‘Teach’ Yourself Survival Skills
February 11, 2012, Submitted by: Lauren (Mrs. MSB) Tweet
So many times when I talk to people, be they friends or family or someone I just met, I am sometimes complimented on something I made, and they almost always follow with a , “Oh, I could never do that.” or “Oh, I don’t know how to do that.” For example, someone may comment that they don’t know how to make bread by hand or they don’t know how to sew. However, many times I also detect their desire to know how, or their enthusiasm to get started. One thing I can tell you is to take that first step. Get started!
Many folks want to get started in survival preparedness and prepping but they sometimes just don’t know where or how to begin. Well, here is an easy way to start.
First, assess your current situation. What supplies do you need to stock up on? What ‘skills’ do you already have? What skills would you like to learn?
Start writing down lists of things you need and things (skills) you should know how to do.
For example, sewing supplies…are you supplied? Everyone, men included, should have a basic sewing kit with their supplies and have the skill to know how to sew. Sewing a hem, a tear, or replacing a button that has fallen off are very easy sewing tasks that everyone should be able to do.
Food… do you have enough? Do you know how to cook? Do you have the basic skill to make basic bread from scratch? Do you know basic gardening and would you be able to successfully grow some of your own food? Do you know how to preserve different types of food? Do you know various food preservation methods and know how to do it successfully?
The important thing here is to Keep Educating Yourself! If there are skills you feel you need to learn, then get yourself taught.
Read a book on the subject.
Learn from a friend who already knows how.
Take one or two ‘Adult Education’ or ‘Adult Evening’ classes. They offer everything from cooking, to computer, to auto repair, to electrical, heating, welding, woodworking and health. Most counties charge anywhere from $30 to $40 for a class. Take your spouse, take your best friend and check them out. Ladies, these are all classes you can take. Learn how your car works and what you will be able to repair. Learn the basics of electricity around your house. Learn first aid. All of these are available through adult education, or the internet or buy a book. Teach yourself!
Don’t be afraid to start! Start by stocking up, and stocking up on your survival skills. The sooner you start, the better you will feel.
Here I am again drumming away about World War 3. Most people that are in preparation and survival are simply not facing the shear consequences of a global nuclear war, and this worries me a lot. After something does happen, it is unlikely that I will ever talk to or write to any of those on this site that I have become fimiliar with. IF it is nuclear war, which I feel has the second best chance of occurring, then many of all of you are going to be in critical trouble if you don’t become quite knowledgeable about what a global nuclear war means. I can only toot my alarmist horn, and only try to help others. I really feel extremely bad for those people that have months of supplies that are clueless about radiation that were ready for EVERYTHING else dying from radiation sickness.
I remember the Jericho episode in which the shear lack of understanding of radiation in which these people were going to continue to play pool and the mayor’s son explained to them the hardcore reality of dying from radiation sickness. I equate radiation sickness to have Ebola or Marburg virus, your internal organs literally melt away inside of you. I am imploring to everyone PLEASE read and reread about protecting yourself from radiation. TEACH YOURSELF LIKE THIS ARTICLE SAYS, LEARN EVERYTHING YOU CAN ABOUT THE AFTER EFFECTS OF NUCLEAR WAR.
TRUST ME, SURVIVAL IN REGARDS TO NUCLEAR WAR IS A DIFFERENT DIMENSION. I put the levels of preparation that people go through in the category of minor league rookie league into the major league shear knowledge based teaching yourself about nuclear war. The fact is radiation has many different levels of understanding that just do not go to just the gamma rays. Beta and alpha particles can also fry you. Radioactive particles scatter all over the place and of course get into the soil, water, and food supplies. Hard core survivalists do prepare for nuclear war and are the true pros. People that prep that have not at least become fimiliar with nuclear war and radiation are “amateurs”. Oh boy, am I going to get some heat from this statement
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Preparing for nuclear war starts first with reading about it and I mean becoming so fimiliar with it that you can teach others. Then comes the prep work. I plead with everyone to please at least purchase the book Nuclear War Survival Skills; by Cresson H. Kearny. Let this become one of your bibles for survival. There is a simply radiation detector that can be built with some time out of common household items, and they WORK. The whole book is full of extremel6y valuable knowledge that EVERYONE needs to know. EVEN IF YOU DON’T PREPARE, AT LEAST YOU WILL HAVE BECOME FIMILIAR WITH IT, GIVING YOU A BETTER CHANCE OF SURVIVING NUCLEAR WAR.
Knowledge is everything and the more you learn the better off you will be. I again implore you to teach yourself all you can about nuclear war. may preppers see themselves as surviving some disaster and being okay afterwards. IN MOST CASES YES. AFTER A NUCLEAR EPISODE, HELL NO IF THEY DON’T BECOME ACQUAINTED WITH RADIATION AND THE AFTER EFFECTS OF MULTIPY NUKES GOING OFF IN THE ATMOSPHERE. FALLOUT IS NOTHING TO FOOL AROUND WITH AND IT IS NOT JUST DUCT TAPE AND PLASTIC SHEETING, THERE IS A TREMENDOUS LEARNING CURVE HERE.
Nuclear war is not a cutesy thing that someone can survive without PRIOR knowledge, it is ugly, but can be survived. I do not know if there are even classes about nuclear war and radiation, but there are PLENTY of books to learn. Most preppers have the misconception that World War 3 is not survivable, yet to the survival motto this is contradiction. Preppers and some survivalist alike are actually unwilling to even read and become informed about the subject matter. Survival can be a fun thing, but there are extremely deep dark sides to it also. Like those people that grew everything in the NG show, yet were unwilling to arm themselves for protection. This to be is like burying your head in the sand. Not at least reading and become knowledgeable about nuclear war and radiation is like burying one’s head in the sand no matter how many years worth of food one has, because “it won’t do someone a bit of good if their bodies are being microwaved inside from fallout that they had not prepared for”.
One final thing. Those who think that nuclear war is impossible have to realize something, Russia sures doesn’t think so. Look on various sites around the internet as proof. It doesn’t take a full nuclear exchange, probably would happen though, to make people have a really bad day. The statistics of a world war are in the favor of it happening. If a world war happens every 50 years then the odds of it happening this year are 74% that it will happen. If a world war happens every 100 years then it is a 50-50% chance of world war occurring this year. Even if there is a world war every 200 years there is still a 29% chance of it happening this year. I don’t like those odds.
The formula for this is to take for example it has been 67 years since the last world war, and with a war every 50 years it is 98% surde that there won’t be a war in the first year after the war ends. Each year thereafter you multiply 98% by itself. .98 to the 67th power is 26% that there will not be a world war, or 74% there will be. You can use this also for earthquakes to predict the chances of an earthquake if you know the time frame between earthquakes. Anything else also, to determine the odds. The more time that goes by without an even occurring, the more the chance of it happening until appproaching a 100% certainty. This is the case with world war. World war means nuclear, and this is probably certain.
All I suggest is exactly what Lauren’s article is about, teach yourself. Even if the prospects of nuclear war are horrifying to even contemplate, learn as much as you can about it. To call oneself a prepper or a survivalist yet fail to become knowledgeable about one of the most hard core issues of survival, nuclear war and radiation, kind of doesn’t make much sense to me.