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Other than the obvious big major events, 9/11, Katrina, Y2K, the Economic Crash of 2008, Elections, etc., what are some of the smaller things or personal experiences or observances that drove you, an average day-to-day person living a "normal" American life, to start researching and implementing your own steps towards Survival and Preparedness? What made the "light" go on in your head that said things are just not quite right? I am doing research for something and I would really like to hear your personal testimonies.
There are those who have always loved the tactical, outdoors, survivalist lifestyle anyway, so it is not a hard stretch to adding prepping to their daily lifestyle. I'm talking about people like me who grew up in middle class America in all of it's glory, with little exposure to guns, crime, wars, poverty, etc. People like me for whom this type of lifestyle was never on the radar until recent years, far from paranoid, but seeing things that they just could no longer ignore. I appreciate any of your thoughts on this if you care to share!
Other than the obvious big major events, 9/11, Katrina, Y2K, the Economic Crash of 2008, Elections, etc., what are some of the smaller things or personal experiences or observances that drove you, an average day-to-day person living a "normal" American life, to start researching and implementing your own steps towards Survival and Preparedness? What made the "light" go on in your head that said things are just not quite right? I am doing research for something and I would really like to hear your personal testimonies.
There are those who have always loved the tactical, outdoors, survivalist lifestyle anyway, so it is not a hard stretch to adding prepping to their daily lifestyle. I'm talking about people like me who grew up in middle class America in all of it's glory, with little exposure to guns, crime, wars, poverty, etc. People like me for whom this type of lifestyle was never on the radar until recent years, far from paranoid, but seeing things that they just could no longer ignore. I appreciate any of your thoughts on this if you care to share!
I am primarily interested in growing my own food and providing my own energy because I do not want to be part of the "food experiment", I want to know exactly what goes into my food supply and I don't want to be a part of the dirty energy complex. Everything else is secondary to that. I like being outdoors, riding my horse in the middle of nowhere, but I would never kill an animal intentionally so all that hunting etc. is not interesting to me, especially not when I see someone in a $60,000 pickup with thousands of dollars of fancy equipment show up for the hunt...
Other than the obvious big major events, 9/11, Katrina, Y2K, the Economic Crash of 2008, Elections, etc., what are some of the smaller things or personal experiences or observances that drove you, an average day-to-day person living a "normal" American life, to start researching and implementing your own steps towards Survival and Preparedness? What made the "light" go on in your head that said things are just not quite right? I am doing research for something and I would really like to hear your personal testimonies.
There are those who have always loved the tactical, outdoors, survivalist lifestyle anyway, so it is not a hard stretch to adding prepping to their daily lifestyle. I'm talking about people like me who grew up in middle class America in all of it's glory, with little exposure to guns, crime, wars, poverty, etc. People like me for whom this type of lifestyle was never on the radar until recent years, far from paranoid, but seeing things that they just could no longer ignore. I appreciate any of your thoughts on this if you care to share!
To answer your question, Where I grew up, guns were everywhere so there was little crime. The Viet Nam conflict was winding down when I came along, so war wasn't a factor. Everybody was poor, so nobody knew any different, you made do and so did all your friends and neighbors. With me it's heritage.
My family has always been a pioneer family, first coming to what would become the US in 1636. One of my ancestors served in Rodger's Rangers during the French and Indian wars, (what would later be called the first special operations force). One was a '49er during the California Gold rush, (he was one of the few that returned home and he brought $900 in gold dust with him).
My Great Great Grandfather was in the Indian fighting army during the 1870's in Montana, (Custer Massacre, the Nez Perce war etc. all happened during that time), and came home to bring his son and his family to Montana in 1879.
This means it's a way of life for me to be self sufficient, and know a lot about wilderness survival. My family has always lived like that, and still does, and being prepared for all eventualities is part of that. If you farm or ranch, you are constantly looking for ways to minimize losses from weather and predators, ways to make money from what you have, and ways to keep it. Life is a gamble, so you stock and store and save during the good times to carry you through the hard times.
All of my family has always lived off the land from the crops we grow to the meat we raise or hunt and fish for. I ran a trap-line for years as my main source of income.
My mother is a virtual encyclopedia of wild plants and edibles, and how to can/preserve and cook the foods we get from the wilds. It wasn't just the men who put food on the table either, my Grandmother was a crack shot and often put elk steak into the meat cache or smokehouse.
Even today, at 80 years old, my father still breaks and drives teams of horses to harvest timber for lumber he saws in his own mill, all our homes are heated by wood we cut off of our place. We raise huge gardens as well as cattle, hogs, goats, rabbits, chickens and turkeys for our garden truck, dairy and meat.
We still hunt for large and small game and do our own cutting and preserving. We still gather wild edibles in season and store it.
When my parents first got together and started their ranch, money was always tight and you never knew when the next paycheck was coming, so they didn't spend any they didn't need to, and they and their children are still the same way. You only trust what you have control over, and prepare to survive what you don't, so even though we all have enough money now, that's only good as long as you can get to it and the banks are open, just look at Greece today.
When you come from a background like that, it's just the way it is, you don't make a conscious decision to prep, it's a way of life.
Knowledge and the ability to do what is necessary to raise or gather your food, knowing how to build a warm home, being able to make your own tools and equipment, training horses and oxen to serve as power if your tractor breaks down, knowing how to generate electricity and develop a spring for water and bring it to where you need it, all of it is prepping.
My time in the military serving in countries that came apart at the seams and seeing what happened to their citizens only made me redouble my efforts to become better at the skills I already had and to expand them. If those countries could fall apart so rapidly over a single event, so could ours. After all, it just took the assassination of Franz-Joseph in Sarajevo to touch off World War I, so I started reading and learning to cover all eventualities.
The one place I was lacking was in emergency medical care beyond basic first aid, so I joined a volunteer fire department and was trained as a first responder. I now have 12 years practical experience with all kinds of injuries. My wife is a nurse, so we are now prepared in that discipline as well.
I applaud all those that decide to become self sufficient or look ahead to possible disasters to keep themselves and their family alive and healthy no matter what, and no matter when you first started thinking outside the box.
Last edited by MTSilvertip; 07-07-2015 at 07:38 PM..
OK, I guess I'm talking about prepping, not survivalism. Surely there are people like me that grew up in the "Wonder Years" of the 1960's and 1970's and never had a clue that things in this country could go anywhere but UP. We were not exposed to living in the woods, farming, hunting, we were brought up in the comfortable bedroom communities of the big cities post-war, Brady Bunch kids if you will, with the family wood paneled station wagon and everything, our Daddy's making the good salary, our Mother's able to stay home in their air-conditioned new development homes with the harvest gold appliances and lunch with the neighborhood Mom's - these are the people I am asking this question of. Isn't anyone else out there a middle-class person turned prepper? What caused you to start learning these skills that are so foreign to us (farming, growing our own food, stocking supplies, taking concealed carry classes), that is what I'm asking and who I'm addressing.
I don't understand why a prepper is not the same thing as a survivalist. Isn't the goal to survive amidst adversity? Or is a "prepper" just someone who buys a lot of nice storage food, expensive gear and guns, and a "retreat" somewhere, just in case?
I lost job for the first time and was unemployed for half a year, my life savings and were eaten and credit cards maxed up by lawyers (which is another story) and my wife was pregnant and had to work 2 shifts in very physically demanding job until just a few days before the child birth and starting to do it again 1 month after...
It was good year of 2006. Then I got a job, life started to look better. Then it was good year of 2008.
I suddently saw the light. I realized that this country is not guaranteed from having a major economic collapse which I already experienced in another country... And my life is not guaranteed to be safe and comfortable. I remembered my parents, who did small-scale farming to supplement their incomes from primary work. I thought I need to learn good old country-side skills.
I took this quote as my guiding principle: "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."— Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love[1][2]
I grew up with frugal parents. I was taught good homemaking skills that included cooking mostly from scratch. During the later years of my marriage I was a SAHW. My dh became ill and I knew there would be a time when I would have to fend for myself. So I learned to become more frugal, and I began to prep and save money. I started visiting survival boards to learn as much as I could. My dh eventually passed away. Five years later I met a military retiree and married him.
I am not really a survivalist, but I am intrigued by the lifestyle. I enjoy watching Alaskan survival shows. I am an armchair survivalist. I know how to cook almost everything from scratch including things like bread, sourdough products, yogurt ice cream etc. I have a pressure cooker/canner, flour mill, bread maker, Vitamix etc., but I use a lot of electrical appliances to accomplish these tasks. I can light a fire in my fireplace. I do not garden or hunt.
My present dh is a 100% disabled vet, so I'm entitled to a lot of military benefits. We often are on military installations to visit the commissary or PX, doctor's visits, or to eat lunch. I feel I am vicariously living the survivalist life. In reality I personally would not be able to survive on my own.
So I would say my dh's illness and the state of the economy are what drove me.
Other than the obvious big major events, 9/11, Katrina, Y2K, the Economic Crash of 2008, Elections, etc.,
You are mentioning the very things that have motivated a great number of people to prepare for adversity. Especially those born before 1970 or so, who mostly knew life without such events.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RogueMom
Isn't anyone else out there a middle-class person turned prepper? What caused you to start learning these skills that are so foreign to us (farming, growing our own food, stocking supplies, taking concealed carry classes), that is what I'm asking and who I'm addressing.
I'd say we're all 'middle class persons'. As for 'skills that are so foreign', I'm sensing that you are asking about those who are steeped in urban/suburban lifestyles, "where never is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day". I know plenty of middle class persons who do not consider it foreign to grow a garden, can, buy extra, take firearms classes or have a CCW -- and most of them live in the suburbs. These skills are not foerign at all. Any middle-class suburb is full of such people.
However, the more urban people among that "middle class" are precisely the ones who will not see any sense - or any need - to prepare for adversity. There may be a few, but basically, that demographic of urban mindset is not where you're you're going to find preppers. You will find us among those who knew hardship during our formative years, those who did NOT grow up in the lap of luxury, those of us who considered a lifetime of hard work to be a privilege because of the opportunity it afforded us for a better life.
You are looking for something that does not exist in the group where you are seeking it. Either that or, it only exists in tiny numbers. That mindset you described above, only rarely leads to a preparedness lifestyle.
I took this quote as my guiding principle: "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."— Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love[1][2]
You realize you re quoting a SCIENCE FICTION writer, no?
I took this quote as my guiding principle: "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."— Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love[1][2]
You're basically describing what used to be called a "Renaissance Man". Someone that could do anything and do it well.
In the early days of this country, the movers and shakers nearly all had these traits, Daniel Webster is a good example of this.
It's a good guideline.
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