by Glen Tate
Hammond put his finger up again and said, “That’s when we switch to minimizing chaos. When we’ve taken Olympia and occupy it, then we’re about order and stamping out chaos. That’s when we set up law and order and feed hungry people and get them medical care. We establish order and then we go after any remnants of Limas who, now that they are the insurgents for a change, are trying to create chaos for us.”
“So our mission,” Hammond said, “has two halves: chaos first and order second.” He gave his audience a few seconds to take that in.
Hammond put up his hand with three fingers out and said, “There are three fundamental points about this operation that you need to know.” Anyone could have heard a pin drop in the room.
“First,” Hammond said, “our enemy is extremely weak. We still need to respect the enemy. They will cause us some casualties. You can count on that, ladies and gentlemen. Count on that,” he said a second time to emphasize the point. He paused.
“But,” he said dramatically, “Our enemy is crumbling. They are running out of supplies. I’ll touch on their lack of military supplies in a moment. But they’re running out of every kind of supplies, like food. It appears that their stupid-ass socialist system is not producing any food. Huh? Who saw that coming?” This was about as political as Hammond ever got. He was a soldier, not a politician. But politics affected the military situation by having a system that caused the Limas’ food supplies to run low.
“So what are they doing?” Hammond asked the audience. “They’re doing what dictators always do, limiting food to the civilians and taking it for themselves. That’s the whole FCard ‘clearance’ system. It is a hierarchy of who gets how much food. Well, guess what? The civilians in the Lima areas like Olympia don’t appreciate this. They see it all day long. The regular people see connected people having plenty while their kids go hungry. I don’t want to exaggerate, there isn’t massive starvation in Olympia, but there is hunger. And it’s winter. Early winter. The civilian population, even those who were big time Loyalists a few months ago or even a few weeks ago, are realizing that they’re getting screwed. This is a big part of our strategy, as I’ll discuss in a moment.”
“The resentment by the civilians and the lack of supplies overall,” Hammond said, “means that the population will either be receptive to us or neutral. I’m not expecting a ticker tape parade when we go in, but I bet many civilians will just hide in their houses and come out only to get food. That’s been our experience in the other countries where some of us in this room have fought.” A few of the Special Forces guys were nodding.
“Humans are humans anywhere on the planet,” Hammond said. “Civilians in Olympia won’t fight to the death over … what? Devotion to a political party? Some belief in a Keynesian economic model?” Hammond was very well-read.
“Now, this won’t be a cakewalk with the civilians,” Hammond cautioned. “There will be some who are hardcore Limas. They really believe the Patriots are Klansmen out to get them.” Hammond paused and swung around to a member of the audience.
“Thompson,” Hammond said with a smile to a black soldier, “You a Klansman?”
“Hell no, sir,” the solider said. That got a laugh.
Hammond wanted to get back to serious business. “Okay,” he said, “Here’s what we know about their weaknesses. They have a huge AWOL problem. With Christmas coming, they’re melting away to be with their families and get the hell out of outlying areas, like Olympia. They’re going to Seattle by the busload. Most of the FCorps and National Guard are either gone or are combat ineffective like when they sell their weapons for a carton of cigarettes.” Hammond winked and said, “Based on a true story, ladies and gentlemen. Several of them, actually.”
Hammond pointed outside. “This illustrates my point exactly. We’re in Boston Harbor, about six miles from the Olympia city limits. Do you see any Limas around here? They probably know we’re here, but are too weak to do anything about it.” What Hammond didn’t say to the crowd was that the Patriots had people in the Lima organizations and would instantly know about a pending attack. On the other hand, and something else Hammond didn’t say, was that one well-coordinated Lima helicopter attack would level Boston Harbor in about fifteen seconds. There was no need to alarm people.
“But this is the capitol,” Hammond said, still pointing toward Olympia, “Where lots of Lima forces are concentrated. The state police are still a pretty cohesive unit. There are a surprisingly high number of National Guard troops in Olympia—more than I would have stationed there, but we have to play the hand we’ve been dealt. They are pretty crappy troops in general, the ones who are left in the National Guard. Lots of young kids just doing this for that big college money they still think they’ll get, even though all the colleges are closed. These police and National Guard units have nothing to lose now. They’ve picked sides. They know what will happen to them when we win. So they’ll fight pretty hard. Not necessarily well, but hard. But they’re not up to our standards.”
“There is one formidable foe in Olympia,” Hammond said. Everyone was paying attention. “The gangs. They are pretty much running the place. They are well-armed, as well-armed as we are in many cases, but they’re not trained. Well, mostly not trained. The ethnic gangs aren’t trained, they’re street criminals with AKs and some ARs. Lots of them are on drugs or have venereal diseases. They are not exactly combat effective. They’re just thugs who we can take out relatively easily.”
“But this isn’t a cakewalk,” Hammond said again. “Some of the gangs are comprised entirely of former law enforcement and even military. They will be a big problem for us. And some of the ethnic gangs have former LEO and military ‘security contractors’ working for them.” What Hammond didn’t say, because he didn’t want his troops to be overconfident, was that the gangs’ “security contractors” would probably cut and run at the first sign of Patriot regular units or even irregulars. The gangs’ “security contractors” were just mercenaries who wouldn’t die for the gangs. Hammond wanted his audience to take the gangs seriously.
“But,” Hammond cautioned, “Going back to the untrained gangs, what they lack in training, they make up for in viciousness. This is a huge equalizer. You don’t have to be well trained to kill our guys if you spray fire into a crowd of civilians and happen to hit our soldiers. Or if you torture people so they don’t talk to us when we come in. So don’t think of the gangs like traditional enemy soldiers. This leads to my second point.” He put up his hand with two fingers up.
“The second difference between this operation and what you might have trained for in a regular unit,” Hammond said, “is that this is not a traditional military operation. Okay? Everyone hear that. There’s no air support, no artillery, no armor, nuthin’.”
Hammond continued, “Yes, they have a few helicopters and some arty,” which was short for artillery, “but very little of it. Most of the Lima units that maintain aviation assets or move around artillery pieces have gone AWOL, are sit-outs, or are concentrated in Seattle, so they can’t really use these technological marvels on us in Olympia. Same with armor. Maybe they have some armor around, but they don’t have the fuel or spare parts for them to be mobile. Our observers on the ground tell us that the Limas have some armor guarding their major facilities, but they don’t have any running around intercepting our infantry, which is damned good news.” That got a few claps. There was nothing more terrifying to ground troops than enemy tanks.
“If we were going to take Baghdad or Kabul or whatever,” Hammond continued, “we wouldn’t try it with as small a force as we have. Let’s be honest about that. We have a pretty lean force. But this isn’t Baghdad or Kabul. This is Olympia, Washington. This leads to the third fundamental point: civilians.”
“The civilians in Olympia are Americans,” Hammond said. “Our people. Our neighbors—hell, our families—in some cases. They are our fellow citizens in all cases, which means a couple of things.”
“First of all,”
Hammond said, “we always try hard not to hurt civilians, even in foreign countries, but the stakes are higher here because these civilians are Americans. This means we have to have rules of engagement, as much as I hate those things. Basic stuff, though, not lawyer shit. You know, don’t shoot unless you can reasonably identify your target. We won’t go overboard on ROEs.” Hammond, and most of the regular military in the room, had been hobbled in foreign deployments by ridiculous ROEs, as they called Rules of Engagement. Ridiculous ROEs created by liberal politicians let enemy fighters get away with murder. Literally.
“A second thing about our objective being full of American civilians,” Hammond said, “is that we will have a strong emphasis on civil affairs.” Hammond looked at Grant.
When Hammond said “civil affairs,” he put up his hand as if to say “don’t start whining.” He continued, “Not the ‘civil affairs’ stuff where we give money to corrupt contractors to build schools in foreign countries that the insurgents use to fire mortars at us.” He shook his head. “No, we’ll get the government services up and running, especially food, so our own people, Americans, can make it through this. I guess what I’m saying is that we always care about the civilian population, but we care more in this operation because they’re our own people.”
“Any questions so far?” Hammond asked. There were none.
“Okay, here’s the basic overview of the plan,” Hammond said. “I should note that you are getting a basic overview. This isn’t like the traditional military operations we do where we spend days planning how to coordinate armor, air, artillery, medevac, logistics, and all that. We’re going to freestyle this a bit.”
Freestyle? That got some concerned looks from the regular military people. That was the opposite of precise military planning. Hammond had anticipated this.
“Here’s the deal,” Hammond said almost defensively. “We don’t have any armor or air to coordinate. We don’t have a traditional enemy. They don’t really have any command and control that we need to smash. Plus, we have lots of civilians to protect and get back on their feet. This is why I said this isn’t a traditional operation at all.”
What Hammond didn’t say was that Patriot command at the national level had decided that the time to strike was now. The sit-out units were getting restless. It was now or never for the Patriots. The timing wasn’t perfect because the Patriots didn’t know if they had superior forces and supply, but it was a “use it or lose it” situation with the sit-outs.
“Regular units will start to move in toward Olympia from all directions,” Hammond said and used his pointer on the map to illustrate. “They will lead the assault.” Hammond realized he was repeating this part, but wanted the audience to hear it a second time.
“But you folks are here tonight,” Hammond said, “because you’re the irregulars. Here’s your role: come in behind the regular units and occupy the objective. Mop up. Get government services up and running. Let the regular units go after the entrenched facilities and deal with the high-tech Lima threats, like aviation, artillery, and armor, if there are any.”
The Special Forces soldier in Hammond took delight in the next point. “Some of the irregular units will be doing traditional guerilla work: sabotage supplies and diversions.” Grant knew that the 17th wouldn’t be doing these things. He knew what role his unit would have. It was pretty obvious.
Hammond pointed to Captain Morris, who started to gather up packets of documents, each one in a large mailing envelope. “Each unit will have a plan, of course,” he said as Morris handed them out.
“There are two kinds of documents in your packet,” Hammond said. “One in English and one in your Quadra’s language. The one in English has simple things, like radio frequencies and some basic info. The very detailed plan is written in Quadra. This is the sensitive stuff that we really don’t want the Limas to get. Your Quadra back at your unit will be able to tell you what’s in the detailed plan.” Hammond didn’t mention that the plans in English were to allow a unit commander to know if a Quadra was a spy and lying about the detailed plan. Hammond wasn’t concerned about this, but they had a plan for everything.
Hammond continued, “In this non-traditional operation, we will use radio communications, via the Quadras, to provide a lot of the instructions to you. So you’ll have a basic plan, some way-point objectives along the way, and you’ll get last minute and detailed instruction from HQ via the Quadras.”
“Any questions so far?” Hammond asked. Grant was handed his packet. He looked it over. The Quadra language was in some weird alphabet Grant had never seen. The letters looked like a cross between the Arabic, English, and Russian alphabets.
“We have someone here tonight for each of the units who will verbally give you your specific plan,” Hammond said. “Nothing complicated, but we don’t have to be complicated. This is more like fighting about a hundred fifty years ago, during the Civil War, than anything you’ve seen since then. I can’t stress this enough: do not view this as a traditional military operation. It’s more like a giant law enforcement operation, kicking out some gangs from a city. Because that’s basically what it is.”
“Any questions?” Hammond asked again.
“Will this be coordinated with attacks in other states?” a contractor-looking guy asked.
“Negative, Brainard,” Hammond said. “Each state is pretty much on its own. The Free States,” which meant the South and mountain West, “are in the best shape, of course. But even they have their hands full keeping the Limas under control. There are Lima terrorists and even Lima guerilla bands in the Free States. Plus, the Free States are spending all their resources getting food to their people. They are offering political support by recognizing our new state governments, but for now, that’s all they can do.” What Hammond didn’t say was that the logistics of moving Free State forces hundreds of miles to a neighboring state was just too hard with fuel being so scarce.
There was another reason why the national Patriot plan was for each state to kick out the Limas on their own. The basic idea was that if a state had enough political support for the Patriots to mount up an operation, then it could muster up the strength to take back its own state. If the Patriots didn’t have the political strength, then that state was a second priority for the Patriots. The Patriots only wanted to try to take areas where they had the support of the population. They weren’t interested in taking an area just to say they won it, and then having to fight the population for years. Why bother?
There would be states like California that were too far gone and would never have enough popular support to allow the Patriots to take over. The Patriots would write those states off. There had been a debate in the national Patriot command whether to eventually liberate the “hopeless states” as they had become known. The consensus was to not even try. Most of the Patriots had gotten out of the hopeless states already. Regardless, the Patriots didn’t have the strength, or the fuel, to go hundreds of miles and try to take, and then occupy, a place as large as California. The Limas could have it. Let them have their socialist paradises in California, the Northeast, and strongholds like Seattle, Denver, Phoenix, Houston, and Chicago. Enjoy your paradise and stay the hell away from the rest of us.
The Patriots wouldn’t try to unify the whole country. The United States was too long. That was one of the biggest reasons the states broke away. It took a bloated and oppressive federal government to make sure the same things that made sense to politicians and bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. were forcibly imposed on a small Alabama town and Los Angeles at the same time. The Patriots had no desire to duplicate this mistake by trying to reunite a country that was too big and diverse to start with. The “United States” was just a bunch of lines on a map, lines that were too big. Americans had common cultural ties, but they were not beholden to lines on a map.
A soldier raised her hand.
“Yes?” Hammond said.
“When will this happen?” she asked. It was an obvious questi
on no one had yet asked.
“Soon,” Hammond responded. “Exact date is still being worked out. Be ready to go on a moment’s notice. Soon. Very soon.” Hammond knew the exact date—New Year’s Day—and it had been decided long ago. But he didn’t want to say it out loud in case there was a spy there. Each unit would be told the date in a secure Quadra radio message. Besides, things might change at the last minute and the date might need to be adjusted.
A second soldier raised his hand. “What’s the name of this operation, sir?”
“Tet.”
Chapter 253
A Predictable Mission
(December 21)
Tet. Grant thought about that.
Tet was the surprise offensive by the Viet Cong guerillas during the Vietnam War. The guerillas had an elaborate system of underground tunnels and the government they were fighting was corrupt and unpopular. On the Vietnamese New Year holiday called Tet, guerillas throughout South Vietnam simultaneously attacked. Since it was a holiday, most of the government forces weren’t at their jobs. The guerillas primarily destroyed soft targets, like police stations and government buildings, and economic targets. They focused on political targets by assassinating enemy officials and taking symbolic facilities, like government buildings. They even attacked the U.S. embassy and blew a hole in the outer wall of it, which was an unheard of feat for supposedly harmless little guerillas.
Tet was a gigantic shock to the government and the population. The “ragtag” guerillas weren’t supposed to be able to do things like that. The population looked at the guerillas in an entirely different light after that. They looked at them as potential victors. People on the fence started to take the guerillas seriously. They started to cooperate with the guerillas, not because they believed in the guerillas’ cause, but because they feared the guerillas might win because the Tet offensive proved they could pull of major attacks.