299 Days: The 43 Colonels

by Glen Tate

  “We were left with a core group of hearty survivors. There were almost 100 of us. We sent out hunting parties and fished the Skykomish River. Our garden was doing well and we had thousands of dollars’ worth of bulk foods. Dieter and I were so happy helping people, just like we had prepared for.”

  “In the spring and into the fall, there was a constant stream of military convoys going up and down the highway to eastern and western Washington. The trains started running again back and forth between the two halves of the state. The convoys and trains hauled food—potatoes mostly—from eastern Washington to all the people in Seattle. They often shipped them in open bed trucks and rail cars. The whole town smelled like raw potatoes, which wasn’t such a bad smell, given the many hungry people in Seattle. We considered ourselves lucky.”

  “The TSA and DHS troopers manning the roadblock, and the soldiers in the convoys, left us alone. About once a week, a National Guard sergeant came to talk to us. He jokingly said he was looking for ‘terrorists’ at our compound. We’d have him over and fix him a meal. He was a nice kid. Kyle Penrod was his name.”

  “The government people didn’t care about us. We weren’t interfering with the food going to Seattle. We worked on producing and storing food mostly. We also spent time sending messages over the passes with travelers to try to reunite some of the families at our rail yard. We had several successes. It was bittersweet to see reunited members of our rail yard family leave, but we knew they were going back to their families. I especially missed the little kids we had out there.”

  Kate’s demeanor changed. “In the fall, a few weeks before Thanksgiving, the convoys and train traffic dropped off. Way off. It was like they didn’t have any food in eastern Washington to keep sending to Seattle. That made sense. My garden wasn’t growing in November, so the mega farms in eastern Washington weren’t producing anything, either.”

  “Right before Thanksgiving, the convoys and rail traffic stopped completely. The TSA and DHS troopers in Skykomish were at an isolated outpost and apparently not getting resupplied. One day, they came to our gate and demanded food. We gave them a little because we helped anyone.”

  “They came back the next day and pointed their guns at us. We didn’t know what to do. We gave them the food we hadn’t hidden. After they stole all that food, we had a community meeting and decided we couldn’t let them keep taking our food. It was the beginning of winter and we’d worked all spring and summer to grow, harvest, and store food. That was how we were going to make it through the winter. We had kids who depended on us.”

  “We weren’t Patriots or Loyalists; we were just people who didn’t want their winter food taken. We decided to stand up to the feds and then something miraculous happened.”

  “Some soldiers came to the gate. They weren’t National Guard. They looked like commandos or something. They didn’t have uniforms. They had beards. We took them in because we took in anyone who needed help.”

  “The soldiers said they were part of an ‘irregular’ army unit for the Patriots. I found out later they were the 6th Irregulars and were led by some former Green Berets.”

  “The irregular soldiers were from Monroe and Sultan, which were the next towns over from us on Highway 2. They said they had been watching the TSA and DHS troopers and saw that they were stealing food from us. They offered to help.”

  “We had gone for months during the Collapse without taking sides and we didn’t want to start now, but we needed to keep our food for the winter. Our only choice was to die by fighting the federal forces or starve to death.”

  “The irregular soldiers told us what the federal forces were doing to people in our area and elsewhere. They had pictures and a few video clips. We couldn’t believe our own government would do that. We realized we had it easy with the TSA and DHS just stealing our food. The Patriot soldiers told us what would come next, based on what they claimed they’d seen in Monroe, Sultan, and farther down Highway 2 towards Seattle. I couldn’t let that happen, especially to the children.”

  “The irregular soldiers asked if they could put their people at our rail yard. We had the room and the hidden food, as long as the feds didn’t steal it. Besides, we needed the soldiers to protect us from the feds.”

  “So we voted to let the irregulars stay with us. It was not unanimous and some of our ‘family members’ were very angry. At first.”

  “The irregular soldiers trickled into the rail yard over the next few days. About a dozen a day arrived. We ended up with forty-eight of them, which they said was about half of them. The other half was watching the federal outpost and working on another project they couldn’t tell us about.”

  “One night, a few days after Thanksgiving, the irregular soldiers’ radios crackled. The other half of their troops said the feds were coming back to the rail yard. The soldiers at the rail yard swung into action and ambushed the feds right outside the gate. I held my hands over the kids’ ears, but they heard the shooting anyway. I wished they didn’t have to, but the shooting was better than having our food stolen. I’m a decent person; I don’t want violence, but I won’t let thugs steal from the family.”

  “Right after the shooting stopped at the gate, we heard more shooting off in the distance. The irregular soldiers said their other men ambushed the rest of the TSA and DHS troopers at their checkpoint. All of the feds were dead or wounded. The irregulars had some killed and wounded, too. We treated all of them in our clinic, no matter which side they were on.”

  “‘We need to talk,’ the commander of the irregulars told me and Dieter.” Kate started choking up. “That’s when Dieter had his heart attack.” She went on to explain that he had a bad heart, couldn’t get any of his medication, and the stress of the gunfight with the feds had been too much for him.

  “I didn’t want anything more to do with death and dying,” Kate said with a tear. “I just wanted to put a blanket over my poor Dieter and hold his hand.”

  “One of the men in the family took over the emergency meeting with the commander of the irregulars. He came back to me and said, ‘Sorry, Kate, but we need you in this meeting. There’s a decision that only you can make.’ I had to leave Dieter for good. It was impossible to walk out of that room with him there under that blanket. I knew once I walked out, Dieter was gone from me forever.”

  “I finally did, after several minutes of stalling. I had to go to this meeting and see what the irregulars needed from us. The commanding officer was very nice—he was a former Green Beret—and he said, ‘Ma’am, we need you to make a big sacrifice.’”

  “After just losing Dieter, I wondered what other sacrifice I could possibly make. I had a hunch, though, and the outside thought said I should do it.”

  “‘We have a very limited opportunity to hit the rail line and take out a major east-west supply route,’ the commanding officer said. I knew what he would say next.”

  “‘We need to use your rail yard to stage an attack on the tracks to disable them. The Limas will come back and destroy this place in retaliation,’ he said.”

  “‘What about my people?’ I asked. ‘Where will they go?’”

  “‘We’ll take them down Highway 2 to Monroe now that the roadblock is open,’ he said. ‘We’ll put your people in Patriot safe houses we have there. We pretty much control Monroe, anyway. You and your people will be very safe.’”

  “I was hesitant to lose my rail yard and be separated from the family, probably forever. Then he said something that convinced me that I should do what he was asking, ‘We’ll take Dieter to Monroe and give him a proper burial, ma’am.’ I started crying. Finally, I said, ‘okay, okay, use the rail yard.’”

  “The irregular soldiers got a body bag for Dieter and decently and respectfully put him in it. They saluted him, even though they didn’t know I was watching. They had class and honor. They weren’t the ones trying to steal our food. That’s when I became a Patriot and decided to go all-in for our side.” The audience applauded loudly.


  “It took about two hours for the family to get all their things and as many supplies as they could and get in the pickups that the Patriots brought up Highway 2 to Skykomish. I watched as the family drove away, knowing I’d probably never see them again. I was the last to leave. I asked the commanding officer if I could stay and watch. He said, ‘No ma’am, you should leave with the others. After a massive explosion taking out the Burlington Northern railway, the Limas will zoom in here and shoot at anything running away, like our trucks. You’ll be in danger, ma’am,’ he said. I told him I wanted to watch this. Dieter would want to see it. He nodded and let me stay.”

  “Over the next few hours, the irregular soldiers moved some very heavy things down to the railway bridge. They looked like giant bullets; one of the soldiers told me they were artillery shells that would be simultaneously detonated. They ran a long wire up to a place behind a railcar sitting on a sidetrack. They told me to get in the first getaway truck and I did. It was dark, and a few minutes later, the radio in the truck said the blast would be in one minute. My driver started up the truck and soldiers started piling into it. We were ready to leave when I felt the earth shake and the air pushed out of my lungs. It wasn’t loud as much as it was a deep rumble. The sky briefly lit up and the driver started to speed down the road toward Monroe. I got one last glimpse of the rail yard on the way out of town. I started to cry.”

  “On the fast drive to Monroe, I thought about the potatoes that wouldn’t be getting to Seattle, at least not until the bridge was repaired, which would take months. I thought about the hungry people in Seattle who needed the potatoes. But then I thought about the feds taking food from us. I thought that the stealing needed to end, and the feds worked for the people in Seattle. If ending this meant people in Seattle had to be hungry, then maybe that would make this end faster. It had to end. It just had to.”

  Kate bowed her head and said softly, “I miss you, Dieter. We did well, though. See you in heaven, honey,” and she walked off the rostrum to thunderous applause.

  Chapter 344

  Col. Deborah Levi

  (No-Flag Hospital)

  “Lives, fortunes, and sacred honor,” Ben said when the applause for Kate Benton died down. “That’s what the first Founders pledged, and all of them made giant sacrifices to bring liberty to America. Sacrifice. Col. Benton certainly made a sacrifice. I can give a postscript to her story: the Limas still haven’t been able to repair the Skykomish rail line bridge. Having this rail line out has prevented the Limas from getting a significant quantity of supplies into the Seattle area this winter, making the people there less and less receptive to the ‘legitimate authorities.’ It has also prevented the Limas from moving supplies into their toeholds in eastern Washington, which means that half of the state is significantly freer.” The many New Washington legislators from eastern Washington cheered loudly.

  “Col. Benton said she wasn’t political and took in anyone,” Ben started his introduction of the next honoree. “This is true of Col. Deborah Levi, too. She will describe the ‘no-flag’ hospital she started, which treated people regardless of which side they were on. Patriots’ help to regular people, many of whom were Undecideds, was critical for winning the war. All of those Undecideds saw which side was genuinely humane, which side cared about people more than politics. We’ll never know how many Undecideds, and even Loyalists, came over to our side because they saw examples like Colonels Levi and Benton who opened up their doors to anyone. Lots of individual Patriots opened their homes to a family, and the Undecideds noticed these examples. We couldn’t award a colonelship to every good Patriot who was charitable, so we focused on a few who did extraordinarily big things.”

  Ben paused and started to speak from his heart. “The really cool thing about these Patriot no-flag operations is that it’s not like Patriot politicians or generals issued orders to people demanding that they be charitable. Patriots just did it. It was the right thing to do and—this is critical—they did it. They were helping more than the people they were taking in, feeding, providing medical care for, finding lost relatives for, encouraging, protecting, and giving supplies to. No, these charitable Patriots were also showing the general population that the Patriot way of helping people just plain worked. ‘The Patriot way works.’ How many times have we heard that during the Collapse and war? The examples these Patriots set made a difference on the battlefield. More than tanks and jets.”

  “Now, on to Col. Levi. She is a nurse, originally from Israel, where she treated Israelis and Palestinians. She came to the United States and settled in Longview, on the Columbia River in southern New Washington.” Longview was solidly in Patriot hands. It was in a rural part of the state and was one of the first cities the Patriots took.

  “Please welcome Col. Deborah Levi as she tells her story.” The audience applauded loudly. The no-flag hospital was one of the most popular stories from the war.

  Col. Levi, a pretty woman in her thirties with hair as black as coal, rose and waved at the audience. She was unaccustomed to public speaking, especially at such a dignified event like this, but she was at ease telling her story. She’d lived it; telling it was the easy part.

  “Thank you,” she said as the audience gave her a standing ovation. She was overwhelmed with pride and nervousness. She wanted to do a good job telling this story because she wanted all the people who had made the no-flag hospital possible to get the credit they deserved.

  “I’m just a regular person, not really a ‘colonel,’” she said humbly. “I got the no-flag hospital up and running, I guess, but I need to say right off the bat that there were dozens of others who made it possible. Nurses, doctors, pharmacists, security guards, maintenance staff, and tons and tons of regular people of all backgrounds who volunteered. It was a community project; every one of the volunteers deserves to be a colonel as much as I do. Some of them, even more.”

  But she didn’t want to be a downer. She had an amazing story to tell and wanted to tell it. “This all started,” she began, “when I was a ER nurse at St. John’s, the hospital in Longview. We’re in a medium-sized city on the Columbia River about 45 miles north of Portland, Oregon. Our town is blue-collar, with a large port facility on the river. We work hard.”

  “ER medicine was a much better job before health care was supposedly ‘free,’” she said, letting her political views show. She was in a Patriot legislative assembly so she was among like-minded people here. That wasn’t always the case in Longview, which had a large union workforce. “We could treat people back then instead of spending most of our time figuring out if a procedure or medicine was covered before we could provide it to a patient. Just a few years ago, medicine was about people, not paperwork. I miss those days.”

  “I’m like a lot of nurses,” she continued, “I got into this profession to help people. I’m the medical version of a sheepdog; I can’t stand by while someone is suffering. I just can’t. I go rushing in to help. Sometimes that’s a bad thing, but that’s just how I am.”

  “All the paperwork and insurance nonsense meant that people weren’t getting treated and this drove me crazy,” she said. “I would sit around and think of ways to get people treated, but not have the hospital just give things away. That’s not sustainable. There had to be a way for people to get care but not just give things away.”

  “Try as I might,” she said, “I couldn’t think of a way to get this done. The insurance companies, health regulations, and trial lawyers made it impossible for us in the ER to do the right thing, and for those who wanted to give to charity to do just give money. Oh, sure, they could make tax-exempt contributions, but they didn’t have any money left over after paying taxes. This whole system was messed up and held together with duct tape. There was no way to make that system work.”

  “So I thought that we could actually get things done if the current system,” she paused and explained, “the system that was in place at the time, was totally scrapped and we started over. A complete reset.
” That was a word that many used to describe what had happened and what needed to happen.

  “I started to think that if there were a reset, how could I, a little ER nurse in Longview, Washington, create a system that could show the rest of the county, state, or even nation how this could be done?”

  She paused again, looked out at the crowd, and said in semi-embarrassment, “It sounds weird, doesn’t it? Sitting around thinking about how to make health care work after a reset of the system.” She smiled, “Well, it’s not so weird now, is it?”

  “I kept thinking about two things. First, the cost of all this medical care was ridiculously, and unnecessarily, high. I mean, ten dollars for a Tylenol? It’s not like the hospital was making ten dollars for a pill that cost, at most, twenty-five cents. The hospital had to charge ten bucks on paper, but the insurance company might only pay three dollars and we had to give away ten Tylenols to people on welfare. And it took paperwork people, who weren’t free, to do all the paper pushing to charge the ten dollars for the Tylenol and to give away all the free Tylenol to others. What about just charging what it costs us for the Tylenol?”

  She answered her own question, “Because no one has the money for a surgical procedure. They have Tylenol money, but not triple bypass money. Well, if a triple bypass didn’t have all that medical inflation built into it, it wouldn’t be as much. But still, a triple bypass at its real cost is still more than most people have.”

  “I had some ideas about how to do this—insurance for catastrophic injuries and people saving money to pay for their own health care,” she said, scanning the audience and realizing they were getting bored with a discussion of the details of pre-Collapse healthcare policy.