Some food for thought. What led you to become a prepper? Was it an event that got you on your way, hearing someone else talk about it. A family member, a friend. We all got here for some reason.
I my case it was a number of event that cemented the reason to start preparing. The gas crisis of the 70's was the biggest push. I haven't looked back since.
"There are no winners in war, only bigger losers"
If you see me or hear me coming, I'm not doing my job.
The Cuban Missile Crisis when I was 9. A rural lifestyle until I was 14. Read "Alas Babylon" and "How To Survive The H-Bomb and Why" both by Pat Frank that year we moved, in 1967. Been a prepper ever since, though somewhat limited until I reached 18.
Going to sound crazy but I had a very vivid imagination as a child. When I played army in the backyard it was a serious affair. I could see the commie hoards rolling across my neighborhood.
(Side note: I also used to augment my army wargames with gear from mil-surplus stores, very realistic toy guns, etc. Remember, this was the late 70's/early 80's so getting a very realistic Ak45 was as easy as a trip to KB Toys. I had a fully loaded and accurate Viet Nam era H-harness LBS, so yes, my obsession with all things gear started early!)
Anyway, when I read Red Storm Rising and Team Yankee as a child I became convinced the Commies were about to roll down my street. Toss in a sprinkling of Red Dawn on-top of a Regan Era Stew and you get an 10 year old Stig putting together a backpack incase we had to leave the house in a hurry.
Things died down for collage and my early working days but fast forward to Y2K and the need to "be prepared" returned with a vengeance. I filled the bathtub with water, pulled my load bearing system and waited for the world to end.
Ultimately, my mother always instilled a "what if X happens" mentality into us so the idea of thinking ahead, and trying to minimize the effect of X bad thing happening was just part of who I was.
If you think that come SHTF you are gonna jock up in all your kit and be a death-dealing one man army, you're an idiot - izzyscout
Ha ha, I remember those days when we thought the Ruskies were gonna start something too... I was always into wilderness survival as a kid since hiking was my obsession. My grandmother used #10 coffee cans of silver coins for doorstops in her house she kept them "in case there was another depression" My parents bought 3 residential lots when they bought the home I grew up in "In case they needed to till it up and grow food"Originally Posted by The Stig
I was brought up in a average working class household with prepper leanings, but we weren't preppers like my wife and I are now, just the fundamentals of looking out for ourselves were taught. My wife grew up dirt poor and remembers wondering as a little girl why her mom always used flour with "pepper" in it.. Her dad didn't have indoor plumbing until he moved into the dorms at college in 1968, so the wife is a bit crazy about having food on-hand. Y2K preps really got me in the mindset I have now, I was in IT and knew it was a non-issue as far as TEOTWAWKI was concerned, I spent New Years Eve Y2K in a data center built in a bunker made to withstand a ground strike nuke within 1 Kilometer funny thing was, we just watched tv all night and drank champagne. A self defense situation that resulted in my prosecution and eventual grand jury no-bill, as well as 9-11 put me in high gear with preps and that's what got me here today.
Well, I have to say, for Y2k, I was oblivious. No if, ands, or buts about it, clueless to the max. I had just came back from a few years in the virgin islands where I was exposed to prepping from the islanders down there, but wasnt really prepping. Most Hurricanes I spent at hurricane parties, where you get drunk and wait for the hurricane to pass, then go clean up afterwards. Folks like myself, basically relied on the goodness of the neighbors for water and other stuff. That should have been my first hint, but no. . .After 9/11, and deploying overseas I met a few guys who were into it, but they didnt talk about it as much around me, so once again, oblivious, but had an idea. Next event leading up to it was Hurricane Katrina. having spent the first few days of Katrina working Private Security and seeing the preapredness level that the company that sent me down there had initiated, it was some conversations on a rooftop in downtown NOLA where we watched people begging for water, food, that was the catalyst for me. I swore on that rooftop I would never EVER be caught that unprepared. Flash forward 9 months after Katrina, and I was spending money like a sailor in a brothel after a year long tour on the ocean! I was absorbing everything I read, purchasing the things I thought I would need, and a lot of stuff I found out was basically useless, but advertised as GTG type of gear. I kind of cooled off with it once I rejoined the military, but then while overseas, the swine/avian flu hit here CONUS in 2008/2009 and it started me back up again. It was a lot of hit and miss til people started talking about TEOTWAWKI, WROL and SHTF more and more, and then forums started appearing and I was once again revamping preps and learning all the newest greatest and latest. Overall, I would have to say the biggest influence was a guy on Calguns.net named SemiAutoSam who got me thinking mostly about it though. He was more of a Tinfoil Hat type, great guy with a myriad of info to put out, but sometimes you have to separate the wheat from the chaff with him. I got alot of ideas from him, and from other sites, then I kind of flew with what I had and thats what placed me here today!
Not wanting to rely on anyone in any condition
Wow, I could give the easy answer and say the floods a few years ago got me really into it, but I have a childhood somewhat like Stig's. I played very vivid war games as a kid. Ruskies were public enemy #1. I also had a mom who panicked about everything. My grandparents were very self sustaining people who gardened and raised livestock. They survived Great Depression I. I always had sort of a be prepared mindset, but to be honest was never really prepared except for having extra batteries or flashlights. 9/11 shook me up. Y2K I thought was a hoax. But then the floods sort of hit home to me. I remembered Katrina in 2005 and how that massive hurricane left total helplessness on tons of people. And these floods were from a couple days of just heavy rain in my area. I almost didn't make it home to my wife. There wasn't much food in the house then. I owned a gun and had some camping and backpacking stuff. But if something really bad happened, and it was more than a day or two, I'd have been screwed. I remember asking myself how my grandfather would have handled things. My dad is all man, but my grandfather was THE MAN, in my eyes, you know? So that really kicked my ass into gear. I'm nowhere near as prepared as some of you guys may be, but I'm way more prepared than 90% of the population, and that gives me some peace of mind. I'm a work in progress, as funds allow.
Read a Jerry D Young story, I think disaster in the 'burbs...
It is, of course, obvious that speed, or height of fall, is not in itself injurious ... but a high rate of change of velocity, such as occurs after a 10 story fall onto concrete, is another matter.
Up until about four years ago I was a Self Admitted Sheeple. Sad, but true. But, I've always enjoyed cooking so I've always kept a large pantry and always had hurricane supplies on hand. After my divorce in '99 I moved in to a condo and the guys that helped me move hauled in almost as much food as they did household goods. They teased me about a Y2K Pantry and to be honest, I didn't get it...it totally flew right over my head.
Fast forward to four years ago and I started getting worried about my job (construction industry). I picked up couponing and learned to master the art. I thought I was just a "couponer" amassing a bunch of packaged foods on the cheap to hold us over if I did lose my job.
Fast forward again to two and half years ago and I knew things were going south so I started researching and found all kinds of things on the web. People who were "preparing" in a big way. Much bigger than anything I had ever imagined. I spent night after night on the computer until one night my husband asked "What the hell have you been up to in here?" I told him how I felt, what I found and what I wanted to do. Like I said in my intro, he's LDS (non-practicing) but I didn't have a clue about their preparedness doctrine so he shared what he knew and I told him about what I had been researching and we literally hit the floor running the next day and haven't looked back.
It's always been a part of me. I grew up with grandparents/parents that had gone through the Depression and did not ask for help. I spent most of my free time as a child in the East Texas woods. As a teen-ager and young adult my hippie husband and I did everything from scratch. He could make anything.. He's passed away but his attitude still affects me. I read "Alas, Babylon" as a teen-ager as well. I just fell in love with the whole preparation thing. I guess it made me feel safe. Many people have laughed at me, but I still continue to try to stay prepared. I also like the challenge of not being dependent on anyone else to take care of me and my kids.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks