First of a series of two stories

By JOHN NORTH 

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WAYNESVILLE — Once again, author-professor William Forstchen was introduced as “the scariest man in America” — this time just before his Sept. 29 keynote address at the Heritage Life Skills conference at the Haywood County Fairground.

The two-day conference, which drew about 150 people, featured sessions on survival skills, such as fire-starting, long-bow-making, weaving, spinning, trapping, blacksmithing and candle-making. The event host was Carolina Readiness Supply of Waynesville.

In introducing Forstchen, Richard Walsh, a West Asheville prepper known as “Madmick” on YouTube, repeated the colorful description he gave the Montreat College military historian at a preppers conference in Black Mountain this past spring.

Forstchen, standing nearby, grimaced — and then grinned — at  Walsh’s introduction. Continuing, Walsh asserted, “He doesn’t realize it ... He won’t take credit for it — for starting the prepper movement in the United States.” 

Finishing with a flourish, Walsh triggered applause from the roughly 100 people present as he noted that Forstchen’s book “One Second After,” a New York Times bestseller, virtually “created the prepper movement in the United States.”

As the applause died down, Forstchen picked up the microphone and sat casually on a table — with his legs dangling — in the front of the room. He greeted the crowd in a low-key manner. “Why don’t we do what I prefer to do — a question-and-answer” session? he asked, rhetorically.

However, he said he first would tell about his day, noting that he was not in tip-top condition that Saturday night because “I finished my latest book at 3:30 this morning, so I’m a bit ‘zombified.’”

When he later told his daughter (Meghan) that he had finished the book, Forstchen said she asked him, “How many people did you kill” in it? I said, “Only two.’”

The audience erupted into laughter, as Forstchen’s daughter was referring to the nonstop deaths in his book “One Second After.” That work tells of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP)  attack scenario, where 90 percent of the U.S. population would die within a week — and many more die thereafter, albeit more slowly

Also, Forstchen told the crowd that he participated in a scheduled interview with Israeli National Radio that afternoon. “It’s interesting they’d ask someone without government affiliation” to discuss issues such as the ramifications of an EMP attack, he said. 

The crowd laughed when Forstchen said that when he told a colleague that he was going to do the interview, “he made me promise” not to suggest “shooting pork-fat” projectiles into Iran, or tell any other politically incorrect jokes. 

In the course of the radio program, Forstchen said he asked the interviewer where she was located in Israel — and she said her studio was “a few miles outside of Jerusalem.” He said he praised her for her courage.

During the interview, Forstchen said he was asked why Iran would want nuclear devices. “I said there’s only one reason for a nation of that size to have one to three (nuclear) missiles — and that is to fire off an EMP,” with the intent of sending Israel back to 18th century technology or earlier.

(An EMP, experts say, would fry the circuitry in all, or most, digital devices, leaving them inoperable. It would take down the grid, probably for years.)

Brimming with admiration for his Israeli interviewer, Forstchen said “she told how her father was a Holocaust survivor and they (the Israeli) know what the future will bring if they don’t stand strong.”

In speaking of the United States, Forstchen said, “I do believe we have to stand strong at this point ... A madman having his finger on the button (to trigger a nuclear attack) is frightening.”

Referring to Iran, the professor-author said the U.S. faces something unusual — foes who have no qualms over killing themselves and everyone else, believing that they will be rewarded in the next life.

Forstchen said he was not wanting to get “political” in his address, “so I’m not counseling on who to vote for ... Just vote.”

Forstchen then opened the question-and-answer session, which began with a man noting that John Moore said on his syndicated radio talk show that “troop movements that seem unusual” were occurring on military bases in eastern North Carolina.

While Forstchen professed to know nothing about that assertion, a man in the audience who identified himself as a Charleston, S.C.-based defense contractor, said, “As far as we know, that’s all speculation.”

Forstchen added that something that is definitely known is that “there is a major carrier buildup in the Middle East” area and in the Indian Ocean.

Someone then asked Forstchen, “What was the general mood in Israel like while you were out there?”

“I wasn’t there,” Forstchen replied. “I was being interviewed” from his Black Mountain home by an Israeli radio journalist. However, based on chatting with his interviewer and his research, “What I hear is they’re ready to go (to war with Iran), but, then again, they’ve been ready to go since 1948,” when Israel was formed.

“But did you feel it (war) is imminent?” a man asked.

“Yes,” Forstchen said. “They (the Israelis) think it will happen within six months.”

The historian then told of the Masada, a Jewish fortress overlooking the Dead Sea, where the Romans laid seige in the spring of the year 73. Upon finally forcing entry with a battering ram, the Romans found all 960 inhabitants dead as the result of suicide. The Jews felt it would be better to be dead than to be slaves of the Romans, Forstchen said. 

“The Romans were stunned,” the professor said. “That’s echoed in Jewish history for 2,000 years ... Part of the pledge is ‘Never again, Masada!’ You could see why (today) they would be on guard” against the Iranians.

Another audience member asked about Forstchen’s view of the “solar activity” that is occurring and predicted to occur soon.”

“CMEs — coronal mass ejections — all the time (such) storms are erupting,” Forstchen replied. “On average, it (the earth) gets hit every 75 to 80 years with a big one. It’s essentially the same as an EMP, but there’s potentially a great impact of a global EMP.”

“In other words, every industrialized country in the world would get slammed ... The last really big one (CME) was in 1921.”

He then spoke of a CME solar superstorm that lasted from Aug. 28 to Sept. 2, 1859. It produced the largest known solar flare, which was observed and recorded by Richard C. Carrington. Telegraph systems in North America and Europe failed.

Forstchen told of telegraph pylons throwing sparks and telegraph paper spontaneously catching fire.

“The Carrington Effect burned off the Victorian infrastructure of that time,” he said. “It was setting railroad ties on fire. Can you imagine what that would do to our high-power lines today? So we’re overdue....

Someone asked what would happen to the nuclear reactors, if an EMP were to hit the U.S.

“So much of what’s really going to happen is classified,” Forstchen said. He added that one of the main reasons for keeping the information private is officials do not want “the bad guys” to be privy to their projections.

“The big question is how we get them (the reactors) back online. It takes a great amount of energy” to do that.

He added that he was at a conference with top U.S. officials near Washington, D.C., where an expert said that “of the (estimated) 500 nuclear facilities in the eastern United States, estimates are around 80 percent of generating capacity still would be offline five years later. “

Forstchen said there were “at least 800 to 1,000 people in the audience,” including top military leaders and scientists, and “nobody said a word.” When nobody voiced disagreement with the damage projection, “I said, ‘Oh, my God!’”

In a textbook display of gallows humor, Forstchen said he later heard someone say, “Well, if you lose 80 percent of the reactors, it’ll all work out because 80 percent of the population would be dead, too.”

He noted that is why a number of preppers try to live no closer than an hour away — and preferably farther — from a nuclear plant.

On the bright side, Forstchen observed, “The beauty of it is ... prepping for an EMP or a CME, it’s the same prepping.”

An audience member asked, “Are we seeing precursors to World War III?”

“I feel like we’re living in — for America ... it’s 1941,” Forstchen said, alluding to the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, which prompted American’s entry into World War II.

“I don’t think we’re taking seriously” the threat that exists with Iran, the professor said. “The historican in me goes back to 1941, 1939, 1938.... If we’d said, ‘Don’t even consider this’” to Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler, the death and destruction of World War II might not have happened.

Great Britain’s Winston Churchill “flat out declared that appeasement will result in global catastrophe,” Forstchen said. His advice was ignored and he was banned from the BBC for a year, but made a comeback into power after his prediction proved to be correct,  the professor noted.

“I think we’re in for a terrible crisis,” Forstchen reiterated.

He then referred to a scene in the 1984 film “Red Dawn,” where a downed U.S. pilot explains to a group of teenagers — fighting guerilla-style against Russian and Cuban invaders — how the war started by saying. Forstchen paraphrased the pilot as saying, “It seems like every 50 years somone has to prove who’s the biggest kid on the block.”

As Forstchen looked out on the grim expressions of those in the audience, pondering his analysis and projections, he suddenly quipped, “Can we talk about ‘How Happy Bunny Goes to Town’?” — a reference to his daughter’s suggested title for a new book by him, with a happier subject than that of “One Second After.” The audience laughed.

Among the many other questions, someone asked for Forstchen’s thoughts on “why people don’t know about the threat in the Middle East.”

“There are (repeated) examples of people thinking they’re living in peace, when they should have been preparing for war,” the military historian replied.

“Throughout history, we’ve had leaders who felt appeasement was the answer ... So why’s the president (Barack Obama) doing what he’s doing? I don’t know, but I think he’s sending out the wrong signals,” Forstchen said.

Story to be continued