by Glen Tate
“Predictably, and right on schedule, the general summoned us to a briefing to scream at us for all the mistakes that were occurring. All these mistakes were throwing the general’s deployment schedule off, once again, just as we intended. But the briefing with the general was the other prize in this plan. We assembled, me and the senior officers and NCOs, and let the general yell at us for a while. Then we did it.”
“When he was finished with his tirade, I stood at attention and asked, ‘Permission to speak with candor, sir?’”
“‘Granted,’ the general responded. He was curious why a well-oiled machine, like First Group, couldn’t seem to get anything done for this deployment.”
“‘These orders are illegal and my officers and NCOs will not follow them,’ I said. I expected more yelling, or for MPs to try to arrest us.”
“The general dropped his head in shame and slumped in his office chair. He looked defeated. He looked at us and remained silent. Finally, he said, ‘I know.’”
“‘Sir,’ I said, ‘we regret to inform you that you are under arrest.’ My men pulled out zip ties and proceeded to cuff the general. He didn’t resist. He actually looked relieved that it was over. His heart was not in it; he was just trying to please his bosses, but he was doing something terrible and it needed to stop. I felt sorry for him in a way. I said, ‘We will treat you well, sir.’”
“We walked out of his office with the general in zip ties. His MPs looked at us, but couldn’t believe what they were seeing. One of my senior NCOs said, calmly and with authority, ‘This is just a drill, gentlemen. It’s an exercise and this is part of the scenario.’ The MPs nodded and got back to their paperwork.”
“We took the general to one of my guy’s personal vehicles, and he was driven off-base. Now the real work began. Even with all the chaos on base planning for this domestic operation, we knew that we only had an hour or two until the arrest of the general would be discovered. We had to get everything done before the base went on lockdown. I gave my officers and senior NCOs a code phrase signifying that our plan was on and would be carried out. They rushed out to tell their men. They told them that the unit had been given unconstitutional orders and that they were free to leave base. They would go to pre-arranged rally points, mostly the off-base homes of junior NCOs, and await further instructions.”
“The MPs at the gates to JBLM must have wondered what was going on. A long line of vehicles was leaving the base, and most of the occupants seemed to have green berets on their heads. They were used to seeing us do our own thing; they waved us on.”
“In the week leading up to this, while all the ‘mistakes’ were happening, the men I could trust had been pre-positioning their gear at the junior NCOs’ homes. My men were ‘borrowing’ sophisticated equipment and weapons. The supply sergeants were all in on this and were looking the other way as we took smaller items in our personal vehicles. We didn’t get greedy and try to get a pallet of ammunition out; we kept it to small items that could be hidden, like radios.”
“When all the teams assembled at the rally points, they headed to their pre-arranged initial deployment locations. Most of these were an hour or two from JBLM. From there, we waited.”
“Sure enough, the Collapse hit right about when the general said it would. One of my teams retained custody of the general. He would be a valuable prisoner to trade later on.”
“After a few days, when the civilian authorities and even the Army were in total disarray, we started regrouping according the plan. Our headquarters’ elements, which included me, assembled at Boston Harbor. Our teams dug in where they were, scattered across the state, and laid low.”
“We had communications with the teams, of course,” Hammond said with some pride. While almost all of the country was initially cut off from communications due to cell traffic overflows and the internet going on and off, his teams calmly kept in contact with radios.
“In Boston Harbor, I started the teams’ assignments. Most of them were divided into two-man teams to go out and start indigenous units, like the 17th Irregulars. Other teams were used for other missions, such as the raid on the Tacoma TDF and the ‘special special’ described earlier.”
“My men and women did extraordinary things during the war, and are continuing to them during the Restoration. It would take me hours—I mean that literally—to describe all they did. I’m afraid I’d leave someone out, and that wouldn’t be right.”
“I would like to conclude by saying I never, ever, thought we would put our unconventional warfare skills to use right here in America. I prayed there would be no need for us to do these things. But as awful as it is to have to use force against fellow Americans, the alternative is even worse: tyranny. I joined the Army and devoted my life to it, as did many others, to fight tyranny.”
Hammond took off his green beret and read the insignia on it. “This says, ‘De Oppresso Liber.’ That’s Latin for ‘Liberate the Oppressed’ and it’s the Special Forces creed. I’ve been all over the world liberating the oppressed. But my proudest moment is that we did it right here.”
Chapter 354
Col. Brad Finehoff
(SPU)
The applause was thunderous for Lt. Col.—now full Colonel—Hammond. Most people in the audience knew that he had accomplished a lot more than he touched on in his speech. They were in for a treat with the next honoree.
“Col. Brad Finehoff,” Ben began, “got me here today. Literally. He got me and my key staff to Olympia when the bullets were still flying a few short weeks ago. He and his agents guarded me, my family, and the families of my key staff at the now-famous Prosser Farm. We’ll hear about in a moment, but you will also hear about all the other things Brad,” Ben quickly corrected himself, “Col. Finehoff did before and after the war. There’s a lot more to Col. Finehoff than ‘just’ being the Governor’s bodyguard.”
Ben motioned and Brad stood and the crowd rose to their feet and applauded loudly. Brad was widely known in the general population of New Washington. He had been the subject of several newspaper profiles. He was the “man who saved Gov. Trenton.” He would have preferred to remain anonymous because he had always tried to blend into a crowd to better serve his protectees, but he accepted his new role as a semi-famous person. He realized that the soft fame allowed him to recruit more men and women to do jobs like his, which were in high demand as Lima assassins were still operating in New Washington and other free states.
Brad was unaccustomed to public speaking, but recognized that his new job—forming, overseeing, and expanding the Patriots’ Special Protection Unit—meant that he needed to do things like this. Besides, he was in charge of the massive security effort of protecting this gathering of the Legislature, Governor, Supreme Court Justices, and other top dignitaries. He wanted to be right in the center of it, up on the rostrum, where he could see what was going on. His desire to make sure everyone was safe overrode his uneasiness with appearing in public.
Right before Brad started to walk to the rostrum, he gave the hand signal for the communications officer to cut off the audio coming into his earpiece. He could turn his earpiece back on if there were an incident, but he didn’t need the distracting radio checks in his ear as he was trying to give a very important speech.
Brad moved quickly and with purpose on his way up to the rostrum. His natural habit was to walk so that he put himself between the Governor and the crowd. He had to consciously tell himself he wasn’t there to protect the Governor, but was the person giving the speech. He’d never done this before.
Brad had a great sense of humor when he was off duty. He had learned to turn off his humor when he worked, though. He would go almost into a Zen state when he was on duty, focusing completely on the protectees and the crowds. This would be a challenge for him: being on duty in a sense, but taking himself out of the “protection zone” as he called it. Here goes, he thought.
He put his hand up to signal to the crowd to stop applauding. He was always nervous
during applause because that was when most attacks occurred. Applause was loud and distracting.
“Well,” Brad started off, “I try to blend into the crowd, but apparently I’m the ‘Secret Service-looking guy’ and can’t pull it off.” The crowd laughed. Brad truly looked like a Secret Service agent. He was tall, fit, had some silver to his hair, and usually had on sunglasses, a distinctive lapel pin, and an earpiece. He was confident and strong, but calm and quiet. “So you can now spot me in a crowd. Anyone attacking the Governor will now shoot me first, which means I’m actually doing my job.” The crowd laughed, but Brad was serious.
“I have an unusual job,” he continued. “Those of us in the SPU intentionally put ourselves in danger to protect others. Why would anyone do that?”
“It’s a combination of two things. First, we are protecting innocent people, especially the spouses and children of protectees. People may have political differences with the officials we protect, but the spouses and children didn’t do anything to anyone. They are completely innocent. They deserve protection.”
“But there’s something more. The people we protect—at least the ones now—are in positions to do important things for New Washington. They are rebuilding and getting us back on our feet. While our protectees are humble, it’s a fact that they are important. If they are taken out, it cripples the Restoration. By protecting them, we in the SPU are making a huge and helpful impact. We are off in the background, hopefully unnoticed, but we’re facilitating extremely important work by making sure the people rebuilding can do their jobs. And they can focus on their jobs when they don’t have to worry about their families’ safety. Many of you in this building have been protected by SPU and know what I’m talking about.” At that, several members of the audience stood and gave Brad a standing ovation.
“I find it hard to talk about myself, but Governor Trenton convinced me that I should to give you, and the history books, a full picture of what I did and why. He’s a very persuasive guy,” Brad said with a smile.
“Before I talk about me,” Brad continued, “I need to make it very clear that I didn’t do anything alone, and I can’t do a thing without the help of several hundred very brave, smart, and talented other people. I continually marvel at the caliber of agents and staff we have.”
“So, to my great discomfort, I will now talk about myself,” he said. “It all started in a fine organization that, at least toward the end, was protecting bad people: the Washington State Patrol’s Executive Protection Unit. A good chunk of the leadership of the SPU came from the former EPU. We only took the best people for the EPU and we were extremely well trained. We had all the cool equipment we could possibly ask for. We had a strong core to build from.”
“But, like many other former EPU agents, I could tell that we were protecting people who were increasingly doing bad things. You all know what they did: the corruption, the vendettas, all of that.”
“I felt alone when I decided that I could no longer work for, let alone risk my life for, people like this. That’s where Oath Keepers came in. It was invaluable to have an organization of Patriots like me who needed to make contact with others who would not follow unconstitutional orders. I secretly, and I mean very secretly, contacted them, but only after I made sure they weren’t a bunch of wackos. I can honestly say that I wouldn’t be here, and couldn’t have done the things we did for New Washington without Oath Keepers.” He motioned to Jack McRae, who ran the state chapter and was sitting in the audience.
“At first, I didn’t even try to ask Oath Keepers to tell me the other EPU agents who were members. They would have thought I was an Internal Affairs investigator, so I decided to reach out to my closest colleagues and see if they felt the same as me. I was lucky to work with the most amazing people on my detail,” he said, using the term “detail” to refer to a small protection unit that protected a particular person. “I would love to give their names out and let them share in the honors today, but in my business, we don’t give out our names.” Some in the audience knew that he was talking about Jerry Schafer, Mike Turner, and Chrissy Espinoza.
“After I had my detail mates on board,” he continued, “we decided to jointly meet with Oath Keepers and see what we could do to prevent others in EPU from following unconstitutional orders. I’ll never forget what John McRae said in our first meeting. He said he didn’t want to know anything that could compromise the safety of state officials. He said, ‘Don’t tell me when and where they will be because I’ll call the police.’ He was serious. ‘We’re here to help people who won’t follow unconstitutional orders, nothing more.’ Me and my detail mates were immensely relieved that we were on the same page as the Oath Keepers.”
“We asked what we could do for Oath Keepers and the answer was 'to recruit other members who shared our values', which was becoming easier to do as things got more and more out of control in pre-Collapse former Washington State.”
“We were taking huge risks as we did this,” Brad continued. “The bigger the circle of people we were recruiting, the bigger the odds of one of them being a snitch. In the beginning, we were only risking our careers, but toward the end, we were risking our freedom and possibly our lives.” He felt uncomfortable talking about the sacrifices he made, but he knew that this had been out in the newspaper pieces. He needed this speech to give the SPU legend status now and into the future.
“We were not the only ones taking risks for the Patriots,” he said. “Every single person in this room has, and thousands of other New Washingtonians have, too. We were just like everyone else, it’s just that we had a unique position and could offer unique assistance to the Patriots.”
“Assistance,” Brad repeated. “We decided early on that, besides recruiting, the assistance we would provide would be completely non-violent and defensive. Our main operational contribution would not be hurting any protectees or kidnapping them. No. Instead, we would do what so many military, law enforcement, and intelligence agency people did: just walk away. We would just quit showing up to our old jobs. We were critical people. Our absence was a big problem for our former employers. This is a fundamental point: our absence fulfilled our objective of not following unconstitutional orders. We didn’t need to kill or kidnap anyone; we just needed to be absent.”
“When the time was right, we just disappeared,” Brad said. “This was hastened, in my case, by my bosses finding out I was a ‘conservative’ and I got fired,” he said with a smile. “But my detail mates came right over with me.”
Brad looked a little embarrassed and said, “Oh, and we borrowed some stuff that belonged to the former State of Washington,” he said, referring to the van and all the equipment, especially the communications gear, that came with it.
“Our first mission as Patriot bodyguards was extracting a guy who never picked up his room or put his dishes in the dishwasher,” Brad said with a smile, knowing the audience would be bewildered. “My wonderful son,” he said. “We took him to the Think Farm.”
“We spent some time helping set up the extremely elaborate protection they had out there. Then Senator Trappford, in one of the last things he did before being assassinated, asked if we could go out to some farm and protect some guy.”
“I’m not a farm kind of guy,” Brad said, “So I told the Senator, ‘This better be a pretty big protectee.’ He said, ‘How about the next Governor?’ That counted as a big protectee. So my detail mates and I ventured out of the Think Farm, through several checkpoints,” Brad smiled and explained, “we sort of kept our old badges, which worked pretty well getting around town.”
“We made our way out to the Prosser Farm and set up shop. This was a very different assignment from our normal ones. We usually move around with our protectees. We go building to building with them and travel with them to where ever it is they’re going. But we just sat at the Prosser Farm. We took care of their physical security there, but also worked on making sure people didn’t know who was out there. We became very close to
those families. Some of the best days of my life were out at the Prosser Farm,” he said as he inhaled deeply, remembering the good times.
“I’ll never forget that cold Christmas Eve when we got word that we would be leaving a little after New Year’s to take the new Governor into Olympia.” Brad paused and reflected. A rush of emotions came to him, but he was very good at maintaining a poker face in public. He continued, “It meant we were getting our state back. It meant we would win very soon. It meant we could gather like this,” he said, motioning with his hands out to the crowd. “It meant everything.”
“The ride into Olympia went much more smoothly than I thought,” Brad said looking over to Ben. “I may not have ever said it, Governor, but the odds of getting ambushed on the ride in were pretty high. Did I forget to mention that to you?” he asked jokingly. He looked over at Ben’s wife, Laura, the First Lady. “I’m pretty sure I never mentioned it to you, Madam First Lady.” The audience laughed.
“Once we got here in Olympia, we had the most —complicated—and high stakes—protection assignment we’d ever had. It was complicated because we were in an active combat zone. We never dealt with that in our previous assignments, when the Governor of the former state would attend the ribbon cutting of a new sewage treatment plant, for example. We had hundreds of soldiers around the Governor when we first took Olympia. Hundreds of well-armed soldiers around my protectee. That’s very stressful for a guy like me,” he said with another smile.