Spike Johnson

Photographer
Fear and Ammo in Texas Suburbs
Location: Houston
Nationality: English
Biography: Spike photographs in the documentary style, exploring themes around religious friction and self sufficiency in it's broadest terms, focusing on rural areas of Myanmar, the United States, and England. In 2014 Spike was funded by the Pulitzer... MORE
Public Story
Fear and Ammo in Texas Suburbs
Copyright Spike Johnson 2024
Updated Nov 2011
Topics Dallas, Documentary, Photography, Photojournalism, Texas, USA

Today is training day for the Texas Survivalists, a militia group operating in the suburbs of Dallas. Bad times are coming: economic collapse, overnight inflation, nuclear war, epidemic, invasion and fuel shortages. The Survivalists – maybe a dozen in all, men and women in their early 20s to late 50s – are steps ahead of most. They are combat training, storing food, stockpiling ammo, planning escape routes, packing survival kits, making soap and, most of all, assuring themselves that they don’t need another human alive to survive.
 

They have all had hard lives. I hear stories of deep personal pain, stories of people exchanging loneliness for the feeling of preparedness that comes with being part of the Texas Survivalists. Helplessness and arms bind them together as they prepare for their last stand – Armageddon.

  

Interest in survivalist militia groups is growing in the United States. Blame it, as they do, on an environment of global economic instability and terrorism. “Events since Hurricane Katrina have made it abundantly clear that we live in a very fragile world,” writes author James Wesley Rawles, author of two bestselling survival books, in an email interview to me. “The recent Japanese earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear melt-down are just the latest example that illustrates the fragility of our technological society,” he notes.

  

This phenomenon is strange to me. I was raised in the United Kingdom where there is a blanket ban on handguns and knives of any kind. The government is trusted to provide welfare and protection. Regular police carry only truncheons. In joining the ranks of the Texas Survivalists, taking pictures and notes openly, I hoped to gain an intimate insight into their mentality, into the training and motives of the militia group. The project aims to expose the impact on the domestic lives of members and their families as they ready themselves for societal meltdown.

  

Their preparations can seem extreme to an outsider. Pistols secured to belts hold a supply of hollow-point rounds to cause maximum injury. Homemade throwing knives are hidden around their living rooms, under the bookshelf is a favorite spot. Bug-out bags the size of coffee tables clog hallways, bulging with dried food, clothes, ammunition and seeds – everything to start a new life. They have ceased living with day-to-day annoyances. They leave dishes dirty in the sink. They let dust settle on the television, and seem oblivious to possessions
piled in disarray on bare floors. Regular housework seems pointless when you’re preparing to escape a collapsing city at a moment’s notice.

 

They're talking about a bunch of bananas costing $64 in another year. There's going to be dead bodies everywhere,” says Harold Rosenbaum, member and Vietnam veteran, “and I feel sorry for those that aren't ready because those are the same people who's dead bodies I'm going to be stepping over.”

 

After a year I have a nickname and a role in the group. The Texas Survivalists give me gifts: some camouflage underwear, shot glasses, a Texas Survivalist badge to sew onto my bag and a CRKT M-16 switch blade. The Texas Survivalists, I realize, are doing more than preparing for Armageddon. They offer emotional support to the similarly hurt and draw the like-minded close. They are creating a family into which I have been adopted.

 

If things get bad, get in your car and get to mine. Don't leave it too late,” says Harold. “You'll always have a place here.”

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