Preparedness Notes for Tuesday — February 18, 2025

Today is the birthday of astronaut Theodore Cordy “Ted” Freeman (February 18, 1930 – October 31, 1964.)  He is pictured above with Buzz Aldrin. Ted Freeman and his wife Faith were friends of my mother and father.  Both my father (Donald Robert Rawles) and Ted Freeman were stationed at Bryan Air Force Base in the early 1950s, and they rented houses three blocks apart, in College Station, Texas. Both Ted and my father were born in the same year. The two families often played the card game Bridge together, and Faith and my mother were in a play production together. Oddly, the Freemans named their daughter Faith, and they often referred to her as “Faith, Junior.” (They couldn’t call her “Little Faith”, for fear of “Oh Ye of Little Faith” jokes.)  About ten years later, while training as an astronaut in the Gemini space program, Ted was killed in a catastrophic birdstrike flying accident, while flying a T-38 Talon jet trainer. He was the first casualty of NASA’s manned space program. Fittingly, Ted Freeman’s name is inscribed on a memorial plaque that was left on the moon, by Apollo astronauts. – JWR

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Today’s feature article is from frequent guest author Brandon Smith.

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We need more entries for Round 117 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. More than $950,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest.  Round 117 ends on March 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging. In 2023, we polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Please refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic.