by Unknown
“Business decisions, the food you’re eating and juices are partly from here and there, all the people flying in are from Dallas. I don’t know how the flag ended up at the Airport but it has been taken down a few times and either replaced with the US or State flag. Have you checked this morning?”
“What are they coming here for? And no we haven’t.” said the Captain.
“The US flag is flying over the airport this morning I know because I changed it. One of our guests got drunk the other night and raised the Texas flag. The folks that were with him were kind enough to give me back the US flag. As for why they are coming here, farming, ranching and fuel ..you haven’t been too far on the outskirts of town have you? Well as you’ve noticed there’s really no one in town. After the event there was nothing but chaos, lots of payback murders and rapes. Gangs trying to take over everything so people started to head out-of-town. Soon it was gangs fighting gangs killing each other soon there weren’t any of them left.” said Sam.
“No we haven’t been in the outlying areas we had no reason too until now. How much of Texas can Texas really claim to have secured?” asked Sergeant Tolbert.
“Well I’m no expert and I don’t live there but I talk to these folks coming in all the time. According to these folks maybe a quarter of the state pretty much everything in the middle. The Mexicans have taken the west from what I hear New Mexico and Arizona.”
“I don’t know about New Mexico but Arizona is in US control our military posts there are active and have secured 80% of the state. They have been fighting Latino gangs in the cities but no one has seen any connection to Mexico the Latino’s are a large segment of population in those cities.” said Captain Tolbert.
“Let me ask you this Sam do you think the Texans are a threat to the US?” asked the Captain.
“I don’t know, what I do know is that the Texans think the US is dead. They aren’t putting any pressure on US forces there to come over to their side they sort of figure in time they will see the light and come over on their own. You showing up here will throw a wrench into that.”
“Last question Sam,” said Captain Alexander. “Do you know the status of Fort Leonard Wood?”
“Not really, the only reason I know so much about Texas is that about six to seven months ago the Texans started showing up. Still seems odd to me that they are here Texas has farming, ranches and fuel. Like I said though they have only secured a quarter of the state so my feeling is that they were looking for other areas that wouldn’t give them much of a physical challenge meaning no one to fight them.”
The three men continued to discuss the area and what happened after the event. Captain Alexander and Sergeant Tolbert told him what was going on with the ISA up north and told them about California, Nevada, Arizona and Michigan. Sam was happy to hear something was happening but was dismayed that they hadn’t heard anything from anyplace back east where he had family.
“Y’all are more than welcome to stay here as my guests as long as you need.” Sam offered.
“Thank you Sam we appreciate the offer but there are more of us here, actually ten more and we wouldn’t want to impose.” said the Captain.
Sam laughed, “I suspected there were more the two of you coming down here was a pretty ballsy move to do on your own. We have plenty of room don’t worry about it bring them in but I would do it soon breakfast is over in an hour and I’ll bet ten hungry Soldiers would love to have some of this.”
Sergeant Tolbert smiled, “Yeah they would Sam we’ll take you up on your offer it’ll give us time to figure out our next move.”
Captain Alexander had worked out a signal where he could walk out into the front of the hotel and into the parking lot; he would pop green smoke for all of them to come in if it were safe. “Sam I need to signal them to come in but that will require me popping some green smoke in your parking lot. Will that be a problem?”
Sam was amused by that and laughed easily, “No not at all it’ll be great to see the surprise on the guest’s faces.” then Sam laughed and Sergeant Tolbert went back for seconds.
Chapter Forty-One
US Forces continued to push south after routing the ISA their intention was to clear the rest of the state of the vermin that had cost so much pain and suffering. The bulk of the AA was in the north what was left behind were the morality police and like most bully’s when confronted turn and run. It was ok the civilians who they oversaw gave great description’s and more than happy to point them out. Some of them chose to fight they were exterminated as violently as possible. These men, the morality police, tortured, raped and murdered US citizens they deserved what they got. US forces wouldn’t capture and the just eliminate them with overwhelming firepower until there was nothing left.
They swept the state from west to east finally arriving at Ann Arbor where the Sultan, General Harb and there guard forces were. There were up to 10,000 Guards they were the best trained and would die for the Sultan. The US Army was going to give them their wish they surrounded the compound set up artillery batteries and bombarded the compound twenty-four hours a day. When the Soldiers and cannons needed a rest they bombed them from the air. Three days later there was no compound left standing that’s when the infantry went in. Amazing enough a couple hundred of the Guard survived the bombardment and still wanted to fight. The US Soldiers were more than happy to send them to Allah to talk about it.
The bodies of the Sultan and General were recovered and burned by US forces they were not going to give them the burial the religion required. After Ann Arbor the US Army continued to drive through the state it took two more weeks for them to solidify there hold. As the Army secured areas civilian government specialists with their own civilian security forces followed setting up regional offices for the areas throughout Michigan.
US Forces pushed down into Iowa, Ohio and then into Indiana and Illinois it took months for them to secure those states and even then they weren’t done. Word finally came down from LTG Watkins for all US forces to hold in place. Soldiers were becoming burned out and there were more and more cases being reported of Soldiers breaking down emotionally. During the time the civilian authorities in the new Michigan regions were able to get those areas stabilized enough where they were able to get hundreds of more civilian security forces trained. These new fresh forces were sent to relieve the Army when they arrived and were brought up to speed the Army slowly pulled back to Camp Grayling. Once they were back at Grayling they were sent back to their homes stations to recover and get some normalcy back into their lives at least for the time being.
The US Army basic training and AIT were churning out new Soldiers monthly they had plenty of people volunteering especially now with the new states starting their own recruiting drives. LTG Watkins and his senior staff determined that the US Military recruit training facilities were too small at Camp Parks and needed to be relocated. No one was more happy to hear that then Colonel Clayton who would still hold onto all Special Operations training. Camp Grayling was twice the size of Camp Parks and had better training facilities it was decided that all by summer all recruit training would move there for Army and Marines. Air Force basic and AIT would be moved to Travis the Navy’s boot camp and AIT would eventually be moved Great Lakes Training facility in Lake County Illinois.
The other issue ITG Watkins was trying to address he wanted to secure the West Coast as a US Army Commander first he wondered what the hell was going on at Fort Lewis Washington. Fort Lewis was the home of the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment and 1st Special Forces Group. As well as McChord Air Force Base sometimes called Joint Base Lewis-McChord which included 4th Battalion, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. If any base in the entire US had a chance of surviving an EMP event it should have been Fort Lewis. 1st Special Forces Group was an active SF Group far more prepared than the 19th according to Colonel Clayton their reserves, their EMP preparations and what they had storage far exceeded what he had at Camp Parks.
They had th
e ability communications wise to reach out and make contact with anyone in the Country if they chose too. There had been no contact with them at all not even via shortwave radio. It was a priority of his to find out what’s going on up north. The other issue he was currently dealing with first what the hell was going on with Southern California. San Diego was one of if not the largest military cities on the entire Country home to the Marines at Camp Pendleton in Oceanside and the US Navy which was just about every place in San Diego.
Another area of the Country that had gone quiet not a word from down south which was odd. Currently he USS Hornet and its supporting ships were moving slowly and stealthily, well as stealthily as an aircraft carrier could be, down the California coast. Their objective was to determine what was going in and around Los Angeles and then San Diego. The Hornet carried a contingency of two thousand Marines not large compared to what should be at Pendleton.
As the Hornet moved down the coast it had a shortwave radio system installed to keep in touch with Camp Parks as well as his own Command at Irwin. There was also a trail of smaller ships behind it that it could make radio contact with and have messages relayed back here. The Hornet was six hours out of Los Angeles now five miles off the coast. Tomorrow they would begin air operations over Los Angeles and get their first glimpses of what might be going on.
Following the three Marine Force Recon teams would be inserted by zodiac in the middle of the night. Their job was the same as the A-Teams to recon and gather intel they were not to engage in direct combat operations. Like the A-Teams they could defend themselves if they found themselves under threat they were to pull out, return to the beach and radio for pick up.
It was a large job the US Navy and Marines felt they were up to it. This was strictly a Navy and Marine Corps operations. They could call for help from the Air Force at Travis or Davis-Monthan not the Army though they were tied up with the ISA.