An EDC to Enhance Your Human Capabilities

“Turn away if you’re not prepared for that fight in the right way. But if the fight is happening anyway and there’s no way to avoid it, go down biting, screaming, punching, kicking and anything else you can do to cause harm. Always pick your battlespace, prepare your defenses and have a way out if need be.“

Frank McRae (Former Army Special Operations)

You might be wondering how a watch can enhance human capability. Well, there are a few legitimate ways that a watch can do this.

The first is determining your distance of travel. Knowing that the average person walks at 3.1 miles per hour, you can get a rough estimate of your distance traveled by keeping track of when you started your commute or movement.

Pigging backing off the distance of travel, the second way to utilize your watch is for determining the direction of travel. During my time in the Marine Corps, we had to learn this method of navigation in case batteries died in the GPS and we lost or damaged our compass. For that reason, we all preferred to wear analog watches.

The third way is synchronization with your family and friends. As simple as it sounds, having a watch and being able to know what the current time is, what time you need to meet somewhere and then determining how long it will take to get there are valuable pieces of information to know.

Ares DIVER-1 Mission Timer

One of the best modern-day mission timers is the Ares DIVER-1. The DIVER-1 Mission Timer has a bezel designed as a countdown timer the rotates counterclockwise. The bezel starts at 55 and goes in 5-minute increments back to 0. The purpose of this design is to give you a quick look at your ‘time on target’ as they say in the military and other special mission units. Typically when running a mission you have a set amount of time to be on the target location before having to move

One of the other features that stand out on this mission timer is the lume. The C3 Superluminova lume used is clearly visible the entire night. For those actually running missions in the darkness of the night, this is a MUST. That cannot be said for many other timepieces. How about a 10-year battery life? Yep, the Ares DIVER-1 checks that box.

This longevity is critical to those in the military deployed who do not have access to a watch shop to replace the battery. Add to that a sapphire crystal, anti-magnetic rating and shock resistance and you have yourself a damn near bombproof mission timer to get you through any mission you run in your life.

Streamlight Protac 1L-1AA

A handheld flashlight can be used as an impact weapon if it gets close enough. If it’s dark out, shining the light at the threat may be enough to disorient them for a few seconds allowing you to get somewhere safe or to your vehicle to get the hell out of there.

If you’re adding a flashlight to your daily carry list, the Streamlight Protac 1L-1AA is small enough and adaptable enough to be your first choice. This small light really does pack in several big features. At 350 lumens of blinding light, you’re sure to temporarily stun any threat.

Powered by either 1 AA or 1 CR123 battery. Gone are the days of having to stock up on CR123 batteries. Having a tactical light that runs off of commonly found batteries is a gamechanger. When traveling, I can now locally source batteries for my light, versus having to pack extra batteries.

3 modes (high, low, and strobe) of light available. Any light you get that has multiple modes will take a few minutes of familiarizing yourself with the functionality before incorporating it into your daily carry. Take the time, learn how to manipulate the different modes, and you’ll gain increased confidence in both your gear and your capabilities.

SOG Trident AT

Growing up, my Dad and I watched MacGyver every week to see what new things he would do with his Swiss Army Knife to get out of a bind. From those early days, I would always watch my dad closely to see what he was going to fix next with his pocket knife. Regardless of what he was doing, he always had a knife on him. My Dad was a real-life MacGyver in my eyes.

He has since passed and I now have the knife that he carried in my office as a symbol of his ingenuity and never-quit attitude. Over the years, knife design has evolved for the better. One of those evolutions has resulted in the SOG Trident AT. As the latest update to SOG’s proven Trident design, the latest version is optimized to enhance the user’s capabilities in any critical situation, Trident AT fast open is only matched by its ability to support emergency rescue in critical situations.

So there you have it, an EDC to enhance your human capability. It doesn’t take much, just a few items along with the proper mindset.