Survival Knife

[steveperry]

I am certainly glad you mentioned that. I did a lot of looking into knives and really fell onto the Seal Pup. It size, durability, color, off the top of my head are things I looked at. I also have an Air Force Pilot's knife...you know the old school one. It works great for camping and such and I have a great edge on it. It is a cheap way to go if you are on a really tight budget but my thought it is is that it wont last more than one serious survival excursion, hence my carrying of the Pup. I certainly would like to hear more stories about its uses if you have them. I am an army guy so you will have to fill me in on what a VBSS is?

VBSS = Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure. Kind of like High Seas Highway Patrol. Following the invasion, we boarded and inspected every merchant vessel entering and exiting Iraqi waters. We looked for contraband coming in, and smuggled goods coming out. A lot of fuel was being smuggled out of the port cities (mostly Al-Faw) and sold on the black market.

As for "Tales of the the SOG Seal Pup", I really only have one story. In addition to boarding vessels, we also provided small boat security for Iraq's two oil terminals, Mina Al Bakir Oil Terminal (now Al Basra Oil Terminal), and Kwahr Al Abot (I may be wrong on the last one). We were tasked with keeping all surface traffic at least two miles away. This included the local fishing dhows (boats). They would always try to cut through the security zone to save fuel while coming in and out of port, and were often towing their nets. They would play dumb when we would come along side and order them away. Our Boarding Officer would tell me to take my knife (since most of the other guys carried multi-tools) and cut their nets. As soon as they saw the Seal Pup in my hand, headed towards their nets, their english improved dramatically. After a few days of that, all I had to do was pull the knife and point to their nets and they got the message.


[/long drawn out story]