What Clothing Sales are you looking at? Let me guess, Ft Jackson?

You'll def find them at Ft Benning Cloth Sales and most shoppettes (during Abn School) as well as Bragg Cloth Sales. Ranger Joes and US Cav usually carry them as well...although they mark them up (of course).

BTW .. squared away you're getting the packing list together early.
JM

WM: Sorry for not responding back to you earlier. I have solved the field note book problem by buying a cordura nylon Rite in the Rain 4x6 note book. I really like this one above the other varieties I saw. I got it from General Jackson's on a recent visit to Ft Bragg and the SWC museum. WM I think this field note book would meet your approval. Thanks for posting in.
Somedic

Glad to help.

WM: I carried my new field note book on a five mile ruck march over the weekend and it rides well in my hip pocket. I listened to the advice offered members of this forum who took the time to post in. For every one question you guys answer, I can think three more so please tolerate me until Im tabbed or dead.
somedic

Are you a Special Operations Medic?

Pm sent.
 

PM headed your way NDD.

Not any more.

TR

This is an offshoot from the original post, but I haven't been able to find anything that would write well on this type of paper. The best I could find was a pencil, but that kind of defeated the purpose of using waterproof paper. Any suggestions?

Ird: The feild pens sold in most clothing sales works well for me. I have also found that a 0.5 mechanical pencil works ok if you dont have to erase to often.
haztacmedic

Depending on your AO, a pencil may not be a bad solution. When it gets cold, ink pens don't flow very well. Plain old wooden pencils are also handy in that there are no moving parts to break, they're easy to sharpen with just a pocket knife, and they can write on a wider variety of surfaces. In a pinch, you can also crumble some of the graphite stick as expedient graphite lubricant for metal on metal joints.

You are correct. A pencil works well.

Why does that defeat the purpose of waterproof paper? The purpose of waterproof paper is so that it doesn't turn into a soggy ball of crap when you are doing land nav in the rain.

You know, when the US decided to launch a man into space, NASA spent an enormous amount of money developing a pen that would write in zero gravity. You may have seen them in stores labeled as a "SPACE PEN." Even then, they don't work that great...I've used one.

You know what the Russians did?

They used a pencil. Saved the cost and it works 100% of the time. Plus you can fix mistakes.

Occam's Razor. Most of the time, the simplest solution is the right one.
Keep this lesson, it will serve you well throughout your career in SF.

Bottom line, a mechanical pencil with 5mm lead works great.

This doesn't diminish your post one bit, but FYI (and IIRC) Sir, the Russians used ballpoint pens. The reason it worked was because of surface tension on the tip.

The company says it took Fisher about 2 years and $2 million to develop the space pen.

Prior to 1967, there were no pens that worked in space so there were pencils used, but there were concerns about pencil dust floating around the space capsules as well as fears that if the tip of a pencil broke off and drifted into the electronics, there would be problems.

The full story has been debunked (snopes, etc), but it's there as an example.

Bottom line, NASA's problem with the pencil, won't be an issue for you walking in the woods...

JM

Sir, I don't know who's right - and it doesn't matter enough to wrestle over it. Like I said, your example holds true either way.

The source was Pedro Duque, astronaut for the European Space agency. Comment written 23rd October 2003.

With that said, I'd like to say thank you for enriching this board.

I will probably order your book when I've resettled, it seems very interesting.

Thanks for the information, guys.

Looks like I need to stick with my pencil. I've tried space pens, but haven't had much luck using them on waterproof paper. They seem to slide all over the paper.

My earlier comment about a pencil defeating the purpose of waterproof paper was focused more on my use of them. I bought my notebook to record landmarks and draw simple maps when hiking and fishing. Pencil lead rubs off this paper much faster than other paper. It's great for the short term, but I have to copy everything over if I want to keep it. Then I have to laminate that paper if I want to carry it back out with me. I wanted to eliminate that duplication.