Concrete Jungle: A Green Beret's guide to Urban Survival

I have extensive wilderness survival training, and have worked as a wilderness guide, so I come to this with some basic education. I wanted to learn more about urban considerations, so I picked this up. Maybe I was expecting too much, but even though this is a fun read and contains useful info, I'm left wanting more.The tone is humorous and the writing is clear and easy to digest. The structure is clear and logical, and the layout makes sense. All good things in an instructional manual. On the downside, the pages have huge margins, and the book could be packaged in about half the size and still loose nothing in readability. They clearly used every trick to pump up the page count and make the book seem larger. This pisses me off, and is misleading. I read this in two evenings.The book covers all the areas I wanted to learn about, but lightly. It just skims over a few main points and moves on to the next section. I learned just enough to interest me in hearing more, without any indication of where I could go next. There is no references section, no other reading suggestions, no leads on what a next step after reading this book would be.If you're starting from nothing, this book might impress you. However if you're more experienced, this is probably going to get you interested in the author's point of view without providing much of substance. It's a little frustrating to encounter a well written book from an obviously knowledgeable author that just lightly covers a subject, but that's what this is.

I would like to thank Clay for having the foresight and thoughtfulness to write such an thoroughly informative book for those of us who would not reap the benefit of military training, if not for you.As for this book (& it’s follow up, Prairie Fire)…it (they) are a MUST READ if you are planning to survive the (seemingly inevitable) upcoming chaos.Clay is (IMO) a writer with a gift for seamlessly intertwining captivating stories with detailed information which is not only easy to digest, but in a condensed form. I found myself repeatedly wanting to read more. Most notably when I knew I should pause and digest the previous info, because it’s that relevant.Do yourself a favor and read all of his books, both non-fiction and fiction. You won’t be disappointed.

I have been around the community looking to the horizon for the next fracture since we were called "survivalists", and so have seen the spectrum of presumed conflict change dramatically over the years. In that time, I have read survival manuals, memoirs, FM/TMs ad infinitum, and heard the advice of geniuses and fools. Most material on the matter is either immediately technical ("What caliber...") or atmospherically theoretical. Martin does an outstanding job of threading the needle, and he does it as one who has BT,DT. No fat on this treatise, no abstraction, no useless verbiage, yet not without a certain art.SF types in general tend to be better instructors with better rates of retention than most college professors, and Martin has both been well-trained and done the training for others. His advice on shooting and how to act when it all starts moving fast and getting loud is top-notch, often displaying truths that are counter-intuitive but incapable of being denied. Often, what he says is backed by anecdotes of when it was done by him or in his presence, and here the little "sanitized" snippets of stories stand out as illustrations. He keeps the advice realistic for regular people so it stays within the realm of the possible and never sugar coats the reality that the odds are stacked against the individual. If you get told this path is easy, burn the book and permanently ignore the author. Martin is having none of it, but he's also not giving you the first fifteen minutes of Full Metal Jacket.This book was written in 2019 but calls shot after shot that is directly relatable to events that happened as recently as last night (no, seriously. Literally last night) and if you didn't know better you might think he has precognition. Not true, but it appears so because the wealth of his experience is well-founded enough that it likely prepared him for just about anything. He can't give you that unless you burn body and soul in the same sort of fires he walked out of, but this book is a superlative indicator of how you can at least approach that heat and survive. A bundle of paper is unlikely to have ever saved a life, but if you do your part and take the advice therein, then put in the indicated work, you can make it out and possibly even prevail.Can not recommend more highly. Waiting on the next thing he writes. Buy this. Buy it now, then get to work. You likely do not have as much time as you think. Clay Martin is an asset in your library and you'd be a fool to walk away from the purchase.

If you want to know about ammo or how to form a platoon or especially how great the Green Berets are this is fine it does have some useful info in it but as we live in a progressively unstable environment it’s relevance to outside the US and simple social breakdown is limited

Some people think about what might happen during periods of increasing or sustained lawlessness.Others ponder a descent into times when the government can't maintain its monopoly on violence.The author certainly has pondered much of this and more and shares much of his thoughts and recommended actions based on the perspective of finding oneself in an urban or semi-urban environment. But these aren't just random thoughts from some anon crank -- though the prose is stream-of-consciousness at times, very conversational, and rife with grammatical and spelling errors. The author was a member of a US Army special forces carrying out operations in Iraq and other locations and applies this sort of thinking and experience to this brief survey of the considerations both in preparation and execution that one needs before and when things go south.As you'd expect, guns and ammo get a lot of airtime but the author is also sensible enough to realize that one can easily over-torque here, overlook proper preparations, and neglect even more fundamental considerations. An eye-opening part of the conversation, for example, is about establishing a community and encouraging people in these communities to assume certain roles which are analogues to the roles within a green beret A-team. Almost like a Benedict Option without the mutual signalling or complete separation (at least initially). This is quite interesting by itself and when joined with occasional stories and a style that is more barracks-and-field speak including the friendly ribbing it makes for compelling stuff at time.The fact that this is a survey isn't held against the book and there is a lot of good recommendations on specific equipment by brand and discussion of fighting styles and training that is extra useful for immediate action but will grow old quickly. But the whole format is a little better suited to blog entries than printed page format.Solid 3 perhaps 4 stars. All the grammatical errors and poor layout hurts the ratings -- spellcheck, proper page layouts, and simple page numbering addresses 90% of these problems.Another simple improvement would be to have more anecdotes and stories (first hand and relayed) to illustrate points. Those that are relayed in the book make the read very enjoyable and interesting and, in some cases, quite funny. So the author has skill, experience, and story talents that might be combined better but here does produce something worth recommending.

Realmente no sé ni cómo llegué a este libro. Desde luego, era un tema que siempre me ha interesado y el precio asequible para kindle, y las opiniones positivas, me hicieron comprarlo y, la verdad, no me arrepiento.Trata varios temas relacionados con la supervivencia en ciudad, da consejos útiles de una manera bastante amena y divertida. Pone énfasis en hacer desaparecer espejismos que sólo existen en nuestro cerebro (no hay Rambos en la vida real) y se nota el deseo sincero de transmitir en este libro el conocimiento que su vida dentro de los cuerpos de élite le ha legado.Su manera de contarlo se asemeja a la forma que tendría de contarlo un amigo de la infancia que justo acaba de llegar de servir en algún país lejano. De hecho, me jugaría una mano a que Clay es un buen tío y, sin duda, le pagaría una cerveza si pudiese.Hay muchas cosas que no son aplicables a Europa, donde la tenencia de armas está muchísimo más restringida que en USA, pero igualmente lo recomiendo.PD. Si eres un ofendido profesional, mejor busca otro libro.

A whole lot of military specific language and jargon that is hard for non-military types to comprehend.Poorly written but loaded with good information. It's like talking to the mechanic fixing your car vs talking to the counter person who sold you the work, rough around the edges but authentic feeling.Worth the money, bring some patience or have your served-in-Nam Uncle nearby to translate.

If you live in a city and are starting to think about preparing for what you need to do if/when things go tits up, this is a very good book for that.This guy knows his stuff.