What did you prep that you no longer need, or want?

In my stash of random junk is a “Rhodesian Rig” in coyote tan. Or maybe it’s 499 Tan, or some variation of “flat dark earth” because I’m never actually sure of these things as all sorts of tacticool colors exist for various reasons (mainly marketing). I’m never really going to use that chest rig, but I got it on an internet special for like five bucks. It’s nylon, it holds stuff, but seriously what the heck am I going to actually use it for?

Obviously the doomsday scenario of “The End Of The World As We Know It” that gets a lot of new preppers started in the mindset still hasn’t happened. The “No Free Wacos!” crowd still hasn’t found a line in the sand that they aren’t willing to back away from, and the Occupy/BLM/AntiFA Crtl-Left idjits aren’t protesting in my neck of the woods. In fact, the Ctrl-Left is focusing only on dense urban areas where they think they’ll have the tacit support of the majority of the populace.

So face colander fantasies aside, that chest rig is functionally useless. Unless I get a chance to go play OPFOR Rambo (highly unlikely) wearing “non-attributable” gear.

Hell, all my “fighting rifles” now aren’t even fighting rifles, they are all service rifles for shooting High Power. The Tactical Timmy crowd would laugh at me if I showed up for a carbine class with a 20″ heavy barrel. But I’ve got very little use for an M4 style carbine, not that I don’t know how to use one. Trust me me or not, I could give classes on how to run an M4 from CQB to SDM like so many other former military folks who spent time kicking in doors and pulling triggers (having all the right schools can give an impressive pedigree). But somewhere along the way that sort of activity got reclassified in my mind from “cool fun” to “actual work.”

Because it sucks to do it right part time if you aren’t doing it all the time. Your muscles get tired, the body armor you are wearing starts dragging you down, and even though you go through the training better than the younger guys because you focus on getting the basics right, they get to go out and drink all night putting dollars in stripper thongs while you go home to pop some more Ranger candy and be a husband and father. Hard to act like you are invincible when you have a family on the line, because you know exactly who you would lay down your life to save if it came to something.

Some of the best gunfighters I’ve ever known are laid to rest in cemeteries across the United States. Some by their own hand. Some from traffic accidents.

If you are going to commit to the warrior lifestyle, and train like your life depends on it, by all means do so. But eventually the time will come when you realize that you are getting older, that being a one man killing machine isn’t making you any happier, and that the soft skills of knowing people, sharing knowledge and skills, and spending time on things that are much more likely to matter in higher probability disasters than a full on colander face scenario becomes a much higher priority in your life.

I still shoot, and encourage others to train as they can, however that ends up looking. But how many upper class young Jewish men, trained in the dueling clubs of Europe, ended up as ash? Simply being a warrior of your time doesn’t give you any special advantage in recognizing a true political threat. The ones who had the clarity of vision and understanding to leave… well they were lucky if they found a nation that would accept them. As the “straight, white, male” becomes ever the more popular scapegoat I think back to history, and how the Jews were the ever more popular scapegoat. Don’t get me wrong, it won’t come to pogroms because straight white men still vote, and still have serious economic impact. Marginalizing straight white men is good for scoring political points with the Ctrl-Left, but not so good at securing political victory at the polls (which is one of the things conspicuously absent from a recently published book titled “What Happened”).

But, there is room to improve. No matter how good you are. There is also time to read bed time stories, and watch your sons giggle as you describe how the elephant got its trunk from having its nose pulled in a tug of war with crocodile on the banks of the great grey-green greasy Limpopo river, surrounded by fever trees…

Who knows, maybe in a few years one of my boys will take that old Rhodesian Rig and decide that Airsoft is a great hobby. I’m sure not going to need it any time soon.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply


WordPress.com Logo


Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s