Book Review:
The Personal Security Pocket Book
By: Rupert Godesen
AUTHOR: The Personal SecurityPocket Book is written by Rupert Godesen. Rupert has been a soldier in the Reserves for over 23 years, he has served on operations in Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan and travelled all over the world on exercises to teach and for pleasure. He has worked with the firm that trained the BBC to assist with their hostile environment training. For six years, he conducted courses in the United Kingdom, as well as for the World Service in Islamabad, Delhi, Nairobi and New York in this capacity before starting his own training company called HASP Training. The Personal Security Pocket Book is an informative guide that is illustrated throughout with images and infographics by Rupert himself and is a distillation of all of the author’s experiences and knowledge gleaned throughout his career.
WHO IT IS WRITTEN FOR: As a general primer, this pocketbook contains information for anyone who is planning travel overseas. The guide contains a lot of useful and common sense information that will serve beneficial to a broad spectrum of people. The guidebook follows a narrative from the first page and explores looking at ways travellers of all kinds -be they corporate lawyers, oil executives or gap year students- and ways they can mitigate potential risks to themselves while overseas.
TOPICS COVERED: General Travel Tips; Risk Management; Common Threats/Trends; Personal Security; Pre-Trip Planning; Living & Working in Unfamiliar Environments; Using an Interpreter Effectively; In Your Hotel; Out & About; Vehicle Security & Checkpoints; Weapons; Mines; Kidnap & Ransom; and miscellaneous Resources as such Medical kits; Grab bags, etc.
OVERVIEW: The small pocket guide contains some very useful information and can come in quite handy anytime one plans a trip overseas. A lot of the topics covered are based in common sense. However, common sense is not always common practice. For example, the author offers some very practical advice on how to hail a taxi in a foreign airport that one may not think of when actually faced with the situation. Suggesting tips like not following the driver into a dark parking lot and into the unknown and instead getting the driver to bring the cab around to the front of the terminal; agreeing to the price of the fare before you get in; and ensuring that the driver knows where he’s going so if he gets lost you have a strong argument for not getting ripped off for more money.
That said, there is also information that may not be commonly known or might not have been considered before. For instance, some countries, i.e. Russia, require an HIV/AIDS clearance certificates before entry. The guidebook can also be an entertaining read at times, especially when the author sprinkles in funny and informative anecdotes from his own travels and experiences. For instance, a good takeaway for any foreign visitor to the US is to have the name, address, and phone number of the US citizen who will be hosting you to avoid a third degree interrogation from immigration authorities upon entry, as the author did.
SUMMARY: Overall, this book is perfect for those who are not regulars to foreign travel and for the non-security minded. As an experienced security professional, this book should not prove to be too enlightening a read, but where it does have a place is a practical guidebook, which you can refer your clients to as essential reading before deploying to a hostile or unknown work environment.
This book can be purchased direct from Book Sellers via ISBN number: 978-1-874528-21-0, or Amazon & Ebay. It is also available as a free app download via the Military Pocket Books APP on the Apple App Store and Google Play, Amazon App Store for Android
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