Preparing for Speed Bumps: The Battle Book

**The Preparing for Speed Bumps printable Battle Book will be available again as soon as the blog redesign is completed. If you would like to purchase it in the meantime, please send me an email so I can invoice you through paypal 🙂 **

As my families Household 6, one of my biggest personal challenges with the Army is that I like to plan, to be prepared. And the Army is incredibly good at throwing a great big wrench into any plans we may make.

So, I’ve had to find ways to counter that by, basically, being prepared for anything. My number one tool in that is the Battle Book. I can’t remember the first person to tell me about the battle book but it has been refined and reorganized multiple times throughout  the last couple years. Whenever I hear an idea that sounds good, I incorporate that too.

This is not a military-only idea. A Battle Book is a good idea for anyone. It is a way of centrally locating information so that if something happens to you, the people around you providing support know what to do. It is a way of easing the challenge of life’s storms.

Here are the basics of my Battle Book.

Materials: I use a three ringed binder- one of the five star ones that has the cover that zips. I use tabs to separate the sections and page protectors for most of the pages. Small things are kept in the paper sized clear pencil holders designed to go in binders.

Sections
Opening Page- Index listing what is on each page
Contacts

• Mine and my husband’s names, address and cell phone numbers
• Unit Name and contact information (address and phone number for staff duty)
• A local emergency contact person with name, address and phone number
• Next of Kin Contact with name address and phone number
• Separate page listing who you would want contacted in the case of a casualty notification and their contact information signed by book owner.

Legal 

• POAs for General, Finance (DFAS specific if you are a military), Loan specific (give you the ability to handle loan payments, terms, etc), housing (ability to rent with the other person name on lease or break a lease), automobile, etc
• Multiple copies of the service member’s orders
• Wills for each adult
• Burial arrangements that have been predetermined by the service member and spouse and signed

Banking

• Current account info: Bank, account number
• Mortgage or Rental Lease Info
• Car Loan

Insurance 

• Page with each company name, policy number and contact information for homeowners/renters, auto, health, and life insurance
• Auto policies with copies of titles, insurance card copies, 
• Copies of the policies for each insurance

Children(for each child)

•  Child’s name
• Clinic/primary care doctor
• Medications
• Glasses/contact information
• Food Allergies
• Special Needs
• Outline of daily schedule
• List of all after school activities- as if someone else had to step in to handle your child’s day with no direction from you
• Pencil Pouch for each child: copy of birth certificate, shot records, prescriptions (glasses, medical), copy of social security card, deers enrollment, finger prints, tricare(or other insurance) card

Household

• Bills Outline: account info/number/ID, how each is paid (online/automatically), when each is due, contact info for each bill
• If you have pets: vet info, feeding schedule, microchip info, vaccination/shot record