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First in a series of two stories
By JOHN NORTH
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SALUDA — The United States is mired in a slump and “the question is, how do we make America great, again,” William R. “Bill” Forstchen said during his keynote address Sept. 19 at Prepper Camp 2015 at Orchard Lake Campground.
“It’s going to be up to us, working from the bottom up, to rebuild America after the darkness hits,” Forstchen said, referring to a number of looming catastrophies, especially — as he said later — the probability of an enemy in a tanker ship in the Gulf of Mexico detonating an electromagnetic pulse in a scud missile over the U.S., knocking out the power grid, rendering digital and mechanical devices useless and leaving the nation defenseless.
Forstchen addressed the gathering of 1,000 preppers (aka “survivalists”) — billed as “the largest outdoor preparedness event in the country” — for 15 minutes. He then fielded questions for an hour.
The Montreat College history professor gave the keynote address last year and was introduced as “almost the father of the prepper movement” for his impact with his 2009 book, “One Second After” (a New York Times bestseller), and his many speeches to, and encouragement of, preppers.
Event organizer Rick Austin welcomed the crowd to the night’s program, noting, “Just about a week ago was the 14th anniversary of 9/11. I said then that we’re in a holy war. Our existence, right now, is at stake....
“These people want to kill you.
"We have Bill Forstchen, who was here last year ... saying basically: ‘Don’t be politically correct.’ Some people told me after his speech the hair stood up on the back of their heads.
“He wrote ‘One Second After,’ a great book. He’s almost like the father of prepping. Not only did I meet him, but he’s spoken here two years in a row.
"Now he has out ‘One Year After,’ the sequel to ‘One Second After.’” Austin concluded, as Forstchen was greeted with rousing applause and cheers from the crowd.
During his speech, Forstchen expressed frustration that “the book (‘One Second After’) came out in 2009 — and it’s 2015 ... and the government hasn’t done anything” to protect the U.S. from the catastrophic consquences of an EMP, or a coronal mass ejection.
“We need to build a shield of anti-ballistic missiles to avoid an EMP,” Forstchen said.
Instead, the author-prof lamented that the U.S. government is giving huge amounts of money to Middle Eastern countries in an effort that is likely to backfire.
For instance, Forstchen asked if those attending his talk knew that “the cost was $100 million per fighter to train Syrians to fight ISIS?”
Regarding a CME, a phenomenon that occurs periodically and affects the earth similarly to a massive EMP, one is long overdue and is likely to happen soon, Forstchen said later. (A CME is a massive burst of gas and magnetic field arising from the solar corona and being released into the solar wind, which also would render most of today’s digital and mechanical devices inoperable.)
Forstchen told how he got the idea to write “One Second After,” noting that the idea was hatched in July 2004, when he was working with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on a book on the Civil War. Gingrich “has excellent vocabulary control,” but he exploded with “about five minutes of expletives about the EMP — and Congress not acting on its threat.”
He added, “We then had a six-hour discussion about the EMP threat,” with Gingrich telling Forstchen that he should write a book about it.
When a major report by the U.S. EMP Commission was released on the devastating consequences that would occur from an EMP attack on the U.S., “no media members came by to pick up a report on the threat of EMPs because on the other side of town everyone was paying attention to release of the 9/11 report... Everyone was focusing on the last war rather than on the future war.”
Following an EMP strike, “90 percent of all Americans would be dead within a year,” Forstchen said the congressional report reported.“
EMP is about a first-strike weapon,” he said. “All you need is three or four of them and you can completely paralyze your opponent.”
Shortly after “One Second After” came out in 2009, “people asked if I’d do a sequel, Forstchen said, adding that “writing that book was one of the worst nightmares of my life.It was too emotionally draining. It went on to become a bestseller....
“I didn’t want to go near the subject again. It hurt too much. But people kept asking me to do another book,” so that is why he recently released the sequel, “One Year After.” Just like “One Second After,” the new book is set in and around Black Mountain after an EMP pulse wipes out all electronic devices and communication and most motorized travel.
(“One Year After” is “a riveting and realistic account of a struggling America in the aftermath of an EMP attack,” according to the publisher, Forge Books. It continues the storylinefrom “One Second After,” now two years since the EMP pulse, as the federal government demands that most of the young men and women of Black Mountain be drafted into an “Army of National Recovery” and sent to trouble spots hundreds of miles away.” Town Administrator John Matherson protests the draft, and the federal government cracks down.)
Speaking generally about America’s future, Forstchen said, “I still believe our destiny is in the stars.”
To that end, his recent book, “Pillar to the Sky,” prompted one reviewer to say that Forstchen “should stick to gloom and doom,” he wryly told the crowd, which laughed. What’s more, Forstchen said the Mountain Xpress, an Asheville-based weekly newspaper, “had my face on the cover, titled ‘Dr. Gloom.’”
After a pause, he said, “I finally agreed to do the book ‘One Year After’ because I had to. I feel the prepper movement has graduated (from a basic level) and needs to go to the graduate level.”
After voicing a few more criticisms of American foreign policy and looming threats to national security, Forstchen asserted, “With all that being said, I much prefer going to (the) questions and answers” portion of his program.
However, he then added that “I can bring Abraham Lincoln into anything.”After a big Union loss to the Confederacy in battle, Lincoln expressed some profound thoughts in his annual State of the Union address to Congress on Dec. 1, 1862, Forstchen said.
He praised Lincoln for his foresight, saying he even “laid out what America would be like in 1900 and 1960. He concludes with an incredible statement.”
Forstchen read the Lincoln passsage as follows:
“Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We — even we here -- hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just — a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.”
“That’s always stayed with me,” Forstchen said of Lincoln’s aforementioned words. “He talked about the debt we owe to those who fought in the Revolution.
“We owe it to our children and grandchildren to ensure that the nation that our Founding Fathers created is the one that we will leave” to future generations.
“When the day comes that we face our ancestors in heaven, they will ask if we did our duty... We have to start talking about how we’re going to take our country back and restore it to the America that we once knew.”
Forstchen then asserted, “I much prefer question and answer and so....”
A man asked, “Is it true that there are talks of ‘One Second After’ being done as a movie?”
“Yes and no,” Forstchen replied. “The book had been optioned, but Warner Brothers did not renew its option. Well, last year I literally got a call out of the blue” from a different interested party. “So we’re getting close, again.
“The big problem is we must have editorial control over content,” he said, as the crowd erupted into applause. “Otherwise, Hollywood would turn it into” something it is not.
Another man asked, “When you wrote ‘Day of Wrath,’ do you think you were giving a blueprint to the Muslims?”
“On June 27, 2014, they were talking on the news about the total collapse of security on our Southern border,” Forstchen answered. “Within 15 to 20 minutes,” using his computer, “I pushed into actual ISIS sites. Even FOX News didn’t have the guts to show it.... We decided to go with self-publication on ‘Day of Wrath’” because its subject matter was so controversial.
As for ISIS’ terrorism, Forstchen said, “It’s coming to America. It’s here.” He then praised Prepper Camp 2015 for its efforts, noting, “I know we have some well-trained security people here.”
However, he said, “When I walk into a school building and see the sign that says ‘This is a gun-free zone’ and I think, dang. I envision a terrorist coming up and seeing that sign.... and saying” they have an easy target.
“Imagine three well-trained terrorists coming into a school, fully armed and vicious — they could murder 600 children in six minutes,” Forstchen noted.
“Christians and Jews are dying horrific deaths. They’re having their heads sawed off, being blown up, burned alive....
“I believe we can train well-trained teachers to ‘carry’ (weapons). If we could train one teacher, we could save 100 children....
“Instead, we’re putting up signs that say ‘come and get it.’ When are we going to wake up? I’m angry.”
Forstchen added, “You know, there was a terrible time in America that testing people before they could vote was ‘racism.’”
However, now, if he were calling the shots, Forstchen said, “I’d start one thing. Before you could cast a ballot, you have to know the Constitution of the United States.” The crowd cheered his assertion, as a man yelled, “Not the new one — the old one!” The crowd cheered even louder, as Forstchen broke into a grin.
“We need people voting who are mature, thinking, rational adults, who swear an oath to uphold the Constitution,” Forstchen continued.
With a smile, he then asserted that he — maybe — has focused too much on gloom and doom, noting that “I want to write a happy book, someday called ‘Happy Bunny Goes to Town.’” The crowd then laughed along with Forstchen at that notion.
A man asked, “What’s been the reaction of the people in Black Mountain” to his apolyptic books set in and around that area?
“I always picture the people carrying torches up my driveway, yelling, ‘There he is!’” Forstchen replied with a smile. “Actually, the reaction has been delightful. The chamber of commerce likes it,” referring to the publicity for the community resulting from “One Second After” and “One Year After.”
“Almost every character in the (newest) book is real. The one exception is the chief of police. I needed a foil....
“I asked a pharmacist what would happen if your supply system went down. The two people who know the most of what is going on in a town is the pharmacist — and the kindergarten teacher,” Forstchen said.
(To be continued in November’s Daily Planet)
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