by Unknown
This announcement startled the men and that information quickly made its way through the members of the mosque who at first didn’t believe it and said it must be rumor. After the teams left that morning the Imam at Morning Prayer discussed with everyone the new order and how it was going to be. What it came down to was they were either with them or they could pack it up and leave, they would then be considered part of the problem and in the future they would be dealt with differently. He went onto say that in the absence of Law Enforcement and US Legal Courts they were establishing their own courts governed by Sharia Law.
The Imam went on to say that all women would now be required to wear a Burka or reasonable facsimile he told them they had hundreds of them in storage and what they had would be issued. Once issued if they were found not to be wearing them in public there would be severe consequences. In addition, women were no longer allowed to venture any place outside the home without a man that they could no longer be present in a room by themselves with a man they didn’t know. As all of this was unfolding there were gasps among the members. Most had left their homelands and came to the US to escape these practices and still be able to practice their religion. As far as they could tell the Imam was sending them back a hundred years.
He went further in discussing the role of women in their new society and there were a lot of frowns and anger. When it came down to it they either abided by the new rules, they could leave on their own or end up forced out, exiled. No one really knew what exiled meant they sort of figured they would just go home but the Imam threw cold water on that as he claimed all land and homes that surround the mosque as the start of the new Caliphate. This meant that they would be taken several miles away and dropped off with the clothes on their backs and that was it.
He then ordered that all men from the ages of fifteen to fifty would be inducted into the Army of Allah as Soldiers. Once they had secured the neighborhoods they would begin their training and would be expected to fight and perhaps give their lives in the name al Allah. The event was ordained and their signal that Allah wanted them to build a Caliphate and establish the Islamic States of America. There would be no waivers of any sort for the men between those ages if they were uncomfortable with it and didn’t want to do it they would get this one free pass and exiled into the world of the infidels for now. If they were still in the area after they liberated it they would be severely dealt with.
He issued an edict that all infidels they came across would be allowed to convert to Islam if they refused they were to be safely escorted out of the area. As far as the Imam and many of the others this was their land now it was their Caliphate and everyone who lived in it had to be believers and willing to fight for it.
As the Imam was giving his speech to everyone gun fire could be heard throughout the neighborhood it was becoming unsettling for the people in the mosque it was also a lot more than the Imam would have thought possible. Then he recognized he perhaps had false expectations regarding how easy it might be able to take over the neighborhoods in the area. Realizing that Americans in general had firearms and were prepared to use them there were also street gangs in the area that would definitely fight back but it wasn’t time to retreat they had just started.
After prayer the first casualties started to roll into the mosque some of them were wounded or hurt beyond the type of care they could offer. This would also set in another sequence of events that they needed to establish medical facilities staffed with medical professionals to make sure they were able to survive their cause. Right now the number of Soldiers available to them was finite. As the wounded arrived the Commanders started to grab some of the younger men in the mosque they ordered them to come with them and gave them weapons. Most had never fired a weapon in their life but there was no time like the present.
Steven Tuma reported to the Imam that several of the neighborhoods had gotten together and set up defenses to protect each other that those would have to be bypassed for now. When they were stronger they would deal with them. For now they could blockade those neighborhoods and deal with them if they tried to leave. There were also at least two street gangs they had encountered so far but they had dealt with them and killed all of the ones who attacked. Many of the homes had been vacated in the area and they were making progress although a bit slower than they had expected.
Soon truck after truck began to arrive filled with food, water, blankets, propane from BBQ’s and camping equipment. As soon as the camping equipment arrived it was inspected and tents were set up with sleeping bags and blankets. However, if you wanted a tent you had to sign a pledge that you were going to stay which meant that you were going to abide by the Imam and the councils decisions as well as Sharia Law.
For those that refused to sign and there were quite a few who did they were stripped of all of their belongings and told they had sixty minutes to leave the area. They were told that if they lived in a neighborhood close to the mosque they were not allowed to return to it, if they found them there they would be dealt with severely. By the time it was all said and done that day there were two hundred men, women and children who were turned away from the mosque, what happened to them after that the Imam didn’t care as far as he was concerned they were not true believers.
Gun fire could still be heard throughout the day as they scavenging teams spread further out into the neighborhoods. In many cases it was one or two homes where infidels lived and were defending them, they were all killed, but in most cases they also killed some of the brothers who were invading the home. They were losing a lot more Soldiers than they thought they would, every few hours the dead and dying would be brought in to see if they could be saved, while they were there they would recruit more young men, arm them and take them back out with them.
The next day they continued followed by the next day and the next by the end of seven days they had cleared a half mile surrounding the mosque except for two neighborhoods that were heavily fortified and ready for a fight which they were not prepared to do at this time. Over the next few weeks they solidified their positon they moved cars into the streets to block avenues of approach from within the half mile circumference. When they could they moved cars from the street to a house to stop anyone from moving around them by vehicle. They did leave themselves areas where they could move the vehicles out-of-the-way. They booby-trapped many of the cars in the event that someone attempted to move them who shouldn’t.
They had gotten fifty to sixty weapons from their search of the houses which included all manners of pistols, hunting rifles with scopes and lots of AR-15’s, along with that they also collected a lot of ammunition. They had taken out two heavily armed teams to look for more weapons; they hit the big box stores, sporting goods stores, pawn shops and gun stores. Yet by the time they got to them they were picked pretty clean the gun stores had fairly large safes which hadn’t been opened, they could only speculate what was in them. It didn’t stop them, the cell members had been trained extensively in homemade explosives and over the past several days their bomb maker had been busy. With each safe they came to they planted the homemade explosives and blew their way into them.
What they found was a bonanza of automatic weapons such as an M-60, M-249 as well as several AK-47’s, odds are the dealers were licensed to sell them, if not it didn’t really matter anymore. However, the safes didn’t hold much ammo for the weapons AR-15’s used 5.56 and they did have the belts to feed the weapons so they could use the SAWs squad automatic weapon. Their arsenal was growing but not nearly enough to arm every man that was going to need a weapon.
The only place to get weapons now was to take them from people and that meant forcibly, there were the fortified neighborhoods within their perimeter and there were the gangs that permeated the area. Yet they were taking casualties and the men they conscripted immediately had little knowledge of weapons and when they fired them they were just wasting ammo spraying in the direction the fire was coming from.
It was decided by Steve
n that they would continue to explore all avenues to gain more weapons and supplies but they needed to get the men who stayed trained. That training would begin immediately. They were also rounding up the infidels that they found while searching the homes in their perimeter they were given the choice of converting or leaving the area, most chose to leave. The ones that decide to stay where Muslim already but attended different mosques, it was made clear by the Imam that those that left and didn’t convert, if they tried to return to their homes or they were found later on they would be dealt with severely.
Chapter Four
Fort McCoy a US Army National Guard post was located in Wisconsin was over 500 miles away from Dearborn, Camp Grayling a US Army National Guard post in Michigan was the primary training area for Michigan National Guard troops and was over 200 miles away from Dearborn, then there was Fort Custer another Michigan National Guard Training area was located over 100 miles away from Dearborn. All of these posts had activated when the event hit there were some units that were on drill weekend or doing their two week drills. Many of the Soldiers lived somewhat close to the posts and made their way to them others who didn’t live close but between fifteen to fifty miles and made their way there over the following couple of weeks and were happy to see other Soldiers and a place where they could be safe and get a meal.
The Garrison Commander at Camp Grayling was Colonel Eric Rodgers; he originally enlisted in the Army and was assigned to the 1st Infantry Division as a grunt. While stationed at Fort Riley Kansas he was driven to get his College degree, although they spent a great deal of time in the field he spent all of his free available time in the classroom. After finishing College he went to OCS and from there was assigned back to the 1st ID as a second Lieutenant and sent to Germany and stationed with 3rd Brigade, 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry (Mech). He was there for three years as a platoon leader and learned quite a bit, he left the 1st ID as a first Lieutenant Promotable. He was given his own company with the 2nd Infantry Division, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry. He was with them for two years in Korea; it was another great learning experience.
From there he was sent to Brigade as a Major and assigned to work in S-1 for six months, then to S-3 for another six months. Then there was the attack on 9-11 and he was sent to Iraq for a year with the Brigade in planning and operations, once he left there he was a Lieutenant Colonel. He was married to a wonderful woman, Marjorie, who lived and breathed her husband’s career. They had three daughters who were 12, 15 and 18, the 18 year old was leaving for College, the 15 year old was a High School Sophomore, and the youngest was in middle school.
After returning to the States he went to the War College and once he finished there he was given his own Battalion back with 1st ID. He loved his job but his family was never thrilled with Fort Riley, to be truthful he wasn’t sure he likes the area either but you went where the Army sent you. During his stay there he was approached by the Michigan National Guard who had a Full Colonel billet opened for Camp Grayling Garrison Commander. Michigan had to be a lot better than Kansas so he took the job and moved the family to Grayling Michigan along with that a promotion to bird Colonel.
Colonel Rodgers had never been in combat himself he had been in the planning and operations of combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan but he had never fired a shot in anger nor been fired at. He had spent his early career in training for combat and certainly led combat platoons and a company but never in actual combat. When the wars started he was working at Brigade level as a staff Officer. His Executive Officer was Lieutenant Colonel Allister McKlain; He was another planner and not a combat leader like his CO he had been in the planning and operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. He had never fired a weapon in combat he had never even been on a combat patrol; he had never sent men out into combat.
Camp Grayling was the largest active National Guard training area in the United States. During the weekend the event hit there were several units out on their annual drill, they were the 125th Infantry Regiment and the 1st Squadron, 126th Cavalry Regiment as well as the 1-119 Field Artillery, 246 Transportation Battalion, 210th MP Battalion, 107th Engineer Battalion and the 146 Medical Battalion. They had been in the field for over a week when the event hit, for some of the units it wasn’t obvious at all, the Infantry units for the most part didn’t notice a thing, same with the 126th Cavalry except for some of their Humvees which didn’t start in the morning. All of the guns in the field artillery units worked fine as well as most of their vehicles; same with the 107th Engineers, the two units that were affected the most were the Transportation unit and the Medical unit. Many of the newer trucks the Transportation unit had died on the road or wouldn’t start in the morning, all of the sophisticated equipment the Medical unit had stopped working fortunately there weren’t any priority patients at the time. But if something major came in they would be shit-out-of-luck.
Much of the communications that all of the units had went out except for some the tactical radios the troops carried some worked some didn’t it didn’t make sense. The FTX for the most part came to a halt that day the event happened, except for some of the infantry platoons and squads that were detached and would have to be retrieved which may not be easy. Once they lost communications it was hoped they would return but for all they knew it was part of the exercise. By mid-day most of the units started to wonder what was going on and sent runners to the rear to try to get more information. The Commanders by that time felt that if it was part of the exercise they would have heard something by now, but it was odd that they lost all communications to their higher headquarters and many of the vehicles just stopped.
The runners returned in Humvees and thought it strange that main post was dead; there was not a vehicle moving and very few people around. They returned to their respective garrisons and found most people standing around outside of the buildings because there were no lights. There was also no running water, POV or privately owned vehicles were dead, well most of them, the older ones that were fifteen years or older ran fine. The runners were told they didn’t know what was going on but at this time all units were ordered back to main post as soon as possible per the responsible unit’s Commander in the rear at this point there was no word from the post Commander.
Colonel Rodgers had been at home when the event hit he lived on post so he didn’t have far to go to get to his office. Colonel McKlain also lived on post and had gotten to their offices just before Colonel Rodgers did; they had to break into the building primarily because it was secured by electronic locks they broke the windows with several large rocks that were found in the front of the building. They then noted that they would have to have someone move all of the large rocks from the front of the building, someone could use them to break into the building.
Soon additional Soldiers started to report to the office to find out what was going on, at that point Colonel Rodgers implemented the posts emergency response. First order was to recall all units back from the field and secure all weapons, vehicles and get a head count. He had a gut feeling he was going to need it. Next he activated the emergency recall list which included home addresses, he sent teams out in the Humvees that were running to notify Soldiers that they had to come in, all were local so it shouldn’t have been a problem, the ones that lived on post were already here or on their way, at least it looked that way. There were a lot on foot, on bike, motorcycles and if they had a POV it was on the road in.
At this point there was no reason to fear for the families they had contingency plans to bring everyone on post in the event the families were under threat. Camp Grayling was huge and had the ability to take care of a lot of people. After the teams were dispatched, the following orders went out to get an accounting for all food, even what they had in storage, MRE’s and TRATs. Orders were being drawn for all units to eat all perishable foods first before busting into their storage of MREs. They were also under orders to send in an accounting of all food stuffs they had and by-all-means don’t waste any
thing at this time, they didn’t know how long this was going to last.
Then they had to get an accounting of how much fresh portable water they had this was a big issue. This would have to be tightly controlled and rationed (food and water) to each unit and it’s possible some of the units might not be willing to give it up. A plan would have to be worked out on how to deal with the units that didn’t want to share. Most of the Soldiers he was sure would fall in and obey the orders of those appointed over them but they had to be prepared for the event that a unit or Soldiers refused to obey them it’s possible the entire world just went to shit.
There was a lot of water on Camp Grayling, Lake Margrethe, which was in Crawford County; it was something they would have to work on securing to make sure they had a water supply. Right now with all of the Soldiers on drill there were 5,000 total not counting the 600 or so that were stationed here year round.
As the day wore on Soldiers started to roll into Garrison from the field that were on the FTX and those that were at home who were part of the normal Camp Grayling work force. Most lived in or around the town of Grayling which is very small with a population of about 2000 that largely worked at the Camp.
People were now talking they were thinking it was an EMP event a nuclear burst or solar flare both had been in the news a lot recently, with Russia rattling its nuclear war threats to the west and huge solar flares were expected over the next week. Colonel Rodgers and Colonel McKlain talked about it and agreed it would have been nice to know which one it was, if either, but it didn’t really change the fact of what was going on at Camp Grayling and what they needed to do.
What it did do was help drive some of the decisions they were making, they both agreed that even though they didn’t know what had happened, let’s say it was an EMP event and make our decisions from that perspective. They reexamined the decisions made so far and they were keeping true to what they needed to do in the event it was EMP.