Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

The new Sportsmans Guide HQ milsurp catalog showed up today. A few highlights:

HK Flare pistols, 26.5mm – $39.97

26.5mm flares – $79.97/10

Flectar parka w/ liner – $29.97

Trioxane fuel bars – $39.97/100

A few other interesting items in there, but you can head over to their website and see what they have. I highly recommend the German flectar parks and liners. They used to be twenty bucks for the pair but even with the price increase they are worth it. They are warm, comfortable and superior to the US field jacket/liner combo. I’ve had several of them for years and I am very reluctant to wear anything else in the cold. (Reluctantly, I wear a Carhart coat for those winter situations where wearing milsurp is frowned upon.)
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Was in the Goodwill store the other day nosing around and found a copy of WarDay. (Strieber & Kunetka, 1984, #0-03-070731-5) I read this book many, many years ago (probably over twenty years ago) and it made an impression on me. Succinctly, the book takes place a few years after a US-Soviet limited nuclear war. NYC, DC, and such places are obliterated, California is a fenced off paradise, the Mexicans have made good on their Reconquista plans, reconstruction is under way with the help of foreign aid, and salvagers make a living recovering materials from whats left of NYC. The book is about two writers who decide to travel across the recovering US to see how things are going. The most chilling part is the first chapter where one of the main characters describes his experiences in NYC when the bombs fell. He takes refuge in his childs Catholic school and church with other survivors as the city crumbles around them. Having grown up in NY it was very realistic to me. After two weeks of living on water and crackers, hoping to avoid the worst of the radiation, he emerges and the story begins.

I believe the risk of the classic nuclear exchange (between the US and an aggressor, anyway) is lower right now than it has ever been since Oppenheimer built the damn thing. However, I think the risk of nuclear attack is highest. (That is to say, I see the classic ‘suitcase nuke/dirty bomb’ scenario being far more likely than the Cold Ware-era ICBM strike.) Although the book deals with the after effects of a nuclear exchange, what makes the book interesting to me is its detail about how the infrastructure of America has changed as a result of the ‘War Day’. Air travel is reserved for .gov and the highly connected. Gasoline is still rationed and many families share cars. Food is imported since the grain belts are full of radiation. California is a walled off paradise that escaped destruction and American ‘illegals’ try desperately to get in. British and Japanese relief missions help out tremendously while advancing their own agendas for the new Third World United States. Health care is rationed based on the dosage of radiation a person received. Government control of most industry and services is the norm, and expected to continue for years and years. The average family survives on rationed electricity, rationed food and hope. Like “World War Z” this book is mostly first person interviews with various survivors, opportunists, foreigners, etc. that the writers come across on their travels. As such, it puts in some horrific and tragic personal stories. Powerful stuff.

As I said, I read it as a kid and while its no “Alas Babylon” I think its good reading for getting an idea of how infrastructure changes as a result of large-scale disaster. The sections where people recount their experiences at overwhelmed hospitals and the experiences of radiation poison were enough to push my impressionable young mind in this direction years and years ago. Re-reading those sections, actually, makes me want to head to the bunker and double-check supplies.

“Alas Babylon” was written by a vocal Civil Defense supporter and, unlike many stories of that time, showed nuclear war as a survivable event. “War Day” shows it as a survivable event, but at a terrible cost and makes the subtle message that war is to be avoided at all costs. The message is not dissimilar to the gloomy “The Day After” movie or the incredibly depressing movie “Threads”. Arguably, there is no way to ‘spin’ coughing up blood and having your intestines leave your body with every bowel movement. While Im certainly no advocate of jumping to war I see these stories as compelling reasons to advocate strong civil defense programs, not as cautionary tales urging us to sit down at bargaining tables and give away the store to avoid getting nuked.

However, as I said, the likelihood of the storied ICBM exchange we grew up fearing actually coming to pass is, for now, far less likely than many other horrible scenarios. So my interest in re-reading “War Day”, other than nostalgia, is to read it with a more critical eye now that I have a different way of thinking about preparedness than I did at the impressionable and highly immature age of 19.

If you can track down a copy of this book, I recommend it. Its intresting and a very good companion to “World War Z” in terms of telling the stories of individuals in (albeit fictitious) times of total apocalypse.