Dark Grid

by David C. Waldron

  “Thank you, we’re up. We’ll be out in a few minutes,” Joel said to the still closed door.

  “Josh, they dump people out of bunks if they don’t get up on time. I’d wager that’s going to hurt from way up there.” Rachael and Maya were already rolling out of bed, but Josh was exhibiting his typical morning back trouble; he couldn’t get it off the mattress. “Let’s go son.”

  “I’m coming. Remind me I never want to be in the Army. The toys are cool, but the hours stink.”

  They had all slept in their clothes, so it was a simple matter of putting on clean socks, pulling on shoes, and heading over to brush their teeth and splash some water on their faces. The girls ran brushes through their hair and pulled it back into pony tails in an effort to save time, and Joel cursed his dad under his breath for his sparse beard. He’d had to shave every day since he’d turned sixteen to keep from looking like a hipster poser.

  On the way to the mess hall they met up with Eric, Karen, Chuck and Sheri--who were running just a few minutes ahead of them with no kids to chivvy out of bed. “I don’t even remember my head hitting the pillow,” Sheri said as they caught up. “I’ve heard that phrase before, over and over, but I’ve never actually said it and meant it. I turned out the lantern and I don’t remember leaning back into bed.”

  “I hear ya,” Chuck agreed. “I woke up in the middle of the night on top of the blankets and realized I’d just laid down on the bed and fallen asleep. Thank goodness it’s June and there’s no A/C. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I feel better than I look, though, believe me. A couple cups of coffee and I’ll be good--at least until we get to the park.”

  “Well, I, for one, am looking forward to these green eggs I heard about my entire childhood.” Rachael’s dad was in the Army before he’d met her mom and had continually tried to disgust the kids with stories of field rations consisting of powdered eggs, undercooked bacon, burnt biscuits and the like.

  “Sorry to disappoint you, ma’am,” the Guardsman at the beginning of the breakfast line chimed in. “The eggs haven’t been in the pan long enough to turn green and since we’re using freshly frozen eggs, as opposed to powdered, they don’t actually turn green on the edges like they used to.”

  “Oh well, I guess I’ll live. I suppose the bacon’s completely cooked too.”

  “I’m afraid so,” he smiled. “An army moves on its stomach, and it’s awful hard to do that if we’re all confined to the latrine, ma’am.”

  “As much as I’d like to argue with that, I just can’t,” Rachael replied.

  “Staff Sergeant Ramirez said he’d be at the same table you were at last night.”

  Joel thanked him as they moved down the line and had their plates filled. Once they had food, coffee, juice and the obligatory Diet Coke for Rachael, they made their way to ‘their table’ to meet Kyle.

  “Sleep well, folks?” Kyle was about half way through breakfast already.

  “Like a rock. How many more people are you expecting to bring in?” Chuck asked.

  “When we’ve got everyone who mustered in with their families, we figured that we should have between six-hundred-and-seventy and seven-hundred-and-thirty people. That doesn’t include the dogs, cats, birds, gerbils, rats, hamsters, guinea pigs, snakes, ferrets, two horses, three cows, twenty-seven chickens, two emu and a pot-bellied pig; all of which are classified as pets by their owners.

  “Come November, if we’re still ‘camping’, I’m thinking most of those rodents will have disappeared down the snakes, who will either end up in a stew pot or be fed to the ferrets. Emu is supposed to be pretty good eating too. I can’t say I’ve ever had pot-bellied pig before but I can’t think it’s much different than any other kind of pig. At least the chickens lay eggs and the cows are the dairy variety.

  “I know you brought in your dog too, and I don’t begrudge you. She’s been fine so far, and dogs and cats are at least fairly low maintenance, it’s just that they’re one more thing to keep track of and take care of, that’s all. Frankly, I wish I had a dog of my own.”

  “How long have you been up Kyle?” Eric asked.

  “’Bout an hour; couldn’t sleep with all the noise. They’ve been loading trucks all night and with the families coming in it’s been kinda noisy. I deliberately put you guys at the far end so you could get some sleep. I was fairly sure Top was going to make the decision to move out quick, like this morning, and I didn’t want to have you folks interrupted all night.”

  “What’s on the plate for today?” Coffee hit Chuck fairly quickly and he wanted to get back up to speed as quickly as he could. He felt bad for going to bed before everyone else.

  “Aside from being out of here by 6:30, we’re going be setting up an advance area which is just an assembly area which we will then transition into our main base of operations. I’m assuming that the plans are to make it fully operational within thirty days, but functional in seven to ten, and usable in two to five. We’re un-assing the Armory Chuck--and we’re doing it yesterday.”

  Kyle shook his head. “It’s not official yet, and the only word we’ve had from higher up is the military equivalent of ‘Your call is very important to us and will be taken in the order in which it was received’.” He shifted in his chair.

  “Sorry, folks. The official story is that the situation is completely under control and that there is no need to panic.” He ruined it with the raised left eyebrow.

  “Right, and aren’t you supposed to say, ‘I’m with the Government, and I’m here to help,’ so we can say, ‘We’re glad you’re here.’ That way the lie can be complete. Who’s panicking? Who said anything about panic? I distinctly recall the first, last, and only mention of panic right up until you said it was…you!” Karen was doing her best to cheer Kyle up.

  “Right. Ok, so we’re going to set up an advance area, we’re going to prepare to egress the Armory--and yes, that’s the military word for ‘run away’--and then we’re going to either wait for additional direction from higher authority or we’re going to act on our own. That last part is still a bit fuzzy.”

  “Will it just be us as far as civilians going with you, or did anyone else in your squad bring in family last night that’s coming with us?” Rachael was already taking her new assignment to heart and thinking of logistics concerning additional civilians.

  “No to the first question, and a combination no and yes to the second question. I took the First Sergeant’s order to get my boys in bed last night seriously. All told, we’re bringing an additional forty-five civilians…I won’t get into pets.”

  Kyle shook his head again. The pet situation was killing him. “It took until almost 3:30 this morning to get them all here but one thing about the Guard in general, and this group specifically, is the level of readiness of everyone involved. The husbands and wives of our unit took it in stride and when they showed up throughout the night, they didn’t show up with the kids in tow and nothing to show for it--neither did you folks, so please don’t think that’s where I’m headed.”

  “Headed?” Joel asked, looking from Kyle to Eric and back again.

  Eric shook his head and looked to Kyle for clarification.

  Kyle shrugged, “We’ve got a little over a half an hour before we need leave,” he said. “We can outfit everybody in a couple sets of BDUs, including you guys,” he nodded to Josh and Maya, “including boots and dog tags from ready stores before we take off.”

  The group looked around the table for a few seconds until Kyle broke the silence. “We need to use them one way or another,” he said.

  …

  “Sergeant Ramirez, front and center.” First Sergeant Jensen called out.

  “Sergeant Ramirez reporting, First Sergeant”

  “Have you any questions about your mission or the parameters surrounding that mission, Sergeant?”

  “No, First Sergeant. 2nd Platoon, 1st Squad is to secure and establish a forward advance area capable of transitioning into a fully operationa
l forward command base within thirty days. We expect to be functional in seven to ten and usable in two to five. With no direct operable communications coming from higher, and a situation that we have every reason to believe will be unmaintainable within two weeks, we are planning and preparing for our own egress from the Armory, including all hardware, electronics, armor, weaponry, and systems.”

  “I would still like to register my formal protest to the operation’s name. I think that operation ‘Walkabout’ would have been less depressing that operation ‘Exodus’.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant, duly noted. If that is all, mount up and move out. I will expect radio contact from the TOC in no more than 180 minutes from now, by 09:30. Let’s move it, people.” At that three dozen diesel and gasoline engines roared to life and headed out of the Armory towards Highway 40.

  …

  The area where they had decided to set up was about three miles into the park off of I-40, and just on the other side of the road from Maples Lake, which would be their initial primary source of water--there had also been some rather detailed satellite information on file at the Armory. They were on a slight rise, which pleased the Guardsmen and would help a little with ventilation for the generators they had brought along.

  Prior to leaving the Armory, they had determined they would forego any of the cabins that the park already had in place and go straight to camping. The same thinking that drove the decision to limit the size of the group that left the neighborhood had driven the decision here. They were already of one mind and a fairly single purpose so far, why muddy the water.

  The M577 and 5-ton led the way and did any additional ground breaking necessary for the smaller vehicles simply due to weight and size. They would be enhancing the roadway so they could drive as necessary without getting stuck, but it had been nice at first to have the larger vehicles to crush the more reluctant vegetation into submission.

  From the civilians’ point of view, it was a good thing they’d decided to spend the night at the Armory as there was going to be far more work to prepare the area for use than they had realized. The forward party had stopped a couple of times and scouted ahead for a while and this was the best site they’d found, and they would still need to cut down a number of trees and do some pretty heavy duty “landscaping” to level out the ground. Since they had no idea how long they would be there, and no idea how many people would eventually be a part of the group, they were trying to compromise between immediate usability and future growth. If and when things got back to normal, the Tennessee Department of Parks and Recreation was gonna be so pissed.

  From the Guard’s point of view, having the civilians along was both a blessing and a curse. This unit had done this specific exercise twice in the last three years--and in this same type of environment--so they knew what they were doing. The guardsmen appreciated having the extra help since they were used to doing it all themselves; what they weren’t used to was watching out for kids and animals at the same time.

  They had done it once with and once without any heavy equipment, other than the vehicles they rode in on. In this case they had been able to tow in a Bobcat tractor. That was going to make some of the landscaping easier but there was still plenty of back-breaking manual labor that needed to be done. The general layout would put the communications and what would eventually be the civilian population at the center of the encampment, along with a portion of the military headquarters. The overall layout would be in a circle, as that minimized the amount of exposed surface and time to get from one side to the other.

  They had communications established with the Armory by 8:45, which was actually a little earlier than Mallory had expected.

  “The roads were almost completely deserted once we got out of the city proper, Top. We were able to make top speed for the 577 right up until we got off of I-40.” Sergeant Ramirez was handling the reporting back to the Armory for the time being.

  “That could be good or bad, Ramirez. How are the civvies at this point?” Mallory was still not entirely sure she’d made the right call when it came to sending the families along with the guardsmen.

  Kyle paused for a few seconds before he replied, “Top, I can’t say I disagree with the decision to send them along-- after all, Eric and his group were going to head out either way. They stopped by more as a courtesy to us than anything, after all.

  “This mixed force for the guard’s families is more than a little weird, though.” Kyle said. “We’ve never done anything like this before and frankly, I think there’s a reason for that; everybody’s mind is in a dozen places right now. Having your family around does different things to the guys. I mean, I keep catching them looking in the mirrors in the trucks, or over their shoulders while they’re unloading stuff.”

  “And I swear, the dogs are driving me nuts. I love ‘em, I swear I do, but they are getting in the way and they don’t all love each other the way we do.”

  “You’re a smart guy, I’m sure you’ll think of something. I know you only have a squad with you but I want someone monitoring the radio at all times. If it means things take longer so be it. Call in once an hour.”

  “Roger, I’ll rotate everyone through. Promised Land, clear.”

  “Oh wonderful--this is what I get for not going with ‘Walkabout’? Advance Area ‘Promised Land’? Fine, Pharaoh out.” Mallory laughed as she signed off.

  “Oops. That’s gonna bite me in the butt, I can feel it already,” Kyle muttered to himself as he took off his headphones and stepped out of the communications tent.

  “Wilson, you’re in charge of the radio rotation. Her eminence, Pharaoh First Sergeant Jensen the First, has decreed that the magic box will be manned at all times and to report in hourly,” Ramirez told Sergeant Wilson.

  “I understood the part about the radio and the First Sergeant, and that’s good enough for me. Why do you get her going like that by the way? You two siblings or secretly married or something?” Sergeant Wilson prodded.

  “What can I say…”

  Both Wilson and Ramirez finished the last half of the sentence together, “there’s a reason you’re/I’m still a Staff Sergeant.” Laughing, Ramirez trotted off to make sure the rest of the squad was operating as the well-oiled machine he knew it was.

  Shaking his head, Sergeant Mark Wilson ducked into the communications tent and sighed. “Thank goodness we have Sergeants like him and Top.” He got briefed, relieved the Specialist who still had his headphones on, settled down in the chair, and proceeded to be bored for the next fifty-eight minutes until it was time to report in.

  Chapter Seventeen

  With only minimal use of the heavy equipment and chainsaws, they cleared enough area for all the vehicles in the advance expedition, plus room for a few more by 10:00 am. To do so, however, they had had to cut down seven very large trees and more were going to have to come down. Some of these trees were an absolute tragedy to waste, so Ramirez sought out Eric and Joel.

  “Before I run something up the flagpole and see who salutes, I wanted to run it by you guys first. We’re going to be cutting down a lot of trees over the next couple of weeks, and some of it looks to be prime timber. I hate to waste it by chopping it up for firewood or letting it rot. I’m thinking of suggesting some more permanent structures to higher,--sorry, First Sergeant Jensen.”

  “Any of the other squads have any Engineers?” Eric asked.

  “Yeah, we have three Specialists who own an engineering firm in 5th Platoon, 1st Engineering Squad. That’s who I was going to suggest we have come out to supplement us so it got done right. Problem is I know nothing about wood. It looks like good wood, but frankly I don’t know if we could even use something right after we cut it down anyway.”

  “Well,” Joel interjected, “I can help a little bit there. It isn’t what I do but it’s been an on again off again hobby of mine for years. Plus, I love the New Yankee Workshop. Norm Abrahms is the man! Anyway, you can use newly-felled wood for some things but it’s going to sh
rink and crack as it dries, and some of it will warp. Some wood will obviously be better than others and it depends entirely on what you want to do with the wood.”

  “If you’re planning on planking the wood, shrinkage and warping will be the biggest problem you face. If you want to build log cabin style buildings, shrinkage and cracking would be the big thing. Note that shrinkage will be an issue no matter what. Does the Armory have any milling equipment?”

  “None that I know of. Shoot. Maybe this won’t work. I just hate to clear cut acres of woods and not do something worthwhile with the lumber if at all possible. It didn’t even occur to me until we were cutting it all down.”

  “Don’t throw in the towel just yet there Kyle. Doesn’t the U.S. Military have the ability to requisition supplies in a time of crisis? We passed how many ‘Big Box’ hardware stores on the way here this morning? For that matter there’s a Northern Tool & Equipment in Madison and I know they sell portable sawmills. You can even get ones that clamp on to a chainsaw for the rough cuts.”

  “Joel, I’m starting to like you a whole awful lot.” Kyle was smiling from ear to ear. “If you’ll excuse me then, I believe I’ve got a call to make.”

  “Does he ever stop?” Joel asked.

  “Stop what?” Eric replied, grinning.

  “Well, I guess that actually answers my question, dunnit?”

  “Let’s get back to helping the ladies get the families situated. You know, having either wooden floors under the tents or even half walls would be really nice come the first rain. I was so busy thinking ‘get out of Dodge just in case’ that I didn’t think everything through…you know?” Joel was looking up, trying to divine the weather for the next week from the three degrees of sky he could see.

  Less than ten minutes later, Kyle tracked them down again to let Joel know he was going shopping. “Looks like you drew the short straw for finding one or more sawmills. Actually, there was only one straw and you were the only one doing the drawing. It felt kinda rigged if you ask me.”