Jim;
Have not seen the following subject touched upon in this or any other survival/preparedness forum/blog. What are your thoughts?
I recently finished reading David Crawford’s short story “The Bug-Out” and like his novel “Light’s Out” it was a well crafted, entertaining and enjoyable read for a piece of fiction. More importantly it like the novel is also a fine educational tool on how to and how not to prepare for WTSHTF. Both of these stories should be required reading for anyone interested in survival and preparedness issues.
The two points that really got my attention in “The Bug-Out” were: 1.) That although Joe had the best of intentions and had done some basic prepping in the past, he had allowed things to slide and WTSHTF, he was well behind the curve and 2.) It did not seem to me that neither his kids or more importantly his wife were really on-board with the whole survival/preparedness thing.
Had everything been up to snuff it seems to me that they could have “Gotten out of Dodge” a full two hours sooner and quite possibly lived to make it to the farm. Now, I’m sure that was the whole point of David’s fine story but have all of you fully digested that point and taken it to heart in your own situations?
The story also put me in mind of a situation that I experienced a couple of years ago. I journeyed back to southeastern New Hampshire where I grew up, to visit my sister. While there, a couple that was part of our old high school gang set up a get-together for myself and twelve or thirteen other couples who were all part of our group. While sitting around and chatting about life then and now we got onto the subject of Survival, Preparedness, WTSHTF and TEOTWAWKI. This subject consumed the better part of the next three or four hours and I came away with some interesting and somewhat disturbing points (that I hadn’t thought of before).
Two couples declined to participate in this discussion and left saying that the rest of us were all crazy and that the whole Survival/Preparedness was just so much BS and that there was never going to be any WTSHTF or TEOTWAWKI. For their sake ,hope they are right, but if not, they are going to die. Too bad!
The remaining eleven couples were all in one stage or another of Preparedness Preparation. It was quite interesting to note that three of the eleven families were ram-rodded by the wife as opposed to the husband and that those groups were three of the top five in how well prepared they were.
What was also interesting to me was the fact that of the other seven couples who were less well prepared or not prepared at all, the major stumbling block was the lack of interest on the part of the wife and to a lesser extent lack of interest on the part of their kids.
Another point of contention was the fact that three of the remaining six groups had serious problems with a similar subject. What to do about/with physically/mentally impaired children/adults in the family.
There were either aged parents in a nursing home or autistic children in a special needs school/home. In all three cases the wife would absolutely not hear of abandoning the children/parents while the husband held that during a TEOTWAWKI situation they could not deal with the associated problems/dangers that taking these family members along would generate.
Thankfully I have never had to face these issues and I’m not sure what I’d do or how I would respond if faced with the same situation.
My purpose here is to ask if any of the Blog readers have experience with either of these two problem and if so, how did you handle them or how would you handle them??
Do you believe that including physically/mentally impaired children/adults on a Bug-Out would be smart or even safe? – Wise Tioga
JWR Replies: I believe that including physically/mentally impaired children/adults in retreat planning is a moral obligation. As a Christian, I would never consider doing otherwise. Adding a year’s worth of food storage is a relatively inexpensive proposition, if it is done as part of a bulk (group) purchase. So there is no need to be Machiavellian Just make your “life boat” a bit bigger.
As the old saying goes, “You can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your relatives.” Certainly it would be unwise to build a survival group chosen from among new acquaintances that includes anyone that has a major health issue. Can you imagine, for example, the trauma of watching a diabetic go into a coma and die, for want of insulin? But as for family, it is your duty to provide for and to protect your own, come what may. As previously mentioned in SurvivalBlog, although seemingly a burden, elderly people may turn out to be a great asset, given their long lifetimes of experience. What is between their ears may be much more important than extra muscle. Likewise, your brother or cousin who is the parent of an autistic or retarded child might turn out to be a crucial member of your group.
The challenges of caring for an elderly or disabled family member create an even greater imperative to live at your retreat year-round. Otherwise “getting settled” at a retreat will be enormously more stressful. If you have the job flexibility to do so, make the move to your intended retreat ASAP. Most of all, pray for God’s guidance, providence, and protection. I do, daily.