Originally Posted by
KC8QVO
Sewing and duct tape are first aid for gear. P38 is next to nothing in space/weight also - still very handy to have.
Again, everyone's "kit" should be customized to them. Whether you consider all items as strictly "first aid" for you or "handy to have/survival gear" also - make it what you want so it suits.
Thanks for clarifying the novel definition of "first-aid," which in parlance applies to the person.
During my recent tour I managed to lose my P38 the first evening. I was about to cook on the concrete pad in front of one of the Adirondack shelters at Connellsville on the GAP. I unpaked my cooking gear and set everything on the edge of the wood planked shelter floor but couldn't find the P38 to save my life. That's when I broke out the headlamp and discovered that it had managed to fall between the smallest of gaps in the shelter floor and was irretrevable. Stomped back to the nearby supermarket and bought a min-opener, which I would not figure out how to use. Fortunately, another camper had a full-size opener that he let me use. I finally bought a decent opener a few days later. But now I have to replace the P38, and my local Army-Navy store went out of business last year.