By JOHN NORTH

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BLACK MOUNTAIN — Dr. William Forstchen, the keynote speaker at the Sensible Montain Preparedness Seminar on May 5 here, appeared to get a charge out of the memorable introduction he received.

MrMadMick15, the emcee, introduced Forstchen by saying, “Coming forward now is the scariest man in America.

“His book (“One Second After”) has changed a lot of lives. It’s like the Bible. So, without further ado, I’m going to introduce the scariest man in America.”

Dr. William Forstchen

As the crowd applauded and a few laughed, Forstchen said, “I’ve never been introduced as ‘the scariest man in America,’ although when I give my students a final exam, I get the same thing.”

When he asked how many had read his book, most of the hands in the crowd shot up into the air at once, causing Forstchen to smile.

He noted that “One Second After,” which was a New York Times bestseller, is based in Black Mountain and the Ridgecrest Conference Center where the preppers were meeting was converted into a nursing home in his book. Forstchen then told of other places around the immediate area that were mentioned in his book.

Forstchen said his intent was to speak as briefly as possible “and do as much Q&A as possible” with the crowd of about 1,100 people at the seminar.

He told how he came to write the book, noting that about eight years ago, “I went up to D.C. to meet with my friend  (former House Speaker Newt Gingrich) to discuss writing a book” together.

Gingrich arrived late for their meeting and was frustrated in his attempts to get Congress to consider the dangers of an electro-magnetic pulse attack. Forstchen said he told Gingrich that “I know about EMPs because of my background as a military historian. 

After further conversation, he said Gingrich convinced him he should write a novel involving an EMP attack, so that the idea would be much better known to the public.

He said that, to date, there has been no federal funding to help people prepare for an EMP attack or solar flare.

“No,” Forstchen said, “because there is no constituency. So that was the reason to write the novel — to build a constituency for EMPs. 

“It’s been a very interesting journey for me for the last three years. But in the last year of so, I’ve seen reason for hope.”

On the other hand, he said, “I’ve lost hope in bureaucratic systems solving anything ... I’ve come to believe in ‘We the people.’”

For instance, Forstchen said that three years ago, there might have been eight or nine people attending the preparedness conference, if one had been held. Instead, there was a turnout of 1,100 people on May 5.

He asked how many of the attendees “had gotten into this in the last year of so?”

About half the attendees raised their hands.

“That gives me encouragement,” Forschen said.

In speaking of his aspirations for preppers, he asserted, “We are loyal Americans ... In general, we are people of faith ... We as Americans must read the Constitution constantly ... The Constitution, nowhere, says there’s a separation of church and state.” (Some in the audience applauded)

“What it says is we should not have an infringement of the separation of church and state.

He also said a prepper, in his view, operates from two principles — seeks more guidance from God and looks to the Consstitution as that person’s political guide.

“Regardless of left or right (politics), if we have people in office who do not have a moral system of government, then it needs to be removed.”

He then noted that he is “troubled by the stereotyping” of preppers by the mass media.

Forstchen asked, “How many of you would have defined yourselves as preppers three years ago?”

No hands were raised.

Shaking his head, Forstchen said, “From a small acorn, a mighty tree grows.”

He said that a prepper “is not about you, yourself or your family. It’s about America.”

Forstchen quoted Abe Lincoln saying — during a low point for the North during the Civil War — that “We are the last best hope of mankind.”

Forstchen asserrted that “the thing that binds us together ... is being united by the Constitution ... that we’re all equal ... What other country has given so much? 

Regarding dangers to the U.S., he said “the EMP threat is not sci-fi. The Iranians have been testing them for years.”

To that end, he discussed the scenario where the Iranians or North Koreans send a cargo ship off the U.S. coast in the Gulf of Mexico and “fire a vertical shot 250 miles above the earth” with a nuclear misisile, sending America back to the Middle Ages, technologically.

He said experts tell him that there will “definitely” be a catastrophic CME, or solar flare, “within our lifetime,” with the prediction of one occuring in the next two or three years.”

Regarding a “military event,” Forstchen said, “I think it will happen ...”

As for an EMP attack, the professor-author also believes there is a high probability of that happening soon, too.

In wrapping up his speech, Forstchen closed with a prayer, after which he received a standing ovation from the crowd.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: More stories on the Sensible Montain Preparedness Seminar will appear in June’s edition of the Daily Planet.