The Light Fighter Homefront Initiative

The Problem

In February 2024, a misconfigured network element at AT&T knocked out service to 125 million devices across all 50 states. More than 92 million voice calls were blocked. More than 25,000 calls to 911 never connected. The outage lasted twelve hours.

Seven months later, Hurricane Helene killed more than 250 people across the Southeast. In western North Carolina, the storm severed more than 1,700 miles of fiber optic cable and knocked out more than half of all cell sites in Buncombe County. In many communities, amateur radio was the only reliable means of communication for days. 5.9 million customers across ten states lost power.

In January 2025, the Palisades and Eaton fires destroyed more than 16,000 structures in Los Angeles. Twenty percent of fire hydrants used to fight the Palisades fire ran dry. Evacuation gridlock on Sunset Boulevard required a bulldozer to clear abandoned vehicles.

In January 2026, Winter Storm Fern killed more than 150 people across the southern and eastern United States. Nashville Electric Service recorded the highest outage count in its history.

In 2024 alone, the United States recorded 27 separate billion-dollar weather disasters, totaling $182.7 billion in damage and 568 deaths. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave US energy infrastructure a D+ in 2025.

These are not anomalies. The power grid, water systems, and communications networks Americans depend on are failing more often, and more severely, than they were built to withstand.

Infrastructure is not the only thing failing. Data brokers track where Americans go and who they associate with, then sell that information to advertisers and government agencies. Congress renewed warrantless surveillance authorities under Section 702 in 2024. Police departments in thousands of jurisdictions deploy license plate readers and facial recognition systems with little public disclosure. State and local governments restrict land use, seize property through eminent domain, and pass firearms restrictions with increasing frequency.

At the same time, the basic functions of daily life run through systems that most Americans cannot operate, repair, or replace. Most households keep less than a week of food on hand. Cell service runs through towers owned by three carriers. Publishing and organizing happen on platforms that can suspend your account without explanation or appeal.

Americans once handled these things themselves. By 1944, an estimated 18.5 million Victory Gardens produced 40% of the nation’s fresh vegetables. First aid and civil defense training were standard in schools and civic organizations. The Civilian Marksmanship Program, established by Congress in 1903, taught rifle marksmanship to generations of American citizens. Town meetings and county assemblies were how communities governed themselves. Neighbors knew how to grow food, treat injuries, communicate without telephone lines, and maintain the systems they depended on.

That knowledge has largely disappeared. The skills still exist, but there is no local organization that teaches them or keeps them in practice. The Light Fighter Homefront Initiative (LFHI) is that organization.

What LFHI Is

The Light Fighter Homefront Initiative is a chapter-based training and community action network. Members train regularly in emergency medicine, communications, marksmanship, physical readiness, homesteading, and technical independence. Chapters put those skills to work through free public classes, disaster response, and civic engagement at the local level.

Any group of people can start a chapter. Chapters operate independently with no central authority, no headquarters, and no permission required. The model follows the same decentralized structure used by the Committees of Correspondence, the early church in Acts, and the Danish resistance in the early 1940s: local groups acting on their own initiative, connected by shared purpose instead of a chain of command.

Who It Is For

Anyone willing to learn, train, and serve. No prior experience required. The training starts at zero and takes you from the basics to teaching others.

Core Principles

Decentralization. Build skills that do not depend on centralized systems. When Hurricane Helene severed fiber lines in western North Carolina, communities with amateur radio operators could still communicate. Communities without them could not.

Freedom of Speech. Speak, publish, and share information without requiring permission from a platform, a government, or a corporation. Self-hosted infrastructure, encrypted channels, and independent publishing keep that ability in your hands, outside someone else’s terms of service.

Practical Independence. Every skill you gain replaces something you used to rely on someone else to provide. Host your own email instead of renting it from Google. Grow food instead of trusting a supply chain that breaks when you need it most. Proverbs 6:6-8: without having any chief, officer, or ruler, the ant prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest.

Community Multiplication. What you learn, you pass on. 2 Timothy 2:2 lays it out: what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also. Four generations in a single verse. The Navigators built an organization of over 4,600 staff in more than 100 countries on that model.

What It Is Not

• Not a militia. No command authority. Chapters train practical skills and serve their communities.
• Not a prepper group. The focus is on skills that transfer to your neighbors, not supplies that stay in your basement.
• Not a church group. LFHI is rooted in biblical principles of stewardship and service, but it is not a ministry or parachurch program.
• Not a political organization. No party affiliation, no candidate endorsements. Chapters address local issues with documented evidence, not talking points.

What LFHI Does

Chapters do four things: train, serve their communities, fund their work, and build relationships.

1. Training

This is the core of what chapters do. Everything else depends on it.

The curriculum covers six areas. Technology like drones, software-defined radio, and fabrication tools fits under the area where it gets used.

Emergency Medical Response

Trauma care, tourniquet application, wound packing, airway management, CPR/AED, triage, wilderness and austere medicine, prolonged field care, IFAK build and use, and disaster preparedness.

The training model follows the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37): see the need, treat the wounds, move the patient to safety. CERT has trained over 600,000 people through a standardized 20-hour curriculum since going national in 1993. Mennonite Disaster Service deploys more than 6,000 volunteers annually across 50 local units.

Communications

Amateur radio (Technician through Extra license), HF digital modes, Winlink, mesh networking, software-defined radio, emergency communications protocols, PACE planning, incident command integration, and operational security.

When cell towers go down, coordination, evacuation, and medical response depend on having another way to communicate. During Hurricane Helene, ARES volunteers operated from emergency operations centers while ham radio operators ran VHF nets on mountaintop repeaters and simplex frequencies throughout the aftermath. The Hurricane Watch Net delivered over 100 surface reports to the National Hurricane Center during a 25-hour activation.

Marksmanship and Firearms Safety

Firearms safety, legal knowledge, basic through advanced marksmanship, positional shooting, ballistic fundamentals, weapons maintenance, and structured competition.

Project Appleseed is a 501(c)(3) that has taught rifle marksmanship to over 250,000 participants through two-day weekend clinics run as community education. The Civilian Marksmanship Program has been doing the same since 1903. Competition in USPSA, IDPA, and PRS provides measurable benchmarks at every level.

Physical Readiness and Navigation

Fitness, rucking, land navigation, orienteering, and search and rescue.

No specialized equipment required. A practical baseline is bodyweight exercises, a timed 2-mile run, and a loaded ruck march. GORUCK runs rucking events nationwide. Orienteering USA hosts land navigation events. NASAR offers a three-tier search and rescue certification that progresses from entry-level searcher to crew leader.

Homesteading and Self-Sufficiency

Grow food, preserve it, and maintain the household systems that keep your family fed and sheltered without outside help. That covers gardening, canning and dehydrating, beekeeping, basic animal care, chainsaw safety and woodcraft, textile repair, home maintenance, and cooking from scratch.

The Cooperative Extension Service has delivered agricultural education through a federal, state, and county partnership for over 100 years, with agents in nearly all of America’s approximately 3,000 counties. When avian influenza drove egg prices above $5.00 per dozen in early 2025, households that raised their own chickens were unaffected. That is the difference between relying on a supply chain and owning the source.

Technical Independence

Off-grid power (solar, battery systems, generators), water purification and storage, self-hosting (email, cloud storage, and communications on your own hardware), digital security (encrypted messaging, device hardening, data broker removal), trade skills (electrical, plumbing, welding, fabrication), and physical security assessment.

In 2024, the FTC banned Gravy Analytics and Mobilewalla from selling location data on users visiting reproductive health clinics and places of worship. That same year, Congress renewed Section 702 warrantless surveillance and broadened the definition of “electronic communication service provider.” The tools to protect yourself exist: encrypted messaging, VPNs, opt-out services, self-hosted alternatives. But without someone showing you how to set them up, they stay unused.

2. Community Outreach and Civic Action

What you train, you bring to your community in two ways.

Outreach is free public training and education:

• Stop the Bleed and CPR certification
• Firearms safety courses
• Emergency communications workshops
• Amateur radio licensing classes
• Digital security clinics
• Disaster preparedness workshops
• Homesteading workshops
• Trauma kit builds
• Community fitness events

Civic action is local engagement grounded in constitutional rights and biblical principles of stewardship. When government oversteps with warrantless surveillance, property seizure, or restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms, chapters respond with facts.

The issues vary by community. Some are fighting mass surveillance: Flock Safety operates tens of thousands of automatic license plate readers across 49 states. In June 2024, Robert Williams received a $300,000 settlement from the City of Detroit after a wrongful arrest based on a flawed facial recognition match. In 2025, communities in Austin, Evanston, and Eugene canceled ALPR contracts through public audits, grassroots campaigns, and organized testimony.

Others face different threats. Data centers drain millions of gallons from local aquifers. Property tax reassessments price families out of homes they have owned for generations. Zoning changes restrict how you use your own land. Second Amendment infringements come from every level of government. In every case, the response should be documented, organized, and grounded in law.

Psalm 82:3-4: give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable search. The Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms. The Fifth Amendment protects property from seizure without due process. These are not abstract principles. They are the legal foundation for the work chapters do.

This is the kind of work chapters do locally:

• Attend council meetings, public hearings, and zoning boards with prepared evidence
• File public records requests on surveillance contracts, tax assessments, and water usage
• Document how local government decisions affect constitutional rights
• Deliver organized testimony backed by data and legal citations
• Publish community reports for residents and elected officials
• Build coalitions with ACLU chapters, EFF, Institute for Justice, and local advocacy organizations

3. Fundraising

Chapters fund their work through skills workshops, trauma kit builds, amateur radio exam sessions, local event sponsorships, and dinners.

Chapters can pursue grant funding from FEMA CERT, ARRL, state emergency management agencies, community development programs, and civil liberties foundations.

4. Fellowship

Fellowship comes from shared work. You do not schedule it. It happens when people train and serve together over time.

The fraternal mutual aid societies of the 1870s through 1920s provided life insurance, sick pay, funeral benefits, and orphan care. All of it was funded through member contributions. By 1910, roughly one-third of adult American men belonged to a fraternal organization. Those bonds formed because people kept showing up to do real work next to each other.

Training Progression

There are three tiers based on what you can do, not what title you hold.

Tier 1: Foundation (3-6 months). Baseline competence across all six areas. The starting point for someone with no prior training. Certifications at this level include Stop the Bleed, CPR/AED, the FCC Technician license, FEMA ICS courses, and entry-level courses from organizations like Project Appleseed, GORUCK, Cooperative Extension, and CompTIA.

Tier 2: Practitioner (12-24 months). Intermediate certifications and demonstrated ability in field conditions. At this level you hold credentials like a Wilderness First Responder, FCC General or Extra license, Appleseed Rifleman qualification, Master Gardener certification, or CompTIA Security+. You mentor Tier 1 members and lead chapter training sessions.

Tier 3: Cadre (2+ years). The standard is not what you know, but who you have taught. Cadre hold instructor certifications in their area of focus and actively train Tier 1 and Tier 2 members. Certifications at this level include NAEMT Instructor, ARRL Volunteer Examiner, NRA Certified Instructor, and master-level trade licenses.

People show up with different backgrounds. A combat medic does not start at Tier 1 Medical. A General-class ham does not need to earn a Technician license. A journeyman electrician does not need to prove basic wiring. If you hold a relevant certification, military qualification, professional license, or degree, that counts. Chapters assess incoming members based on what they can already do and place them accordingly.

The full certification tables for all six areas at every tier, including specific courses, time requirements, costs, and prior qualification criteria, are in the Training Roadmap.

Chapter Structure

The chapter is where everything happens. Each one needs a minimum of six leadership roles to function.

Effective chapter-based service organizations tend to stabilize at 30-50 active members. Rotary and Lions clubs both average about 30 members; volunteer fire departments in small communities typically run 20 to 40. That size is large enough to run training events, staff outreach, and rotate leadership, yet small enough that every member knows every other member.

Leadership

Leadership roles are filled by the chapter, not assigned from outside. How you fill them is up to you. Some chapters will vote, some will volunteer, some will rotate. The only requirement is that the person in the role can do the job. If they cannot, the chapter replaces them. Leads should rotate at least annually to prevent burnout and develop depth in the organization.

Chapter Rhythm

Membership

There are no applications, no dues, and no initiation. You join by showing up. You stay by being consistent and useful. How the chapter sees you depends on whether people can count on you.

If someone stops showing up, they are not expelled or removed. They simply are not active. If they come back, they pick up where they left off. No paperwork for any of it.

Chapter Identity

All chapters use the naming format “LFHI [City/Region]” – for example, LFHI Upson County or LFHI Nashville. The name belongs to the chapter, but the consistent format makes chapters recognizable and keeps the network identifiable.

Regional Support

A chapter that only serves itself is a club. Chapters are expected to support their county and adjacent counties. That is the baseline. When a neighbor’s barn burns, a storm knocks out power across the county line, or a community 30 miles away needs help running a Stop the Bleed class, your chapter shows up.

The practical limit is self-sufficiency. If you deploy, you bring your own food, water, shelter, and fuel. You do not become a burden on the community you are helping. For most chapters, that means a roughly 50-mile operating radius for day and weekend deployments.

This is not optional. A chapter that trains but never supports its region will not last. The people worth keeping expect to be useful beyond their own zip code.

Communication Between Chapters

Chapters are independent, but connecting with other chapters makes you stronger. Use whatever works: amateur radio nets, encrypted group chats (Signal, Matrix), regional meetups, or joint field exercises. No central hub, no required platform. The Light Fighter Manifesto can help connect chapters that want to find each other.

Accountability

No central authority disciplines or shuts down chapters. That is by design. But decentralization does not mean zero accountability.

If a chapter has bad leadership, the members replace them. If someone misuses funds, the chapter handles it internally or through its legal structure. If someone uses the LFHI name to promote something it is not – a militia, a political campaign, a personal brand – other chapters and the broader community will make that clear.

The model works because it is transparent. Chapters that train, serve, and produce results earn trust. Chapters that do not, lose it. No shortcut, no one to appeal to. Your reputation is your accountability.

Legal Structure

Start as an informal association. Formalize when the chapter handles money, applies for grants, or needs liability protection.

The simplest path is fiscal sponsorship through an existing 501(c)(3). A fiscal sponsor handles tax-exempt donations, insurance, and financial reporting on your behalf. This lets a chapter accept grants and donations without filing its own nonprofit. Many community foundations and service organizations offer fiscal sponsorship for local groups.

When a chapter is ready to stand on its own, file as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. The IRS application (Form 1023-EZ for organizations expecting under $50,000 in annual revenue) costs $275 and takes a few weeks to process. A full Form 1023 costs $600 and typically takes 6-10 months. A 501(c)(3) can advocate on issues – property tax, surveillance, zoning, emergency preparedness funding, constitutional rights – but cannot endorse candidates.

The Homefront Initiative is a separate entity from the Light Fighter Manifesto publication. Chapters are not subsidiaries, franchises, or affiliates of LFM LLC. They belong to the communities that build them.

Starting a Chapter

Starting a chapter begins with the Get Involved form. LFHI reviews every submission, vets applicants through a Signal conversation, and connects people from the same geographic area into a founding group. A chapter needs a minimum of five or six people who have each been individually vetted. Once the group is assembled, LFHI authorizes the chapter name and The Light Fighter Manifesto LLC supports new chapters with loaner equipment, startup funding, and coverage through LFM publications.

Chapters stand up through a phased progression. Phase 0 (Forming) covers authorization, leadership roles, and communications infrastructure. Phase 1 (Crawl, first 3 months) focuses on establishing baselines: Stop the Bleed, CPR, the FCC Technician license, and structured events in each training area. Phase 2 (Walk, months 3-12) adds certifications, regular events, and the first free public class. Phase 3 (Run, 12+ months) is full operations with chapter-led training, active outreach, and regional coordination.

Every chapter requires Signal for member coordination, a Proton email for external contact, and Matrix access (provided by LFHI central) for chapter leadership. The Chapter Communications Guide covers setup.

The Start a Chapter guide in the Library covers every step from application through full operations. The New Member Guide covers what to expect when you join. The Training Roadmap has the full certification tables for individual progression.

Get Involved

If you want to start a chapter or join one, submit the Get Involved form. People who submit to join an existing chapter are connected to the nearest chapter lead. People who offer skills or resources are connected to chapters as they form in their area.