Category: Survival Mindset

Preparing Your Sons and Daughters, by Chuck Holton

There is a crisis of manhood in America today.  The numbers are astounding:  One in three children live in fatherless homes.  Since 2011, women receive more college degrees than men.  And recent decrees by the Obama administration will now see our wars being fought by women and homosexuals – it’s enough to make a guy like me be glad I won’t be around to see what this country looks like fifty years from now, and get a knot in my gut knowing that my children most likely will.  It makes me realize that my sons will need the skills to …


Three Letters Re: The Commerce Model of Prepping

James, In reference to “The Commerce Model of Prepping”, that was one of the best written and thought provoking pieces I have read on your web site in quite some time. If one can afford the Rawlesian Approach to having a high quality retreat in a highly rural location I believe that is a great decision, because it will allow that retreat to help kick start the local economy after a SHTF event, while continuing to be a blessing to those around them (acting as Christ to one another). I thought the authors point, to those who are not in …


Dealing With Mentally Unbalanced Trespassers, by Hearthkeeper

The biggest weakness in preparedness planning is not a forgotten survival item, or too few cartridges.  The invisible weakness is lack of real time experience   It’s one thing to say your going to raise your own food, and maybe you have all the seeds and tools to do it stored away.  But if you have never actually planted a huge garden and tried to live off it your first year is going to be full of failures (see: learning opportunities) that could be potentially deadly in real survival time.  The same goes for every aspect of survival and emergency situation response.  Personally I have always …


Letter Re: The Eyes of A Prepper

Sir, As I go through life, I see the world through the eyes of a Prepper (Survivalist was the term used before I joined the ranks.).  I’m also a Type A personality with light to moderate obsessive-compulsive disorder. What this means in practical terms is every action I take in my daily life filters back to preparing for a disaster of some sort.  And I want to try and wake-up as many people as I can.  But at the same time, I don’t want to freak out everyone I come in contact with.  My wife and I started prepping in …


The Commerce Model of Prepping: A Personal Re-Evaluation, by B.H. in North Idaho

Introduction: Over the years since I first read the novel Patriots by James Rawles and made the decision to embrace prepping my idea of prepping has changed.  It started when I recognized that friends, acquaintances and strangers all had varying ideas and degrees of preparedness even within very similar prepping models.  The greatest characteristic of Survivalblog.com is that there is something for everyone presented in articles and information.  Regardless of your station you’ll find information pertinent to your specific situation to help you improve your own preparedness level. I realized that my own prepping mindset was slowly shifting over time …


OPSEC and the Dangers of People You Thought Were Like-Minded, by R.S.O. in Arizona

Operational Security (OPSEC) has been around since the first Stone Age battles were fought. In an effort to provide the element of surprise and in order to keep what one had only those that need to know where told. I have always considered my friends and/or people I associate with and of what I considered similar moral fortitude worthy of my trust when it came to discussion of prepping. However I have recently discovered that not everyone is of the same mindset. First a little back ground on me. I moved out at 18 and went on to higher education …


Games Preppers Play, by T.W.

Preparedness is well within the top ten subject matters of interest today.  Most everyone is thinking about it and many of us are well under way toward some level of advanced planning.  Groups of like minded families are common but it would be a mistake to fail at making preparedness attractive to our children. Our pioneer ancestors invented creative games to teach their children skills of survival in an unfriendly world.  Games were simple and fit for most occasions.  If they were weathered in at a cabin, there was a game where one child was the subject and the others …


Letter Re: A Female’s Viewpoint on How to Prepare

Regarding the piece by I.S. on a female’s point of view, she is right on with how to introduce a non-prepper to this world.  I have done the same but with my husband, I am the gardener, shooter, and all around prepper.  Though we do not have a lot of funds, you can nickel and dime it towards your survival goals and I have done this with proof to him such as becoming debt free, minus the mortgage, getting branches and salvage wood for free for the wood stove to save on heat, stocking up on food and now growing …


A Female’s Viewpoint on How to Prepare, by I.S.

Everyone has their own unique story why they became a prepper. Mine began five years ago when my husband started ranting about the worsening economic situation in the country. I was only listening with half an ear. Sure, I noticed that food prices were creeping up with every shopping trip, and that it was getting more expensive to fill up my car every week, but didn’t that happen every year due to inflation? Why was my husband so upset about this? Although, we started discussing world events and politics more often, I still did not understand why he was so …


Surviving Snowmageddon, by Lugknut32

In January, 2012 Washington State went through what the locals called Snowmageddon. My family and I had just returned from being stationed in Germany for the preceding nine years. Some of our belongings were still packed up out in the garage. Mostly my “camping” things. Having just started at the new assignment, I had not yet taken the time to unpack everything. I had bought some heavy duty shelves for the garage (in anticipation of unpacking my gear). While in Germany, I was stationed in Bavaria (Schweinfurt and Graffenwoehr specifically). I had been raised in the Midwest, so I was …


Field Evasion Skills, by JOAT

So there I was, in the back of the UH-60 Blackhawk lifting my feet at various intervals for fear that they would scrape the pine trees as the pilot hugged the terrain below with the chopper.  One thing led to another and the next thing I knew the chopper was on the ground and I was running full speed to get to the trees to find concealment from nearby hostiles that intended to do me harm. As I got up and over the nearest ridge and ducked into some temporary concealment; I stopped and listened. After waiting for what seemed …


Start Where You Are, by Sanders

I’m older than you are. I’m female. Wanted to get that out of the way early, so you can decide whether to keep reading or not. I assume you’re new to being prepared. Long-time survivalists wouldn’t want to read an article titled “start.” But you do. You’re interested in the subject of preparation, but you’re also a little overwhelmed by what you’re seeing on survival sites. You don’t think you can do all that stuff. The fact is, you probably can’t. You’re a bank teller, not a former Marine. You’re alone, not affiliated with 30 like-minded survivalists. I’ve read all …


The Anniversary of Operation Gunnerside

The night of February 27/28 2013 is the 70th anniversary of the successful raid on the Nazi heavy water production facility near Rjukan, Norway, known in its final culminating phase as Operation Gunnerside. The precision strike on the only heavy water facility under the Third Reich’s control effectively set Hitler’s quest for an atomic bomb back a year, forcing Nazi scientists to ski a huge penalty loop in a race with the Allies, to borrow an appropriate biathlon analogy. A follow-on operation put the last nail in the lid of the coffin of the Germans’ heavy water production capability. The …


Letter Re: The Great Ripple

James,  First let me say that I have thoroughly enjoyed reading SurvivalBlog over the years. It has been a source of insight, inspiration and motivation to myself, my friends and most of my family whom I’ve shared it with. A few months ago we watched as Hurricane Sandy hit the upper East Coast from afar. I’m about 200 miles from the Gulf Coast and as any other resident in this area, we keep an eye on the sky during the Hurricane Season. But knowing this was not in our back yard, I didn’t worry. I generally keep everything stocked up …


One Way Out of Dodge by Mrs. W. in the Missouri Ozarks

Our story begins enslaved to a job in a middle-class suburb and ends mortgage-free in the Missouri Ozarks with us making ambitious strides toward off-grid living and growing all we eat. Unlike Jed Clampett’s kinfolk who urged luxurious city life, ours would have warned us to stay put, keep our jobs and fit in – if only they had known what we were up to. If you dream of “someday” leaving your weekly paycheck for a more rewarding, self-reliant country life, but think you must wait (because of your “secure” job, societal expectations or whatever else is holding you), consider …