My Soldiers gave me the name Graywolf several years ago on a deployment to Afghanistan due to my thick, gray beard.
I started Graywolf Survival in Afghanistan around January of 2013 to keep my mind off things at night like getting blown up and stuff. And yes, that’s the desk where I do all my work. And my steak. And my beer.
The articles I put on GS are based on real-life experience and research that I know very well from being deployed in both combat and contingency zones as a US Army NCO and then Chief Warrant Officer as well as doing some contracting work and working with the Sheriff’s Office as a member of their Special Forces posse.
So just who the hell am I?
Why do you give a crap what I have to say?
First: A little background. About 12 years ago or so, I started learning about how the internet worked and threw up my first website. Then another. Then another. I had so many up there that I started a web hosting business so I could get money hosting other sites to pay for my sites. I didn’t make a dime in profit through all that. I did learn a LOT though about what didn’t work.
After many failed attempts, I gave up the dream of blogging for a living. At least for a while.
Then a few years later, I was deployed to Uganda to work for the embassy. Because I lived out in the jungle and small villages for weeks at a time, most nights were pretty uneventful (thankfully). I started writing a short story and a book. It was great to keep my mind off things. Once I got back, I got back to the normal rat-race and forgot about writing.
Then I was deployed to Iraq. I spent many days being shot at and many nights wondering if I was about to wake up in the medical tent on the other side of post after a rocket attack, or being dragged out by other Soldiers after my hooch got hit (which it already had the week before I arrived) – or not wake up at all. This really got to me after a while. Staring at the ceiling every single night, wondering if I’m about to die any second. I started spending my time writing again, and it helped.
I got back from Iraq and did a lot of advanced schools for my MOS and also became a Warrant Officer. I was then deployed to Afghanistan. It was worse than Iraq was. Much worse.
For some reason, I wasn’t writing in Afghanistan at first – mainly because I was working 16-20 hours a day and sometimes straight through 2-3 days with no sleep.
At some point in that deployment, I watched The Bucket List in my deployment home theater shown in the pic on the right. I decided to make my own bucket list. I listed all the things that I wanted to do before I died. Once I’d done that, I sat down and analyzed my list to see how I could best capitalize on things and improve my life all at the same time. I saw a few recurring themes on my list:
- Being outdoors
- Teaching people
- Writing
- Becoming self-sufficient
- Learning survival skills
- Becoming an authority
- Getting out of the rat race
- Being able to travel when and where I wanted to
- Stop working where there are IED’s, rockets, and people trying to shoot me
Looking at the list for a few weeks, it finally came to me. I needed to start a website about survival. It hit every single thing on that list of common themes (but still isn’t gonna help me date Emma Watson, item #16 on my list). I had all the background I needed – good writing skills, tons of experience in the outdoors, tons of experience in combat environments and harsh environments, tons of knowledge in basic prepper knowledge, etc.
That’s when I started Graywolf Survival. It was slow-going at first but I finally sat down for a bit and focused on a process. A year later, I had surpassed half a million pageviews and was making enough money that I stopped looking for a job (and now I have several million pageviews so thank you all for sharing my site with your friends!). One of the best choices I’ve ever made.
As I mentioned above, I’m a combat vet, who started off my Army career during the Cold War in 1984. After several years of that, I ended my enlistment and had many years as a civilian.
I’ve had many jobs over the years:
- Car Lot Attendant (sucked)
- Auto Mechanic Apprentice
- Car Salesman (sucked even more)
- Pizza Delivery Dude (had its perks)
- Interior Decorator (stop laughing)
- Warehouse Manager
- Bouncer at a biker/redneck/college kid bar in the Midwest
- Electronics Technician (RF, Digital, and Analog)
- Senior Faculty Associate for an Electronics college
- Ran an Aerospace Computer factory for a Fortune 100 corporation
- Private Investigator
- Sheriff’s Office Special Forces Posse
- Instructor for Military Intelligence and Special Forces units
I’ve also lived/worked in many places around the world:
- The United States
- Washington State
- Delaware
- Texas
- Pennsylvania
- Arizona
- South Carolina
- Oklahoma
- Alaska
- Massachusetts
- Colorado
- North Carolina
- England
- Africa
- Iraq
- Afghanistan
- Thailand
…and visited several other places. As such, I’ve seen things in many different scenarios and use that knowledge to find out the core of what I need to know and write it down here to read.
If you’d like to contact me with any questions or comments, you can email me at graywolfsurvival@gmail.com