Not that he protected his wife which most any man calling himself one would do, but that he, for a moment had become equal to an animal. This statement is somewhat skewed in that the instinct is very similar in all respects not to a dog per say, but to a dog with rabies.
Something which must now be pointed out is that both Dave and Waite were equally wrong. Both allowed evil within themselves to gain a foothold and then acted upon it. With Waite it was lust, and with Dave it was pure, crystalline rage. It was something which both would regret for the rest of their lives.
Mistakes, in some cases, can be learned from and not repeated, and life goes on.
Others?
…..................................
It took quite a while to get the mess in the kitchen cleaned up. Then Dave had the unique joy of patching the others up, while he himself needed medical attention as well. His chest was a solid mass of bruise with the possibility of a cracked rib, a sprained wrist, and he had a cut on his scalp which was bleeding profusely. All this on top of extreme muscle fatigue and exhaustion.
The Sergeant had talked to Sue and then to Dave, and afterwards to his men. Zeb then spent some time talking to Waite in private in the kitchen, while all but the two privates on guard duty were ordered to remain in the living-room. He then called Sue outside and talked to her for another few minutes.
Oddly, Sue came back in looking both slightly confused yet somewhat pleased as well. Not happy mind you, but merely pleased.
Zeb had Waite brought in to the living-room with his arms cuffed and placed in a chair. The Sergeant talked to a Captain which had returned with him to the farm. They spoke in a corner for a few minutes, both whispering animatedly in a silent argument.
“Fine! We'll try it your way! However, it is on your head,” the Captain finished.
The Master Sergeant looked pleased.
An impromptu trial was held by the Captain. Charges were read. Accounts were stated by all, and then the Captain as Judge looked hard at Waite.
“Five weeks ago, you would be serving in the brig. However, we are in a state of formally declared war. Therefore, the punishment is summary execution as asked previously by the Sergeant acting as prosecution and contingent upon a guilty verdict,” the Captain stated.
“The sentence is guilty. Master Sergeant, carry out the sentence,” the Captain ordered.
Everyone gasped. Not one person present had expected this and shock and dismay were clear on many faces. Only Sue looked oddly unchanged, with a small smirk.
The Sergeant didn’t waste time. He escorted Waite outside to the Oak in front of the house and then lined him up against the tree. Zeb pulled his sidearm, placed the muzzle against Waite's forehead, cocked the hammer with his thumb and then pulled the trigger.
'Click'
The tiny metallic smack of the hammer falling against the firing pin was the only sound heard. Everyone who had filed out of the living-room was holding their collective breaths. The chamber in the gun had been empty.
Waite had flinched at the sound, fully expecting to die, and had collapsed in fright when it hadn't happened.
The Sergeant knelt down, and made Waite look into his eyes.
“Boy! That Captain was bound and determined to see you hang slowly at Leavenworth. I just bought your sorry butt when I talked him into this,” Zeb growled, his face only a couple of inches from Waites.
“I vouched for you douchebag, and if you ever do anything this stupid again, you won't hear no empty chamber next time, and you won’t see me coming. Do you understand me?” his voice grated, hard as diamond.
“Yes sir,” Waite quietly replied with tears running openly down his face.
“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”
“It ain't me you need to apologize to boy,” the Sergeant said.
“Captain,” the Sergeant then stated formally, standing at parade attention.
“The court chooses to show leniency. You are remanded into the custody of the Master Sergeant upon a probation term of six months. Violation of probation shall be dealt with by the execution of the original sentence by the Master Sergeant. Adjourned,” the Captain stated officially, his face set in stone.
The Captain then softened his spine a little, and walked over to Waite.
“Don't even think about it again young man, or this man has promised me there won't be enough left over for the coyotes. I wouldn't have even considered it except he vouched for your spotless record, and no previous offenses of any kind,” the Captain growled.
“That and the lady you attacked asked for leniency. If it weren’t for her, I would have shot you myself without a trial.”
Dave, his face unreadable, jumped off the porch and strode up to the Captain.
“Captain, I myself am willing to be merciful and am glad in a way that you chose mercy,” Dave said.
“However, though I am willing to forgive him, I can't trust him around my wife. If he was tempted that bad once…”
“Noted, and agreed.” the Captain stated.
“Private Waite. Pack your gear. You are reassigned effective immediately.”
The Captain turned and looked at Zeb.
“One other thing. Master Sergeant Josiah Anderson, front and center!” the Captain barked.
“Yes Sir,” the Sergeant saluted the officer after doing a precise march to a spot in front of the Captain.
“You are hereby given, effective immediately, a field promotion to Lieutenant.,” the Captain stated.
The officer pulled a small box out of his pocket, and handed it to Zeb.
“Enough ceremony. Put on your bars Zeb, you earned them.”
It was Josiah's turn to be confused.
“Yes sir!” he snapped, pulling out and pinning the bars to his uniform.
“Josiah, I was planning this before all the brough-ha-ha happened. I wish it would have been under better circumstances,” the Captain stated.
“You have traits we are desperately wanting right now in our commissioned officers.”
“Joseph! Come here please if you have a moment,” the Captain asked.
Joe walked over, and stood in front of the Captain. The Captain saluted Joe, which instantly caught Dave’s attention.
“As agreed sir,” the Captain said, pointing to the truck and Humvee, all packed with boxes.
“The country is still in your debt sir.”
Dave looked at Joe, baffled. The Captain had officially referred to him as a commanding officer by saluting and using the title sir, which made no sense.
“Sir?” he asked, his tone betraying his confusion.
Joe smiled.
“To you it is. They made me a 'special adviser'. Due to some recent changes in the regs, they had to give me the field rank of Colonel so that people like that Captain over there wouldn't give me any lip on the training field,” Joe said with a smile.
“I don't really understand this stuff, so don't ask me. I still do not know what it means to be 'in the chain of command? Anyway, due to a foul up in the way the regulation was written, I am a member of the armed forces now, though I never signed up, and am in the chain of command though I have no command except on the training field. Genuine military FUBAR.”
“Yes sir!” Dave replied with a huge grin and snapped a salute.
“It means I must salute you Colonel, that's what.”
“Where would you like that arm located, smart-Alec?” Joe grumbled, unsure of his new found position.
Dave chuckled.
“By the way, I would quit chuckling.”
“To make all of this legal beagle, you are hereby recalled to duty immediately,” Joe said seriously.
Waite, his gear packed and loaded into the Captains hummer, went to the porch where Sue was sitting. He stopped several feet in front of Sue, and with tears running down his face openly.
“I don't even know why. There’s nothing I can really say. Sue, I am so, so, sorry. I hope you can someday forgive me.”
Sue
looked at Waite, every emotion she could feel hammering at her. Suddenly, it all solidified. Sue was a Christian, and mercy and forgiveness are basic traits.
“I do forgive you Waite. Just don’t do it again, with me or anyone else. Don't even allow yourself to think it.”
Waite snapped to attention in a full parade salute to Sue, and then turned sharply and went to the Hummer.
The new Lieutenant, knew he had made the right choice, though he still could not understand why the woman had pleaded for the life of her attacker. They had stretched military law past the breaking point to honor her request, but honor it they had. Subsequently Waite died in action two weeks later a hero, valiantly defending the lives of forty civilians trapped on a farmstead by overwhelming enemy forces.
“PFC Hewitt!” the Lieutenant called.
“Yes Sir!” Hewitt replied, running on the double.
His stomach sank at the realization that he had been demoted from Corporal to private first class.
“You are now Sergeant Hewitt,” the new Lieutenant said, handing Hewitt the stripes which had been brought from the base.
“Make these stripes proud son.... And you better remember what I said about posting guards son even if your ass is on fire! You will be busted back to buck private for good, next time that happens.”
“Yes sir!” Hewitt said with a perplexed grin.
He decided he was probably never going to understand this man. Zeb acted like he hated him one second, only to promote him the next. Weird guy. Would make a great officer, but a very weird guy nonetheless.
19. (The Plans of Men)
“Aw man! What is this nasty stuff?” Jonas groaned, almost gagging on the substance he had spooned into his mouth out of a plastic pouch marked 'Vegetable Lasagna'.
“Meals Refused by Ethiopians. It’s a MRE. Real soldier food that lets you know that if you aren't winning the fight, you can look forward to more of it. Guaranteed to keep you alive, but nobody said anything about enjoying your life,” the Lieutenant stated, wolfing down another portion with gusto.
“Come on guys, they are not that bad,” Sue interjected while eating some meatballs in marinara.
“Not that good either!,” Joe quipped, gagging on his own portion of meatloaf.
“If this is meatloaf I wonder what they call meat,” he said with a disgusted look.
“Why did you get MRE's? I thought you didn't want any?,” Dave replied.
“Vitamin deficiencies. We have had several weeks of straight meat, but if you hadn't noticed, the canned vegetables are gone and no garden until spring,” Joe stated gravely.
“A man can live solely off of meat if he wants, and be perfectly healthy! There is only one catch though.”
“And what is that pray tell?” Dave asked, suspicious.
“Seventy five percent of that meat must be raw. Not rare. Wipe its butt and put it on a plate raw,” Joe stated.
Dave's grimace at the depicted scene made Joe chuckle.
“Doesn't mean I have to like it,” Kyle grumbled.
The other military men were about to die laughing, sharing for once a joke which only made sense to military personnel.
“If you think that is bad.... just try the one marked 'Cheese & Vegetable Omelet',” Hewitt stated.
At this, the other military men quit laughing, looking nauseated instead.
“Man I miss those MRE’s from ‘Nam,” Joe mumbled.
“That’s a pure load of BS there Joe. You’re getting old, but not near old enough for Vietnam,” Zeb said, shaking his head.
“Nope. Ate ‘em when I was younger. Was on the last pack out of a case when I saw the expiration dates. Man they tasted good for being twenty five years out of date,” Joe replied.
Nicolson ran outside and made retching sounds which everyone tried to ignore.
“Maybe that should have been your first clue something was wrong?” Zeb asked sarcastically.
Joe just smiled.
“You never know.”
“Well guys, if you want, someone can take over my chores tomorrow and I can go see what I can find vitamin wise in the fields.”
“Me!” resounded from several throats at once, both adult and teenage, male and female.
“This drink stuff is pretty good though!” Kyle said happily, eating the hot cocoa straight from the package without water.
“Save all the unopened stuff guys and put it in the empty drawer in the kitchen. Unused sporks, crackers, salt packets, and all. We will want it later,” Joe said.
His previous labor had been worth fifteen cases of MRE's, a mix of both A&B. This meant a grand total of one hundred and eighty individual meals. This sounded and looked like a lot of food, but it would not last long even with only one a day per person. They would use them up at a rate of nine per day. More if they couldn’t supplement them with real food.
He had also scored five military knives, a new box of thirty caliber ammo, and five old used but still good semi-auto AR-15 rifles, one truck, and one new hummer. Joe figured it a good trade, a very good trade indeed for a little over two weeks work.
The extremely low gearing of the truck he might make it usable for a small tractor, or at least tow a small tractor back here if they could locate one. Many of the destroyed farms had been smashed completely flat like Dave's, and scrounging was actually rare. Joe's farm had burnt to the ground with his little Ford 9n tractor destroyed. Most other farms that survived the initial assault were still occupied.
What Joe found saddest was the few 'other' farms, which were intact, but with no occupants. Evidently lived in recently, but empty. Valuables and everything else still at the homes, food still on the table in a few cases. The doors were generally unlocked, but the people who had lived there were missing.
It wasn't just farms either. It was worse in the cities. Whole small towns were now devoid of people, and the stray pets had become feral. Roving bands of dogs were a big problem. The wolves from the zoo were worse, but at least they ate feral dogs.
It looked like big cats were eating the wolves occasionally as well, and that concerned Joe. He wondered if a breeding population of both fertile male and female cats had been released. They wouldn't know the truth of that for a couple of years, if and when they started seeing cub prints.
Meat was plentiful, and in many cases where the rains had held off harvesting before the attacks the animals were grain fed. Joe had watched from a hilltop one day as three adult buffalo had grazed in an unharvested wheat field.
He could remember wondering what it must have been like to see entire herds thundering across the plains. He noted that the huge animals ripped and trampled fences down like tissue paper and he may get to see them run wild that way in a few years.
The military had informed them that the situation was bad all over. People before the war had laughed at the notion of concentration camps in America, thinking everything some big prank or joke, or some paranoid conspiracy theorist’s wishful pipe dream. After the gas ovens had fired up, many weren't alive to laugh anymore.
The military had made destruction of these camps priority number one. The government had set protection of the camps equally strong on their agenda. Many a battle had been waged within sight of a camp, with the smoke from the stacks choking in the lungs of all concerned not wearing a gas mask. Ash fell like demented greasy snow in some areas, such as the huge cities.
No one thought they were funny now. Everyone feared and despised them, and what they stood for. Entire small towns had been herded onto trucks, rail-cars, buses, converted semi's, whatever would haul them off quickly and efficiently. Treated like cattle, they were herded through holding chutes and pens, and instructed to remove their personal items which they were promised they would get back. Crowds would enter the massive sleeping dorms, then never been seen again.
Load after load of plastic coffins were shipped to these installations. Most coffins held several occupants, and the coffins were fed by conveyors into the huge furnaces.
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Nobody had any idea of the total number of dead. Massive Ordinance Air Blast bombs, or MOAB’s, had been indiscriminately used on the problem city of Los Angeles, in effect carpet bombing the city to dust. The government desired not to use nukes on its own soil. MOAB's were the next best thing. It was a good thing they had used up their small stockpiles of this weapon quickly.
Surviving in America: Under Siege 2nd Edition Page 11