During the recent Battle of Marjeh, my company was one of two US Army Stryker Infantry Companies attached to the Marines operating throughout the area.  During this operation, we came under heavy enemy contact in rough terrain on multiple occasionsIn the middle of combat operations, the ground underneath one of my Stryker ICVs gave way, causing the vehicle to roll into a canal.  The quick recovery of this vehicle was essential to the success of our mission and the safety of my men.  Fortunately, several of my men had your knives (either Tigersharks or Seal Pups).  Your large combat blades were tough enough to cut through the dense brush and vines that blocked us from hooking our truck up to get it dragged out.  I have a picture of the aftermath and the type of branches we had to hack through.  Your blades helped make it happen, and because of that we continued the operation.  Thank you for your high quality product.

Check out a photo of the aftermath he shared with us.

Knives, multi-tools will be used on Big City Mountaineers wilderness outings

02.08.2010 – Denver, Colo. – SOG Specialty Knives and Tools, LLC, a leading manufacturer and marketer of specialty knives and tools, has donated knives and multitools to Big City Mountaineers, a nonprofit dedicated to enhancing the lives of under-resourced urban teens through transformative outdoor experiences.

BCM will use the multitools and knives in its summer wilderness programs, which match five at-risk teens with five adult mentors for a week of backpacking or backcountry canoeing.

“On our more than 50 weeklong wilderness trips in 2010, it’s important that we have reliable equipment,” said BCM executive director Syd Jones. “The high quality of SOG knives will help us maintain the safety of our teams in the field. We have been looking for a river knife for our Boundary Waters canoe trips, and the SOG Pentagon perfectly fits our needs.”

Through all BCM’s programs, teens and mentors will spend more than 4,000 days in the backcountry in 2010. SOG’s knives and multitools will be utilized in many wilderness tasks, from camp kitchen use to fixing broken equipment.

“In addition to the truly transformative beauty of the outdoors, we believe the ability to experience the self-reliance and self-discovery that comes with outdoor adventures is a critically important component to the development of youth,” says Spencer Frazer, Founder and CEO of SOG Specialty Knives and Tools. “We are delighted to be able to play a part in helping Big City Mountaineers advance their mission of enhancing the lives of urban teens and look forward to a long and meaningful engagement with this innovative program.”

About SOG
SOG was founded in 1986 by Spencer Frazer, a former R&D tool and die maker for the Top Secret Black Projects Division of the aerospace defense industry. SOG’s name was inspired by an elite joint services military unit – the Studies and Observation Group – formed in advance of the Vietnam War to conduct covert operations and sanctioned to develop and purchase their own weapons. Since the introduction of its first products, SOG has become the favored brand for specialty knives and tools by the military, law enforcement personnel, industrial tradesmen and outdoorsmen worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.sogknives.com.

About Big City Mountaineers
BCM is one of the largest non-profits in the country devoted to working exclusively with under-resourced teens by using the outdoors as a transformational element in their lives. BCM runs its recreational mentoring program in selected major urban centers throughout the country, with its largest program areas in Denver and San Francisco. Learn more at http://www.bigcitymountaineers.org.

Improvised In the Field Water Purification and Storage

Text and Photos by Brian Griffin

To me the SOG Team Leader Survivor is one of the best knives to come along in a very long time. It combines a great blade shape, wonderful edge geometry, and a fantastic fully functional saw all in one light-weight but stout little package. Recently I have been doing a lot of work with this knife using bamboo. This is a material for which the Team Leader Survivor is a natural choice. Using this one knife I was able to make an improvised canteen as well as a pot and hanger system for boiling liquids all from bamboo with a minimum of exertion and energy expense.

The canteen

In order to make a quick, improvised canteen or canister I just picked a large stalk of bamboo and using the saw spine cut off a complete cell that closed at both ends from the larger end of the stalk.

Then using the tip of the knife I opened one end of the cell and cleaned out the opening.

For the cap I cut a three inch section from the smaller end of the stalk.

The cap actually resembles a cup with a cell divider in a joint serving as a bottom, and in fact it can be used as a cup.

Tie some cordage such as parachute cord or twine made of natural fibers around one end and you can sling the canteen on or across your shoulders for travel or hand on a branch in camp.

The Pot and Hanger

For the boiling pot  the first thing I did was to pick out the largest diameter piece available and cut it to a length of one full cell, closed at one end but open at the other.

The very aggressive, non-directional saw made very quick work of this part of the task; this piece will be the boiling pot.

Then using the saw again I made two parallel cuts, about an inch apart, across the grain just below the rim of the open end.  Using the tip of the blade I connected the cuts at each end creating a square hole, and then I rotated the bamboo 180 degrees and repeated the same steps.

Next I cut a section of bamboo stalk a little less than an inch in diameter and roughly three feet long and passed it through the square holes in the pot.

This will be the support that holds the pot above the flames. Next I cut a couple of bamboo stalks to use for up-rights trimming off all but the bases of one set of limbs at the narrow end. These limbs form the “Y” to rest the support on.

I made the stalks a little taller than the pot and then once I had the fire going I just pushed them into the ground further to adjust the distance between the pot and the fire. Within twenty minutes I had the water boiling.

Image by Outdoor Life