my shtf expirience-wartime

Survivalist Boards ^ | 9/6/11 | Selco

[Kartographer]

OK, i wanna share with you my own experience. (be patient with my English, i am from far away ) I am from Bosnia, and as some of you may know it was hell here from 92-95, anyway, for 1 whole year i lived and survived in a city of 50 000- 60 000 residents WITHOUT: electricity, fuel,running water,real food distribution, or distribution of any goods, or any kind of organized law or government.The city was surrounded for 1 year and in that city actually it was SHTF situation. (SNIP) Some of us was better prepared, but most of families had food for couple of days, some of us had pistol, few owned AK-47 when all started.

Anyway, after one month or two, gangs started with their nasty job,hospital looked like butchery, police force vanished, 80 percent of hospital staff gone home. I was lucky, my family was big in that time (15 members in one big house, 5-6 pistols, 3 Kalashnikov s) so we lived and survived, most of us. (SNIP) After three months rumors started abouth first deaths from starvation,deaths from low temperatures, we stripped every door , window frame from abandoned houses for heating, i burned all my own furniture for heating, lot of people died from diseases, mostly from bad water (two of my family members), we used rain water for drink, several times i ate pigeons, once i ate rat. Money did not worth sh..

we traded things, black market worked, few examples: for 1 corned beef can you could have woman for couple of hours(sounds bad, but it was reality) i remember, most of that womans were just desperate mothers, candles, lighters,antibiotics,fuel,batteries, rifle ammo and of course food, we fight like animals for that.

[Chode]

UP

[PA Engineer]

Antibiotics have a limited shelf life.

Not true. Tetracycline will become dangerous to use past the expiration date. The remainder if stored in a cool, dark and dry place (not the bathroom cabinet) will last for years. Dr. Bob has discussed this extensively on Survivalblog.com.

Fish antibiotics have been the recommended substitute because of purity. These can be found on amazon.

[montyspython]

When someone from Bosnia refers to themslef as Bosnian it usually means they are Muslim. Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats generally refer to themselves as Serb or Croat.

There are many mixed marriages in Bosnia, had this person mentioned the town it would be easier to verify.

[GeronL]

Here is a video about the Siege of Mostar (where the author seems to have been from)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1XYWtCx6zQ&feature=player_embedded

[Huck]

Amazing thread over there. Working my way through it. Confirms what I have thought for a long time. Gold is basically worthless when the SHTF. Tobacco, coffee, booze is much better. Some good other ideas—lighters, fuel, containers, etc. Soap.

[little jeremiah]

Here’s the blog he started, I guess he’s posting over there now. I’m still on page 25 from the above link and he’s talking about the blog he started.

http://htsurv.blogspot.com/

[blam]

This is where I've gotten my antibiotics for years, cheap, no prescription, dependable.

California Vet Supply

As far as antibiotic shelf life, read this:

A Doctor's Thoughts on Antibiotics, Expiration Dates, and TEOTWAWKI, by Dr. Bones

Studies performed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) revealed that 90% of medications tested were perfectly fine to use 8-to-15 years after the expiration date. There was apparently no danger in the grand majority of cases. The FDA tested more than 100 medications, both prescription and non-prescription, and continues to study the issue today. The exceptions were mostly in liquid form (antibiotics included, but also insulin, nitroglycerine and some others). What is true is that the potency of an antibiotic could possibly decrease over time, so it is important that your medication cache is in a cool, dry place if at all possible. Refrigeration is an excellent method to maintain the full potency of many drugs.

[GeronL]

It’s a good bet this was Mostar, and Muslim is a good bet because of that. “The Siege of Mostar” was brutal, most especially on the “Muslim” half.

[montyspython]

Not necessarily, there were many towns that were under siege in Bosnia, but certainly Mostar is a good candidate.

The Croats done took out that bridge real good.

[GeronL]

The only city of that size that fits the description is Mostar. The Siege of Mostar was very brutal, lasted about 9 months.

[GeronL]

Mostar is in the general area he described and is the only one around that size. It’s the fifth largest city in Bosnia-Herz- whatever.

[phockthis]

thanks

[wolfcreek]

That’s good to know. We had some that were several years old that I trashed the other day.

They were Cipro (sp) guess I should of saved them?

[blam]

"Fish antibiotics have been the recommended substitute because of purity. These can be found on amazon. "

I missed you on the ping. See my post #47. I have a good stash of antibiotics stored in a refigerator out back in the shed. My stash also contains Potassium Iodide from here.

[Buscador]

We get our antibiotics for [our fish ;)] from revival:
http://www.revivalanimal.com/Fish-and-Bird-Antibiotics.html

Dispensing medicine without knowledge can be hazardous; knowing what to use for a given illness your fish might get can be difficult to decipher.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_antibiotics

[Kartographer]

This is from his Selco's Blog: ordinary day To make some things understandable i ll try to describe my street in that time, it was street in older part of town, all houses made from brick, small yards, usually with gardens, every yard had wall, brick or concrete, street was dead end street, maybe some 20 houses, not sure. Neighborhood was nice, middle class, normal people, kids, cars, lawns... When everything started due to advancing of enemy army, and occupation of some parts of town, population gone to maybe 50 000-60 000 citizen, not sure. Lines of separation between "us and them " formed pretty soon as advance was stopped. I guess then they decided to conquer it with long siege, starvation or something like that. Whatever reason was , it resulted with lot of people in condition of constant shelling, sniper fire, no distribution of any kind of goods, no authority or anything else that means civilization. Very soon things started to go down, people realizes that everybody is potential enemy, so if anybody thinks there was some feeling of union in trouble or something like that, no sorry. Some folks realizes that they can not survive alone, without weapon in that new world. In my case some family members came from other parts of town, from their houses to my house, because they did not feel safe there, some of them bring weapon, some bring some food,some did not bring anything. Now when i remember, i think maybe we needed 15 days to realize that is not gonna be war like war in some other . Houses gets cold without heating, people slowly realizes it is gonna be fight for life, every single day. Like every normal city in world we had stores, markets and malls, but trust me, folks just break and take everything in day or two. And that s it. Some order on storages and granaries was maintained, but pretty soon we realized that it was not order, gangs just take it. Anyway soon we found our neighbor and his family killed, and robed, nobody knew anything but i guess that was one more awake call, maybe half of the people in street were armed, rifles, pistols, different things. So we formed something like watch or guard at the street entrance, we roll over burned car as barricade, few men always guarded there.Even then we never were sure is our first neighbor going to attack us, or he ll be friendly. So we barricade our street from outsiders and put some kind of guard, or watch, but we also barricade our houses from everyone, you can say that was very loose alliance between neighbors. We used what we had, with constant shelling there was a lot ruins from where we used rocks, pieces of metal plates or anything to make house harder to penetrate. My weapon was AK 47, folding stock. Lot of the people asked me is it good? Is it better then...? I don t think that s right question, you see many years after that SHTF i had and used for some time m16 ( i think it was M16 A1) and i found it much better than AK47, but in case of another SHTF i going to have Kalashnikov again. Reason is simple, most of the people here use that rifle, that caliber.Same with pistol and same with everything else. Keep it simple and ordinary. In that time US air force had mission to drop food from airplanes from high altitudes as a part of the mission to help surrounded cities(not only mine)  there was not any kind of schedule, or right place to wait for them, it was matter of luck. I ll try to describe one waiting for MRE (it was not only MRE, but we called it, hunt for MRE ) At first real dark we took rifle (if you had it) or any kind of weapon, and go out, usually 3-4 men, never alone. Some 2-3 miles from my house there was hill, it used to be dense wood, but soon it was naked because need for firewood, so imagine bunch of people climbing on that hill, complete darkness, maybe 300-500 people every night, and waiting for the distant sound of airplane, it was matter of luck, i guess because they dropped that things from high altitude they just never know where they gonna go. Funny thing was that few miles across that hill was another hill, on that another hill was enemy army, they usually shoot every half hour on our hill with PAT (anti aircraft cannon) in dark, without aiming, because they knew we are there. They could not see us, but i guess they did not need to see us, every time they hit someone. On the other side, most of the folks were armed, we fight regularly between us on that hill, for better position behind some rock, or to get some pallete with parachute. It was regularly to see guy climbing with his buddies on pallets full of flour , loading his rifle with statement " OK this is mine" If you and your friends had more fire power, you tried to convice him somehow:) So if you had luck and plains dropped something useful right on that hill, you still mostly needed to fight for that. I still remember everything from that MRE s , food, matches, sauces, salt, cookies... Many many years later, after peace came, when i had MRE s again in hands, i just felt strange, i wanted to cry and laugh in same time. Other important thing was with that airplanes missions, we just felt that we are not forgotten, that somewhere somebody thinks about us, sometimes that was more important than food. http://htsurv.blogspot.com/2011/10/ordinary-day.html

[Lazamataz]

My takeaway from this is that if you are alone, you are dead.

[GeronL]

lol. So the answer is lots and lots of corned beef. heh.

[antisocial]

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[ChocChipCookie]

Great find! Thanks so much for posting this. I think Americans have a hard time imagining a future much more difficult than finding a parking space at the mall or maybe having too much month left at the end of the money. Life could be far, far worse, and none of us know just how far things will spiral out of control.