Whether it was the basement, garage, or a dedicated room in the house, my wife has been pretty tolerant of my need for a “kit and crap” space throughout our 23 years of marriage. Back when I was on active duty, it made perfect sense since I was constantly in and out for schools, FTXs, or deployments. Not much changed after I retired, as I continued traveling the country for training and started working as a contractor in the PSD/EP world.
After years of hoarding while on active duty, my kid finally convinced me to thin out my “shit show” in retirement. An unexpected PCS with my wife helped me declutter even more. What used to take up a 16’x28’ barn filled with A3 duffle bags, Gorilla Boxes, and Pelican cases has now become my current War Room.
Organization is key—years of dumpster-diving through the barn before FTXs or deployments taught me that lesson the hard way. I think I’ve got a decent system now, but there’s always room for improvement.
Here’s how I manage my kit:
Guns: Most go in safes, but not all of them.
Ammo: “GO” ammo is stored in the house, while training and other ammo are kept in the garage.
Gear: 1ea gear bag & Rubbermaid tote per colorway (MC or ODG), labeled accordingly, since these are my primary color schemes.
Comms: Stored battery-free—on helmets, in the range bag, or on standby in the Comms Box.
NVDs: Stored in large Faraday bags, with one set in a Pelican case and another in the gun safe.
Extras: Med supplies, MREs, Cases of H2O, kit and gun repair parts and excess bits are all kept in labeled bins.
Armor & Gun Belts: Hung and ready to grab off the wall.
Someone needs to open a consulting business or organization kits for this sort of thing. I’ve tried so many times, with totes, boxes, lids, hooks, labels and I still can’t find a thing. Have plenty of space, but that’s the issue it all just spreads out to fill available space.
I sold off a ton of kit… Lots of old PCs/ pouches and then gave a bunch away as well to young troops that I knew. Hell, even the CAP got a bunch of free kit since they where ABU/ACU.
Thinning the heard and removing 90-2000s tech kit that was beyond outdated cleared up a lot of room.
Removing nostalgia kit (old SWAT Black and Tri-color desert) helped as well.
Thinning out 30-used Caamelbak bladders, old beat to shit ALICE gear, etc
I thought it would be a duanting task when we first jumped into it, but eventually it got super simple.
Break down everything and sort it by type and color… then break it down by Go, No Go, No idea… Eventually I had Hefty bags of shit to get rid of and only 1/4 of the original cluster fuck was left to keep.
Even that which I kept got thinned out even more when we got down to TX when I realized I’d kept ALL the soft/ hard armor and I sure s shit didn’t need it all.
Funny thing was I knew I had a ton of kit but I never realized just how much useless was in those bags and boxes.
Since then I’ve Org’d it to the point where I can probably find 90% of my shit that I want to find right now if needed.
That other 10% though… uggh
