Jack and I talk like we’ve known each other for a while… because we have.  This interview is a great overview of current events and what they mean for you.

My favorite part of this interview is my announcement that I’ll be adding a new book’s worth of content – 43 more chapters, each one chronicling one of the 43 Colonels – in the ten-book series.  We will move some of the existing chapters to fill up the first nine books, and I’ll write the tenth book, which will be the 43 Colonels.  We want to give people more to read for their money.

And, bonus of bonuses, David Crawford, the author of the great prepper novel “Lights Out,” is on the show too.  It’s awesome to be on the same show with a guy like him.

PS: I made a mistake (two, really) when I talked about Chicago having a $100 “million” current pension unfunded liability.  It’s $100 “billion” and it’s Illinois instead of just Chicago.  My bad.  But the point is still the same: there is no way taxpayers can pay these unfunded liabilities, and the people expecting this money, like Illinois state worker retirees, will go ape shit when they don’t get their money.

This dude is why the 299 Days series was written:

I was prepping in secret when I wrote the book.  My wife was extremely hostile to the whole idea of prepping.  I had stuff hidden in a storage unit.  When the Collapse hit, I had to have an explanation for why all the food, guns, and ammo that I had been hiding suddenly materialized in the garage.

I had two choices: (1) I could say, “I told you this would happen and I’m way smarter than you and figured out we would need this stuff,” or (2) “The Easter Bunny brought this stuff.”  Choice one would alienate her at the very time that I needed her on my side the most.  Choice two would let her keep her pride and let us get onto the task at: protecting our family and making it through a very dangerous time.  The choice was easy.

So I started working on my explanation, which I called the “Easter Bunny speech.”  I would describe why I started prepping, what I did to prepare, and how we  would get through the coming difficulties.  This was the most important speech I’d ever give – my family staying intact during a life-or-death time was at stake – so I decided to work hard at getting this speech right.

I started a little outline of the key points of the Easter Bunny speech on a Post-it note.  I kept adding items to it until it was a sheet of paper.  Then two.  Then more.

The outline was the perfect explanation of how the Collapse developed, what signs there were of it coming, what a person could do to prepare, and how the preps would be used.  I looked at the outline and realized it would be very helpful for other people who were prepping or thinking about starting to prep.

I decided to turn the Easter Bunny speech into a short story and put it on my favorite forum, the Survival Podcast Forum.  Then the story got longer and longer.  After two and half years of getting up at 3:30 a.m., the Easter Bunny speech was a 3,200-page story.  That’s how long it took to fully explain what’s coming and why, and what people would do in the situations I foresee coming.

Then I contacted a publisher out of the blue.  They signed me for a ten-book deal.  It was the only publisher I ever called.  And I’d never written fiction before.  The odds of this happening are astronomical.

Now, tell me this whole thing – a speech to my wife turning into a very popular published ten-book series – is normal.  It ain’t.  A higher power wants this Easter Bunny speech to get out to as many people as possible.  And I’m humbled to be a part of the process.

The publisher of 299 Days, Prepper Press, isn’t just a book publisher.  They’re Patriots.  That’s why it’s so nice having them publish the books.

A soldier in Afghanistan asked if I could get some copies of 299 Days to the USO library at his base.  I asked Prepper Press and they said, “Hell yes.”  They donated some books and shipped them off.  Now the books are being read by soldiers doing a very tough job in a very crappy place.  Here are some pictures sent in by “Dirk,” a reader and a sheepdog Patriot.  These pictures make me smile.

 

 

 

A friend of ours is a medic at a special operations unit at Ft. Lewis.  He gets to give the military’s Tactical Combat Casualty Care course to some civilians.  Guess who snapped that offer up?

Here is the instructor, who we’ll call “McLovin'”:

 

Here is the Team studying hard:

And another shot of “McLovin'” talking about a nasty, nasty wound:

We learned a ton of stuff… that we hope we never need to do.  This was the classroom phase.  We have two more phases out in the field.  Extremely cool stuff.

The Powerpoint for the course is available from the military here.