Soldier Up (15 page)

              The squad leader spoke up, “Well Sir since we found it and made sure it ran, we were sort of hoping you’d let us drive it back.”

              The Colonel chuckled, “Sure no problem, to be sure though you drop it off at the fire station back at Parks right?”

“Yes Sir,” the squad leader said. With that the squad loaded up and got the truck into positon in the convoy.  The Colonel then told the Bradley to return to the convoy and he would walk back to his vehicle. 

Mel had been very busy since day one of the event and she hadn’t really slowed down since.  She was now responsible for all of the Family Services on base which covered hundreds if not thousands of families.  They had also started reach out programs to the refugee camps that now surrounded Camp Parks or just about.

              Family Services included finding homes for new military arrivals that had families, helping them get furniture, pot and pans, fuel, food, childcare and the kids into schools.  Just about all of the spouses worked on post doing something there were exceptions where mothers or fathers stayed home with young children or to care for a family member.  Family members who worked were paid with various items, more food, fuel, and creature comforts things of that nature.

              There was a Post Exchange which allowed for barter in goods, you could also buy items with gold, silver, diamonds, or other precious stones.  If you wanted to barter then it had to be something that could be put back to use by the community some place.  Also, there was no credit to anyone but there was always a way to work it off.  They also accepted US coins (no paper money) the coins had some value still, not always much.  The paper money could almost be picked up off the street it had no value anymore, you could walk into any bank these days, because there was no one there and grab stacks of hundred dollar bills. 

              Mel and the kids had adjusted to life inside the camp, it had been close to six months since what they still believed was an EMP event and if it was that, was it solar or nuclear, no one knew.  To help the kids better acclimate to the new order some of the old order remained.  There were enough kids to start little league, pop warner football, softball and soccer, all after school activities.  As for now these activities were limited to on post only, where security was guaranteed.

              Mel’s outreach programs in the refugee communities were meant to help women with children who were struggling in aftermath of the event, they were fortunate to have made it this far and still be alive or made someone’s slave.  She was meeting with marginal success there was lawlessness throughout the camps so woman with children were easy targets for rape, and burglary.  It started to change after about two weeks a brow beating John regarding security issues inside the refugee camps. 

              She asked John why an A-Team or two couldn’t train security forces for the camps. After all wasn’t that really their mission in the Army.  John couldn’t argue with her about it, one of the Missions of Special Forces was to train indigenous forces, as force multipliers to fight alongside US forces.  In Iraq and Afghanistan SF had trained the Army and Police Forces in some cases.  That should work here if not better; at least they could all speak the same language.

              John had thought about it and agreed to help train security forces for all of the camps.  They had done it for the original camp that was out the main gate, but it had grown considerably since then.  They were having problems of their own getting new recruits then training them effectively.  He told Mel that she needed to get it altogether and start the recruiting drive that she also needed to run it by each camps council.  Once she did that he would have his teams take it from there, recruits would be required to undergo a physical, oral and written exams then pass them before starting training. 

              She quickly agreed and kissed him, “Thank you sweetie!” she said and left smiling to get the ball rolling.  Her and her staff created flyers and posted them throughout the camps, the biggest question she got was would they get paid, yes but it was up to the councils to pay them.  Within the next two days she had contacted each camps council and met with them to discuss her plans regarding creating a security force for them.  Two of the camps weren’t happy that she had put up the fliers without their approval and started the recruiting process; the other three couldn’t be more than happy.

              The two camps questioned the rational why they needed security when they felt the post should be providing it.  She stated that the military was not going to be their police force; there response was they wanted to meet with the camp Commander and give them a piece of their minds.  She told them she would be more than happy to pass that on but couldn’t guarantee it.

              The three other camps to include the original one were eager to get more security in their respective camp especially when they were trained by the Army.  Mel talked to John about the two other camps that were refusing any help with security.  He asked her if they were the two camps located the furthest away but along the camp border, she said yeah how did he know?

              He went on to explain that their intelligence found that there was something seriously wrong going on at those two camps.  They were hearing reports that they were taking children in the area and transporting them a couple of states over and selling them that they were also forcing women into prostitution.  So you could see where a trained security force who was trying to reel in the criminal element might be a problem for them, especially if they didn’t have any control over who was going to be on the force.  He told her to pass on to them he would meet with them tomorrow at 1400 to talk to them about their concerns.

              She passed the word to the two councils who really didn’t expect to have the Commander of the camp to come out to speak with them.  She told them that he would meet with both councils at the same time at camp fives location. 

              The councils of the two camps who were tied together via business transactions was very nervous about having the Camp Parks Commander coming out to meet them, forgetting about the fact that they asked.  They met before to discuss a possible course of action, they realized that this might be a good thing, what if they could capture the Commander and then get some sort of ransom for him.  They assumed he would come out on his own or with just a few men they could easily overtake. 

              The council had placed their men at the entrance to camp five and the exit; they had some patrols roving the area and were ready to crash the council chambers once they got the signal.  At 1400 Colonel Clayton arrived in his HUMVEE with a driver and just one other person, they were lightly armed.  The council members thought it was a god send this was going to be easier than they thought.

              The meeting started off with introductions and was friendly at first, and then the council members started to become verbally combative.  They wanted to know what right did the Military have to intervene in their business.   Colonel Clayton sat there and took it all in and listening to their grievances, he didn’t say a word back to them at all.  The Colonels driver came in a few moments later after the tongue lashing by the two councils, the driver leaned over and whispered into the Colonels ear, the Colonel nodded and the driver left.

              Colonel Clayton stood, looked at each member of the council, “At 0600 my artillery will begin shelling each one of your camps until there is nothing left.”  With that the Colonel turned and left.  The council member quickly stood up yelling at the Colonel and following him out.  Once out the door the Colonel stood there, the council members came pouring out the door.  On the ground lay the dead bodies of the men the councils had sent out to capture the Colonel.  The Colonel turned, “Remember 0600 if you’re still here you will die.”

              The Colonel got back into his HUMVEE, the rest of his men stood their ground.  The HUMVEE left camp five and returned to Camp Parks.  The council members were yelling at the remaining Soldiers that they couldn’t do this and get away with it.  The A-Team Detachment Commander reiterated what the Colonel told them, “0600 we will level both Camps if you’re here you will die, we will be watching.”

                With that the team melted back into the woods, after a couple of minutes the council members could no longer see them.  The team would remain in the area acting as a FO (Forward Observer) but out of range of the artillery barrage if one was really needed.

              As soon as the Soldiers left the council members met quickly to discuss what had just happened, they all agreed it was a harebrained idea but they didn’t know how serious the Colonel was with his threat.  They did kill all of the men who were waiting to ambush him, that sent a message that the Colonel may really be serious about an artillery attack on their two camps.  The question was did they want to wait and find out if he was serious or not, if they did wait they could all be dead in the morning.

              It was decided that in their best interests they would leave the area tonight, pack up both camps and head east to see what they could find out there.  There were about a hundred or so people in each camp every single one of them involved in the kidnapping and selling of other human beings. 

              Colonel Clayton didn’t really trust them to leave the area either he had assigned several other teams to follow them out to make sure they didn’t break up into smaller groups and infiltrate any of the other refugee camps, they didn’t they left the area as a whole.

              From Mel’s perspective her husband’s approach to situation was heavy handed even though they did try to kidnap him and kill him.  Her belief was why punish the entire camp when it was possible only a few were bad.  Then to threaten to level the camp filled with civilians with an artillery barrage, what was he thinking she thought.  In the end it didn’t really matter they did leave the area which had been confirmed by the A-Teams that followed them out.

              However, from Johns perspective he did the right thing, Mel hadn’t really been out any further then the refugee camps that surrounded the perimeter of Camp Parks.  She hadn’t seen the real depravity of what people were capable of.  She hadn’t seen all of the dead bodies littered all over a field from a commercial airplane that had dropped out of the sky.  He and most of the military folks who spent a good deal of time outside the wire and down range saw all of this.  The only way, John believed, to deal with these situations was with power and to be as ruthless as they were.

              The situation with the gangs and home grown militias was really getting out of hand people were suffering out there and for the most part the military was sitting on its hands.  He knew this had to change outside of the US Forces on Camp Parks there was no one really to challenge them.  Yet he was hearing that some of the militias were hundreds or even thousands strong.  With the forces that had joined them from Moffett they were two thousand strong but he felt it wasn’t enough they needed more of an edge.  It was time to set the wheels in motion to start to rid the Bay Area of the undesirables, he needed a plan though.

              Meanwhile, Mel’s recruiting drive for security forces for the camp had really taken off.  Anzio Dognillo was responsible for administering the oral and written test for the candidates, then the training of the ones who passed.  For right now there were only two A-Teams assigned to train the new recruits if it came to a point were more teams were needed would be able to bring in more. 

Mel, Anzio and the councils of the three camps worked out all the logistics, they did have insight into what they learned from their first security force at camp one.  The biggest lesson learned from camp one was that they didn’t have enough of a security force; they had no back up to call when they got into trouble.  Next, they had no real plan to add new security force members as the camp grew, to train new members took working members away that were needed in the field, hence the first problem, not a large enough force.

It was also decided that once the security forces were trained in weapons and tactics some members of the security force from camp one would take over training from there teaching them how to deal with the public, a public that was very different six months ago. In addition, all of the candidates would receive extensive first aid training by the A-Team medic which would also include training by medical personnel from the 352nd.

Once the candidates completed all of the training they then had to test out of it and then go back through requal every single year.  Camp one had a Security Chief who ran the day-to-day operations each of the other camps would also need a Security Chief so they set in motion a plan to recruit several. 

They also decided that the training of the candidates wouldn’t follow under any one Security Chief it would have its own Chief who had to be selected by a majority of all of the three councils.  That the Security School would be entirely separate, and then as candidates graduated they would be assigned out to a camp. 

Things were moving along nicely hopefully it would stay that way for the foreseeable future.

Many of the gangs throughout the Bay Area, Central and Northern California were seeing the benefit of forming one large gang or militia.  From civilian reports coming in there were all sorts of militias that had formed, Latino, Black, White Supremacy, Christian, Islam and a combination of all of those.  Many of these militias were only formed for self-protection and were really not a threat to anyone unless they were attacked.   When one militia attacked another the one that usually won had more people, firepower and shear brutality. 

              Some of the more powerful militias had former military members that helped train them which made them a step better than the ones who had no training.  Two actions that Colonel Clayton and his Senior Staff recently took was to send out piper cub aircraft into the reported militia areas to gather some Intelligence, part of that intel gathering would be taking pictures with digital cameras with zoom lenses that were part of the stash in the faraday cages.  They had chargeable batteries which were re-charged when the generators ran at night; they also had laptops which were also part of the stash in the faraday cages. 

              All the Intel gathered was passed on to the 386th MI to be analyzed; once they were done they would brief the Colonel and his staff on their findings.   At that point if they decided they needed more information an A-Team was assigned to investigate as covertly as possible.  This meant that they were usually dropped from one of the larger Cessna’s in the middle of the night a few miles from their target; they then humped it over and found a hide to be able to observe for a few days.

              Once they were done they either humped it to a close airfield for extraction or it was left up to the team how they got home or a combination of the two.  Sometimes a ride was waiting for them if they were close enough.  It had been working well to this point and the Intel they had gathered would help for future planning.

              One of the top issues discussed by Colonel Clayton and his senior staff was the recent study done regarding food storage, fuels (gasoline, butane, kerosene, and diesel), and batteries for civilian and military use.  The report stated that they had between eight to twelve months of fuel left, the other items they had up to twenty-four months.  Obviously without any new fuel finds they were going to run out, there were refineries in San Francisco but those were being controlled by the militias.  If they wanted to secure more fuel they needed those refineries. 

              The senior staff felt they weren’t ready to make that march to San Francisco just yet, along with camp security forces they had also started recruiting drives for the Army, Marines and Navy (most the Seabees) as for the Air Force well they only had a handful of Cessna’s and piper cubs. Some of the Army and Air Force aircraft mechanics were rebuilding an old Huey and who knew if that would ever fly.

              Army Basic Training and Marine/Navy Boot Camp were at the far end of Camp Parks, they had Drill Sergeants and Drill Instructors depending on what each service called it.  The US Military had standards and they would not lower them to bring on more people, recruits were required to take a series of tests to include an ASVAB which was the military’s placement test.  Depending on your score could determine what you were trained to do; they needed infantry, artillery, some armor for the Bradley’s and the M113 Troop Carriers, Signal, MI, MP, quartermaster and more.  Once they graduated from Basic or Boot they would be sent to Advance training that type of training would be in different parts of Camp Parks. 

              There was also a push to reach out to other Army posts such as Fort Irwin near Barstow; it was a six hour drive, possibly a dangerous one or an hour flight.  Fort Irwin would have a lot of what they needed such as Armor as in tanks assuming they were still there.  The only way to find out was to send out a team to fly there in the Cessna as soon as possible.  Colonel Clayton asked for volunteers from the A-Teams and pilots for the mission to Fort Irwin, every single man stood and volunteered.  They asked the Colonel how he could think it was going to be anything else. 

              The flight would be leaving at 0400 the following morning, arrive as the sun rose in the east at approximately 0600, the A-Team will jump in to Bicycle Lake Army Airfield from 12,000 feet hopefully undetected.  Once on the ground secure the terminal and tower then set up defensive positions to allow the Cessna to land, hopefully.

              The team was in the air at 0400 or there about, they were on a heading of south east, the idea was to follow the roads to it but they had gotten pretty good using the compasses they had installed, which they used primarily for this mission because they couldn’t see the road until the sun started to come up.

              It was just under an hour flight time to Bicycle Lake, the Soldiers were all geared up and ready to go at 0559, then out the door they went, hurtling toward the ground at 120 mph.  At about 500 ft above the ground they pulled their chutes which slowed them down enough to hit the ground with a thud.  They were up and out of their harnesses quickly with half the team moving towards the tower the other half towards the operations building.

              The tower team reached it in just a couple of minutes, breached the door and filed in as a stack clearing each room and moving up the stairs into the tower control room.  There was not a sole in the tower, not that they expected there would be, how many planes landed there these days.  The Op’s team moved quickly to the operations building and following the same tactical procedure as the tower team they breached the door, filed into the building stacked and began clearing rooms.  They found the same thing as the tower team did, no one was home.

              The team rallied near the hanger to the left of the operations building, the searched a few other buildings quickly and found no one.  The Detachment Commander, Captain Erin Stevens, with his XO Chief Engel, decided that it was safe for the Cessna to land; they popped some red smoke which was the signal to the pilots to land. 

              Within minutes the plane was on the ground, rolled into a hanger and out of sight.  Main post was about 2.5 to 3 miles away.  They searched for any vehicle that might run and they could use for a ride in, but they couldn’t find one.  Maybe it’s a good thing they had to run into main post, give them the opportunity to stretch their legs as long as no one started to shot at them.   The pilots were given the opportunity to stay behind and hangout at the airfield or come with them.  The lead pilot responded, “Are you fucking crazy, stay here by ourselves, no we’re going with you.”

              With that they started the slow jog towards main post; at least it was flat and very open.  Which was good and bad, good for a nice easy run while carrying rucks and weapons, bad that anyone and their mom could see them coming.  They covered the three miles within twenty minutes, still no sign of anyone, they approached the Headquarters building methodically moving to it but now keeping to cover.  On the second floor of the building a man stood there watching a team of men move from building to building, he could see they were professionals by how they did this, they were Soldiers.  Where the hell did they come from, everyone else was down at their barracks.

              Command Sergeant Major Terrance Calhoun now joined Major General Ted Watkins at the window to watch the team of men moving towards them.  “So, Sergeant Major what should we do?” asked the General.

              “Beats the hell out of me Sir, I suppose we should go on down and meet them.” replied the Sergeant Major.  The General nodded his head, “Alright lets go, should be interesting if anything.”

              The General and Sergeant Major headed down stairs and towards the main door just as Master Sergeant Davis came busting through with six men behind him, weapons up and ready to engage.  Master Sergeant Davis spotted the two men walking towards him, then noticed that one of the men sported two stars, “What the fuck?” Davis said to himself.

              Master Sergeant Davis quickly lowered his weapon and called, “Atten-hut!” With that the other team members gazed the two stars and quickly came to attention.  “As you were.” said the General.  “What’s going on here?”

              The second man in the stack happened to be Captain Stevens who stepped around Master Sergeant Davis and saluted, “Sir Captain Davis, B Company, 1st Battalion, 19th Special Forces Group!”

              The General returned the salute, “The 19th? Where the hell did you come from and how did you get here?”

              “Sir,” said Captain Stevens, “That’s gonna take some explaining.”

              “Well I have nothing planned this morning, you Sergeant Major?”

              The Sergeant Major shook his head that he had nothing going on, the General said, “Why don’t we all head over to the mess hall and get some breakfast and you can tell me all about it.”

              Master Sergeant Davis response, “Food? I’m hungry I could use something to eat.”

              Captain Stevens gave the Master Sergeant the stink eye, “Sir that would be fine but let me call the rest of the team in, I would hate for there to be a friendly fire incident.”

              The Generals eyebrows went up, “By all means Captain call them in then!” The Sergeant Major laughed and left to go get his cover.  Captain Stevens sent out the rest of the team to round everyone up, “Get them in formation Chief. “

              Warrant Officer 4 Warren Engel called the Detachment to attention as the General walked out of the HQ with Captain Stevens and Sergeant Major Calhoun.  Chief Engel saluted the General, the General walked up and stood at attention and returned the salute.  The General looked the men over, he had seen many Special Forces teams come through Fort Irwin over the years; he was always fascinated by them and the type of men that took on the Challenge.

              “Well should we all head over to the chow hall Chief?”

              “Yes Sir.”

              “Why don’t you dismiss the men and we can all walk over there together.” said the General.

              “Yes Sir!” replied the Chief.  The Chief did an about face, “Dismissed!” he shouted.

              With that the General and Sergeant Major led the men over to the mess hall to eat.  There wasn’t anyone in it at this time of the morning on a Sunday; it was everyone’s day off.  The mess staff was used to seeing the General and Sergeant Major eating here.  They liked being with the Troops whenever possible.  Everyone gathered their food and sat down at one of the larger tables that could seat everyone.

              Once everyone was seated and eating the General turned to the Captain, “Well Captain what’s the game?”

              Captain Stevens and Chief Engel went on to explain the mission and what was going on at Camp Parks.  The General and Sergeant Major had a lot of questions and it took time to answer them all.  He was quite impressed by what had been accomplished in Dublin and Camp Parks.  The General explained that they didn’t have a lot of civilians from any of the areas come out this way from the coast.  Certainly some people came out from Barstow but were turned around when they realized that the Army didn’t have any more than they did.

              They were isolated militarily so they didn’t lose many troops and they had a water supply with the rivers being so close.  Right now they had plenty of fuel but like Camp Parks they had gathered up what they could from the area and were also predicted to run out in about six months or so.  They up to now had no plan but this sort of fell into their lap.

              “Who’s the Commander at Camp Parks?” asked the General.

              “Colonel Clayton Sir.” said Captain Stevens.

              “John Clayton?” asked the General.

              “Yes Sir.”

              Major General Watkins thought for a moment, “When are you returning to Camp Parks and can I hitch a ride?”

              “Sir?” Captain Stevens was taken aback, “Well Sir we have to refuel with what we brought with us and that shouldn’t take too long, we could leave in a couple of hours.”

              “Great let’s make that happen then.” said the General.  “Sergeant Major please get in touch with the 11 ACR Regimental Commander and have him join me at Bicycle Lake for a trip to see Colonel Clayton.  You have room for one more?”

              “Yes Sir we do.”

              “Well let’s get moving then looks like it’s going to be a busy morning.” said General Watkins.

              With that Sergeant Major Calhoun took off to find the 11 ACR Commander, Captain Stevens and his men headed back to Bicycle Lake on foot and the General went to get himself ready to leave.  They all agreed that they would be ready to leave NLT 1100 and meet at Operations at the Lake then.

              By 1100 the General with Colonel Boxer, the Commander of 11 ACR, were at the Lake loading into the Cessna.  It had been awhile since either man had set foot in an airplane seemed like that by itself brought back some normalcy to the entire situation.  After everyone was loaded they moved towards the runway and took off, since there was no one in the tower there was no one to contact.  It would be an easier flight back for the pilots they could follow the road.  In fact the General insisted on it, he said he wanted to follow it to see if it was clear or not, if there were any obstacles that might prevent them from moving down it, any gangs running rampant over it that they may have to deal with.