Again May I Suggest

What Keith said is spot on that is why I go lite you will have a hard time humping 60# I don't care how big a man or woman you are I have done it it only makes you tired and puts blisters in spots you did not know you could put blisters learn what to take learn what to leave then learn what you can make and then learn how to endure because at some point your going to any way

 

Tom, Keith & Bishop are all correct in that everyone who truly wants to be prepared should get some form if experience.
Packing your bag & hump it around for a few days. I guarantee you'll learn double quick what you can carry & what you should carry.
Quote: put your Nike's on & Just do It!

 

My uncle didn't make it to D-Day day one. The ancient ship they'd been put aboard had issues then ran aground a good distance from the offings. However, he did note and did himself throw most of their kit's contents overboard. Such would sink you drown you before you made shore, then in-country get you killed by slowing you down. Logic spoke to living & shooting light. Poor Southern boys sure knew better than be weighed-down.

One kills the enemy and takes their provisions. The German women cooked for my uncle and his mates, for their own husbands were never coming home and the war was over before it was over. The Americans had some honor and the Russians were the rapists. Honorable behavior speaks to being fed (even when you've put your mortar emplacements in their backyards).

 

Personally I think that a survival school would be an entertaining thing to do. To some extent it would be like this forum and offer a rare opportunity to meet a lot of people with at least somewhat similar interests. I don't see it as an end all educational experience because it won't be directed to specific areas or maybe my personal techniques that fit my specific needs BUT knowledge is always worthwhile. I always wanted to go to Tom Browns tracker school. His basic minimalist approach to survival always sort of toughed a similar cord in me.

Y'all are good for me. i'm pretty jaded but not near as suspicious or entrusting of others as many of you. It makes me feel a little like Susie Sunshine and that isn't how anyone that knows me sees me. I am willing to give other people a chance but I think that in part that is because I have never met anyone that I thought was really deadlier than I am. If you turn on me after things go to crap you will be dead before you even know that I'm not happy with you. I don't believe in warnings and there is no such thing as a second chance. That is in its essence the truth of survival. You have to get it right the FIRST TIME.