by Don Shift
“But hey, boredom to the rescue. All these scared, bored, and lonely people will turn away from their Facebook friends and talk to their neighbors. Yay for humanity. But here’s the problem. Ever wonder why these people in medieval Europe believed in vampires and werewolves? Because they were stupid and rumors spread. While people today are just as stupid as they were back then, we have instant access to knowledge. We’ve got, well we had, Snopes and Wikipedia. Experts would dispel stupid ideas as ‘fake news’ or whatever. Rumors and false ideas didn’t survive long because Tom Brokaw didn’t come on the evening news saying ‘Family of five found dead in Brooklyn basement. Police believe it was the work of vampires.’
“But, if no one in a trusted position of knowledge and authority calls BS on your rumors or stupid theories, they abound. People are going to go off word of mouth. Like after an earthquake and someone starts a rumor about a tsunami. Well, in today’s world, we had news and the Internet that could do that. Seventy years ago, the radio could tell people that the smoke they’re seeing is a backfire and not a brushfire about to burn down their house.
“So, without modern communications, there is no way to accurately disseminate information in a manner that reaches the masses from a source they trust. People will believe what makes sense and what someone they trust tells them. People just don’t know enough about what they’re talking about to make sense. They don’t have enough knowledge or any critical thinking skills to realize what they’re saying is BS.
“Where this screws us, excuse me, is that people will believe rumors. It’s going to be like dealing with the third world where the tribal leader’s cockamamie theory is believed more than the truth with evidence. If people in LA are told there’s food up north, guess what, they’ll start walking to the Promised Land of the Pleasant Valley. If a guy says God is in his alien spaceship behind the moon, they’ll kill themselves. So, forget about bored teenagers and people who can’t talk to each other. Be worried about rumors and lethal knowledge.
“One last example, I know, I’m full of them. This one is short, I promise. People know a barbeque puts out heat, right? So, the guy with the broken heater fires up the hibachi in the living room to get them through that chilly January night. What he doesn’t know about is carbon monoxide, so the fire department stacks up bodies in the morning. The only thing worse than no knowledge is thinking that the little bit of what you do know is all you need to know.”
Brad sighed deeply. Everyone was giving each other worried looks.
“You’ve thought a lot about this, haven’t you?” Wayne asked. Brad nodded.
Villareal thought about the cascading effects of the EMP. It was hard to find real fault with what Brad had said. Everything was too interdependent, too connected. A hundred years ago, if the electricity went out, people pulled out lanterns or lit gas lamps. Water was still gravity fed or pumped by a windmill. No one panicked without instant news and communication. All of it reminded him of something Ben Franklin once wrote:
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost/For the want of a horse the rider was lost/For the want of a rider the battle was lost/For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost/And all for the want of a horseshoe-nail.
“Well, let’s sit down and start planning how we’ll get through tonight and the weekend.”
“Let’s focus on the job,” Villareal said. “We’ve got a place to start, so thank you Brad. As for us, we need to decide what to do for tonight. Quickly. How do we get gas if the pumps don’t work?”
“I’m sure GSA can rig something up to draw from the underground tanks. We can drain the civilian county cars in the short term with hand pumps. Someone has to for sure guard the county gas pumps, not just extra patrol. Not tonight, but in the next couple of days.” Everyone nodded. “We’ll need to write up a copy of orders. Hopefully, GSA can fix generators and get us some juice to run a copy machine, or else the ladies are gonna be busy hand copying stuff. We’ll have someone drive the orders out to each station.”
“Manpower?”
“If this is as bad as has been suggested, I say we deputize any non-sworn uniformed staff and volunteers who are capable and willing to do the job. We pull in retired guys and those who honorably quit if they’re willing. Have patrol go door-to-door to everyone whose address we know or have written down somewhere.”
“I second that. Get word to the academy that the trainees just graduated,” Chief Ostrander said. “What else do we need to do tonight?”
Brad shook his head. “If we can get a copy machine going, I can run off my plans for everybody. I’ll need to think about how this is going to evolve.”
The meeting broke. Villareal went to his office to brood like a patient just given a diagnosis of a terminal illness.
Semper Fi
Samuel Church loved the way Arabic sounded when spoken to an attentive audience. It was a flowing, mellifluous language. The written form of the language had always been troublesome. For a kid who could barely sign his name in cursive, the handwritten, joined nature of Arabic script required intense concentration to not smear it into an unintelligible mess. Sam turned around to face the classroom.
“It’s okay if you can’t read my writing, I can’t either. I’ve put the important stuff down on those cheat sheets you have.”
Thirty officers and senior sergeants filled the room. Most were Hispanic and speakers of both English and Spanish. The Army thought that bilingual soldiers would have the best skills to learn pidgin Arabic for their upcoming deployment to Syria. Everyone had been whispering about their teacher, a former Defense Language Institute instructor. Sam found it funny, being looked at as some sort of expert by these soldiers, all of whom had twice as many deployments as he had.
On the first day, he simply introduced himself as ex-Marine Corps. The mysterious status of former military and “college professor” tended to place him in the category of an officer, which put the officers at ease and gave him more credence with the lower-ranking enlisted men. Sam had only ended up as a staff sergeant, promoted as soon as he was eligible at the end of his enlistment. Being an interpreter and interacting regularly with high-level command staff had been an excellent way to get promoted quickly.
In his thirties, Sam still looked like his nickname “Babyface,” his soft features, medium stature, and blue eyes that women loved made him look like someone straight out of boot camp rather than a seasoned veteran. He explained his background in law enforcement and his love of languages, which included fluency in French and Spanish.
“I bet you’re all wondering; how did this white boy learn Arabic?” The class laughed. “Growing up, I had a friend from Sunday School—his family were Iraqi Christians who escaped when his dad deserted during the Iran-Iraq war in the ‘80s. We wanted to have our own secret language the other kids couldn’t understand, so he taught me his. I enlisted and the Corps chose my destiny.
“In 2004 General Mattis was 1st Marine Division Commander. He was scrambling for interpreters, particularly American ones, and guess who got deployed on three days’ notice? I get dumped in with a HUMINT team, that’s human intelligence for those of you in the back of the room, working Fallujah with Navy SEALs for three months. After that I ended up a desk jockey.
“After my enlistment, I became a deputy sheriff in Ventura County. I finished college, earned a BA in Linguistics and a graduate degree in Middle Eastern Languages from UCLA, which was not easy being a cop full time, except that night shift in the jail gives you plenty of time to study. Then a few years ago, I ended up wrecking my back. It was either quit or be medically retired. I was a few months shy of ten years, so I couldn’t get retirement credentials anyway, so I finagled my way into becoming a reserve deputy.”
“How did you hurt your back?” a trooper asked.
“In Iraq. An IED took out the lead vehicle and we rear-ended it and got rear-ended ourselves because our drivers were following too closely. It was a pretty bad scene, but I could tell my folks with a straigh
t face my back injury was from a car crash. It just got progressively worse from there ‘cuz the Navy doctor was a moron. Then a decade later, one day it got too bad to work and I needed surgery.”
“I take it the surgery was less than successful?” the trooper surmised.
“That’s correct, unless I want to try the really radical stuff.”
“Is the Corps or being a cop something you wanted to get back into?” a lieutenant colonel asked.
“No sir, not with the way the world is today, even if I was healthy. I don’t want to lose my house because I shot a suspect who is the wrong color or get court-martialed for misgendering a Marine. Ever hear the saying ‘You can never go home again?’”
“Tom Wolfe,” the colonel said.
“Exactly. It’s never quite the same; kinda like coming home from deployment.”
Everyone nodded. Sam didn’t mention the lucrative double income he got teaching for the state university and the Department of Defense. Way better than being a deputy or a Marine.
“Okay, enough about me. I’m pretty sure that you’re all as mentally fried as I am hungry. Daeuna alhusul ealaa alghada'—let’s all get lunch. Meet back here at alththaniat walnnisf. What time is that?”
“Oh two-thirty!” yelled one enthusiastic soldier. “Wait, I mean fourteen hundred thirty.” Everyone laughed. The class dismissed with a little good-natured ribbing for the offender. A major approached Sam.
“Mr. Church,” Major Huerta said. He and Sam had gotten to know each other a bit earlier in the week before the class started. “You’re from Ventura County?”
“Yep, native born. Have a house in Simi Valley.”
“Nice. I’m from Agoura. It’s just across the county line though. I hope you’ll still eat lunch with a foreigner like me.”
Sam snickered. “Of course, sir. How’d you end up in this group?”
“Kevin, not ‘sir.’ Your pay grade is equivalent to my rank. My mom’s family is Spanish all the way back to the Californios. I’m white as can be, but I still get to check the minority box.”
“Interesting.”
“And the Church family?”
“Who knows? Anglo-Saxon, but no one was interested enough to pass down more than that through the generations. My father said we’ll make our own history.”
“Sounds about right. Get a chance to drive a Stryker?” The eight-wheeled armored vehicle was unique to the Army and boasted several versions, including a 30mm rapid-fire cannon, personnel carriers, and a 105mm gun variant more powerful than some early tanks.
“Negative,” Church laughed. “But I got to play a little last week with the Blackhorse in the villages.” Fort Irwin, or the National Training Center, was to simulate a combat environment on a massive, realistic scale, including using American vehicles visually modified to look like Russian equipment. Here the in the imaginary land of Tierra Del Diablo, there were many mock Afghan and Iraqi urban combat ranges modelled after the real thing, often filled with Arabic speaking actors. It was the perfect place to ready troopers for the confused environment of the Syrian Civil War. “Wanna hit the chow hall?”
“Chow hall? We call it the DFAC. How about Subway instead?”
“Works for me.”
On the drive to the base Subway, Church and Huerta swapped stories. “Did you have to live at the police academy?”
“Nope, just early mornings and long nights. They made me the class sergeant, which meant I was the first to get smoked out for anything anyone did wrong. I got dropped a lot.”
“Sounds as messed up as the Army.”
“Doesn’t it though? The academy pissed me off. Most of it was just for show. Having been through actual boot camp much of it was just unnecessarily ridiculous.”
“So, you didn’t want to be a Mustang?” Huerta asked, meaning an officer that came up through the enlisted ranks.
“Six years was enough. I really didn’t want to go through Officer Candidate School with a bunch of recent college graduates who couldn’t find their asses without a map, flashlight, or both hands. No offense, just a sergeant’s gripes.”
“The one thing a soldier is entitled to is griping. I went ROTC myself.”
“Then I guess you didn’t need the map or flashlight,” Sam teased.
Both men went inside the Subway and placed their orders. When the sandwiches were made, the girl at the register asked Church “Did you want cookies or chips with that?” Before he could answer, the power went out, leaving the store a little darker and suddenly warm as the air conditioner quit.
“Well, good thing I have cash.”
“Uh, I’m sorry sir, but we can’t ring you up without the register,” the girl said.
“Don’t you have a calculator and order slips to track everything?”
The manager shook her head and walked over. “I’m sorry, but everything goes through the computer. If it’s down, we can’t ring it up.”
“Seriously?” Huerta said. “You don’t have a plan for when the power goes out, let alone the register breaks?” The manager shook her head. “Can’t you just write everything down, make change by hand, and enter it later?”
“No, sorry. We don’t know the prices by heart or the tax and the machine won’t make change without the register.” Huerta and Church stared dumbfounded at the employees. “Why don’t you just take your meals? It’ll be on us. For the trouble,” the manager offered.
“Okay,” Church said. “But let me tip you.” He handed woman a ten by way offering some sort of payment.
“Thank you,” the cashier said.
Both men walked outside. “Jeez, can you believe that? Totally unprepared. Heck, in my first fast-food job we had the power go out all the time. Good thing I knew how to do math. Hot out here, isn’t it?”
“After Baghdad in August, nothing else can compare,” Sam said. “I’ve lived without air conditioning; I can go without it for a little while. Plus, it’s ten degrees cooler here than Baghdad.”
“It’s the little bit of altitude. Eat in the conference room?”
“Alright.”
The drive was a short one. Fort Irwin didn’t have much traffic.
“So Sam, you won a Silver Star and ran with SEALs in Fallujah. Everyone is saying you’re some sort of Billy Badass.”
“It really wasn’t a big deal. I just fought hard and pulled some wounded dudes out of the line of fire. I was only an interpreter for the SEALs for a couple months, not like I went to BUDS. Everyone hears ‘Navy SEALs’ and creams their shorts.”
“But you never deployed again? What happened? Screw a colonel’s daughter?”
“You don’t get a Silver Star for banging an officer’s daughter,” was Sam’s retort.
“Yeah, you get herpes.”
Sam laughed. “I did intel work back here and I was too good for the colonel to let go of me. I got promoted as soon as I was eligible, but he wanted me around to keep him looking good. Then he transfers out and his chickenshit replacement saw I had re-written the shahada into Christian terms: ‘There is no god but Jehovah God and Jesus as his only begotten son.’ He said it was offensive to Muslims and politically incorrect, so he made it his mission in life to screw me. I had a month left. Tried to burn me for it, but he settled at sinking my chances at being an officer.”
“I thought you didn’t want to be an officer.”
Church parked the Jeep and shrugged. “Sounds better if I had a choice.”
“You got a medal to be proud of.”
“Everyone who was in Fallujah got a Bronze Star just for being there and a lot of us got a Purple Heart too. My Silver Star is just another color. We all had it rough and I’m nothing special. Come on, let’s go eat.”
Huerta couldn’t tell if Church was embarrassed, trying to hide something, or being modest. As they strolled into the building, they noticed it was dark and warm. “Power is out here too.”
“I taught a semester at a university last year. Power went out in September and they cancel
led classes. Said it violated the professor’s union contracts to teach in un-air-conditioned buildings.”
Huerta snickered. “Ain’t gonna happen in the Army. Gonna have to get too dark to see the whiteboard.”
“It’ll be cooling off when you get to Syria.”
“Unless Trump changes his mind again.” Huerta threw his sandwich down on the table. “Gotta text my wife. We’re supposed to meet in Barstow tonight for a little lovin’. I figure this will make us late.” He pulled out his phone and typed away. “That’s weird.”
“What?” Church asked with his mouth full.
“‘Message send failure.’ Says ‘no service.’”
Church took out his phone. “Mine too. Cell towers are down.”
“But the generators should have kicked in by now.”
“True, but it’s not like there is great reception out here anyway, so if one goes down, that’s it. Use the wall phone. That phone looks old enough to draw power from the phone lines.”
“Right.” Huerta picked up the phone. “Line’s dead.”
“Hmm. Stick your head out in the hall and see if anyone else knows what’s up.”
Huerta saw the female administrative sergeant walking down the hall. “Hey sergeant, what gives with the phone?”
“I don’t know sir. Power’s out here, phones too. The lieutenant is on her way over to the headquarters building now sir.”
“Cool. Pass the word when you find something out.”
“Hooah sir.”
From the conference room, Church yelled “Oohrah, Marine Corps.”
“Who’s that?” the sergeant asked.
“Our crazy Arabic instructor. He was a jarhead. Once a Marine, always a Marine.” The sergeant shook her head and strolled off. “You know Church, I like you, but you are one weird guy.”
“It’s the repeated head trauma. I’ve had three traumatic brain injuries.”
A few minutes later, lunch was interrupted by the sound of running feet. It was the sergeant again. “Major, sir. Lieutenant says all officers are to report to the headquarters building at 1415.”