Hawke's Special Forces Survival Handbook: The Portable Guide to Getting Out Alive [Paperback]

Hawke's Special Forces Survival Handbook: The Portable Guide to Getting Out Alive by Mykel Hawke is an excellent follow-up to his book Mykel Hawke's Green Beret Survival Manual: Essential Strategies For: Shelter and Water, Food and Fire, Tools and Medicine, Navigation and Signaling, Survival Psychology and Getting Out Alive! In this portable guide you will find a ton of useful and relevant survival information that is small enough to throw in with your gear to have as a valuable resource should your situation turn south.

In this great handbook Hawke will go over the essentials of survival to include:

Survival Psychology:
-Preparation
-Make a plan
-Never quit
-Expectation is the source of all unhappiness; but never give up hope

Shelter:
-Covers basic shelter designs such as an A-frame, tree shelter, swamp bed, ground based shelter, etc
-Reviews shelters for different environments such as the jungle, desert, arctic, seashore/island, woodlands, mountains, swamp and urban

Water:
-Water needs to be one of your first priorities
-Be aggressive in your pursuit of water
-Signs and symptoms of dehydration
-Making water safe for consumption
-Keys to finding water

Fire:
-Always carry a lighter on you and matches
-Alternative fire starting methods include Magnesium bars, magnifying glass, chemicals, fuel, electricity
-Primitive methods include friction, percussion, combustion (you will wish you had a lighter)

Food:
-Phases of starvation
-Hunting styles: Tracker, Waiter, Baiter, Ranger
-Snares and traps
-Fishing techniques
-Eating plants and plants to avoid
-The Universal Edibility Test
-Universal edibles
-Eating bugs - one of the best survival foods if you can get enough of them

Tools:
-Weapons to include a stick and knife
-Potential weapons include dirt, rocks, throw sticks, clubs, spears, slingshots, bow and arrow, bolas
-Tools include utensils, baskets, bowls, backpack frames
-Making rope and cordage
-Knots to include the overhand knot, half hitch, square, granny and Prusik knot

Navigation:
-Dead reckoning
-Maps and compasses
-Reading the sun, moon and stars
-Weather
-Estimating distance

Signals:
-Signals can include radios, lights, fire, smoke, mirrors, Morse code, etc.

First Aid:
-Anatomy and physiology
-Triage
-Pain
-Trauma medicine
-Hygiene
-Immunizations, diseases and antibiotics
-Real first aid to include CPR, shock, exposure, self treatment, sprains, strains, dislocations, fracture, cricothyroidotomy, amputation, bites

The book wraps up with Hawke's recommended survival kit items that you carry on your person and in your bug out bag.

Hawke's Special Forces Survival Handbook is a must have portable survival guide that is an excellent reference. Its small size makes it convenient and easy to carry as part of your gear. The book cover and internal pages are pliable yet durable so they will be able to handle some abuse as part of your gear. I highly recommend reading Hawke's first book mentioned above prior to reading this book as it goes into significantly more detail. This book will reinforce all the lessons of his first book and will provide excellent guidance during a survival situation.

I highly recommend Hawke's Special Forces Survival Handbook.

Like the cover says, a 'portable' guide. It's an extremely condensed version of Hawke's full edition. I own both and recommend them highly.

I've purchased three books on wilderness medicine (Auerbach, Forgey and Wilkerson) and two on outdoor survival methods (Cody Lundin, John Wiseman) in the last year. They are rated highly on Amazon; all have good information. However, Hawke's full edition is a Merck Manual, if you will, on outdoor survival. It's more comprehensive than any other survival book I own. This version, while eliminating a LOT from the full edition, is small enough to take with you. It's the one I take camping.

If I could buy only one book on survival, it would be Hawke's full edition. If I could buy two, I would add this one. The guy knows his stuff.

I caught "Hawke" on a survival show about Jungle Survival in the Amazon, it was on Netflix. I didn't know the guy but it was so informational and well done (and I really liked his machete) I went back to review the credits to find out who the guy was. That lead me to this book.

I purchased the "Kindle" edition (love Kindle) - and I just completed reading the whole book.

It was an enjoyable reading and learning experience. Having read the book - I feel like I am WAY more prepared for survival in any climate or situation that I was prior to simply reading the book. The information and insights are so straight forward and practical - usually these books have so much information to digest its overwhelming.

This is truly a "Handbook" - and I think he's written a "Bible/Encyclopedia" version prior to this one. I hope they make it available on "Kindle" because - I carry with Kindle with me all the time, I'm not going to have a "Library' with me in a survival situation - unless its on a Kindle, and I can have an ebook on my Laptop, Kindle or even Phone - so this life saving data in this format is portable and effective.

My recommendation - read it in either format, but make sure you have this Handbook available in Kindle format. Some of these things do require review and practice if you want to master the skills - that is to be expected - but after reading this - I can honestly say my odds of survival after just "reading" this book - has increased dramatically.

This is real life - life preparedness kind of things. This isn't a "combat" manual - it is a survival manual/handbook. Don't let the "Special Forces" tag through you off. This is real life, practical skills information.