Survival and Emergency Preparedness

My son has become "Tactical Tommy" and has been competing in shooting matches and tactical races in full tactical gear. Not to mention he is an avid prepper and advises his in-laws on their self sufficient hobby farm.

Anyway he was showing me his tactical gear (plate carrier/body armor, battle belt, mag pouches, holster etc) he even has a tactical ballistic helmet and NVG. He was asking if I had body armor for me and mom. I do have an old kevlar vest I had when I was in LE but that's about it.

After inventorying my ammo and mags I decided I needed some more mag pouches to hold AR mags so I was looking around on line and ran across Tacticon Armory who was having a 66% off spring clearance sale. I picked up a couple mag pouches pretty cheap. They seemed to be pretty decent quality when I got them so I went back and noticed that had some of their plate carriers for 66% off as well. I ordered one and an equipment belt and received them this week. I did not order the plates, just the carrier.

Overall they seem to be pretty good quality. The carrier is by no means top of the line and with 2/3rds off it was very reasonably priced as was the belt.

So the idea is if SHTF you can just slip the carrier over your clothes and be protected, not to mention having mags and other gear attached. Still trying to decide what, if any, ballistic plates to get.

Seems like a good idea until you realize I've been prepping since Carter was elected president and the SHTF has not happened yet. Other than using my generator 2 or 3 times in short term power outages we've never been attacked by zombies, mutants, commies, looters, space aliens, cannibals and any combinations of those.

So I feel a little silly gearing up but I guess I can rationalize it in that people use these as weight vests for training. I'm back in the gym doing cardio and lifting weights. I've also starting jogging (first time in 30 years) a little bit on the treadmill now that I have two good (metal) knees. When the weather gets nicer I'll start walking and perhaps jogging outside, maybe with my new weight vest.

Alas, the struggle for relevance is real.

I have been prepping since the 90s when storms took out the power to our house for a week. I realized at that point I had a family to take care of and it was my responsibility to make them as comfortable as possible and to meet their needs.

As you have noted, my preps have been used for natural disasters verses a zombie invasion. The nice thing is, many of my preps can be used for both. Although, the older I get the more comfort related the preps had become. In my younger days, my preps were setup to go out and tackle the world. Now days, my preps are setup to keep the world out and us comfortable.

Been watching some videos on youtube by Grunt Proof. Ex military operator who has gotten into the prepper thing and is applying his military experience.

He's interesting but watching him just confirms my feeling that gearing up, i.e, getting all kinds of tactical stuff is a fantasy for us old guys to think we are going to fight the red peril.

Even so, getting back into shape and training for something (having a fitness, preparation goal) is not a bad thing neither is having some tactical gear.

I started working out about a month ago and have gotten back into some semblance of condition. I hope to be able to compete in an adventure/tactical race next year with my son. Even if I don't compete I would have gotten into much better shape by then. I'm kind of a goal oriented guy.

Congrats on getting back into shape. Many benefits to doing that besides just being better prepared for whatever this crazy world may throw at us.

Bmyers wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2024 7:01 am Congrats on getting back into shape. Many benefits to doing that besides just being better prepared for whatever this crazy world may throw at us.

I actually started last year before I had my knee replaced. It took a long time to recover from that while preparing the woods house for my daughter's wedding. Then I tore my bicep and rotator cuff and have been in pain since last summer. Then when the pain started going away after some therapy I was able to get back into the gym. The older you get the harder it is to get back into it.

Now looking for ballistic plates and ran across a bunch of youtube videos about making your own plates. Interesting at least from a standpoint that if the SHTF and you couldn't order plates, you could at least make ballistic protection with stuff found around the house or from a hardware store. Some of the homemade stuff will stop rifle bullets, most will at least stop pistol bullets.