Ka-Bar 1211: blade of heroes

​With over 25,000 knives available for sale in the US incorporating over 50 blade types, making a choice can be overwhelming. To say the least. Which is why people collect. But then the problem with collecting is most of the items within the collection never see use because you’ll always have one or two go-to favorites. One of my personal quests across every facet of my life is to find that perfect “one”…the perfect pair of jeans, the perfect pair of boots, the perfect t-shirt, the perfect jacket, the perfect wallet, the perfect belt, the perfect motorcycle, the perfect sidearm etc etc and of course THE perfect knife. I’m an advocate of the binary code philosophy, the law of one or zero. It’s either that one perfect item, or it’s nothing. And of course there’s no one size fits all, my perfect boots aint gonna be yours, and vice versa, which is why we live in the great land of choice and individualism and not some banana republic dictatorship where we all need to wear grey polyester suits or go around with our underwear on our heads. Life is good in the Land of Kings (and Queens). But I still feel beleaguered by the quantity of crap in my life, and what crap I can’t fit in my house I have in a rented storage unit, or in totes in the basement, or in boxes under the bed, or on shelves in the garage and if it all vanished tomorrow I’m not sure I could list 10 things that I missed (or remembered I owned). Don’t get me wrong, our current economical structure is firmly constructed on consumerism and the worst thing that could happen would be if we all stopped shopping, but I’m just talking me personally. With that in mind, if out of the blue I got a call from the TV show “Alone”, or if my life suddenly went tits up and I needed to find solace in solitude and head off on foot to a forest cabin like Jeremiah Johnson, what would I haul with me? Short of a logging road and an 18 wheeler brimming with all my junk, it’d be a game trail and 40 liter backpack bearing that “one” best of everything. Okay, so the backpack is packed and I open my box of knives to select the best blade…hmmmm…damn…what do I take? It’s gotta be 1095 steel because it holds a razor edge and can be sharpened on a smooth stone, and I don’t want to be carrying a knife sharpener that’ll wear out or get lost. It has to have a long enough blade to cover a range of duties like shaving, cutting twigs for tinder, filleting fish and dressing game. It has to be rigid and robust because I’ve had a folding knife close on my fingers before and injury in the field is a serious no-no. It has to have a grippy handle so rain and suchlike don’t cause slippage. Oiling 1095 steel is important but any animal fat or oil will do the job, and 1095 Cro Van is a step up in corrosion resistance without any noticeable loss of other qualities. Oh, and it has to be American steel and innovation because I wouldn’t trust the forest gods to bless my passage otherwise. Interestingly, despite there being 25,000 knives on the market, there’s only a couple of manufacturers who make something that fits that bill, and one of them has been around for decades faithfully serving our uniformed services in theater: Ka-Bar. Though it lacks all the fancy features and bling of many modern tactical knives, it’s a handsome devil and about as durable and practical as a hammer. It comes in a variety of subtle variations including a stacked leather or Kraton handle (I like the rubberized Kraton), serrated or clip point blade (I prefer the latter), a short or long bladed version (I prefer the long/7”) and polymer of leather sheath (leather is my preference as it’ll hold oils and help deter rust). So, if you’re like me and have a desire for the binary code of life possessions, you may want to include the Ka-Bar Full-Size Black Fighting/Utility Knife with Leather Sheath (7" Plain blade) - just Google “Ka-Bar 1211” - in your quest for the “one” perfect knife, I think it’ll serve you as well as it’s served our fighting men on the front lines since WWII. This indeed may be the blade of heroes. AW