secret

 Operational Security

Operational Security or OpSec is an important tenet of prepping. In today’s world, the need to keep your cards close to your hand goes beyond the simple motivation to not having the neighborhood show up at your house five minutes after the apocalypse. Yes, that is an important reason. If you have prepped for your family, and no one else has, they will be expecting you to bail them out. After all, isn’t that the American way? The even more important reason to keep your trap shut is because the government is doing an increasingly thorough job of building a modern equivalent of the East German Stasi. The DHS “If you see something say something.” campaign now has children ratting out their classmates for eating their pop tart into the shape of a gun. All common sense has been thrown out the window. All it takes is one phone call from a concerned citizen about your oversized pantry, and you are getting a one way ticket to the exotic island of Cuba to stay at the fabulous Guantanamo spa and resort.

What Can We Say?

Take it slow. Obviously it would be preferable to talk to your neighbors about prepping before it hits the fan. Start out seeing what they think about potential threats like the economy.  Slowly present evidence about why we need to prepare. If you live in a hurricane zone or area that is prone to earthquakes or tornadoes, that is an easy segue into the conversation. Once you know they won’t call Big Brother because you have nine boxes of pasta, go a bit further.

The minute you start to get resistance, back off. If you are trying to wake up your neighbor to the impending economic collapse, they are not going to want to believe it at first. If they are not prepared, to acknowledge that you are right means their world is in jeopardy. Be patient with them and let them digest each little nugget of truth. Give them a fun fact here and there about the national debt, derivatives or future lack of Social Security funding. Detroit is always a good opener for that conversation.

Never Tell Everything

In the spirit of teaching, sometimes it is necessary to expose some degrees of your preparedness. Like everything else, there is never a reason to show it all at once. If you need to show a neighbor what you have done, because they want to learn how to do it themselves, keep it on a need to know basis. Be smart, feel people out and trust your instinct. Focus on keeping a proper balance of teaching and operation security and you will be fine.

Happy Prepping!

MDG

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