What made you wake up?

[southern patriot]

 I think back and realize how lucky i was as a boy growing up in a small town in southern west "by God" virginia.
I grew up living mostly with my grandfather and my dad(when he wasnt deployed)!
My dad was in the marine corps up until his death by a man that fell asleep behind the wheel and hit him head on in april of 2001.
But growing up,i had my father(marines),my uncle david(army mp) and my uncle Ira(army tank commander).
They kept my head screwd on straight,for those of you that had the "pleasure" of growing up under the watchful eye of a marine know exactly what i mean!
I learned to hunt,fish,trap and all the great benefits that come with the mountain life!
They taught me to always pay my taxes because thats the american way. But on the same note,not to trust a politician,lawyer and most preachers. Thay always have their hands out and it aint for shaking!
I remember clearly the first "wake-up" talk me n my dad had. He use to get the SOF mags and i was thumbing through one one day and came across the full page add of "SUPPORT THE AFGHAN FREEDOM FIGHTER" that we all know now as the taliban!
I asked my dad who they was and thats when he told me all about mr. Talibani!
the last thing he told me was"those are the fuckers you will be figting,those are your VC's!"
Trust me when i say,that was NOT the last conversation we had on matters of being prepared. From the taliban,to the highest office on the planet,he awakened me to it all.
So the reason i started this thread was to see if any of you peeps had a simular upbringing?

[Kobalt]

  Mine is a long story. My dad (Usmc And army)always wanted me to be prepaired for life. Meaning a good job.

 He thought that lerning chinese would be good becaus I hated math and If I could speek chinese I could work with the coast guard as a translater.
I liked the idea at first. But I was plunged into the asian culture. I went to a Wu-shu class for fun, and to establish relationships with some nice asian families.
 It worked and I maid friends. But I felt that somthing was wrong. I dident like the asian culture. It was ok, but it wasent mine.
I needed Something of my own. so I quit Wu-shu. I started watching some videos about Guns, And found A cool nerd who called himself Nutnfancy.
From there I really got into guns, And heckeled my parents to get me a ruger 10 22.
Soon nutnfancy made a video about Arsenal ak's at shotshow 2010. The Ak became a passion of mine and I hade never touched one.
Somewhere along the way and saw some crazy dude with a ak and a beard. I dismissed him as crazy and moved on.
Soon I got into Gear and started watching MR,LockandLoad.
 And Thats how I got here. After I found prepping, I realised I was always a prepper. I always liked the peices of the prepping puzzel, and I put them togeather.

[Ghost]

I dunno....I was born awake. I was always one of the "rebels" who never liked most authority, done my own thing, and was happy with it.

[PatriotSeeker]

 I woke up the night me, my wife, and my little brother were held up with knives outside a smiths grocery store. It was midnight, late, so all the retards with weapons were out and about. To be specific, a group of three kids on the run from cali passing through my little quiet peacful town. They got us that night, all I had was a knife and I had no open shot without making them twitch. And one had his blade on my brothers throat. They got what they wanted, they left. moments later the cops got there, took our statements and went to work. A few days later they found them.  few days later I also learned that I was going to be a father in about 8 months. Hurt me to the core. not only could I have lost my wife and my brother, but I could have lost my un-born son. It sent me into a rage for a while. Took up gun courses. Concealed combat classes and Ju-Jitsu. I never wanted to feel that hurt again in my whole life. And from then on, I have swore to protect the innocent. Sounds dumb, but this is something that changes a man.
  I began to open up to the bigger picture. I come from a military backgraound, so i know what a force of armed men can do to a small town like mine. Horrible things! So I started planning out a "Invasion" plan. If a group of 4 kids can do that much damage, what can a platoon of war veteran soldiers do? Scared me to the bone. And then i started doing some youtube searching. I was origionally into it for Militia work. I wanted to do good for my fellow neighbor one day. but how can I do this with just bullets and strength? I needed food, a plan, and dedicated followers. And then i found the phrase "preppers". Then I un-folded something that was in me since I was a kid. The joy of collecting, but now in the best way, a collection that will help me and mine survive. From then on I have been a Militant Prepper. not to give a bad name, but this is what I feel is the suitfull name.
 Eventually I got my wife into the idea, now she accepts and helps out a little. She supports me in what I do. And loves me no different. my brother has recovered and thinks what I am doing is a good thing and supports me. in time I wanna show him what i have learned, through the Army and through life. I love my family, I love America. Thats why I am a prepper.

[EJR914]

Started listening to a lipstick Libertarian by the name of Neal Boortz, and then a few people on forums had me asking questions.  I had always felt as though there was more than just the Republican party.  Once I found it, I was hooked, read as much as I could, and started questioning everything.

I had a slow wake up.  It was progressive and just kept getting more and more, until I am where I am.

[CrookedSights]

My family never talked politics or current events and still don't  I try to bring them around but they just look at me like  not this again. Back in 2006 I started watching Glenn Beck (Shut up TCS this is my story. ) At first I thought he was crazy but then he started to make sense. That awoken me politically, I didn't wake up to prepping until I came across our old daddy.

[Reaver]

Dawn of the Dead
Not the newer one the older one.


As for politically waking up.... I'm not really sure. I think it was alex jones.

[kindredspirit]

For a long time I had a feeling that things just were not right in our country.  I saw more and more of my rights being stripped away with each passing day.  I saw the youth of America being weaken both physically and mentally - an entire generation of children being raised to be unprepared for life.  With the collapse of the economy, I saw my friends and neighbors losing thier jobs and thier homes.  Scared and destitute... they could only say "we weren't prepared for this."  After a divorce, I found myself a single mom, living in SC with no family and only coworkers as friends.  Thankfully, I have a great job that pays the bills but the looming thought of "what if" was always in the back of my mind.  What if I get hurt or sick and cant work?  What if something happens to one of my children and I have to stay home and care for them?  What if gas and food and utility prices continue to rise?  Still, I went on with my day to day existance as a soccer mom... and just tried to block out the negatives.  Then by some twist of fate, I reconnected with an old school friend from WV... Southern Patriot.  As our conversations deepened we got on the subject of prepping.  He gave me the "ice water baptism" into why I needed to wake up.  FEMA camps, looters, gangs, inability to protect myself or my family.  Scary shit - right?  The thoughts left me in tears many times.  Is this all even possible? Is this just crazy paranoia?  I began my search. I read and read and read some more. I spent hours on the internet looking for answers.  I had an epiphany: bad times lay ahead.  Haunted by these thoughts, after realizing how fragile our society is, I decided I had provide my family with some extra insurance against any possibility.  Southern Patriot not only opened my eyes but gave me the pathway to be prepared.  From prepping to defense....and a forum to share and learn.  He showed me its okay to be a little crazy and paranoid because one day it will all be worth it.   

[Outonowhere]

I have always had a feeling that there was something wrong with the world.  I looked around, thought maybe it was one thing, maybe it was another... maybe it was even me.  I started to pay more attention to thing that had not concerned me as they had begun to.  I watched the news more, I started doing my own research.  I started by listening to people like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, then found others not widely as known who were putting out good information.  I got others around me to start seeing the world for what it really was, but honestly the few who would listened... most in the end put it out of mind and pretended all was sunshine and rainbows.  I met people who agreed that something was wrong and something needed to be done, but their path was not mine and we parted.  I eventually learned about "prepping" and began networking with people who were more like minded with me. 

[Deathstyle]

I always heard stuff from relatives in the military who told me about studies of how fragile the U.S. is and how the military tried to guess how the country would collapse to prepare mentally I guess. A major thing was that we would piss off China and they would go to the UN to demand we pay back our debt. The U.S. tells them to eff' off and our economy collapses.

I had a crazy doomsday professor who told me to invest in gold, dont keep money in the stock market, and prepare for tyranny. He hoped some of his students would enter the government and defeat the beast from within should it become a dictatorship. ( This was back in 2004/2005.)

The actual motiviation started to creep in when I saw Ron Paul on the Tonight Show during the last election cycle and agreed with alot he had to say. However I really became aware when after the housing bubble had burst. I remembered the "dot com" bubble burst and thought to myself "These bubbles happen quite a bit, maybe I can make some cash off of the stock market by figuring out how it works." I then bought a book titled "I.O.U.S.A." which interviews economists, many who happened to have been in every White House administration from JFK to Bush Jr. One of the economists interviewed was Ron Paul who explained the Federal Reserve and I researched both the FED and Dr. Paul. Now I'm AWAKE!!!  [url=http://www.freesmileys.or

[RS762]

Watching Obama systematically break every single campaign promise 6 months into his term.
I was like, "shit, I need more guns"