by Eric Gurr
When he made it to cover behind a tree he bent to help the wounded soldier. He was alive but in shock.
Tyler bent down to him and moved the man’s arm so he could see the wounds. He was bleeding badly out the right side of his chest.
“You’re going to be okay.” He said.
The man looked up at him. “I have four kids. I need to get out of here and get back home.”
Troy pulled a bandage from his backpack and did his best to pack it around the wound. “We’ll get you out. Medic!” He screamed.
But all of the medics were busy treating other men. Before they arrived the man had died.
When Evans had guided the rest of the men back to cover he sat on the ground and thought of his next move.
He had let his ego get the best of him. He wasn’t a colonel with years of leadership experience. He was a corporal with about fourteen months of combat experience. But he was the head of this army. He needed to move cautiously.
Those men were killed because he had acted impulsively. He vowed to himself that it would not happen again.
He rallied his men. They would wait. For thirty minutes he sent spotters ahead in different areas to assess the situation. Only then would he move.
He took the hill with no resistance. But his spotters had noted that a few hundred yards ahead there were more rebels. Perhaps only a dozen or so.
Within two hours they were well inside the 255 loop. Evans split his army in to three groups. He would lead one division of two-thousand around the east. Another group of two-thousand would move south towards the city.
Six thousand would stay where they were and be called as reserves if needed. As Evans moved closer the resistance became softer. He called Hartwick and told him it was safe to come down. He then talked to Matt Davis.
The leader of the black army in St.Louis, Marvis Jackson was moving out of the city and finding little resistance. They would meet at the edge of East St. Louis in two hours.
When John Hartwick arrived Matt Davis was with him. The resistance had dwindled to nothing. They were less than two miles from the point where they were to meet Jackson’s black army.
Evans left a trail of reserves behind him and continued towards the area with just two hundred men. More were just minutes away if needed. He walked casually and talked with Hartwick and Davis in the middle of the pack. Word had come through that there was intense fighting in Michigan and they wanted Hartwick to send help.
As they came close to the rally point they walked slowly through an industrial park. Conversations were muted but there was no sign of danger.
And then a first shot was heard. Seconds later enemy soldiers came from behind a group of buildings. Evans watched as his men reacted perfectly. They took cover and returned fire immediately.
It was clear they were outnumbered. But not by much. He called for another 500 men in the rear section to move forward slowly. He remembered to tell them to watch their flanks. He was getting better at the strategy.
Another football bomb was launched but it exploded harmlessly in front of them. Under cover of the explosion the enemy started to advance and Evans considered retreating to a safer position.
Then another barrage of gunfire came from behind the enemy.
He was about to order a full retreat until he realized the enemy had turned and were fighting the men behind them.
He needed to make a quick decision. He hesitated and Davis made it for him.
“Let’s go! Attack!”
They moved quickly and shot at the retreating army. Those in the rear of the enemy formation turned to return fire but were quickly mowed down.
Evans turned back to his troops. “Hold here!”
Evans, Davis, Hartwick and ten other men inched cautiously forward, firing as they went. Over the din of fire he yelled at Hartwick. “You two are here again. Dammit! I should have made you stay behind the lines.”
Hartwick smiled. “That’s okay. This is fun.”
They stopped at the edge of the park. On the far side was a fence. A hundred or so enemy were firing right across the fence. They couldn’t climb over the fence and they couldn’t retreat.
Evans called up the two hundred men right behind them. They began firing and bodies fell quickly.
“Cease fire! Cease fire!’
It was a voice coming from the other side of the fence.
Evans told his own troops to hold their fire. It was eerily silent.
“Okay, everyone move forward slowly. Get your guns ahead and keep alert.”
All two-hundred of his men walked upright. There was no need to crawl and nowhere in the park to hide.
“Easy boys, easy.” He yelled. He could see a dozen or so figures moving from the other side of the fence.
“I think that’s Jackson’s men.” Matt Davis said.
As the two-hundred reached the fence a group of just ten black men met them. Both sides had guns leveled at each other. No one spoke for a long minute.
A man at the far end of the black army line dropped his gun and raised his hands. The others with him did the same.
Evans, Hartwick, Davis and the other men still were silent for a long few seconds and the black man who first dropped his gun, in the raspiest voice any of them had ever heard, tilted his entire body to the side and said.
“We ain’t wanna fight no mo.” And then he smiled broadly.
Matt Davis erupted in laughter, and then everyone else joined in. The guns were dropped and the men shook hands and hugged across the fence.
For the next several hours the Black Army of St. Louis and the New Freedom Army, formally the New Rebel Army, ate, drank beer and reveled in their victory. Jokes were made, often at each other’s expense and stories told about the past.
Hartwick was sitting at a table with several older black men. One, a man who appeared to be about seventy-five-years-old was noticeably quiet.
“What do you think about all of this?” Hartwick asked the old man.
The man looked at John and smiled softly. “It’s strange to me. I don’t know who we are fighting or what we are fighting for.” He answered.
Hartwick nodded, not really understanding what the man was trying to say. “Well, I think right now we’re fighting for survival. If we can get through this, maybe we can all start to get along.”
The old man shook his head. “No. I’m not too sure about that. I’m seventy-seven-years-old. When I was a teenager in the sixties, I knew my place. I was a black man in St. Louis. I had an education, but no college. I could get a job, but it had to be in a factory. And I was never going to get a good union job. Those went to the white boys.
By the time I was in my thirties things were getting better. Then, a few decades later we had a black president. What did all of that get us?”
“But what about your kids and grandkids?” Hartwick asked.
“Oh, they do pretty good. But, that’s not the whole story is it?
When I was born, my daddy was fifty years old. That means he grew up in the 1920s. Back then, a black man had it even worse than I did. My daddy hated white people. And you might not want to hear this, but he had good reason to hate white people. My daddy grew up in a tiny shack alongside the Mississippi river. When it flooded, they just had to rebuild it. They never had no insurance and no savings account.
So rebuilding a little shack of a house could take months. Sometimes even a year or two.
When the Great Depression came, their life got worse. And it was already bad to begin with.
So I think he taught me to hate white people. I’ve gotten better. I really have. I don’t hate you. And, I know you boys came down here and helped us. But you have to know this, there are generations of mistrust. I hope we can fix this. But, a lot of black people and a lot of white people are dying in this war every day.
And I’m not so sure any of you have a plan on what to do if you win.”
When Marvis Jackson arrived the conversation naturally turned to what was next.
The discussion was long and passionate, but never disrespectful. Both sides were acutely aware that they had lost friends in the battle just ended. And that created a bond that would not be easily broken.
In the end it was agreed that St. Louis would be left to heal. Tanner Ritchie’s army was defeated, but they had done great damage. Blacks by the thousands had been rounded up and put on buses for California.
John Hartwick cringed at the news of this. For he realized how he had dodged, just barely, a similar situation in Indianapolis.
The remaining resistance fighters in the city would have to be dealt with one way or the other. Jackson promised not to fight with them, but to try to work with them. St. Louis had seen enough bloodshed. Marvis Jackson wanted to peace.
By the time the media finally flocked to St. Louis Hartwick, Evans and their army were long gone. It was a story that would be told by Marvis Jackson.
Chapter 10
The Michigan Wars
Just six months ago the Muslim population in Dearborn Michigan was about forty-thousand people.
When the news hit as Hartwick was returning from St. Louis that large battles had been raging in the city, the population of Muslims in Dearborn had grown to more than two-hundred thousand.
For years Muslims had prospered in the city. Businesses owned by Arab emigres had blossomed and life was peaceful.
When John Hartwick’s strategy of isolation had been implemented in Columbus Ohio and victory declared, thousands of Somalian immigrants were forced out. The easiest and most natural solution was to move them to Dearborn.
Most were forced, but some went voluntarily. All were angry at the upset in their lives.
In a scene that was similar in many Midwest cities, it wasn’t just Muslims. College professors who were determined to be left-wing were loaded into the same buses and shipped to Dearborn.
Then Toledo quickly fell and the process was repeated. Those considered left-wing agitators were forced out and ended up in Dearborn.
By the time June rolled around a bad situation was primed to explode.
In California and much of the east coast, there were celebrations after the fight in St. Louis. The left decided that the civil war was nearly over because the right wing armies were now fighting each other.
The media and many of the politicians on both sides agreed and started calling for a return to normalcy and a stop to the forced evacuations.
Before the new narrative had twenty-four hours to take hold, Sadiq Al-Samir attacked in Dearborn.
A loose coalition between the Muslims who were long-time citizens of Dearborn and the newly exiled undesirables who were white, black or Hispanic was formed.
But the resistance was poorly armed and badly disorganized. When the more moderate Muslims insisted that women and gays not be allowed to fight, the coalition fractured.
Within just a few days Al-Samir and his violent Islamic Army of the New American Caliphate were victorious. Non-Muslims were driven to the edge of the city and moderate Muslims were forced to submit. Every Muslim male sixteen or older was drafted into the new army.
In just weeks the city of Detroit was besieged. The Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit Windsor Tunnel were both destroyed.
Many of the men of Michigan quickly formed an army connected to Hartwick’s New Freedom Army and moved to seal off Detroit at 275 and 696 to the North. They were pushed back beyond Ann Arbor and well north of Pontiac in days.
Information about the situation inside was nearly impossible to get.
Muslims from across the country streamed towards Detroit. Moderate Muslims inside Detroit left for Canada until the bridges and the tunnel were destroyed.
Desperately, some tried to pack up their cars and leave with what they could carry. They were however often detained by the New Freedom Army aligned with Hartwick and forced back in.
The NFA was so far outside the city however, that many could get in and out without much difficulty.
It was not uncommon for a caravan of Muslims leaving Detroit to pass another caravan heading in.
In Washington D.C. the consensus was that troops finally had to be used to quell the violence in Detroit. Van Driessen had warned Hoxworth against it. But Hoxworth relented and ordered the National Guard to fight.
Ten thousand men were called up to liberate Detroit and restore peace. Only four-thousand men showed.
The force would attack from the south along I-75 and storm into Detroit. They had no tanks and no armored cars. They did have big trucks that could hold troops and automatic weapons.
When they reached 275, south of the city they were to rest briefly and charge into the city.
But the north overpass had been destroyed. The National Guard troops tried to follow 275 West where they could quickly head north on 24.
When they were within a mile of the 24 exit they slowed. They were to head north to Flat Rock and assess the situation. If they needed to fight there, they would take Flat Rock and then rest before moving on to Detroit. Between 275 and flat rock was mostly farmland. If the exit was intact they were confident they could easily make the next step.
As they crept closer, they were relieved to see the exits not only intact but free of traffic.
As the lead trucks moved onto the ramp the entire group began to pick up speed. But as they were at the top of the overpass explosions rocked them.
Hidden roadside bombs caused the first ten trucks to plummet off the side of the overpass.
From the sides of the highway, hidden in the cornfields, bullets rained down on the guardsmen. A hasty retreat was made.
Hartwick left the next day for Michigan. He had set a meeting at Whitmore Lake about 15 miles from 275 and I-96. He took Evans and a few other military men with him.
The other leaders of the NFA were left to secure Atlanta, Nashville and other cities in the Midwest and South as needed.
The New Freedom Army was becoming more organized and more disciplined by the day. After the St. Louis victory it was also becoming much larger.
John Hartwick saw his role as organizing and strategizing with military leadership. And making decisions that would rightly be considered political.
As more men defected from The United States Military to join them, and more men from Texas and other areas of the south made their way towards Indianapolis, the leadership of the NFA became professional and structured.
His welders, machinists, and engineering team were creating more effective weapons as well. He and Troy Evans knew that it would all be needed to retake Detroit and the big cities on the East Coast if it came to that.
As they pulled into the meeting area near the lake Hartwick’s phone buzzed. He looked down and recognized the area code immediately. It was 202. Washington D.C.
He looked at Evans. “This call is from D.C. Should I answer it?”
“Answer it ‘General Hartwick, how can I help you’?” Evans insisted.
John shrugged his shoulders and did as Evans had said.
“General Hartwick. This is Admiral John Shock. I am the Chairman of The Joint Chiefs of The United States military. Do you have a moment to talk?”
Hartwick dropped his phone. “Shit.”
He quickly picked it up and tried to regain his composure. “Sorry about that Admiral. I was uhh,… I was just getting out of the car and dropped my phone.”
Evans was grabbing John by the shoulders and shaking him. He took the phone from him and told him to tell the Admiral to hold for one second. John did and then covered the mouthpiece again.
“John, I know you don’t get this, but you are a general. You are his equal. You have to maintain your calm and act like you are a general. This is important John.”
Hartwick shook his head that he understood and calmed himself.
“Sorry about that Admiral. As you can imagine we’re a bit busy out here as you can probably imagine. What can I do for you?” He asked. He cursed himself as he realized from his sentence that Admiral Shock now knew he w
as nervous.
“General Hartwick first I want you to know, you can relax. You are a general. You have seen more combat than I have. I am not calling you General Hartwick for some political point’s bullshit. I would never do that. It is out of respect General.”
That put Hartwick at ease and at the same time made him wonder if the General had heard him.
“Thank you Admiral. I appreciate that. He took a deep breath and let out a sigh.
Look sir, this is all, well this is all new to me. I’ve learned a lot in the last few months. But I’m still learning and doing the best I can. I hope you’ll bear with me. I am a little nervous. I’m talking to you and we feel like we’re really close to peace around here. But I really have no idea.
I just don’t want to make any big mistakes and cost men their lives and I want to move slowly so we don’t go barging in and kill a bunch of innocent people.”
“General Hartwick, not only are you a General, you are a damn good one.” Schock said.
“Thank you sir.”
“The reason I’m calling, is that we want you to know the U.S. military is not going to be involved in this civil war. We are calling you, and we are also trying to reach the California resistance and even the Detroit fighters. We know your NFA is improving its weapons and that’s fine. But if chemical, biological, or nuclear type devices of any kind are used we will step in.”
“I understand that sir. And I will make sure we don’t use such devices. At this point, nothing like that has been considered.” Hartwick said.
“Okay. Since we have that out of the way I was wondering if I could ask you a few more questions.”
“Sure.”
“What are the issues you are fighting for? Because when you took Indianapolis we thought you guys were just going to go back to your lives. I know that spiraled out of your control. But why did you help in Cincinnati and then ultimately St. Louis.
If you were just fighting against the resistance, and to get things back to normal, why the fight with the rebels? And now I know that you are in Michigan. So I’m assuming your fighting against the Muslims in Detroit.