By James Jay Carafano
After a horrific catastrophe, the person most likely to be left standing would be a married, church-going, high-school educated, gun-toting yoga instructor.
If that sounds surprising to you, "Surviving the End," a new e-book published by the Freedom Academy, in association with PJ Media, LLC, explains why. I wrote the book to make sure that yoga instructor – and anyone else who wants to survive a disaster – knows how to keep their family and friends safe no matter how bad things get.
People and nature can do terrible things. Trust me. For 38 years, my career has revolved around how to inflict the worst, prevent it and deal with it. I have a Ph.D. in disaster.
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Here is shocking fact. The average American spends about $1,700 a year preparing for vacation. Many don't spend a nickel preparing for a crisis. Even though catastrophes are a fact of life and capable of erasing everything and everyone we love from the face of the earth, most of us do next to nothing to make a difference. That's just wrong.
Here is another shocking fact. What I have learned from a lifetime of living with disaster is that most of us have no clue as to how to survive.
Movies are no help at all. Take zombie films: I'm a huge fan of them, but educational, they ain't. In "World War Z," for example, we see Brad Pitt tending to a woman after having amputated her arm (to short-stop zombie infection). He gives her a swig of alcohol to dull the pain. Say what? Alcohol thins the blood, exacerbating bleeding. That swig could lead to more blood loss, which could trigger shock, killing the patient.
It gets worse. Having stopped the bleeding, Pitt changes her bandage. The old bandage was doing its job. It should not be loosened before they get to a hospital. Any first class Boy Scout knows that's bad medicine.
Hollywood knows it, too. But Hollywood shows us these "heroic" acts because they're dramatic and entertaining – not because they're right. And Hollywood’s glitterati think their audiences are too stupid to know any better, anyway.
If we are going to survive, we have to do better than watch movies or do nothing.
Over a lifetime of living with the worst life has to offer, my passion has always been helping others survive. In the military, we trained not only to fight and win, but to bring our soldiers home. Since 9/11, I have looked at every kind of disaster from bomb-toting terrorists to Hurricane Katrina, the Gulf Oil spill, Sandy and the recent Ebola outbreak. All of this has left me convinced that average Americans can do far more than they think to make sure they and their families survive the most horrific disasters imaginable. And if they are ready to tackle those problems, they are more than prepared to overcome the everyday bumps in the road like fire, floods and street crime.
You don't have go to extremes to survive. And going to extremes doesn't assure survival. There is nothing wrong with being a survivalist, prepper or homesteader. These are lifestyle choices that Americans are free to make. If those practices are rewarding and fulfilling, have at it. But having survivalist skills doesn't mean you have the makings of a good survivor.
On the other hand, don't expect people addicted to a culture of dependency to be still standing at the end of the apocalypse. When the going gets tough, big government will be the least likely savior of us all. Even worse, dependency on government significantly decreases the odds of being a capable survivor.
Shocker here: The lifestyle choices that helped make America free, safe and prosperous to begin with are the best preparation for survival today. The stuff of good citizens – faith, family, education and health – is the stuff of a good survivor. No, "Surviving the End" is not a sermon; it's a practical, plain-spoken assessment of why these things matter. The brutal truth is, if these attributes don't define your life, your odds of being around after the dust settles are not good.
But with faith, family, education and health, all you need is a common-sense guide to the steps you can take to deal with disaster – be it plague, nuclear fire, cyber-attacks, terrorist campaigns, electromagnetic pulse or – of course – zombies.
"Surviving the End" is a compendium of knowledge accumulated over a lifetime – sometimes painfully – of what works and what's plain stupid. It’s all practical, though it's not always politically correct. For example, it urges you: Get a gun. Perhaps that doesn't surprise you. Yet virtually no government disaster preparedness guide covers the wisdom of owning a firearm. How dumb is that?
Forget Brad Pitt. A little wisdom, and the lifestyle that many everyday Americans already lead, is all we really need to survive.
A 25-year Army veteran with a master's and doctorate from Georgetown University, James Jay Carafano is vice president for national security issues at the Heritage Foundation. "Surviving the End" is published by Freedom Academy, in association with PJ Media, LLC. Freedom Academy strives to educate and entertain readers with challenging nonfiction from the leading experts in trending fields. You can purchase Carafano’s e-book here.