Tag Archives: history

The upcoming 20th anniversary of……..

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I realized something today as I was trolling around through my library of various survival books. Do you guys know what this December is? Think about it a moment….what happened 20 years ago this December? Correct! It will be the 20th anniversary of The Great Y2K Scare!

An interesting book at the time, it’s downright amusing to read now. Technology, especially on alternative energy systems, has changed so much in price and performance that the recommendations in this book are like reading Tappan’s “Survival Guns” and being amused at the anachronistic recommendations. HOWEVER, what worked twenty years ago would work now, just not as efficiently or economically…so there is still some merit here.

Ah, remember that? We were going to have to face the apocalypse with 10-rd magazines and nothing to fix our bayonets to because the Assault Weapons Ban was still in effect. I remember seeing news articles about True Believers selling the condo in California’s wine country and buying scrub land in Arizona to build a bunker, fence it in, and ride out the massive civil disturbance that would happen as we all suddenly found ourselves in a Stirling/Kunstler/Forstchen novel. Everyone laughed and pointed fingers at people who were concerned over it while secretly doing a little extra shopping and stockpiling.

With hindsight being 20/20 and all, we know now that Y2K turned out to be prety much a bust. The following summer there were some fascinating garage sales as people sheepishly sold off their new-in-box generators and whatnot. But, just as people started laughing at the foolishness of the preparedness crowd we had the Septenber 11th terrorist attacks and suddenly having a few goodies tucked away didnt seem so unreasonable.

Its a toss up as to which thing made preparedness more mainstream…Y2k or 9/11. Either one, on its face, wouldn’t have been enough but the two events (or non-event, I suppose) together within a short timeframe….thats a different story. But, that was almost twenty years ago and many people who jumped on the bandwagon after those events have probably slacked off a good bit. However, those of us who were of that mind before those events took it as validation of our beliefs and continued apace with the conviction of the vindicated.

9/11 also sent a whole generation of people into the military and overseas where a good chunk of them, now in their 30’s and 40’s, got exposed to what the rest of the workd is like when you’re away from the relative civility of the First World and it’s people. I’ve met plenty of Afghanistan/Iraq vets who were not into preparedness, but I’ve never met one who thought it was stupid. They have a perspective that people who have never been to Third World violence-fests simply don’t have.

I do recall sitting around at midnight on New Years Eve 1999 with an AR across my lap waiting to see what happened. As it turned out….virtually nothing. Certainly nothing catastrophic to my world. Oh, maybe there were some isolated incidents here and there of time locks not functioning, extremely localized grid failures, that sort of thing….but a Purge-like, blood-in-the-streets, we’re-on-our-own sort of situation? Nope.

It was about ten years before I finally used up all the rice I had laid back, and I’m fairly confident theres still a few ammo cans of .38 and .308 ammo sitting in storage from that era. A lot of the consumables (toilet paper, batteries, canned goods, etc.) were used and replaced as time went on, so no real waste there. I would guess that the only real ‘wasted effort’ was that instead of finding a New Years Eve party to attend for the big event I chose to hole up in my house with a very attentive eye and ear on the news.

But, of course, the world is a somewhat different place now. Terrorism was something that happened overseas, digital infrastructure attacks were a theory, people with too many vowels in their name limited themselves to blowing up cars in distant lands, and no one got strip searched for trying to bring more than 3 oz. of shampoo on an airplane. I would guess that the reasons to be prepared are even more pressing than they were then. :::shrug::: Makes no difference to me. Even if the world suddenly turned into a quiet, peaceful place tomorrow I’d still keep a secret room in the house….just in case.

 

 

Wayback Machine: Ruger/Smith ad flamewar

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I was talking to someone about Ruger revolvers today and it reminded me of one of the more direct in-your-face advertising tit-for-tats that Ruger and Smith and Wesson have back in the late 80’s/early90’s. Ruger had some print ads out stating that their guns were more stout that the Smiths and you could tell this immediately because the Rugers were thicker, beefier guns.

S&W didn’t take this laying down and came up with an awesome drop-the-mic without using Ruger by name, but those grips left no doubt who the ad was pointed at.

Smith goes on to call out the ‘bulkier’ competitor revolvers and their porous castings. Honestly, I hadn’t seen a flamewar between two bigtime gunmakers like this since then.

And, you can really tell how old this ad is by the fact that it’s two big name manufacturers defending revolvers.

Ah, those were the days.

Blasts from the past

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Here’s why my Roth is underfunded:

But, with most .223 running around $0.32/@ it seemed like a nice way to get some blasting ammo. For you young bucks who are too young to remember, back before Slick Willy was flavoring his cigars with brunettes we could buy cheap Chinese guns and ammo. How cheap? You could get an SKS and a case of 7.62×39 for about $125-150. Seriously. My UPS guy hated me. Quality-wise it was…interesting. At one point even Chinese gunpowder (hey, they invented the stuff, right?) was on the market very briefly until it turned out that it was basically fireworks powder..it had a burn rate measured in Planck time. Their ammo was a mixed bag…always dirty, often underpowered, but always cheap. Kinda made Wolf look like Federal. All those SKS rifles you see these days were purchased because ammo was nine cents per round.

But, if you were just going to the range to break rocks and make noise…well, it was a pretty good deal. I know a lot of people who salted away cases and cases of this stuff. Not my first choice for Der Tag, but some ammo is (usually) better than no ammo.

This stuff? I’ll probably just use it for playing around with the Mini-14’s.Box says brass case but believe it when I see it. As Uncle Duke says…

The origin of “Roof Korean”

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I was staggering through the internet a few weeks back and saw that the folks at Violent Little Machine Shop, maker of some of my favorite ‘morale’ patches, had this little number:

What, you may ask, is a ‘Roof Korean’? Well, it was 25 years ago so it’s entirely possible that a generation of survivalists may have not even been around when the Roof Koreans (and Ground Koreans) were workin’ their mojo.

You know how in survivalist fiction there’s always those gun battles on Main Street with the townies and local shopkeepers swapping bullets with the bad guys like all the rules have been called off? Well, that actually happened.

Roof Koreans operating operationally.

The year was 1992 and a handful of white cops had beat a black motorist so badly that his parents must have felt it. The difference between this episode and the LA police departments other beatdowns was that this one was caught on tape and widely distributed. The cops went to trial on charges of police brutality. When the jury returned a verdict of ‘not guilty’ against the cops, a disgruntled demographic decided to politely protest the verdict by setting fires, looting, and committing violence against people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Where were the cops? Well…that’s a good question. The official story is that the cops were outnumbered, too busy, stretched thin, etc. The prevailing opinion, however, is that they decided to let the mobs ‘get it out of their system’ and things would cam down. The Koreans just happened to be the target of choice for the mobs to use to let off some steam.

The Korean connection is that there has always been some bad blood between the black community and the Korean shopkeepers. Korean grocery stores are often targeted in these sorts of events because the black community, rightly or wrongly, views the Koreans as people who are just making a buck off them and care nothing about, and contribute nothing to, the black community. Against this backdrop of the 1992 LA Riots, some Korean businesses were targetted for violence.

Koreans are an interesting bunch. The ones I’ve met tend to be quite industrious and hard working. The Korean grocer in my neighborhood in Brooklyn was, as we’d say, a real mensch. He was the kinda grocer who, if money was tight, would let you get groceries and pay later.  His wife and little girl worked in that shop and you can bet that he took care of that store because it took care of his family. Solid guy.

And….guys like that don’t take kindly to someone threatening to burn down the business that they’ve worked so hard to build. And a surprising number of Koreans have had military training in the old country. South Korea, being technically at war for the last 60 years, does not fool around with it’s military preparedness and training.

So…take a demographic that is highly-motivated to protect their livelihoods, have a strong sense of community, have some military training (or leadership that does), a surprising amount of weapons, put them in an urban cage match where the referees (the police) have decided to stay home and you get… Roof Koreans.

Rook Koreans were the symbol of the Korean shopkeeper protecting his store and his neighborhood. Even the unorganized mobs that were bent on an orgy of ‘payback’ and ‘justice’ decided to give these guys a wide berth. And when they didn’t…it became a bullet party.

The LA Riots of ’92 were interesting to watch and had some wide ranging impact. Police policy changed and, more importantly, the notion of the recording of police activities by bystanders entered the mainstream. This new level of accountability, which was beyond police control, still causes headlines…it seems like every recent high-profile shooting is caught on video these days.

I don’t know anyone who was there with the Koreans, Ground Or Roof version, but I would imagine that the whole incident left a strong impression and that if it happens again there will be significant upgrade to the firepower. Standing guard all night behind barricades of bundled recycled cardboard definitely makes one think that perhaps a Mini-14 might be a better choice than a Ruger Red Label.

Given the nature of politics and media these days, it isn’t hard to think that there’s going to be more events like these in the future. Best we can do is avoid it if possible and be prepared for the times we can’t.

Patriot(s, s’,’s) Day.. or is it?

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There’s only a handful of holidays I get worked up over…Independence Day, my birthday, Valentine’s Day, Paratus, and one or two others. And then there’s Patriot’s Day…the moveable feast of the political right.

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Maybe someone really said this. Maybe not. But the sentiment certainly seems apropos.

First, there’s a bit of ambiguity about the name..is it Patriot’s Day, Patriots Day, or Patriots’ Day? I go with Patriot’s Day. You can figure out which punctuation rings your (liberty) bell. It most certainly is not ‘Patriot Day‘ which is, I think, a holiday in poor taste since  we already have a holiday with that name and ‘re-using’ it is patently disrespectful to the original holiday.

Then there’s the date. To me, Patriot’s Day is April 19. Why? Because that’s when the shooting started. The notion of making it the third Monday of April, regardless of date, for the purpose of creating a three day weekend is abhorrent to me. You make a holiday to remember and act upon a historical event. You don’t make it for the sake of getting a three-day weekend. *

Folks are calling today Patriot’s Day but I’m going to be a stickler….orthodox, if you will…and say that Patriot’s Day is April 19. Period.

* = Having said that, yes, Paratus is a moveable holiday. BUT..Paratus was designed from the get-go to be held on a Friday so you could have a weekend to play with your Paratus gifts. I do not find this inconsistent with my attitude about re-arranging historical holidays to fit modern demands for three-day weekends.

 

Canned water

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It’s kind of interesting to look back on the history prepping back to the golden-age of the Red Scare and Cuban Missile Crisis and seeing the gear that was marketed towards those wanting to survive the inevitable nukefest.

cw-1One of the things that I often see pictures of in old bomb shelters is canned water. More specifically, drinking water that was packaged in cans like beer or other canned food would be. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. Notice that this was in the days of dinosaurs before the pull-top can was invented. So, if you wanted to slake your thirst in the post-nuke world, you needed the old-fashioned church key to open it. Although there are plenty of these relics floating around, and people come across them from time to time and post pictures of them on the internet, very infrequently do you find those same people saying if the cans were still full or not. Assuming the cans were not lined with any particular barrier coating (which seems pretty likely considering the era), and their steel construction,  the cans probably succumbed to rusting pretty quickly. (This, by the way, is why those old Civil Defense water barrels were not stored full of water,  but rather stored in such a condition as to allow them to be rapidly filled when the warnings were given.)

Water_sideFrom a manufacturing standpoint, the market for this sort of thing would have been a no-brainer for a company that was already involved in the bottling/canning process. For example, here’s some canned water that was canned by the folks at Royal Crown, or as we know it today – RC Cola. If you’ve already got the canning operation set up to make pop, why not just turn the taps on and can some water at the same time? No additional capital investment and a whole new market to sell to….seems like a win to me. But, realistically, that market for canned water, even at the peak of the crisis, probably couldn’t even begin to compare to the market for the regular product.

Anheuser-Busch-Water-Cans-in-Packaging-1 Interestingly, canned water actually does turn up these days in disasters. The folks at Anheuser-Busch, most famous for Budweiser beer, periodically use their resources to run off batches of canned water to be distributed in disaster areas. Compared to the old cans, these things are rocketships…pull-top cans so no opener is required, lined interiors to preserve taste, and aluminum construction to reduce weight and increase durability. And, considering the manufacturing technology and resources of a company like A-B, they probably produce more of these things in an 8-hour shift than most companies could have produced in a week back in the days of Sputnik.

51BhAMJrHnL._SX425_Interestingly, if a person was interested in getting some of this sort of thing for their own bunker you can find it online without having to hang around a disaster relief tent. There’s at least one vendor on Amazon selling the stuff. (Blue Can) And although I rather like the idea of the convenience and durability of an aluminum can, I think that, when you really think about it, any advantages offered by an aluminum can are pretty much available in other forms…most specifically the ubiquitous plastic water bottle that we get at WalMart for around $5 a case. (Versus what amounts to about a buck a can for the aluminum cased stuff.)

I can’t speak for everyone, but my own experience has been that the plastic water bottles are exceptionally durable and probably more durable than the aluminum cans. The biggest issue that springs to mind is what happens in cold weather…I’ve had cans of Coke freeze and explode like an M67, but I’ve never had one of the plastic bottles explode. The bottles also have a bit of ‘give’ to them so things that might puncture an aluminum can don’t necessarily have the same effect on the plastic bottle. In fact, pretty much the only advantage I can come up with for the can over the plastic bottle is the opaque nature of the can preventing light transmission and inhibiting any type of growths.

thTwo other packaging options are the ‘juice box’ style of packaging, which is also pretty tough to find, and the foil pouches that we often see marketed specifically towards preparedness. The boxes seem like a clever idea but I think theyre the least durable and therefore the least attractive option. I do very much like the foil pouches. While I don’t think they have the puncture resistance of the plastic bottles, I very much like their small serving size…their small size means that if they freeze (like in your car in the winter) you can thaw them quickly and easily by just tucking them under your arm or sitting on them. Contrast that with trying to quick-thaw a 16 oz. frozen plastic bottle of water.

It’s also worth pointing out that if you’re the DIY type of guy you can actually ‘can’ water same as you’d can fruits or other foods using your pressure cooker. The water is completely sterilized, the containers are sterilized, and pretty much the only weak point is the glass container.

Link – The Little Can That Could

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Wonderful post about the history of the jerrycan.

During World War II the United States exported more tons of petroleum products than of all other war matériel combined. The mainstay of the enormous oil-and-gasoline transportation network that fed the war was the oceangoing tanker, supplemented on land by pipelines, railroad tank cars, and trucks. But for combat vehicles on the move, another link was crucial—smaller containers that could be carried and poured by hand and moved around a battle zone by trucks.

I’ve given up on anything other than the ‘NATO/Euro’ style cans for gasoline storage. They are more expensive, and sometimes hard to find, but I believe they are worth it.

Article – Almost Everything in “Dr. Strangelove” Was True

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Half a century after Kubrick’s mad general, Jack D. Ripper, launched a nuclear strike on the Soviets to defend the purity of “our precious bodily fluids” from Communist subversion, we now know that American officers did indeed have the ability to start a Third World War on their own. And despite the introduction of rigorous safeguards in the years since then, the risk of an accidental or unauthorized nuclear detonation hasn’t been completely eliminated.

If you havent read it, Stephen Hunter (of “Point Of Impact” fame) wrote a terrific book, The Day Before Midnight, about some guys busting into a launch facility to do a little DIY WW3. It was a really great book and would make an awesome movie. It’s my favorite book of his, narrowly edging out POI. And, yeah, it’s a little derivative of “Twilight’s Last Gleaming.”

Anyway, the gist of the article is that despite the protestations of the military and the government, there have been times when the ability to launch nukes on one’s own has been possible. I suppose in Cold War planning that made sense – if command-n-control is knocked out there has to be a way for weapons to be used without authorization from the smoldering radioactive ruins of DC.

I mention this because it’s a fascinating little bit of history that sort of segues into preparedness. For those of us who grew up in the world of first strike, second strike, MADD, and Minuteman missiles its rather interesting.

The article is also  interesting because it details how the .gov tried to balance a very complicated equation – nukes had to be tightly controlled so no one could go off-kilter and start WW3 on their own, BUT there had to be mechanisms in place to allow an individual command to launch independently if higher authorities were disabled/destroyed. The solution (if you want to call it that) was two-man rules, no-lone-zones, layers of verification, split codes, and a few other ‘team’ requirements. Basically, it was a lot like having two names on a checking account…without both people signing off, nothing happens. (At least, thats the plan anyway.)

And, to segue to a slightly less on-topic matter, it’s interesting to note that while it supposedly takes more than one person to launch a nuclear attack, it has historically taken only one to prevent it.

Although there is the premise of the rogue individual starting WW3,  most folks are unaware of the rogue individual who prevented WW3. There are at least two Soviet officers (here and here) who, when given the opportunity to allow a some fissionable matter to do its thing, said nyet and prevented what might have been the start of WW3.

Interestingly, once you start looking into these sorts of matters you discover there have been quite a few times that we’ve been just a phone call and a button press away from having a nuclear exchange. Nowdays I suspect the incidence of nuclear war is fairly low but the risk of nuclear attack is unchanged or perhaps a bit higher. Somewhere there is a cargo container with a couple nuclear artillery shells in it just waiting to go through the Port of Seattle or somewhere similar. I mean, you look at the numbers and you realize there is a huge amount of smaller, less dramatic nuclear devices out there…man-portable stuff that some zealot can stuff in the back of a Cessna 182 and detonate over pretty much anywhere. There’s a lot of those little nukes out there..artillery shells, torpedoes, ‘special weapons’, demolition packages, etc, etc….stuff that fits into a 55-gallon drum or smaller.

Anyway, an interesting article for those of us who have an interest in control (or lack thereof) of these sorts of things.

 

 

Link – Guide to Military Survival Kits

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I thought this link was rather interesting. It’s educational to see how the contents of the kits, as well as the materials used, have changed over the years. It’s kind of hard to think that there are places in war zones where you could be stranded long enough that you’d have to worry about things like fishing for food, but then again sometimes you wind up stranded in wartime in some places where no one will ever find you.

Given the technology and materials available nowadays, I would think you could put together some amazingly compact and effective kits. Pencil flares, small radios, water purification…all that stuff has come a long ways.