Militia (8 page)

When the funerals were finished they began moving slowly into the wilderness to allow the new soldier’s time to heal and train. Mike could tell that the further they got from the camp the better the spirits of the men and women who had been captives there became. Tim didn’t take long to have a full grasp of the mission objective or how Mike had trained his men. His years of service in multiple combat zones made it easy for him to see how the militia operated and also helped him recover faster physically than even his younger peers were able to.

Chapter Ten

M
ovement from the
camp was slow at best. The new members were very weak from starvation and had to move slowly and rest often. Mike didn’t mind the slow travel and long rest periods one bit, if anything it gave him more time to plan ahead with the militia’s leadership. Tim had not only learned Mike’s training and tactics faster than expected but had already begun to add his experience into the militia’s training and planning. Mike could already tell that the old marine would be an essential part of this army’s success from here on out.

Rick and his scouts were sent ahead of the slow moving main element to create a safe path of travel and to clear out any enemy forces before the rest of the militia had reached them. Just as Mike had known he would, Rick had become exactly what the scout platoon needed in a leader. Rick’s orders were too quickly, and quietly kill all non American forces that his element was able to find. As always, Rick knew to eliminate any trace of their presence after the objective was completed.

It wasn’t long before Rick’s scouts and snipers had reached the border of Washington. As expected there was another checkpoint along the main highway right on the border. This objective was larger than the others, Rick guessed due to the original laws set in place that required a passport for interstate travel. For the next two days and nights Rick had scout teams watch this interstate checkpoint taking note of enemy numbers, routines, and level of alertness. Not surprising was that the Chinese at this checkpoint were hardly alert at all. With travel having been stopped by mandatory placement inside of the work camps, these soldiers paid little attention to the roads, rarely carried their weapons, and were regularly drinking alcohol. They rotated in and out of the checkpoint from a large house about a tenth of a mile into the state of Washington using random civilian vehicles, placed their weapons in the guard shack and immediately took to joking around and even sleeping on post at times.

After two days of watching the enemy Rick knew it was safe to take out the border post and then move up to the guard house. Under the cover of night two sniper teams were sent to predestinated shooting points and took out the two guards exactly half an hour after the Chinese soldiers had taken their post. While these snipers were setting up and taking their shots Rick led the rest of the platoon to their last covered and concealed position outside of the home their enemies were using as quarters. Once the two guards who had just been relieved returned and entered the house Rick waited ten more minutes to send his scouts up as tactical assault teams.

Two teams of five men moved up to the house while the rest of the platoon (minus 3 soldiers sent to shut of power to the hours) kept their weapons trained on the second story windows from their last hidden position. Two sniper teams laid in hiding, ready to take any available shots on the enemy once the entry teams had gone into the house. Rick moved with the assault teams and positioned himself between the two which allowed him to control both groups. With their night vision on, the two teams waited until they saw all lights in the house go out simultaneously. As soon as the power was off the first team rocked back, and then forward, going straight through the unlocked back door and into the pitch black home.

As expected the Chinese were completely unaware of what was going on even after the first shots had been fired by Rick’s scouts. The Chinese filled the house with panicked yelling and confusion while the troops of the middle militia moved from room to room killing the blind guards with ease. Shots could be heard from outside while the sniper teams killed any Chinese soldier unfortunate enough to walk in front of a rear facing upstairs window. With the downstairs cleared Rick tossed a red chem. light out of the door that the teams had entered through, letting the snipers and support fire troops know that his teams were about to move upstairs and to cease firing.

By the time they made it upstairs there were already very few enemy soldiers left. The few they found were hiding and most had not even managed to find a weapon before fear and confusion led them to taking refuge in closets and underneath beds. Quick work was made of finding and eliminating these cowards as all areas of the upstairs were torn apart leaving nothing left to be a man sized hiding spot. When the teams were safely out of the house and all of the Chinese weapons had been removed, Rick dowsed the large home inside and out with any flammable fluids he could find and then set it on fire and casually walked back to the rest of his platoon who was still in the wood line.

Less than an hour after the blaze was started the sniper teams from the checkpoint had linked back up at Rick’s current position and reported their victory and that the checkpoint had been cleaned and made to appear as if it had never existed. All weapons and equipment that could be of use had been gathered up from both sites and Rick allowed his men to go through and take what they wanted before the rest of the militia arrived and took what they needed.

Mike got word back from a team of Rick’s scouts that the border was secured and with it the militia’s movement into Washington. The new recruits seemed to heal faster each day with proper food and nourishment. The soldiers from the Middle Militia made it their life’s mission to care for these people and to teach them everything they knew about combat as quickly as possible. With the new troops mending quickly and the border crossing now safe, Mike moved the entire militia into a new state and began preparing for their next objective. Spokane was the next city on their march and would be the largest so far. But Spokane was only a shadow in comparison to Seattle and Mike wanted to make it passed this area, free any camps he was sure they would find, and destroy any enemy present in the area. They would need to find a good spot to set up camp and begin training for Seattle as Mike and Tim believed the militia would see its first large scale battle there. He would need everybody at full strength, including any recruits they may find near Spokane if Seattle, as he feared it would be, was being used as a sort of headquarters for the Chinese in the Northwest.

Mike moved with the scouts some days and helped train new soldiers on others. The scouts worked around the clock and after finding Spokane a ghost town began their search for a camp while the rest of the militia searched every inch of the small city. After only a week Rick reported back that there were two small camps to the south. The camps were about a mile apart and each was close to the size of the one outside of Coeur D’Alene. The recruits were not battle ready yet but Mike couldn’t handle the thought of waiting to free the prison camps.

The original members of the Middle Militia would have one last mission together before operating as part of a larger group. Mike had all original members merge back into Alpha Company and prepare to move out in order to take the camps without having to bring the others before they were healthy enough to fight. Rick briefed the company with a sand table on all aspects of the camps and the best routes to take there. Mike split the company into two sections so that they could take both camps together without giving up the element of surprise and risking the first camp alerting the other.

Mike and Steve took half of the company to one camp, while Tom and Mark went to the other. Rick gave half of his snipers to each group and split his scouts between each camp to wait for the assault elements. They wasted no time moving into place. By nightfall both camps were surrounded and the snipers were locked onto their targets. Mike and Steve set their new machine gunners up to lay suppressive fire on the front gate while the rest of their men prepared to storm the camp. Once again watches had been synchronized and at midnight snipers at both camps were alerted to fire by the setting off of flares.

Mike watched through his night vision goggles as the snipers took out the towers. He smiled as he saw the tower guard in front of his positions head fly backwards and body collapse. Before the gate guards could react, a quick burst of machine gun fire tore into them and the assault elements rushed to get into the camps. With their newly acquired weapons and equipment the militia stormed into the camps with vengeance. The shots were well aimed and dropping more enemies with each second. A team of machine gunners began tearing into the guards barracks before half of them had even managed to get out of bed, firing so consistently that barely any screams could be heard from inside.

Mike ran to the rear of the barracks with Steve following and started picking off the few guards that were trying to escape through the back door. It was a slaughter and Mike couldn’t have been happier. After going through the first camp in Idaho the militia knew what to expect from their enemy and had a guideline of how these camps would have been set up which allowed them to operate much faster and gave them a large confidence in yet another victory. When the fighting was over the militia went right into their assignments of collecting equipment, counting the dead, and handing the guards’ food to the hungry prisoners. Again the stench of death filled the camps. Mike quickly noticed that there were fewer prisoners in the camp he was at than there were in Coeur D’Alene. He walked over to the pit which seemed to be a staple of these camps and realized that most of the camp had already died. All in all there were only a couple hundred badly injured prisoners in each camp but thousands of their dead were piled up, filling multiple pits.

The sight of so many dead and the shape of the few living brought sadness over Mike that he had never before experienced. He looked to Steve, “There is no big speech tonight,” Mike said solemnly, “let’s just get these poor people some food and water and let them grieve over their dead.” The people of this camp had been so badly mistreated that the last thing Mike wanted to do was to give some happy recruiting speech. There was no one he could see that could possibly consider doing much besides healing and mourning for quite some time now. Mike left Steve in charge and headed to the second camp to see how bad the other one was.

When Mike arrived at the second camp Tom was standing outside the gate throwing up his dinner. Mike walked carefully up to him and put a hand on Tom’s shoulder.

“It’s going to be alright, Mr. Scott.” For some reason Mike felt the urge to address Tom as he had when Tom had been his principle. “I know it’s bad the other camp was bad too but this is why we are here.”

Tom began to sob, “Mike, they are almost all dead in there. I can’t take the smell or the sight of it. What they did to these people…it’s the most horrible thing I have ever seen.”

Mike nodded. “We did the best we could and still managed to save some. That’s the best we can do at this point. These people that survived can have their lives back to some degree but it is up to us to keep fighting to save more people and to ensure that this never happens again.”

Tom nodded in agreement and continued to sob. “Mark is still in there with Rick. They have stronger stomachs than I do. They are trying to round up the survivors but a lot of them are so close to death that they cannot move on their own.”

Mike walked through the gate and realized that this camp was in fact much worse than the other. He watched as his men tried their best to give food and first aid to the prisoners. He saw the tears of the prisoners and his troops alike. The pain in this camp truly was devastating. It was all that Mike could do to resist the urge to join with Tom outside the gate, but he fought off his own tears and instead raced to help pass out food and medical supplies.

Once they had treated the survivors’ medical needs to the best of their abilities and allowed them time to mourn and bury their dead they began moving them into the nearest town. This was very difficult as many of the freed prisoners could barely walk by themselves. The militia worked hard to set up each person as comfortably as possible and fill their new homes with food and medical supplies. As much as Mike would have liked to stay and tend to these people he knew that the longer he waited to keep moving the more Americans would be dead in camps much like these.

The militia returned to their camp north of Spokane and gave news of the prison camps to the survivors of Coeur D’Alene. The news only seemed to motivate the new recruits to get healthy and trained even faster. Mike decided that even though movement would still be slow with many still needing to heal, the Army must keep moving towards Seattle where he felt they would get their first taste of real combat and find much larger camps. He only hoped they would find victory in Seattle and that any camps they came across would be in better shape than the last.

There was no argument among any of the soldiers about moving out so quickly. They all understood what was at stake and all of them, especially the men who had seen the atrocities first hand as prisoners themselves, wanted to free as many camps as they could before more Americans died within their walls. A sense of patriotism and duty filled each of their hearts and brought them all closer together.

Movement was slow but it was steady. The new soldiers had healed much faster than Mike had expected them to. Rick kept his scouts out in front and dealt with any checkpoints long before the rest of the men were too close. The scouts were their eyes and ears. They moved fast and kept information coming back to the rear often. Rick was doing an incredible job for such a young leader and the entire Army was grateful. Mike could not have been more impressed with the determination and leadership he saw in charge of his scouts. They drew closer each day as he waited for them to reach Seattle and begin the difficult task of determining the size of the enemy and the hardships they would encounter there.