Why I Prep, part 3
Today, my wife and I live in Western Washington State, a land of many rivers, streams, wetlands, and rain. So, the danger of flooding concerned us as we searched for property. The house we built sits atop a large hill. Several times the hill has become an island in a sea of flood waters, but the house has never been touched. For me, prepping is like insurance. I buy what I think I need. Our land on this hill is my flood insurance.
This is the third and final part of the “Why I Prep,” series.
Years ago James Wesley, Rawles started talking about “The Four G’s” of prepping, God, Groceries, Guns, and Gold, these were the essential elements of prepping in his mind. I give him credit for much of what I’ve learned about the topic. For years I read his books as they were released and visited SurvivalBlog, his online site, regularly.
Rawles grew up in California and attended local public schools. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism and then served in the Army as an Intelligence officer from 1984 to 1993, resigning immediately after Bill Clinton was inaugurated as president.
Later, he became the founder and Senior Editor of SurvivalBlog.com, covering a multitude of survival and preparedness topics. For several years the blog was number one in its category and is still among the top twenty but most of the day-to-day operation is now handled by others. Rawles is also a consultant for survival retreat properties. He is the author of eleven books, both fiction and non-fiction.
After reading the blog for several years, I purchased his debut novel Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse. Rawles has a background as a technical writer. It shows. Still, I enjoyed the story even as I slogged through the acronyms and jargon. However, he garnered a huge following from his blog and many have bought every book. I own most of them but prefer his non-fiction efforts such as How to Survive The End Of The World As We Know It: Tactics, Techniques And Technologies For Uncertain Times and Tools for Survival: What You Need to Survive When You’re on Your Own. You can find all his books on Amazon.
Rawles is a man who charts his own course. An example of this is the way he signs his name, “James Wesley, Rawles.” According to Wikipedia the comma between his middle and last name is to “differentiate between the names that belong to him and that which belongs to his family.” Rawles describes himself as a Constitutionalist Christian libertarian, that is, he believes in God-given inalienable rights and limited, Constitutional government. He is married and homeschools his children on the ranch where they live. The family stores enough food and ammunition to be largely self-sufficient. A river runs along one side of the property and they keep livestock and hunt.
Rawles is a very private man. He was born in 1960 but, only a few people know the exact date. Other than the “Inland Northwest,” he has not disclosed the location of his ranch but, that description puts it within the American Redoubt, a term and geographical area he proposed in 2011. The Redoubt is a political migration movement that includes Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and parts of Oregon and Washington State. He maintains a post office box in Newcastle, Wyoming.
A few years ago, he updated the Four G’s to five, adding the word “ground,” to his list. He views prepping as a way of life because he views civilization as a thin veneer that will, at some point, break down. I view prepping as insurance and buy what I need to ensure a peaceful life and be protected from reasonable threats. Both views require an actuarial look into an unknown future. Whether you consider prepping insurance or a lifestyle, consider your risks and needs and take appropriate action.
For full disclosure, I should mention that Rawles selected my book, Through Many Fires, as a Recommendation of the Week on SurvivalBlog.
Do you follow SurvivalBlog or are you a prepper? Have you read any of Rawles’s books? What do you think of them? Let me know in the comment section below.
