299 Days: The 43 Colonels

by Glen Tate

  “As I said, my husband and I are a team, so we decided to divide up the work on the ‘glorify God’ project. My husband is an extremely good businessman, so he focused on running the business which generated the revenue we needed to have the house, airfield, and all the preps. This was not a small task; he was working very hard not to make money for the sake of making money, but to earn revenue to fund the project. He is a magnificent man.” She pointed to her husband in the gallery and the audience applauded.

  “My part of the project was to get all the preps done. We started with a fence around the entire property. I arranged for a deep well with a 10,000 gallon cistern to hold the water. We stored thousands of gallons of aviation fuel. We had food galore and generators and plenty of guns. I even got my ham radio license and set up a rather sophisticated communications station there.”

  “When the Collapse hit, my husband and I jokingly looked at our watches and said, ‘About time.’ He had put a significant portion of our earnings into gold and silver we kept in the vault at the house. In the blink of an eye, millions of dollars on paper vanished. We were surprisingly okay with that because we knew the money we made was to do something far more important than appear on a balance sheet.”

  “We activated our plan and had some families we knew well come out to the house. We also had a trusted security contracting team come out. We had everything in place we needed to ride out the Collapse and survive.” Ruthie put her hand up for emphasis.

  “Except that’s not what we wanted to do. We didn’t just want to survive. We wanted to use the resources we’d been given by God to do His work. In our minds, that was to liberate as many people as we could from the Godless tyranny that had enveloped this country. We were Patriots and we were going to fight the enemy.”

  “My husband had met other Patriots in his business dealings. As soon as the Collapse hit, his contacts who knew about the airfield, started to call. Planes started landing and taking off. We provided temporary shelter to Patriots who were evacuating from Seattle to the safer area of eastern Washington. We became an airport.”

  “The Patriot military quickly realized that they had a large airfield close enough to Seattle for a small plane to get there on one tank of fuel, but nestled in eastern Washington, which was a safe area. It was the perfect midway point—almost like God had placed it there,” she said with a smile. “We started calling our place Forward Operating Base Liberty.”

  “Pretty soon, the Patriot military flights were coming regularly. The Patriots needed a place to store equipment, and we had a warehouse. We could house and feed all the security forces that were necessary. I will never forget all the contractors and Patriot military men and women who guarded us and the airfield. I remember some of them dying for us.”

  “In October of last year, on a very cold morning before dawn, we heard explosions and gunfire followed by helicopters, but that wasn’t unusual because we had guests arriving by helicopter frequently. The helicopters, it turns out, were Lima attack helicopters that were leading a raid. We assumed they had seen our airfield on satellite maps, or someone had told them about our place.”

  “The helicopters were shooting machine guns and rockets at the hangars where the planes were. The Patriot military team we had out there had shoulder-launched rockets and shot down one of the attacking helicopters. The other ones took off. We hated killing Americans, but the people attacking us needed to be stopped.”

  “It wasn’t cost-free. Two of our people, Zane Howe and Michah Miner, were killed by the attacking helicopters. They are buried at Forward Operating Base Liberty. I see the graves every day and they remind me of what this cost. We buried the Loyalists next to them. They needed to be stopped, but they were fellow human beings and deserved to be treated with respect.”

  “In December, activity at our place intensified. On Christmas Eve, a Patriot major briefed us on the upcoming New Year’s Day mission in Olympia. Our airfield would be used to launch some Patriot special operations troops into Olympia. I’ll never forget. My husband and I looked at each other and smiled. We didn’t need to say it. The ‘glorify God’ project was a success.”

  Chapter 366

  Col. Jay Fox

  (An Inside Job)

  After the applause died down for Col. Wilkins, Ben said, “I know from speaking with Col. Hauer how valuable Forward Operating Base Liberty was. I can also tell you that FOB Liberty is still being used by the New Washington State Guard and will be for some time. The Wilkins family is putting up with having a military base at their home, and we appreciate it. This is their continuing contribution to New Washington.” Ben pointed to Ruthie on the floor of the Legislature and her husband in the gallery and the audience gave them a standing ovation.

  “Our next colonel is a more traditional honoree. Like many others we’re honoring today, he not only did some important things but he also served as an example for others. He inspired them to work for the Patriots. He showed some people in important positions that they could accomplish great things for our side—and they wouldn’t get caught. Many people will do brave things, but they often need to see someone else doing them first. Col. Jay Fox exemplifies this type of leadership. Please welcome him.”

  The audience applauded as a man in his late thirties in a police dress uniform stood up and went to the podium. He looked like the all-American boy who grew up to become a hometown police officer.

  “Thank you,” Jay said. “I didn’t do much,” he said with a shrug. “I just did the right thing under circumstances where the right thing was wrong.” He smiled and said, “Well, it was wrong temporarily, until we fixed things and then the right thing was okay to do again.”

  “I am a police officer for the City of Spokane. I was a ‘para.’ I am told that the term comes from the paramilitary squads in Latin America that took the law into their own hands when their governments were corrupt and protecting bad people, who were most often drug kingpins.”

  “I guess that term fits, except I don’t consider myself ‘paramilitary.’ The part about taking the law into their own hands fits, I guess, except that I wasn’t making up the law on my own. I was following the old law of stopping people from hurting others, an old law that we’re restoring here in New Washington. I broke a zillion paper laws by what I did, but those laws were illegitimate. Much like Sheriff Fulaytor who stopped unconstitutional acts in his jurisdiction, I did, too. It’s just that I had to wear a mask.”

  “Spokane is the largest city in eastern Washington so everyone thinks we’re full of Patriots and life is grand there for us. This is incorrect. Spokane, like any medium-sized city, had lots of dependent, government-loving people. In fact, in many ways, Spokane had more Loyalists per capita because it was their ‘refuge’ in teabagger eastern Washington. Spokane wasn’t exactly Seattle, but it was closer to that than to the cattle ranchers you think of when you think of eastern Washington.”

  “The leadership of my department reflected this. We had all the standard political correctness nonsense in any police department before the Collapse. But what was worse about Spokane was that it was a major Homeland Security base. Again, Spokane was a refuge for Limas in the sea of teabaggers surrounding them. The Limas fortified Spokane and used it as base to go out into eastern Washington and especially nearby northern Idaho. This was simultaneously a problem and an opportunity.”

  “It was a problem because we, at the Spokane Police Department, were closely watched. It seemed like for every one of us, there were two DHS troopers. They rode with us, operated our communications system, and trained us.”

  “But the opportunity was that I was already in a target-rich environment. Also, I could see what the feds were doing. I decided to take the opportunity I’d been given.”

  “I started off small. I didn’t even try to recruit fellow officers; word of that would get out quickly and I’d be done for, given all the DHS around me. Besides, I knew that right before the Collapse and for the first few months into it, the f
eds would seem invincible to my fellow cops. Why try to persuade them to take on Goliath? I needed to show them that Goliath wasn’t so invincible.”

  “I began with small sabotage. I would break things and disable equipment. I was doing this to test their detection systems and, quite honestly, to see if I got caught. Things were so corrupt, and we were so overstretched, that it was remarkably easy to disable a police car or cause an electrical fire in a communications room.”

  “I decided to do some bigger things. I was a patrol cop, so I was out in the public. Since I’m single, I was one of the few officers who didn’t ‘melt away’ during the first week of the riots. I had no family to protect, so I was out protecting my city. I was gung-ho back then; I thought I was doing good by fighting off the rioters. I guess I was. But when the riots died down and I returned to a largely pacified city, I saw the changes that had taken place.”

  “DHS had completely taken over my department. The feds were issuing insane orders to us. Seize guns, raid Patriots, and work with gangs. It was that last one that I couldn’t take. I could get around the seizing guns by, for example, ‘accidently’ pounding my hand with a hammer on a home improvement project the day before a raid so I had to sit it out the next day. That might sound cowardly to some, but it wasn’t. I was surrounded by DHS troopers. Boldly declaring that I would not follow an unconstitutional order was completely ineffective, and I couldn’t do anything for the fight in the jail cell that I would be in within ten minutes. Again, being in the belly of the beast was a problem but also an opportunity.”

  “As I said, it was the idea of working with gangs that I couldn’t take. These were some really horrible people. I felt like I had much more leeway to operate for the Patriots when I was around gangs instead of yelling about unconstitutional orders and being walked down the hall to the jail.”

  “I started getting to know the gang leaders. It was hard to hide my disgust for them, but I was doing a job, an important one. I realized that the gangs were really just extensions of DHS. The gangs did the feds’ bidding. They were allowed to attack Patriots and sometimes entire Patriot neighborhoods. They got to keep the loot, including the women they took. That part of it was the worst, and was why I was so committed to putting down every single one of these animals that I could.”

  “As I got to know the gangs, and as they started to trust me, I realized who the rival gangs were and what it would take to get them fighting. It wasn’t hard to figure out, but it was harder than it looked to pull it off without getting caught. Once again, I started small, spreading rumors to a gang about how another one was talking trash about them. Then I arranged for small groups of them to bump into each other. Fistfights ensued. Then I arranged for larger groups, this time of armed gangsters, to encounter each other. Once a gang suffered losses from these encounters, they had to fight for the honor of their fallen, which kept escalating the fighting.”

  “DHS was baffled why their gangs were now fighting each other instead of cooperating with one another to be the feds’ muscle supplementing DHS and the FCorps. I shrugged and said, ‘Dunno.’”

  “Now that there was so much disarray among DHS and the gangs—this was in September of last year—I decided it was time to be more direct. I started telling various gangs that certain DHS troopers were about to arrest them or were stealing from the gangs’ take of the loot.”

  “I never had to pull a trigger. I had others do it for me. They were much more effective.”

  “As we approached Thanksgiving, the feds in Spokane were more and more isolated. It was getting harder for them to get supplies from Seattle because their supply lines from Seattle were under constant attack. Large parts of eastern Washington were actively governed by the Patriots. The Limas felt the noose tightening in Spokane. All the barbed wire and MRAPs around their buildings couldn’t protect them anymore. By now, their families were forced to live in their fortified compounds.”

  “At this point, the feds had become increasingly irrelevant to the average person in Spokane. The supplies of food and other necessities for civilians were not coming as frequently as in the past, so when the feds promised food in exchange for cooperation, it was less and less of a reward.”

  “This was when I decided to take a more active role than I had in the past when I encouraged the gangs to pick off the DHS troopers. In early December, I quietly organized a walk-out of the remaining local police. This was dangerous, but so many of my fellow officers, even the ones who started off as Limas, were realizing this couldn’t go on any longer. They wanted out; I provided them a solution.”

  “The idea of the walk-out was to leave the feds to themselves in their compound where they stayed behind barbed wire. They weren’t even patrolling at this point.”

  “So about half of what was left of the Spokane Police Department just walked out of the compound one night. It was anti-climactic, actually. After weeks of plotting and scheming with my fellow officers to leave the compound, we just quietly walked out.”

  “My fellow officers quickly found jobs as security contractors. I didn’t, though. I found a trusted contact for the Patriots and arranged a meeting. I told the Patriots all about the Limas hiding in the compound: how many, what armament they had, and where the weak points were in their defenses.”

  “On New Year’s Eve, we hit the compound. We were only partially successful. We decided not to storm it for two reasons. First, the DHS were no longer a threat because they were just holed up in their compound. Second, their families were inside and we didn’t want to hurt them. So we shot up the place and spent several days returning fire with them until they were exhausted. We spent another two weeks with the compound basically under siege. We let their families leave and then we went in and took them out. The DHS troopers would never surrender in Spokane or elsewhere. They knew what would happen to them if the general population got hold of them.”

  “I guess I was an example for others. In the late summer, I heard rumors about this para deep within the DHS compound. He was apparently invincible and was, according to the rumors, single-handedly taking down the Limas. The stories of his heroism and effectiveness were so exaggerated that I assumed they weren’t talking about me. But I guess they were. The example I was setting—even an exaggerated version of it—inspired others to do similar things, although I never coordinated with them. I kept strictly to myself during all of this.”

  “So that’s my story. I can’t say I was motivated by grand political theories. For me, it came down to the gangs. The federal government allied itself with gangs and used them for their dirty work. I couldn’t have any part of that, but I wasn’t in a position to directly stop it, so I worked quietly to indirectly stop it.”

  “I’m now the deputy chief of the Spokane Police Department under the New Washington government. We won’t have this problem again.”

  Chapter 367

  Col. Jeffrey Aylesworth

  (The Diplomat)

  After the applause died down for Col. Fox, Ben added, “One of the reasons we won’t have the same problem again in Spokane is that there are no more gangs for a government to ally itself with.”

  “Speaking of alliances,” Ben said, not realizing that he had provided the perfect segue for his next colonel, “it’s impossible to win a war and rebuild without them. No one can do this on their own; that’s true of individuals and states. Now we will hear from New Washington’s Secretary of State, Col. Jeffrey Aylesworth. He is our ambassador to the surrounding free states and the free areas of Lima states, and to Canada. I spend a lot of time working with Col. Aylesworth on mutual defense pacts and trade agreements with the free states and areas. I will warn you up front that Col. Aylesworth is very humble. I almost didn’t let him tell his story because he would downplay his accomplishments and the danger he was in, so we came up with an agreement. If you see me shaking my head, it means he is downplaying something and he needs to start being more objective or I will use my microphone to start telling you what ac
tually happened.” The audience laughed.

  “Am I right, Mr. Secretary?” Ben asked a distinguished-looking man in his sixties sitting in the front row. The man nodded. Ben motioned for him to come up the rostrum as the audience applauded.

  As he was walking to the rostrum, Ben said, “It’s important to remember that New Washington is currently an independent nation. We are not, technically, a state within the United States. I remind people of this because when you hear Col. Aylesworth talking about the ‘ambassador to Idaho’ it might sound strange, given that we’ve spent decades thinking of other states as fellow members of the United States, not small independent countries. This might be temporary because we and the other free states and free parts of states are in discussions with a new Patriot federal government to have a union of free states, like the early American Republic before it got big and bloated. But a Patriot union of states is only at the discussion stage now.”

  Col. Aylesworth strode up to the rostrum like he had a story to tell and wanted to tell it. He wanted to talk about the accomplishments of New Washington, not himself. He was proud of everything this little state had done on the foreign scene.

  “Do you remember all those action movies,” Col. Aylesworth began, “where the heroes are about to blow up some bad guys but they’re stopped by the spineless diplomats?” Many in the audience were nodding.