P.F.D. – Personal and Family Defense

In The Itinerant Soul, P.F.D. stands for Personal & Family Defense.

It also stands for Personal Flotation Device — something you hope you never need, but are grateful to have when conditions change. A PFD is a very useful thing. The title came to me because of my years of boating, sailing, and waterborne law enforcement. P.F.D. is about being prepared.

This section is about practical readiness, personal safety, resilience, self-reliance, judgment, and the quiet responsibility of looking after yourself and the people who depend on you.

The tone here is not fear. It is preparation.

For me, this subject began early. I grew up in the woods and fields of western Pennsylvania, where learning to shoot and being comfortable around firearms was simply part of life. Over the years, that early familiarity became part of a broader background in aviation, bush flying, law enforcement, flight instruction, firearms instruction, and personal responsibility.

Firearms are not the whole of family defense, and they are not always necessary for family defense. But I do believe that if firearms are present in a household, someone in that family should be knowledgeable, trained, calm, and responsible in their use.

This section will include basic firearms knowledge where appropriate, but it will also explore situational awareness, avoidance, travel safety, practical readiness, emergency thinking, and the larger question of what “defense” really means.

The goal is not to make people fearful. The goal is to help people think clearly before life requires them to think quickly.