about in previous videos, maybe some plates, and then I would buy night vision. I wouldn't buy second rifles, I wouldn't buy this menagerie of pistols, I wouldn't buy all the other stuff I have. Instead, I would have saved that money properly and purchased night vision. We're just talking about gear. You should take a bunch of classes in there because you gotta learn what you're doing. So when it comes to the gear train and what you're buying when, I would bump night vision severely up on that list. Before you get a second rifle, before you get all this other stuff, maybe you get a cam before, whatever, but it's a lot sooner of a purchase, in my opinion, if I could go back and do it again, then I had thought of before. Before I got night vision, I always thought, you know, I mean, is it really needed and what are you really gonna do with it? And ah, but then you get it and then things change. So reasons you should buy night vision. Number one, and the least effectual reason, it's just cool. I mean, it's really cool. If you ever get to go out in a field at night or something and you get to look up at the stars with night vision, you will be sold, I promise. Just on that alone, just on the cool factor of being able to walk around in rural environments and like look at the stars and see stuff like it's high noon makes a big, big difference. It's just really cool. The second reason of course is that gives you a significant tactical advantage. Remember here, we're not talking about just defending your house or just walking down the street and carrying a pistol on you for self-defense or stuff like that. We are talking about you as an everyday American having the ability drive and initiative to embrace your martial American heritage and what gear you should choose to help you accomplish that mission, right? Like we talked about earlier, mission drives the gear train. And so if that's our mission is to be a functional American minute man who's embracing our martial heritage and is ready for a red dawn to happen, you should buy night vision because it gives you a significant tactical advantage. I mean, if you're at night and you have nods and a suppressor, you're basically a ghost. If you have night vision and a suppressor and you're fighting at night, that's gonna give you a significant tactical advantage. You're gonna be very hard to locate because it's dark out so unless you have night vision and that evens the playing field, right? It's hard to visually locate you where you are and then that suppressor is going to reduce your flash signature significantly and it's also gonna reduce the sound as far as where is it coming from? Makes it harder to locate. Even without suppressors, people who've been shot at will tell you, trying to figure out where shots are coming from is very difficult. With suppressors, of course, that gets much more difficult. So I say all that to say that we, collectively as light infantry oriented people should own the night. That's how it works. There have been some very good night fighters in history, the Japanese during World War II were particularly known for their ferocious night fighting. So we want to be good night fighters. We want to harness that power well, especially because again, we don't have a lot of other supporting equipment here. We're just us and some other Americans who wanna embrace our heritage. So we need to take every tactical advantage we can and fighting at night is one of those things that you can twist to your advantage. And when you have night vision that someone else doesn't, that's a huge advantage and if they have night vision and you don't, you're at a severe disadvantage. So in order to level the playing field, slash give yourself a huge bump up in the advantage section, you should own night vision. Now I realize night vision is pretty expensive, right? Because the night vision device itself is around, you know, $2,700, $3,000. And then it goes up from there. And then you really need to buy a solid mount. This mount set up here, I think cost me $700. So it's not cheap, but let me tell you what, if you're gonna hang a 3,000-ish piece of gear off your helmet, you should invest in a mount, okay? Because what you don't wanna have happen is that comes off the mount and takes a fall from head to height and slams on concrete. Ask me how I learned that lesson. The other thing, of course, then, you would have to purchase in order to fully harness the night vision power some kind of de-ball or some kind of laser for your rifle, right? Some kind of infrared laser so that you can see at night and point your rifle at night. Now you can pass, it's called passive aiming, meaning just looking through your optic with your nods on. And that works, it's just harder to do. A laser is really, really the way to go. So, you know, all in, you're probably looking at $5,000, right? Give or take to get all into night vision. And I know that doesn't include the helmet, right? Which helmet's gonna cost you 500, 600 bucks. We'll cover that in a later video. But all in, I understand that it's expensive, but let me tell you right now, it's worth it. I would tell you to buy night vision. Forget all the other stuff you think you need. Forget having a menagerie of weapons and a safe that opens up like in the movies with the foam and the lighting and like 500 rifles. You can only carry one rifle at a time anyway, okay? Invest in night vision. You'll thank me later. What really convinced me to take the dive, finally, is I read Prairie Fire by, oh, dang it. I don't remember the author's name right now. I have a review of that book on this channel sitting on my shelf, but he talked in there about, again, if you don't have night vision, it makes it very difficult to fight those who do have it, so you really need to have it. So, I would just like to pass that knowledge on to you. If you're gonna be an American who embraces their martial American heritage, get night vision. And then of course, once you get that night vision, you can go take a night vision class. I have yet to do that, to be fully honest with you. It's on my docket to do in 2022 here, so I will be fighting a course, and maybe I'll see you there. Again, remember the context in which this is all happening, right? We're just talking about you being an everyday guy, working with other everyday guys to embrace your martial American heritage. And if Red Dawn happens, and you have to pick up your equipment and fight, one of the things that's gonna give you a significant advantage is being able to effectively fight at night. We want to fight at night. Fighting at night is a long human tradition, right? And of course, the further back in time, the scarier night fighting gets because the less ways you have to conquer the dark. And today we have lots of good ways to conquer the dark, and night vision is one of the best ways to do that. Now you could say, hey Dylan, no problem, I got a flashlight on my gun, problem solved. And I would say, I have a flashlight on all my serious fighting guns, right? There's a light. That's a mandatory piece of equipment to me on fighting guns. However, when we're talking about doing longer range movements outside in larger rural areas at night, flashlights just don't have the same weight anymore. Instead, they can kind of, depending, become a liability. Because if you have an ND with that light, now you just gave away your whole position to anybody within a mile or two that saw it, right? So being able to sneak through the dark without use of visible light is a very big tactical advantage. It allows you not to just do the shooty shoots and that kind of thing, but it allows you to move overnight, right? You can patrol during night much more effectively. Can you patrol during night without nods? Yes, you can, absolutely. However, with nods, it's gonna be more fun and more effective and really allow you to sneak through the dark better using non-visible light methods, right? Like NVGs and IR light and stuff like that. So again, because of that tactical advantage, I think it's worth the investment. I think it's such a gross tactical advantage that it's worth the money. Again, it gets dark every day, right? And depending on where you live in this northern hemisphere, you're looking at anywhere from eight to 16 hours of darkness a day, depending on the time of year. So embracing that and being able to have capabilities that are gonna give you significant advantage to be able to fight and move during night is a huge, huge advantage. Again, I understand it's a huge cost investment and a lot of people shy away from it just for that reason. But if you want to embrace the full Marshall American heritage that you've been given, I think this is something worth looking into. Hope that's helpful. Do brave deeds and endure.