The Green Beret Bushcrafting Guide

The Eight Pillars of Survival

Many survival and emergency preparedness experts today use the pyramid approach to survival prioritization, putting food, water, shelter and security in the largest block at the base of the pyramid and then community, sustainability and higher needs in smaller brackets at the top of the pyramid. My survival model takes a different and linear approach to survival using an eight-pillar system. The eight pillars that I use as the basis of my survival methodology are food, water, shelter, security, communication, health, survival navigation and fire-craft. In my system no one pillar takes priority to another initially. It is up to the survivor to assess their situation and then choose the pillar that is needed most to survive in the situation at hand. Much like a rifle pop-up target range where a shooter is expected to hit the closer (more dangerous) 50-meter target first before engaging the 300-meter target, the survivor needs to prioritize the pillars and choose the pillar that is most urgent and necessary to save his life under the circumstances. The foundation for my methodology is KISS which stands for “keep it simple, stupid”, an acronym widely used by the military to remind soldiers that the best solutions are often the simplest. I developed this 8 Pilar approach over decades of serving as a Green Beret in the US Army Special Forces