My favorite things

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 There are (as I have mentioned before) both good and bad things about the FSLife. When it comes to the bad stuff, the best thing you can do for yourself, and in our case, the kids and I, is to be prepared for anything. Anything in this case includes a GO Bag, or Bugout Bag. If you are also in the FSLife, you are familiar with this item. You probably learned all about it in seminars for developing your own personal preparedness plan, at post or FSI. If you were somehow horribly unlucky and never got one of those seminars, there are a few links you should probably check out, like the page of information FLO has put together on how to put your own plan together.

  I have been going over my own bag, and I decided to share its contents here, so you can get an idea for what (if you're like me) you might want to put in your own bag. When we started this lovely adventure, the portion of the preparedness plan that covered Go Bags frankly sucked. A lot.** So, we took the basic information we were given and kind of expanded on it. At this time we have two GO Bags. The first bag is entirely dedicated to emergency, shelter in place or get out of dodge on foot/driving. It's the bag Mike would grab in the event of an emergency. I will not be covering that bag here, because it is a lot of stuff, more than I want  my two little goobers (who take every opportunity to get into things) to blow through like a hurricane after I have neatly arranged it all on a table in order to photograph. If I get ambitious, I may try to post an entry detailing our other GO Bag setup in another posting.

 The GO Bag I will be covering today is my bag for an UNEXPECTED DEPARTURE from post. An unexpected departure is an evacuation. There are two kinds of evacuations: authorized departure and ordered departure. Under an authorized departure, eligible family members and/or post employees may leave post in advance of normal rotation. Under an ordered departure, all eligible family members and U.S. Government employees not on post’s “drawdown” list must leave post. The bag below, barring some stuff that did not make it into the photo*, is my current GO Bag setup in the event of an evacuation from post. 


 You may be asking how I determined what was going into the bag. That's a very good question. How I came about answering for myself what to put into the bag was by treating the bag as if it were the only bag we were allowed to take with us, and by asking four questions:

What do the kids need for the flight out?
What do I need for the flight out?
What documentation/forms of payment do I need?
If I think of something to add to the bag, can it easily be replaced when we arrive at our final destination (CONUS)?

So, from left to right I give you the list of stuff in my bag (the bag is a 5.11 Tactical Rush 72 backpack):

Laptop
2 changes of clothing
2 kids underwear
2 pair socks
2 pair sunglasses (inside the socks)
1 set pajamas
3 onesies
2 Baby buddy secure-a-toy straps
1 pair infant/toddler novelty socks
Desitin, travel size
Annie's Fruit snack packs (for the picky eater)
Assorted small toys (crayons, top, rattle bracelet, stuffed dino)
Checkbook wallet for US (checkbook, store bonus/discount cards, CC, sim cards, US Driver's license)
Power Bank (depending on your needs you can get a cheapo or expensive model)
Prescription/OTC Medicine bag
Earplugs
Kindle
1 pair leggings
1 pair socks
i Pad
Changing pad
Accordion binder for important hard copy documents
Wallet for currency (Euro/USD), overseas sim cards
unlocked smartphone
US Passports
Dip Passports
Wipes!
coin purse
USB drives (digital files)

*Not pictured, but also in the bag:
20 diapers
3 collapsible water bottles (1 adult, 2 kids)
2 sippy cups
Luggage locks

This bag and its contents (as listed above) will fit in an overhead storage compartment with no problem. You would think all this stuff would fill the bag and leave room for nothing else, but that is not the case. There is actually even more room for additional clothing, snacks, toys etc.- this is just the stuff that has a guaranteed space in the bag if it does not already live there 24/7. As the kids get older, the items for them will likely change, but for now this is my current bag setup.

**The current FLO website actually has a nice basic setup for GO Bags now, so if you have not seen it yet, you should probably take a look at it.




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