Hope this is the right thread for this post. I'm new here, found this site by searching using light + weight + backpacking. This really got my interest because I've always been a proponent for the advantages of packing as light as possible, while not sacrificing safety to save a few ounces.
Even in the military, I fought hard for shaving as much weight as possible, while still being able to accomplish the mission at hand, without sacrificing the ability to acomplish said mission. Usually just ended up with me banging my head against the wall, but I'm getting off my own topic.

First let me explain: When I say survivalist, I'm not talking about someone hunkered down in a bunker with 50K rounds of ammo and 10 years worth of food and water, waiting for the Mayan Calander to end the world.

I'm referring to those who have had at least minimal, up to expert levels of formal training, to survive the type of terrain that you'll be trekking through, no matter what kind of unexpected gremling jumps up and steals your gear and compass. (Yes compass, surely you use your GPS as a back-up, not a primary means of navigation, if you carry one, and know orientation techniques using a compass and at least some form of map).

I'm just curious, as I run into so many people who have no idea what to do "when all else fails" but consider themselves advanced or even experts. I've also had the unpleasant task of having to help locate and recover bodies, whose lives were literally wasted for lack of even rudimentary training.

Anyway, I'm just curious how others on this forum feel about this, and what training they may or may not have. I'm sure many of you who may be prior military or work in the rescue or ranger field or something related have had training. I often cringe when people I know tell me they are going to X location, with absolutely no idea of handle themselves in that environment.

Myself, I spent 20 years in the military, and am confident in just about any envioronment except mountaineering in extreme cold weather environments. I'm also not an experienced climber, mountain, ice or otherwise. The bulk of my training is desert (my prefered environment) woodland and jungle.
And even with some of the best training taxpayers can buy, I by no means consider myself infallible, by any measure. In fact, I'm still learning all of the time.

Not meaning to pontificate from a soapbox, so I'll leave it at that. Just curious about other's thoughts on this subject.

Thanks,
J.
P.S. (Edit) This months issue of Backpaking is dedicated to survival, when things go bad, then from bad to worse...