THE MINUTEMAN Volume 20, Dec 2024
End of year review and what lays ahead...
So here we are gang, the last month of 2024 and boy has this year seen its share of drama, uncertainty, and chaos. We here at The Modern Minuteman have focused on remaining positive, yet cautious, during these times by the approach we take to things and we have strived to bring you quality content and hopefully to inspire you to take control of your own preparedness and training by getting out and putting in the work. So let us look back over the last year and focus on some highlights and then talk about what we have in store for 2025…
For 2024:
Patrolling was a huge focus for us this past year. I think this was the second straight year of really working at all the skills associated with it along with the “WHY” we do it. I crunched some #’s the other day and had some interesting findings. In 2024 we logged:
227 miles on foot, in kit.
Spent 24 nights out
Met up and trained with 6 other Minutemen
Hosted 3 guys out at my camp for training and fellowship
Wrote another book (CM-8 The Modern Minuteman for The Professional Citizen Project)
Shot approximately 2,000 rounds (not counting .22lr)
Did another Norwegian Foot March
Ran 6-5k races and 1-11k race
YouTube gained over 4,000 new subscribers and surpassed 1 Million views
So needless to say we had a fun and very productive year! It wasn’t easy, in fact it was a lot of hard work, but you get out of training what you put into it.
A point on the newsletters is that I make sure to share what we are working on at the time. Breaking things down monthly to learn or train with helps keep me focused to keep getting better, find new or better ways to do things, and to see what is working and what isn’t working. I am very hard on myself and I have found that having smaller goals to help me reach bigger goals just works for me.
Favorite Training Moment:
I think my favorite training moment for 2024 was a guy that came from Virginia to spend a weekend with myself and another Ohio Minuteman out at my Bushcamp. My buddy and I setup a cool training exercise (which became Operation Beer Run) and we had him work out the Land Nav course all the while trying to stay hidden from an OPFOR. Not only did he do the course great, but he fully immersed himself in the weekend and took advantage of every opportunity. The big compliment from him was the last night and he said the trip and training was worth the price of admission (there was no fee) and that he would make the 9 hour drive again in a heartbeat. It made me happy that guys are willing to go to great lengths to meet and train with others.
Best Lesson Learned This Year:
There are always lessons to be learned in training. You train to learn new skills, to polish or improve old ones, to sort through what gear works and what doesn’t, to apply new principles to existing ways you might do things, and you even train to learn more about your capabilities and your limits and then you train to push those limits.
I am a big proponent of pushing myself past what I think I am capable of and this year was no different. I completed the Norwegian Foot March for the second year in a row and felt really good about it afterwards. But then I had failure during the Appalachistan Mission in August. At 48 years old I feel like I am in fairly decent shape. I run, ruck, and do body weight exercises but I do not push myself like I should (or like I use to) and it showed during that training exercise. I was whooped, totally spent.
Now while physically I got my butt kicked but I also let my guard down mentally and this was out of character for me. I was disappointed in myself (I don’t think the other guys realized I was having this mental battle or that I had let myself down) and I regret letting my head get the better of me. There was no overall failure but I failed my own expectations of myself. In all disclosure, I was finishing my second book, had a daughter heading off to college for the first time, and had what was one of the busiest months at work in recent memory (yes, I do work a regular 9-5 job). So a lot was going on that month which had me off my game. I say this not as an excuse but rather to highlight that real life happens and the stress of it can affect everything else you do.
So the lesson is two-fold… I need to be ok with failure and I need to not let up on pushing myself. It is ok to fail but it is also important to learn and rise up from it.
Biggest Success For The Year:
I wrote another book for The Professional Citizen Project called Citizen Manual 8, The Modern Minuteman! While already having written one I thought that maybe the second would be easier. In some ways it was and in other ways it wasn’t. It was easier in the sense that now I knew how to do it and the process but the hard part was that the expectations would be higher and I wanted to be sure that I did it justice.
CM-8, The Modern Minuteman is the book that I wish existed when I first started off in all of this. I wanted to write a book about the Minuteman movement that anyone starting out could pick up and gain a working understanding of the history, the gear, and the mission by sharing my experience with it. I am genuinely happy with how it turned out and glad that so many folks are finding it helpful in their own journey.
Looking Ahead To 2025:
2025 will look a little different in some ways for us. We will continue our dive into patrolling and all the skills associated with it. We will continue to do videos throughout the year on patrolling (the patrol loadout videos will continue) including highlighting specific gear, such as night vision, radios, firearms, etc. as well as a renewed focus on fieldcraft skills. These videos will continue to be done in the field. But I am going to do gear reviews differently and will do less of them. There may be some table top break downs to better show specific pieces of gear but these reviews this year will be primarily done in the field while in use or done during after action reports where we break down what worked, what didn’t, and why. You’re going to see some night vision content in the first couple months of the year and it will be to highlight its use and how it works in the overall scheme of things.
Planned content for 2025:
Night Vision setups for the masses
Suppressor buying and usage
OP/LP’s
Mission videos/Field Training Exercises
Fieldcraft Skills
more Property Patrols
We will also be trying to have more interaction with other creators and Minutemen in the form of field exercises. I enjoyed this immensely last year and it is a goal to do even more of these types of get togethers. January and February are already lining up for some great winter exercises. So stay tune for that.
At the end of the day, the overall goal here is to encourage, motivate, and inspire others to pick up the Minuteman torch and carry it forward. Go meet other like minded people, step out of your comfort zone, learn new things, and go out into the field and put in the work. I figure if I can do this then you all can too. It takes time, dedication, and a drive to improve and succeed.
Some Special Points to Make
Our genre on social media is at an interesting crossroads and I think it is important to point a couple things out that I am seeing.
The whole “Modern Minuteman” movement can be traced back to our roots in the mid 1700’s. Everyday guys that, at their own time and expense, that trained and networked with others. The Minutemen were not held in high regard by the Army regulars nor were they viewed much differently by the British military. For the most part they were considered ill train amateurs and country bumpkins (a view that is still held by many today).
Even though the impact the Minutemen had during the Revolutionary War was short lived, they contributed to the way all future wars would be fought. They were the first to adopt a more “Frontier Fighting” style like the Native Americans which helped contribute to their effectiveness against the British. In fact they became so effective that the British and American regulars started to adopt similar tactics at the end of the war.
I bring this bit of history up to drive home a point about how everyday prepared citizens in the Minuteman movement are taking existing tactics and doctrine from the military and are out reimagining the concepts to fit that “Frontier Fighting” style that was effective in years past. We have to remember that todays Minutemen don’t have the might of a national military machine behind them so we need to take existing methods and find ways to adapt them to suit our needs. We won’t have the luxury of large teams of men to setup perfect OP’s or to perform textbook patrols. We may have little to no logistical support or what support does exist will be bare bones. We need to figure out how to do more with less.
There is a way to do it, it just is going to take time, perseverance, commitment, and a willingness to experiment with different ideas to get it done. As a friend and mentor recently said, “Plenty of other info from doctrine and experience that informs the how to for the taxpayer funded orgs, the graduate level work is adapting it to regular folks, adapting it while still maintaining sound tactical practices”.
What’s the saying?
The next item is now that the election is over it seems that half of the “guntubers” have gone insane. There’s a lot of guys trying to stay relevant by beating up on other guys. As my friend Grunt Proof recently said, “So I guess because the doomsday dream didn't happen, all the influencers have left to do is fight one another 🏳️🌈”, and he’s right folks. I made the comment a month or two ago along with a few others that, if this is just a hobby for you and not a lifestyle, then you are doing it all wrong.
I have no idea what these guys are trying to accomplish but they’re making a mockery of themselves and people are noticing. So, instead of wasting energy on piddly, stupid stuff, lets refocus on the goal of being prepared, self reliant badasses.
So keep training guys. Keep getting out there and perfecting our craft. We have a very temporary reprieve that I don’t see lasting for more than a few months. So keep your foot on the pedal and keep going forwards. Do not get stuck in the rut that many of the aforementioned guys are falling into.
As always, thank you all for following along on this journey. I am constantly learning and applying things to work for my situation and plans. Please keep doing the same.
Good work Jay! Looking forward to 25’