299 Days: The 43 Colonels

by Glen Tate

  “So we came up with a workable, but not perfect, solution. We, the new government, couldn’t just take the bakery and sell it, keeping the money. That’s the kind of thing the old government would have done. There was no perfect solution, so we disclaimed any interest the old or new government had in the bakery and let anyone promising to operate it take it over. Of course, the investors couldn’t do much with a bakery without employees, and employees would not tolerate being ripped off, so we knew most investors would take over the bakery only with the cooperation of the employees. Most, in fact, turned out to be employee-owned companies that operated the bakeries and shared the profits.”

  “If there were too many bakeries—and there were in Poland—then some of them wouldn’t reopen because no one would want to take them over. So be it,” he said. “This is part of the reset an economy needs after being driven into the ground by Communists and socialists who decide whether to open a new bakery based on political, not economic, considerations.”

  “How did the new bakery owners get the money to buy flour and pay wages? They traded for shares of the bakery’s profits. Some got hard-money loans from the free banks, which loaned money they actually had, instead of printing funny money like the Federal Reserve used to.”

  “It was hard to get financing to buy flour and pay wages, so bread production was very low,” Lezsek said with a smile, which was odd because less bread meant less food for people. “When there was less bread, guess what?”

  Several members of the audience suggested, “The price went up.”

  “That’s right,” Lezsek said, just like he was teaching an economic class, “the price went up. Now the bakery had more money. They could pay their bills, including wages for their employees. Pretty soon, they had enough to buy more flour and hire more people, so there was more bread. Slowly, there was more bread and fewer people were hungry while all this supply-and-demand was taking place.”

  He looked at the audience and said, “But you know what? The way we did it was a more sustainable and solid solution than just ordering the bakery to bake bread, feeding some people temporarily until the shortages came, and getting votes from people for feeding them, again temporarily, until the shortages came.”

  “So, as the bakery in this example got back on its feet, really on its feet in a sustainable way, the flour supplier and farmer and transportation company delivering the bread did, too. And so did the people buying the bread.”

  “This example only focuses on a large bakery, but much of the bread and other food now is produced in New Washington in small batches by individual families and small farms. They have some excess, someone has some excess of something the farmer needs, and a trade takes place. Many little cottage industries are springing up completely independently. We encourage that. We love that.”

  “I’m no politician,” Lezsek said, and then looked at Ben and said, “no offense, Governor.” Ben laughed. He was used to this. “But,” Lezsek said, “economics and politics are intertwined, even free market economics. Allow me to explain this seemingly contradictory statement. In the old system, economics and politics were clearly connected because most economic decisions were political decisions, whether they were decisions about opening a bakery, how much to pay workers, or whether to print fiat currency to finance the bakery. This was true in the FUSA as well as Communist Poland. Government allowed, or even encouraged, some connected investors to build a bakery, often with tax credits or special land use approvals if the government wanted the bakery built. Government determined the minimum wage and other required benefits for the employees. Government, or more precisely the central banks, but the two are almost the same, decided to print money to loan to the bank that eventually loaned money to the bakery investors. All of this was political because government was heavily involved.”

  “So how is free-market economics political, too? It’s a different kind of politics, but it’s politics. Free-market economies require people. People to invest, people to work, people to buy things. If ‘politics’ means what motivates people, then even free-market economies need to consider this. For example, if the bakery were given to cronies of government officials, the employees would revolt and, in some cases, physically hurt the investors. So free-market economies need to consider this form of politics; ‘fairness’ would be a better word than politics.”

  “I say all this to make this point: we free-market economists need to remember that we simply cannot set up a system that is unfair, especially when we’re trying to enable an economy to rebuild itself. People will revolt. They’re already well-armed and many have experience—very recent experience—overthrowing a tyrannical and corrupt government.” He stared into the audience to make this very serious point to the powerful people in attendance.

  “People will often do the right thing, but there must be measures in place if they don’t. People who steal must be punished. People who break agreements must pay back those whom they damage. One of the foundations of rebuilding an economy after Communists or socialists run it into the ground is a fair justice system. That is not my department, but I must note, as an economist, that it is critical because people will not tolerate an unjust system, at least not anymore.”

  “This brings me to my next point: a total reset is required. This is not just true economically and politically, but mentally as well. If people still think the old ways, still think about high taxes for example, then they will never be mentally prepared for a rebuilding. If they still believe that a 25% capital gains tax is normal, they will carp and whine that the elimination of that tax is letting the ‘rich’ off easy. They will spend their energy fighting over that instead of getting down to business and baking bread. This point bears repeating: a total reset—mentally, economically, politically—is necessary.”

  “So, back to New Washington,” Lezsek said. “I was honored to be taken in at the Think Farm with so many brave Patriots. We talked for months about how we could fix this state. God put me right where I needed to be to help as many people as possible. He gave me the experience of growing up in, and then helping to fix, a Communist economy. This allows me to assist my new home of New Washington. Most people would be thrilled to help rebuild their homeland’s economy once in a lifetime; I’ve been blessed with that honor twice.”

  “One final thought,” he said. “Rebuilding an economy takes a long, long time. I know this from Poland. Please be patient. It took decades of bad decisions to destroy the Polish and American economies. It will take years—and perhaps decades—to fix your economy. It usually takes less time to fix it than it took to break it because when the law of supply and demand is allowed to operate, things heal. Things return to what they should be. Nature, an economy naturally humming along as it follows immutable laws, is restored. So healing is faster when an economy is not trying to resist natural forces, but it still takes time.”

  “You have good leadership,” Lezsek said, motioning over to Ben. “Let’s fix this place.”

  Chapter 342

  (Col. Greg Blaylock)

  The Special Special

  “Now, on to people who blew stuff up,” Ben said, realizing the crowd needed some action after listening about computers and economics.

  “Our next honoree, Col. Greg Blaylock, cannot be here today and his name really isn’t Greg Blaylock, either.” That aroused curiosity in the crowd.

  “He could be here because he’s still alive,” Ben said, “but he’s working right now. He’s deployed somewhere…” Ben searched for the right way to say it, without saying too much. “Somewhere he needs to be to help the Patriots.”

  “We made up the name Greg Blaylock for, due to his line of work, he can’t have his identity known.” What Ben didn’t say, because he didn’t want the Limas to know it, was that once New Washington was formed, “Blaylock” had retired, and was quietly farming in Hoquiam. He was actually in the audience under yet another identity. He never knew when he might be called back into service, so he wanted to s
tay anonymous. The Patriot intelligence and military leaders wanted him that way, too. He was an invaluable asset.

  “Col. Blaylock is a ‘special special.’ That’s a phrase our Special Operations Command uses for special operations personnel who are special even among their peers. He is a Special Forces soldier from the First Special Forces Group at JBLM who came over to our side very early, so that’s the first ‘special.’ He’s also a master at infiltrating sensitive facilities and gathering intelligence; that’s the second ‘special.’ He’s fearless, as you’ll see in a moment when I describe what he’s done so far for the Washington State Guard.”

  “Col. Blaylock was originally from Tennessee, supposedly a descendent of Davy Crockett. He enlisted in the FUSA Army at age seventeen. The recruiter tried to get him to apply for West Point after his IQ test scores came back. Blaylock said he wanted to be out in the field, not pushing paper. He flew through the very difficult Special Forces training schools and was a sergeant at age twenty.”

  “Col. Blaylock has a few very unusual skills,” Ben continued. “First of all, he can convince anybody of anything. He can BS his way through anything. This is important when attempting to get into a restricted facility with forged or incomplete identification. Some of his Special Forces teammates honestly believed he could hypnotize people and that was how he did it.”

  “He supposedly has a very general appearance, so he can put on a disguise to look like anyone,” Ben said. “I’ve actually never seen his face; there are no photographs of him, so I’m going on what I’ve been told.” In reality, there were photographs of him, but under his real name. The Limas actually did it before the Collapse. In a scheme cooked up between him and a fellow Oath Keeper Green Beret, Blaylock was given permission to “die” in an airplane crash and then get a new identity. The Limas had planned to use him against the Patriots, but they didn’t know that he would defect when he “died.” The Collapse hit right when the new Blaylock was supposed to report for duty, except he never did. The three-letter agency people in charge of him assumed he was killed in the riots and, quite frankly, had many more problems on their hands to deal with then.

  “Over and over again, we would send him into ultra-secure Lima facilities and he’d come back with a treasure trove of information,” Ben said, feeling a little guilty that he was saying “we” would send him in when Ben had been hiding out on a farm the whole time.

  “There are only a few of his many missions that I can describe,” Ben said. “The things you’ve already heard about are okay for me to discuss.”

  “Remember the liberation of our sensitive prisoners at the supposedly secret prison in downtown Seattle?” he asked the crowd, all of whom knew what a spectacular success that had been. “Once we got a solid tip on where the prison was, and who was in it, we sent Col. Blaylock there, in the heart of Seattle, to tell us if that was really the prison. It was, he determined after weeks of observation. He was the first one in, minutes ahead of the operators. He walked right into the office suite holding our very high value people and quietly took out the guards, who never expected that from a ‘copy machine repair guy.’” Ben’s intelligence chief had told Ben that it was okay to give out some of these details because the Limas already knew what had happened. Might as well rub it in to them by telling the whole world how they did it. Let the Limas double and triple their defenses everywhere in the fear that “Blaylock” would waltz right in and slit their throats, even though he was now retired a few hundred miles away in rural New Washington.

  “Once the front office guards were taken out, Blaylock went room to room, silently dispatching more guards. A minute or two later, when the plainclothes special operations troops came in, they could quickly and silently get the prisoners out and into the vans waiting downstairs. These were, of course, the vans from the ‘copy repair’ company.”

  “Blaylock didn’t just sneak into places with disguises. He was very good at the old-fashioned job of infiltrating facilities in remote areas and coordinating an attack. There was a mission where he hiked for days, completely undetected, to the offsite meeting of some of the Seattle-based Lima intelligence leadership. They met in person because the information they had to share was so sensitive they couldn’t communicate it, except in person, once a month. Their meeting place was a remote and unmapped Forest Service cabin on a lake in the Olympic National Forest, supposedly accessible only by seaplane. Blaylock blazed a trail in and even constructed a temporary bridge to get over a small river. He guided in several Combat Controllers from the 22nd Special Tactics Squadron, all formerly at JBLM, so they could get close enough to fly in a remote-controlled small plane loaded with explosives. It was a poor man’s airstrike, but for insurgents without a real air force, it worked.”

  “The effect on the Limas was devastating; most of their key people in the Seattle area were taken out of commission, and all the unwritten and compartmentalized information they had was lost, too. And, much like everything else Blaylock did, it made the Limas redouble their security, which used up valuable resources and slowed down their decision making.”

  “I would love to spend all day telling amazing stories about Col. Greg Blaylock, but I can’t. The missions are too sensitive. But suffice it to say, he had a very, very, big impact on our victory. We thank you, Colonel, whoever and wherever you really are.”

  Chapter 343

  Col. Kate Benton

  The Skykomish Raiders

  “We turn from military heroes to a civilian one, Kate Benton. In many ways, she had the same effect on the enemy as Col. Blaylock: forcing them to expend valuable resources by beefing up their defenses.”

  “Col. Benton, please stand up,” Ben said and a woman in her sixties stood to loud applause. “Kate is a regular person, but she did something unusual: she listened to warnings of impending disaster. She had what my friend Grant Matson calls the ‘outside thought.’ Some say it is God guiding a person, others say it isn’t. I have my firm belief which one it is, but there’s no need to debate that now. What’s important is that Kate listened to the outside thought that was guiding her. No one can describe this better than she. Colonel, please join me.” The crowd applauded again as she approached Ben.

  Once the applause died down, she said, “The Governor is right; I listened to the outside thought, who is God, in my opinion. The outside thought told me get ready and gave me the means to do it. I just did it. It didn’t seem unusual at the time, because it made so much sense to do it, but now I can see what impact it had.”

  “I was a real estate developer,” she started, “yes, an evil person, I know. But my late husband, Dieter, and I improved little properties around the Seattle area. We were blessed with a little nest egg.”

  “When the 2008 financial meltdown happened, we were shaken. We saw how fragile everything was. We looked around our house and saw we didn’t have any way of taking care of ourselves if the economy imploded, as it surely seemed it would.”

  “I kept having this thought, not a voice, but a thought from outside my mind, that was telling me we needed to get ready. ‘Prepare’ it would say. One day, I was looking at real estate listings and I saw an old railroad warehouse facility in Skykomish, Washington, which is in the Cascade Mountains separating western and eastern Washington. Skykomish was a railroad town and housed a huge switching yard on the railway running from Seattle to Spokane over the mountains.”

  “It was a series of huge buildings surrounded by a double set of chain link fence. It had machine shops, underground fuel storage tanks, water supplied from the nearby Skykomish River, and even a little clinic. It was a self-contained little town the railroad needed for their employees back when the trains ran on the trans-Cascade line. The railroad was selling it for a song.”

  “I told Dieter about it and said to him that I thought it would be perfect. It was where we were supposed to go. He agreed, and just like that, we bought it.”

  “The few residents who remained in Skykomish after the rail
road stopped running thought we were crazy, but they left us alone.

  “We spent the next few years slowly improving the capabilities of the rail yard. We built bunk beds and fixed the huge kitchen. We had a place to comfortably house dozens of people. We stockpiled food and grew a huge garden. We never asked ourselves why we were doing it. We just did it. We were doing it because it was what we were supposed to do.”

  “We got guns and trained, but at our ages, we couldn’t do all the security things we needed to do. We realized we’d need security contractors to make the rail yard all it could be.”

  “Dieter asked me how we’d get security contractors to come to our place, and I said, ‘Don’t worry, honey. They just will.’ It turns out that the Collapse brought lots of people to us.”

  “Skykomish is on Highway 2, which goes across the Cascades. When the Collapse hit, Homeland Security shut down the mountain passes within the first 48 hours, stranding hundreds of travelers in and around Skykomish. They had nowhere to go, so we opened up our doors.”

  “We’re not political people. We just wanted to help people. A few dozen stranded motorists became our security people. We put everyone to work, including the kids. We started a little school. We had some unhappy people, so we let them go back across the mountains when DHS would let them. They had to wait several days at the tent city by the roadblocks, but eventually were cleared to go either east or west. We were glad they left.”