Soldiers of Fortune

"Survival kits and disaster preparedness used to be something out of the mainstream. After a brief (and heavily-mocked) period of fallout-shelter construction in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the notion of private disaster preparedness retreated from the mainstream. … 10 years ago, [Survival Kits] was the stuff of Soldier of Fortune [magazine]." – Glen Reynolds

Glen Reynolds (Instapundit) wrote the above in a 2006 article entitled “We're All Soldiers of Fortune Now”. He notes that “You know survival kits are mainstream when Costco is selling them. … Survival food buckets … were going for $110 and had about 275 servings of freeze dried vegetarian meals.”

More signs that preparedness is mainstream:

• The federal Department of Homeland Security, http://www.ready.gov/, pushing survival kits
• Many states have preparedness pages. In 2006 the state of Ohio sent residents a pamphlet suggesting they put away a month’s worth of food in case of avian flu.
• FEMA encourages Community Emergency Response Team training
• September is now officially National Preparedness Month

Bottom Line

Glen concludes with, “It's a dangerous world out there, and there are lots of reasons, beyond politics, for doing what we can to be ready for it.”