The Gun Counter

First of all, I can point a long gun or hand gun and squeeze a trigger. Better than your average police academy/military boot camp graduate, which I consider the bare minimum for acceptable firearm skills.

Secondly, I'm not at the level in certain areas that many of you are. I can't build wooden furniture or a house/barn from scratch, weld and solder, go out in the woods, bare-ass and survive for weeks on end, or many of the other skills many of you have acquired. With time, I could learn them, but it's not something I've had the time to do, so far.

What can I do to earn my keep?

I can be your medical go-to guy. That's right, a SHTF Medic.

Medical skills will be a valuable commodity if the S ever does HTF. Accidents and trauma emergencies will be much more common. That's something that does fall within my area of interest/ability.

I started by taking a Nurse's Aid course, went from there to EMT-Basic, which gave me the skills to save your life using primitive tools, and am now working toward full Paramedic credentials. I don't plan on working in this field, beyond what is required to keep current licensure, but I DO want the skills, should the unthinkable ever happen.

With a decent supply of trauma/emergency medical gear, my own food, and an acceptable personal arsenal with adequate ammunition, I like to think I would be welcome if I showed up at your bunker/stronghold after the hammer fell.

Any thoughts on this? What preparations have you made in your skill set to prepare for the worst?

If you think about it, you might have the same skills as a town doctor pre-industrial revolution. Another thing I would try to learn would be remedies from common plants or something of that nature, seems like that knowledge would be quite useful as well.

Probably the main thing to think about would be what skills would be needed in starting a post-apocalyptic community. A town doctor would be a key figure in that scenario, a blacksmith would be also high on the list. Stuff like that.

As a gunsmith I think I have enough of a skill as an apprentice blacksmith or woodworker should such a thing already be covered. Secondary skills should also be looked at as well, there will be plenty of manual labor around already such as farmers or gatherers.

Just my $0.02.

ETA: Ooh! Level up!

I think buying an Almanac is smart and learning to plant by using it for your region. If you do a little gardening now you won't have to suddenly learn how with 3/4's of the country. Plus there is no down side, you get fresh food! Learning to hunt, even if it is just the once will go a long way to making you more self sufficient. Lot's of city folk (and some country) don't know how to stalk or set snares.

In the SHTF you are going to spend 98% of your time surviving, scrounging, and keeping it together. You will spend 1% riding around looking for trouble and 1% finding or showing off your assless chaps.

The skills you need to actually survive outside of winning a short gunfight are the ones that will make you a survivor instead of a looter. Otherwise you will go around taking others stuff until someone who want's your assless chaps more than you do will come and take them from you. Learn land navigation, learn to build a fire, learn to smoke meat. If you kill a deer and you are bugging out on foot to your mountain retreat you need to know how to take it with you. You also need to know how to find water.

That show on Discovery called the Colony is actually instructive in that is causes folks to have a discussion about how fucked they will be because not that many are self reliant. Hopefully 1 or 2% will go out and get some skills because they got scared. Unless you are lucky enough to get stranded with engineers and doctors. Don't count on it though, more likely you will be at an assless chaps convention when the balloon goes up.

Good topic!

I always thought if I were transported back to the bad old days, I'd be either a scribe or blacksmith. In the 19th century, to borrow a term from Kipling, perhaps an artificer. If I were more ambitious, maybe court astronomer/astrologer (the same thing long ago). I bet astrologers got all the hot chicks.

Mud_Dog wrote:If you think about it, you might have the same skills as a town doctor pre-industrial revolution.

Probably a lot more, actually. I heard that the break-even point for seeing a doctor -- defined
as a 50-50 chance of coming away unharmed -- was 1915. Pre-industrial revolution? Run
away! Doctors were the curse of those rich enough to afford them.

Frosch wrote:

Mud_Dog wrote:If you think about it, you might have the same skills as a town doctor pre-industrial revolution.

Probably a lot more, actually. I heard that the break-even point for seeing a doctor -- defined
as a 50-50 chance of coming away unharmed -- was 1915. Pre-industrial revolution? Run
away! Doctors were the curse of those rich enough to afford them.

Yeah, but you have to think about what you'll have access to in Assless Chaps times. IV bags are gonna be on short supply and bandages will probably have to come from the best available source, old clothing when the good stuff runs out. Medicine will run out quick as well due to no refrigeration and low supplies.

You're probably right about that 50-50 calculation, but hopefully skb wouldn't be hacking off limbs and bleeding people through their feet!

Mud_Dog wrote: but hopefully skb wouldn't be hacking off limbs and bleeding people through their feet!

Except for when the [strike]victim[/strike] patient deserves it of course.

HA! You guys are killing me. Seriously, I'm going to look into some books on home remedies and such. Also, I plan to pick up the BSA merit badge book on operating a compass/reading a map. I figure that will give me the level of skill I need to not be a complete tenderfoot. Can't be an expert in EVERYTHING, so I'll try and be a Jack of as many trades as I can muster, then let the others fill in the gaps.

If those of us on this site ever decided to build our own little vacation/SHTF retreat, like the folks in Footfall, how long do you think it would be before the .gov found us to be worthy of their interest? Probably not long.

You might also see if you can find a copy of the early 70's edition of the Boy Scout Field Book.

IIRC the Fox Fire series of books had volumes dealing with natural/home remedies.

randy wrote:You might also see if you can find a copy of the early 70's edition of the Boy Scout Field Book.

IIRC the Fox Fire series of books had volumes dealing with natural/home remedies.

My folks have a set of those!