Royal Army College

Lesson Overview

This course teaches you to stay alive and effective in the field. It begins not with shelter, water, fire, or food, but with the mind, because the histories of survival show that the decisive factor is rarely skill. People with skill have perished for lack of will; people with little skill have come through on determination and clear thinking alone.

So we start with two things that underlie every skill the course will teach: an understanding of the survival situation, and the will to survive. Master these and you will use whatever skills you have to the full. Lack them and you may perish despite your skills.

By the end you will be able to explain what a survival situation is and the calm thinking it requires; explain why panic is the great early danger and how to meet the situation calmly; explain why the will to survive is the most important survival factor; explain how the will is sustained and what erodes it; and approach the rest of the course as the servants of a sound survival mind.

Key Terms

Survival situation: a situation in which a person must stay alive and effective in the field with little, threatened by the elements and the lack of what life needs, and must act to bring themselves and others through to safety.
The survival mind: the calm thinking and determined will that meet a survival situation; the decisive factor, more than skill.
Calm, clear thinking: meeting the situation without panic and reasoning out what to do; the foundation of sensible action.
Panic: the loss of calm and clear thinking in the face of danger, leading to senseless action, wasted resources, and worse.
The will to survive: the inner determination to come through and not give up; the most important survival factor.
Sustaining the will: maintaining the will against what erodes it, through purpose, hope, and the discipline of small goals.

What a survival situation is, and the calm it requires

A survival situation is one in which a person must stay alive and effective in the field with little, threatened by the elements and the lack of what life needs, and must act to bring themselves and others through to safety.

For a soldier of a small humanitarian home-defence force, it arises in the course of the Army's tasks: cut off by a flood, stranded by a storm, lost or delayed on a search, working far from support for longer than expected. Two things mark it out. There is threat, the cold, wet, heat, and exposure that can harm or kill. And there is lack, the shelter, water, and rest that must be found or made. The situation demands action, not passivity.

The first response is calm, clear thinking. Survival is a matter of doing the right things in the right order, and that requires a clear head. Meet the situation calmly and you can assess the threats and lacks, set priorities, and act on them. Meet it in panic and you cannot. This is harder than it sounds, because a survival situation is frightening and the instinct is to panic. But everything that follows rests on it. The situation is met first with the mind.

Panic, the great early danger

Panic is the great early danger. It strikes at the very moment you realise your plight, and it undermines everything after.

Panic is the giving-way to fear that overwhelms the mind. It is a natural response, but a deadly one, because it destroys the clear thinking sensible action requires. The person in panic acts on impulse: rushing off without thought, exhausting themselves uselessly, abandoning the things they need. Effort and resources that should be spent wisely are squandered. At worst, panic turns a survivable situation into a fatal one through a single rash act that a clear head would have avoided.

The antidote is to stop and think. Pause before acting rather than rushing in. Take stock of the threats, the lacks, and the resources you have. Plan the sensible action, the priorities in order, and only then act. This deliberate response replaces impulse with judgement. It is the first survival skill, and harder than any technical one, because it works against instinct. Learn to meet the situation this way and you have laid the ground for everything the rest of the course teaches.

   THE SURVIVAL MIND (the decisive factor, more than skill)

   THE SITUATION: stay alive & effective with LITTLE,
   threatened by the elements + lacking what life needs.

   FIRST RESPONSE: meet it CALMLY, not in PANIC.
   PANIC -> destroys clear thinking -> senseless action -> wasted
            effort/resources -> WORSE.
   ANTIDOTE: STOP. THINK. Assess threats, lacks, resources. PLAN
   the sensible action (priorities in order). THEN act.
              |
   THE WILL TO SURVIVE: the determination NOT to give up;
   the MOST IMPORTANT survival factor. People with skill have
   perished for lack of it; people with little skill have survived
   through it. Sustained by PURPOSE, HOPE, and SMALL GOALS.

   The skills (shelter, water, fire, food, being found) serve a
   sound survival mind. Without the mind, the skills are little use.

The will to survive, the most important factor

The will to survive is the inner determination to come through and not give up: the refusal to surrender to hardship, despair, or the temptation to stop trying. It is the most important survival factor of all, more than any skill.

The histories of survival prove it. People with skill have died for lack of will, surrendering to despair and ceasing to try while their skills could still have saved them. People with little skill have lived on sheer determination, finding ways through that their training alone could never have shown them. The decisive factor is often not what you know but whether you refuse to give up.

This is because survival is usually a prolonged ordeal. Meeting it takes not only the skills to deal with threats and lacks but the determination to keep using those skills, hour after hour, when the easy thing is to stop. The will animates the skills: a person set on coming through uses every skill and resource to the full, while one who has given up uses none. The skills serve a person with the will to use them, and the will, in the end, decides who comes through. That is why this course places it above all the techniques it teaches.

Sustaining the will to survive

The will to survive is not fixed. Over a prolonged ordeal it can be sustained or worn away, so you must know how to protect it.

Three things erode it. Despair, the loss of belief that you will come through. Hopelessness, the sense that trying is useless. And exhaustion, the wearing-down of body and spirit that makes stopping ever more tempting. Against these stand three sustaining forces.

The first is purpose: a reason to come through. The people who depend on you, the things you are determined to come back to, the resolve not to let others down. Purpose gives the will its strength.

The second is hope: the belief that you can come through, that the situation is not beyond saving and that effort is worthwhile. Hope rests on a sound foundation, the knowledge that survival situations are survivable and that people come through them. Hold to it and you keep trying; lose it and you give up.

The third is the discipline of small goals. The whole ordeal, taken at once, can seem overwhelming. Broken into the next task, the next step, getting through the next hour or the next night, it becomes achievable. Each small goal met gives strength for the next, and so you cross the ordeal a step at a time rather than drowning in its whole.

Purpose, hope, and small goals together carry the will through. This is the foundation the course is built on: the survival situation met with the survival mind, the calm thinking that overcomes panic and the sustained will that refuses to give up. Everything taught from here serves that mind.

In Practice: The Two in the Same Plight

Two soldiers of the Royal Kaharagian Army are cut off in the same plight after a flood, stranded in the field with little and having to bring themselves through to safety. They have much the same skills. What separates them is the survival mind.

The first feels the instinct to panic, as anyone would, and overcomes it. They stop and think: assessing the threats and lacks, taking stock of what they have, planning the priorities in order before acting. They hold to their purpose, the people they mean to come back to; they hold to hope, knowing such situations are survivable; and they cross the ordeal by small goals, the next task, the next hour. Animated by the will to come through, they use every skill they have to the full and find ways through. They come through, not because their skill was great, but because their mind carried them and let their skill work.

The second panics. The clear thinking goes, and senseless action follows: rushing off without thought, wasting effort and resources, worsening their plight. As the ordeal wears on, despair and hopelessness set in, and with no purpose, hope, or small goals to hold the will steady, they give up. Their skills, the equal of the first soldier's, go unused, because a person who has surrendered does not use them.

Same plight, same skills, different outcome, decided by the mind. That is why this course begins where it does.

Check Your Understanding

What is a survival situation, in terms of threat, lack, and the action it demands? Why is calm, clear thinking the foundation of sensible survival action, and why is it harder than it sounds?
Why is panic the great early danger, and what does it lead to? Describe the deliberate stop-and-think response and explain why it allows the sensible action the situation requires.
Why is the will to survive the most important survival factor, more than any skill? Use the truth that people with skill have perished for lack of it while others with little skill have survived through it. Then explain how the will is sustained, and what erodes it.

Reflection (write a short paragraph): This lesson holds that the most important survival factor is not skill but the will to survive, sustained through purpose, hope, and the discipline of taking things a step at a time. Think about these beyond survival, for any long, hard ordeal you might face in life. When you are worn down, what sustains your determination to keep going, and what erodes it? Be honest about whether you have, or could build, those inner resources. Then describe one way you could begin building them now, so that in a survival situation, or any prolonged ordeal, you would have the will to come through.

Summary

A survival situation means staying alive and effective in the field with little, threatened by the elements and the lack of what life needs, and acting to bring yourself and others through. For this Army it arises on task: cut off by flood, stranded by storm, lost on a search. It is met first with calm, clear thinking, because survival demands the right things done in the right order, and that takes a clear head.
Panic is the great early danger: it strikes early, destroys clear thinking, and leads to senseless action that wastes effort and can turn a survivable situation fatal. The antidote is to stop and think, pause, assess threats, lacks, and resources, then plan the priorities before acting. This is the first survival skill, harder than any technical one because it fights instinct.
The will to survive, the determination to come through and not give up, is the most important survival factor, more than any skill. People with skill have perished for lack of it; people with little skill have survived through it. It animates the skills, for a person set on coming through uses them to the full while one who has given up uses none.
The will can be eroded by despair, hopelessness, and exhaustion, and must be sustained against them by purpose (a reason to come through), hope (the belief that you can, grounded in knowing such situations are survivable), and the discipline of small goals (crossing the ordeal a step at a time).
The foundation of survival is the survival mind: calm thinking that overcomes panic, and a sustained will. The skills this course teaches serve that mind. The lessons that follow build on it: the priorities of survival (Lesson 02), shelter (Lesson 03), water (Lesson 04), fire (Lesson 05), food (Lesson 06), being found (Lesson 07), and disciplined field living (Lesson 08). It rests in turn on the field-living foundations of Recruit Training (RMT 101) and the carer's-mind teaching of the College's other courses.

The Survival Situation and the Will to Survive