What got you started as a Prepper, Survivalist, Doomsday kook or whatever?

[nakadnu]

I thought it would be interesting to hear from others as to why you are on this site and what got you started as a prepper, survivalist etc. Maybe others will read this and realize they also have the same interest in what we do and join this site.
I remember watching shows like Macgyver and the Mad Max movies. I used to read a lot of ancient history and study how society and individuals lived in the far past. I have always been interested in how people did the day to day things before modern technology. My Dad wasn't around much when I was a kid but when he was we always went hunting or camping and he taught me how to do alot of things related to survival. I never realized I was a "survivalist" until the last few years, it just seemed like a normal thing to do. When I was around 12-14 my Dad would drop me off in the hills with a .22 rifle and the bare neccesities and pick me up at a designated time and place in 2-5 days.
After Hurricane Katrina and having a family I realized the true importance of being prepared and able to take care of things without the infrastructure and wholly dependant attitude of most of our modern society.
And I have to admit I have a tendency to watch too many doomsday movies and act like they are documentaries or training films. Plus I really like guns and all kinds of weapons and stuff!

[Brother Bill]

This past winter we had a bad ice storm. Power was knocked out at my house for 3 days. Other areas were without for over a week. I had thought that just because we had some food in the pantry we would be ok if something happened. We did weather the storm ok but, it was tough. No way to cook. No heat in freezing temps. I was an avid camper when younger and an armchair survivalist. It was an eye opener and I started thinking. What would we have done if the power never came back on. I started combing the internet for how-to information. I'm not going to let my family down again because I wasn't ready for a disaster.

[TacSKS]

This got me.

[Apocalyptic_Sojourner]

I just think it's naive to believe that everything's always going to continue to be sound and stable. When in fact, society is a very fragile thing. The economy could collapse in any number of ways, we're overdue for an epidemic disease or virus, natural disasters are always a looming possibility, and of course, America has a lot of enemies. In any case, it just makes sense to be prepared. I mean, @ the very least, keep some extra food on hand.

But also, I gotta confess, the prospect of some kind of apocalypse gets me excited. I'm sure it would ultimately be miserable, but I still can't help but liking the idea. The challenge of it appeals to me. The thought of roughing it, and having to go back to the hunter-gatherer days seems more dramatic to me than the lives we live today. Same as Nakadnu said, I probably enjoy apocalyptic movies too much. And I do love guns, and survival equipment in general is pretty cool stuff to buy & own or just look at. Anyway, I like the entire concept from planning, to getting the things you need, to just sitting around thinking, "What if..."

[monet861]

I figured it's worth the extra hundred bucks here and there to make sure that if there are any problems, that my family is going to be just fine. And I do really enjoy my firearms too.

[BigDukeSix]

Well mine started in 1993 at the S.O.F. (Solider of Fortune Convention) there was a guy there that got the nick name “The Crazy Pirate Man” (because of the shirts he wore) he would come around and hang out and talk to us after hours around the pool and such. He was always talking about how the US would be divided up and gridded off in the future, how police departments would be entwined with the military, how our Constitutional rights would be trampled on. In addition the ole boy went on to say how the US economy would go belly up. Now I really did not take him too seriously until Waco and Ruby ridge then I started to dig and do research. My family and I have been prepping for the past 7 years extremely hard, for whatever may be coming down the path.

Be it economic collapse, revolution or whatever, but I know when the US Government is buying whole ship loads of freeze dried products and prepping troops for domestic disturbance something is in the wind.

And if it never comes well it’s as Grandma used to say “An Ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”


Big Duke Six
____________________________

7th Tennessee Dragoons

[Oscar Wilde]

In the fall of 1989 we began to prepare for deployment to the middle east ..... I knew then we were about to open a "Pandora's Box". What has been "released" from the "Box" was not what I expected but has none the less put us on our current path .... Upon my return I resumed prepping but with a different focus.

O.W.

[mjbaker]

I started in the 80's and 90's from a young age as a Boy Scout. I have been a little lazy the last couple years and have been really been needing to get busy again. I'm glad to see this site getting busy. You guys keep me interested and going.

[Queequeg]

I'm fairly new as far as prepping goes; I started around 4 years ago. At first it was just an avid interest in hiking/camping. Somehow, maybe from a camping website, I ended up at Survivalblog.com; a couple of weeks there on and off and then I read Patriots and One Second After. I must admit, when I first started (with one other guy who was much the same way) I was much more of a Rawlesian The World Is Going to End type. However, as time has gone on, I've realized that society, while complex and with some brittleness, has proven quite resilient. So now, while I admit there is the possibility of some sort of collapse, I am one of those who puts it in the <1% range; I've become much more concerned with preparing for a job loss or natural disaster, as I put the odds of those much, much higher. We have a small group and are pretty well provisioned, and we do a fair bit of group activities (we started a group garden this year and are working on a ram-pump water system for our BOL currently), but I fully expect to hand off my beans and bullets to my daughter someday.

[TheLastMountainMan]

I come from a long line of "preppers". My family in the past have endured the Gret Deprssion by have supplies on hand and have knowledge on how to do for ones self. That has been handed down from generation to generation. Growing up in Northern Michigan, we had snow storms that kept us from getting to the store, so we always had a few months worth of food ready, (plus some). As I grew into adulthood, seeing how polititions additudes towards their constituants have changed drasticly, how they promise things, then to the exact opposite, doesn't take a rocket scientist to read between the lines. If you all look through the past and saw the changes, you all saw what was coming down the pike. Like it or not, this is only the beginning, it IS going to get worse, if you are just starting to prep, better hurry, your quite a few years behind schedule. JMO. Good luck and keep your powder dry, its getting closer.

[terminallymediocre]

I worked with law enforcement several years ago. I saw how the law is written, and how it is worked. I learned a few things from them. The police are here to protect the society as a whole, that does not mean they have to protect you. Also, there is no better place for a criminal to work than as a cop. Some of the worst and most dangerous people I have ever come across had a badge.

The icing on the cake was when I joined the military. I worked in a position that allowed me to see how things are really run. After that, I figured if the sh*t hits the fan, I would be better off fending for myself.

[TNMamaBear]

I used to be a political activist. I was even an election judge in the 2004 national elections...and that killed it for me, politically, when I saw first hand the corruption that goes on behind the scenes with our votes. Watching the games played by our politicals on any side of whatever aisle you choose playing loose and callous with our Bill of Rights has sickened me beyond any words I can possible find to express. My dad served this country in the Navy for over twenty years, and for me, it is an outrage and a disgrace to see the direction our country has gone in.

We've seen too many natural disasters, one after the other, to doubt that something is going haywire somewhere. We've watched too many major companies go belly up, too many factories shut down and move to China, too much cooking the books by our own government to keep this economy afloat, to expect that things aren't about to blow up in our faces somewhere, somehow. The floods here in Nashville this spring really slammed it home to me, when so many multiple thousands of people lost everything they had overnight. I can't begin to imagine what it's going to be like if that should happen on a national scale.

Do I want the shtf scenario? No. I do not want it to happen. But I think it cannot go on, especially with the topsy turvy nature of our economy, and the rumblings Mother Nature keeps tossing our way. So the smart thing is to at least try to be as prepared as you can be. Which is why I am here, reading everything you guys have posted, and watching youtube vids every chance I get, in between working and looking for ways to prepare as cheaply as I can on my limited budget.

[Recently_Awoken]

Been prepping in earnest for only a year. Not much progress. Food for 1 year, garden off the ground (sort of), debt lowered substantially, refinanced, etc. But I'm looking longer term/bigger picture. I'm wanting a lifestyle change. Rural/remote living. Maybe a job in a small town and a hobby farm to provide for mine. Hard sell to the family though.

Economy was my main motivating factor, although the power outages we experience irregularly (and the summer heat) were other factors that made me think. However, once I started to dive in and look around I woke up to how fragile this comfy existence really is.

What I fear the most... threats from within. I do think "things" have been in play for a long time that will eventually pit the rising aristrocracy against the middle and lower classes of the US. What scares me is, by-and-large, the middle and lower classes don't even know it's happening. It's a power grab of epic proportions. Corruption would be the most common term used to describe one of it's obvious symptoms. Erosion of government is another. Alas... plasma screens and X-boxes are powerful diversions. Waking up the masses... short of the second coming of Christ, it's sleepy time for most. It'll finally sink in that something is wrong when their cubbards are bare and tanks empty.

RA

[brotherzoo]

First and foremost, Mad Max :-) Give me a Ford V-8 with gas tanks and a supercharger, a loyal dog, a sawed off 12 gauge, and some cool leather togs, and I’m in post-adolescent American male fantasy land.

More seriously though, I've also never liked running out of stuff. I have just always tended to buy my Ramen by the case. Roommates and band mates taught me to hoard shit tickets, which my wife reinforced with her psychotic desire not to run out of ‘potty paper’, and liking to shoot taught me to hoard ammo. The dark years of the AWB taught me to hoard magazines.

We also learned a lot growing up in southern LA through many hurricanes where our power was out for a week or more in the heat of summer, Andrew, Katrina, Rita, etc…then Ike and Gustav where we had no utilities at all for 21 days...thank god we were better prepped than average people. Ike and Gustav were the first time we lost gas, and our neighborhood looked like there were fountains in almost every yard from the broken water lines.

21 days of bottled water, MREs, and generator power when it’s over 100 degrees outside (and inside) is an awakening. I also learned that my wife cannot get hungry enough to eat MREs, at least not in 3 weeks. She’ll eat bread, peanut butter, and Spaghetti-Os, but not MREs. So remember to store what your family will actually eat.

That was hard a hard 3 weeks, even with cars and the ability to go get gas, and the lines were hours long. It was a real eye-opener about the lemming mentality too when one McDonald’s opened up a few days after the storms, and the line was literally over a mile long.

Our cars were locked in for days at first by downed oak trees before we could even get out, and the store shelves and gas pumps were emptied already anyway. The day before a hurricane is always a mad zombie crush at the big stores, and anything that’s left gets picked over as soon as they reopen afterward, so planning to have it long before is the only viable option.

My wife actually ran off some looters while I was on a gas run once I could get out, thankfully with just a display of force and not its actual use. She discovered first hand that a laser sight is a powerful psychological deterrent. The 73 pound Pit Bull may have helped also. I wish I had a picture of her in leopard print goulashes and bulldog pajamas, holding Essie Mae (our Pit Bull) in one hand and a Smith Centennial in the other, waving the laser from one guy to the next telling them “If you don’t live here, you don’t need to be here. Now go back the way you came.” She had 5 rounds for 6 guys, but they must have accepted that math. She now carries a 15 round Smith MP40 with extra mags.

I suppose I was a sight chain sawing downed trees with a 45 and mags on my belt as well, but I also had some “curious” kids come into my fenced back yard following the sound of the generator while we were taking a break, sent in to steal by their own parents. They left quickly.

The thing that really floored us what that the media coverage completely disappeared a few days after the storms, even though we still had many areas with no electricity and sometimes other utilities over a month later. Our friends in other states were telling us that there was zero news coverage, like it “was all over” but we still had no utilities in most of several parishes, National Guard handing out tarps/water/MREs in a few open store or mall parking lots, and a curfew with a nightly tally of arrests on the radio. So you could say it has heightened our distrust of our ‘protectors’ along with other incidents like the gun confiscations after Katrina. Short of a nuclear incident I’m not leaving my house, or my dogs, regardless.

I guess I’m off topic a bit, but every experience like these contributes to our desire to stay prepared for whatever comes down the pipe, short or long term.

[TNMamaBear]

awesome story, thanks for sharing it! And I would have loved to have seen her in action, too! lol! kudo's to her, and thank God it turned out well for her. And they say guns don't stop crime??? puhleeeeeese! :D

good thread here, enjoying reading other people's experiences and getting more insights into the bigger picture.