by Unknown
Unfortunately for the Private his Sergeants response was, “Private you don’t get to know what the fuck this is all about! Your job is to follow orders and if you aren’t in formation in now five minutes I’m going to put my boot so far up your ass you won’t be able to sit for a week!”
Private Gailson’s eyes opened wide in shock and it was his motivation to get his ass in gear and out the door, the Sergeant didn’t look like he was open to a conversation on the subject. Everyone on post knew something was going on, it was new and different. As Company’s throughout post made formation and their Commanders briefed them the word was that as of today they were training to go to war, they were going to defend the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic. Regardless of the “event” they would make do with what they had and move forward, train, train, train. The Soldiers on post knew there was more they weren’t being told but it was ok for now. It was their job to take and obey orders and at least they had a mission now. They had been told that Colonel Rodgers had been relieved of duty by General Gregory who was now on post and acting Commander.
The Soldiers were quite relieved at that especially the infantry units who had been pushing for patrols outside the wire, which now they had received operational orders to do just that. Patrols would begin as soon as they could brief the general and that was to happen in a matter of hours. Infantry units began to draw weapons with live ammunition, Officers and Senior NCO’s were scouting areas just outside the camp to place LPOP’s, they were also looking for how much they would have to clear for effective fields of fire, the combat engineers would have to do the clearing.
The Signal Corps reported they had shortwave radios that were tube and were working, however under Colonel Rodgers previous orders it was primarily used to monitor what was going on outside of Camp Graying, they were not allowed to make contact with anyone. The information that had been collected was passed onto the Military Intelligence folks who made recommendations to Colonel Rodgers who seldom did anything with it as he didn’t believe any of it was credible regardless of what his own people said.
Colonel Flak had spent several hours reviewing it when he got to post, picking out the highest priority data as determined by the MI folks. They had determined, at least what they believed, that there were US Military bases at Camp Parks in the Bay Area of California, Fort Irwin – the national training center in California, Travis Air Force base in California, Oakland Air Force base in California, Fort Huachuca in Arizona and there had been some mention of Davis-Monthan in Tucson but it wasn’t clear what was going on. Colonel Flak immediately briefed General Gregory, he was fuming that Colonel Rodgers had sat on this information and did nothing to verify it. New orders were cut to the Signal Corps, to make contact, verify using standard OEI techniques and find out what the hell is going on out there. Once they have verified send a runner, no matter what time, to get Colonel Flak or General Gregory.
At 0900 that morning all post Commanders, O-3 and above, met to brief General Gregory. They briefed him on current fuel, food, water, housing, personnel, weapons and weapons systems, and everything else relevant. Following that the Military Intelligence Soldiers briefed the General on current threat assessments in the regions, this was only based off of data collected through the shortwave radios. By and large the biggest threat was something calling itself the Islamic States of America which has claimed to have established a Caliphate over much of the region even going so far to claim they were part of it. It made sense now to the General he had no idea who had been chasing the military units out of the towns and cities. They had no names of leaders, military strength as in numbers, weapons and weapons systems. They told the General as far as they could determine they were very much aware of Camp Grayling and the US Military. There was also a lot of chatter about what to do about it but they couldn’t determine if there was any real consensus about any definitive action against the Camp. It did set off all sorts of alarms in General Gregory’s mind and Colonel Rodgers was sitting on this information not doing a damn thing about it. The news regarding the ISA shocked the Officers and NCO’s in the room they had no idea was going on in the outside world. Most of the Officers and NCO’s had seen combat in Iraq and or Afghanistan and new what Islamic extremism was all about and now it was being inflicted on their own people.
The Soldiers were angry to say the least and so was General Gregory but they needed more information, troop strength, weapons and such. First things first they needed to get themselves and the Camp squared away and the area around Grayling secured. These were the first order of business and getting their own troops ready for war things had been far too complacent it was time to get the Army back into the Army and it was starting today. The meeting was dismissed and everyone had their orders, next briefing was to be at 0900 the following morning and every morning after that until told otherwise. He also followed up with there would be daily PT for everyone no excuses, well except for medical ones and they must have a note from the doctor at sick call.
Needless to say it was a shock and wake-up call for the entire post going from the top military fighting force in the world, to an all but forgotten fighting force that had all but given up, back to a military build-up to become that top frightening force again, it was welcomed. Over the first week back the PT for everyone was grueling there were a lot of sore muscles, sprained everything, lots of complaining which is a good thing in the Army, if they aren’t complaining about something the troops aren’t happy. The second week everything started to take shape, they were starting to look like a professional Army again.
Within the first two weeks after General Gregory had taken over the reality of the devastation to Grayling was overwhelming to many of the Soldiers and their families who had lived in town prior to the event, then after the event moving onto post they had escaped. Most of the people they had known in town were either dead, for any number of reasons, or had left and no one knew where they had gone. If they went south they were now in ISA territory and as the stories spread and were told from people heading north out of the areas people were being slaughtered as non-believers or were being made slaves to serve the believers, all this did was to harden the Soldiers and steel their resolve to rid the country of these types of people.
They had secured the small town of Grayling and had set up LPOP’s on the edges of town and were building additional fortifications. Fortunately for them Grayling was far away from the larger cities and could be considered a bit remote. From the edges of the town they conducted patrols in every direction venturing out for miles. The Soldiers were heavily armed and were challenged a few times mostly by bandits and sometimes in groups of ten to fifteen, but they were no match for the Soldiers who cut them down will little thought, it had become that routine.
At the end of the second week the post communications center sent a runner out at 0142 to wake General Gregory and Colonel Flak they had made contact with a station claiming to be Fort Huachuca in Arizona. They had gone through the OEI verification process in fact it was them who had insisted on it. The operators had also requested, after the verification process was successful a hold for sixty mikes until their command could be notified, oddly enough the operator at Camp Grayling stated it was their process as well, they agreed to make contact again at 0230.
At 0230 with General Gregory and Colonel Flak at Camp Grayling and Major General Utero and Colonel Harkins from Fort Huachuca were present in their respective communications center. Another coincidence that each side had the ability to patch the radio into a speaker set which allowed people on either end to openly communicate with each other while on the net. However, it was still an open net and anyone could be on it listening and they would never know.
The operators on each end for the most part facilitated the meeting directing each side when it was there turn to speak. Introductions moved forward and each spoke of their respective backgrounds. There was some talk about people they had served with they were looking for some common gro
und and were struggling to find it. General Gregory asked who the Commander Officer of US Forces was currently; General Utero responded it was Major General Watkins out of Fort Irwin. General Gregory responded, “Ted Watkins?”
“That’s affirmative,” responded General Gregory.
“How is that old goat? We served together in the first Gulf War and Afghanistan.” said General Gregory.
There it was the common ground they were looking for, “General Watkins is doing fine; he will be flying in later on this morning for a status briefing regarding the Fort and Davis-Monthan.”
General Gregory and Colonel Flak looked at each other, did they hear that right, fly-in, “I’m sorry General did you say Ted was flying in, as in an airplane?” asked General Gregory.
“That’s an affirmative; he will be flying in a C-47 with some paratroopers who are going to help with the securing of Tucson. “
“Where the hell did he get a C-47?” asked Colonel Flak.
It was then that General Utero and Colonel Harkins briefed them on the new United States Air Force and Navy and where the planes and ships had come from. “Damn.” Colonel Flak said. “We hadn’t even considered the museums; we’ve got one right here.”
General Gregory made a note to have someone check out the museum on post and if there was one in Grayling. “General Gregory.” Colonel Harkins said. “If you have a local airport check the smaller aircraft, Pipers and Cessna’s they should run, you won’t have any navigation, but you could use a compass or fly during the day using the roads. We use ours as scout planes and to drop smaller elements of our A-Teams in for recon.”
“A-Teams? Special Forces A-Teams?” asked General Gregory.
General Utero responded, “19th Special Forces Group out of Camp Parks in the Bay area. There Commander a Colonel Clayton has been the driving force behind a lot of the success in the recovery effort. The Special Operations Community put a lot of planning into a situation just like this and they had prepared and had huge underground warehouses there in the event it ever happened.”
“Wow, we could really use them about right now.” stated General Gregory and then he went on to explain about the ISA. Colonel Harkins took notes and the situation was explained to them all of the officers saw the urgency of the situation and trying to get more Intel.
“Would you be available to brief General Watkins on this today?” asked Colonel Harkins, we might be able to loan you a few teams.
“We can certainly brief him on it but I don’t see how you can get the teams here. The C-47 could certainly reach here but we don’t have the means to refuel it.” said General Gregory.
Colonel Harkins said, “I don’t think they would use the C-47 odds are it would be the B-29 if you have a large enough runway.”
Again General Gregory and Colonel Flak look at each other stunned, Colonel Flak responds, “A B-29? Seriously?”
“Yes we have one with more apparently being worked on at Davis-Monthan, but I think the B-29 is at Travis right now. It would easily be able to make the round trip but that’s something you would need to discuss with General Watkins.”
The Officers continued to discuss the situation with the ISA and overall general operations at each post. Prior to signing off General Utero urged both men that if they got a chance to go to Camp Parks they should, it would demonstrate what could be any place if you’re willing to think outside the box and not give up. They agreed that they would make contact with each other later on today at 1700 Arizona time. General Gregory and Colonel Flak continued to discuss what they had heard; they heard some great ideas things that they hadn’t thought of and they would definitely investigate.
Colonel Flak stopped for a moment then turned to look at the General, “Doesn’t Crawford County have a museum and aren’t there trains there?”
General Gregory raised his eyebrows, “Yeah I think so, get someone over there ASAP to investigate, let’s see what they got. Also, find some pilots and send another group out to check the airfield.”
“Yes Sir. I’m on it.” replied Colonel Flak he turned and left the communications center leaving the General there with the RTO. General Gregory thought to himself, Ted Watkins was now the Commander of all US Forces. Watkins outranked him but not by much they had comparable combat experience, all-n-all there wasn’t a great deal difference between the two men. Then he thought, “Well if anyone had to be in-charge Ted was a good Commander and he was glad it was him.”
Chapter Eighteen
Everything was moving along nicely at Davis-Monthan the Air Force service members were falling inline. They had all returned to a daily military routine, there were certainly some bumps and bruises along the way. Some of the Airmen refused to fall in and were subsequently removed from the base and sent on their way. It seemed harsh at first; for the most part it was an order from General Watkins, send them packing with a backpack with some civilian clothes, two canteens of water, a week worth of MRE’s but with no weapons. If they had their own POV and it still ran top it off for them and let them take it didn’t belong to the US Military.
It wasn’t many people who ended up leaving most of them knew that if they stayed there was safety, food, shelter, and companionship. Leaving the base was going into the wild west and unarmed too, there was a good chance you were going to end up dead in a week or as soon as your food and water ran out. Most of the Air Force members were technical people the last time most of them fired a weapon was Basic Training, they weren’t Army Grunts who were taught how to survive out there, and they were mostly techies.
Colonel Blakely the Commander of 309th AMRG was having a great deal of success they had found a half dozen B-29’s in the graveyard and they figured they would be able to get three or four up and running very soon. There were a dozen or more mustangs they found, but he wasn’t sure how many he might be able to get running, some were in pretty bad shape. They also found fifteen C-47’s and he was sure they would be able to get most of them running. Some of them would be used for parts and they hadn’t finished exploring the entire graveyard yet, they had to go out and make visuals because the entire inventory was on the computers which they no longer had. They had another dozen or so B-24’s that were waiting to be looked at but Colonel Blakely was encouraged by what he saw.
Colonel Datak sent over a group of engineers and pilots over to posts museum to see what they might be able to salvage from there, it was better known as the Pima Air and Space Museum. He had never visited it and was unable to find anyone who had so no one knew what the museums status was. He was hoping for a positive outcome after hearing the stories from Colonel Clayton and what they were able to do.
Major Alfred “Boomer” Estevez and a group of pilots under his command along with several aviation engineers, the senior man being Stan Rodigo who had been an aerospace engineer for almost thirty years. He was one of the men as well as the other engineers that had been found in Tucson by the Marines. The Marines had specific orders that they were to look for people with certain specialties as they made their way to Tucson. If they found any they then asked the people to go to Davis-Monthan where they would be rewarded for their help, if they chose to help. For the most part it had been working, for those that had been able to survive the past several months things were finally starting to look pretty bleak for them. They had barricaded themselves in their homes or neighborhoods and food and water were running out. They were afraid to venture to far out and away from their security; they heard daily gunfire and the fires that surrounded them.
Seeing the Marines, then the Army Paratroopers was a shock and they had wondered where they had been all along. The Marines and Paratroopers didn’t engage with them, they told them if they wanted answers they could go to the base, which was another shocker for them, they all thought the base was long dead.
The other take away that Colonel Datak had taken away from Colonel Clayton and General Watkins was they were using old PRC radio sets which didn’t seem to be affected by the event. He se
nt out his scroungers to see if they could find any on base. Luck was still with them as they were able to find dozens of them with batteries in the bases warehouses, most of them worked, but still only had a range of a few miles, and the range could be extended by placing them in specific locations and used as repeaters.
Major Estevez and the others arrived at the museum at 0900 Sunday morning and they were all surprised to find the museum intact there had been no looting. They suspected that no one thought there was anything worthwhile in it other than airplanes. They had to force their way into building which wasn’t really much of a chore, it was a large building and the back area was huge. There were three hangers and aircraft spread out on the tarmac there were so many aircraft here it was unbelievable and they all looked like they were ready to fly, but would they.
They had also brought a long a platoon of Paratroopers in the event they ran into trouble which was evident now that they weren’t at least now. Sergeant First Class (SFC) Lester Ryan was the Platoon Sergeant; there was no Platoon Leader at this time he was recently killed in an engagement with one of the gangs in Tucson. They lost the Lieutenant and in retribution everyone one in the gang was wiped from the face of the earth, with no Platoon Leader Sergeant Ryan was in charge. Once they had arrived they had set up security and established communications back to the company. Major Estevez headed over to talk with Sergeant Ryan, he asked him to get on the horn and let Colonel Datak they had hit the mother lode and he should get out here as soon as possible. Sergeant Ryan responded, “Roger that Sir.” He headed off to get is RTO to send the message.
When Major Estevez returned he found his pilots and the engineers standing around a B-50 Superfortress talking amongst themselves.