by Zack Finley
“Good job,” I said. “Get something to eat and some coffee, you’ve certainly earned it.”
Tom passed on the good news about Scott to the rest of Force Beta still in the cafeteria.
“What is the food situation really like?” I asked quietly.
“Actually, not bad,” my dad shared. “Your mom isn’t worried about this winter, she’s pulling her hair out about next winter.”
“We’ve wrapped up the Militia earlier than I expected, what do you need Force Beta to do for the next few days?” I asked. “We can hunt deer, butcher hogs, whatever needs doing.”
“Stand down tonight, debrief in the morning. I’d really like to know what is happening in Oneida, but I don’t know if that is just curiosity or vital,” my dad said. “I also think we need to improve our defenses. I’m a little worried the deputies in Huntsville don’t intend to share the supplies they have gathered with the public. If they get a burr up their ass, they may decide to come after our stuff, and we won’t let them do that. And we still don’t know what the Tennessee National Guard is up to. Why don’t you get a shower at my house, I think we still have some hot water, and you look like you need it more than I do.”
I got up from the table and told my men we would debrief after breakfast. I knew most of them would spend the off hours sleeping. I hoped to get a shower with at least a little hot water. I’d clean up my kit then go see how Scott was doing.
By then my girls would be home. If I had time, I’d go upstairs and gauge what needed to be done to turn the second floor into an auxiliary residence. While I knew it was there, I’d never actually seen it. The second floor was treated as off-limits for all the time we lived in the house. It was currently set up for a nuclear war. The materials stored there were designed to reduce radiation exposure for people living on the first floor. The rooms were unfinished and would require some work to be livable.
It is incredible how good a hot shower felt. I don’t know whether that or the visit with my mom was more restorative. My granny was helping her sort through the new arrivals to the valley. My mom was still trying to match skills with jobs that needed doing in addition to feeding more than 300 people every day.
She loved a challenge, and this indeed was one. My mom and granny thought that turning the cafeteria into a community center was a great idea. I knew my mom would mull it over until she found the right person to assign to the task.
I left feeling more upbeat than I had since Scott was shot. I went by the hospital to see him, but the nurse sent me away. She assured me he was doing fine but shouldn’t be disturbed. I was about to push it when Dr. Jerrod came in and sent me packing. No one argues with Dr. Jerrod about a patient.
I went to the armory to clean my weapons and gear and return the extra ammo and MREs I pulled for the mission. I wasn’t the only one with that idea. At first, I was mobbed by those asking about Scott, but I could only tell them what Dr. Jerrod told me. Everyone seemed okay with that, and I relaxed to the smell of gun oil and gunpowder.
I left to a lively discussion about comic book heroes. Morale seemed good.
My house was quite chilly when I returned to it with barely enough coals in the stove to rekindle a new log. This gave me something to do while I waited for my girls.
I knew I should probably open the locked door upstairs, but I enjoyed the peace and quiet. And alone time. I must have dozed off because the next thing I remembered was being swarmed by my girls. Everyone in the valley must have heard about Scott being wounded. Both my girls crawled into my lap. Jennifer forgot her earlier desire to remain aloof.
As soon as I could, I shifted the focus from my day to theirs. Melissa took the bait when I asked her about her goats and chickens. “Uncle George says it is time to breed my goats,” Melissa said with a bit of outrage in her voice. “He is moving a smelly boy goat to stay with my girls tomorrow.”
I didn’t know what to say. “It is part of farming,” I offered.
“Oh I know,” said my wise beyond her years Melissa, “But the boy goats are so rough, and they stink. The girls won’t mind me when they are around.”
“Uncle George has everything breeding,” said Jennifer. “We separated all the mama cows from this year’s calves. It was a mess. The cows hate it, and so do the calves. He promised they’d get back together after the big bull is done breeding them. I suspect the horses are next.”
“He asked me if I wanted to take care of the meat chicks,” Melissa said. “They are adorable, but I like the egg chickens better. We’ve never had so many meat chicks before. Uncle George says we are ramping up production. He said we were expanding the egg layers, too. I volunteered to help with those chicks.”
“At school today, Uncle George showed everyone the incubator and the new chicks,” Jennifer said. “He was looking for volunteers to help with them, but everyone just said it was too stinky. Now he is just going to assign people. He says the goal is to harvest one egg per person per day and 100 chickens a week.”
“I asked to stay with the egg chickens,” Melissa confided. “The meat chickens make me sad.”
From the mouth of babes.
I got dragged into a game of “Go Fish” and never made it upstairs.
There were advantages to everyone getting up at the same time, except for bathroom logistics. Three toilets made it difficult, and I knew several of the guys jogged to the cafeteria for their morning bio breaks. I’d probably suggest they get up half an hour before the youngsters. That way they’d be in and out before the kids got up. I noticed it took a lot to wake up Joe and Billy. It would nearly be manageable if the Rangers took the first shift, though it would be a real problem if anyone got dysentery.
I headed for the hospital to check on Scott. He was still asleep and on some excellent drugs. This time the nurse let me peek in. Scott was breathing on his own, but he had a draining chest tube. He was hooked up to a variety of monitors and IV drips. It certainly looked like a hospital.
I trotted to the cafeteria and ate my oatmeal, with dried fruit and walnuts. Coffee was now limited to one cup per meal. I decided to try one of the local tea options. The cup of blackberry leaf tea must be an acquired taste. One I that was lost on me. I drank it to avoid setting a wasteful example, but I wished I only poured a partial cup.
I was the only one at the table who tried the tea.
Everyone wanted to know how Scott was doing, and I shared what I knew. His injury was a severe downer in an otherwise positive operation. We would go over the full details at this morning’s after-action assessment.
Two of the guys got up to get doctor-ordered seconds, this was accompanied by some good-natured razzing from the rest of the team.
“Just because we aren’t lard butts like the rest of you,” Ben said, showing off his meal token.
I looked around, and if any of the guys were carrying extra weight, I couldn’t see it. It was hard to tell because the lack of hot water had effectively stopped all shaving by the team. The beards masked the gauntness I was sure shaving would reveal. I knew my clothes were looser and I thought I was in prime shape when the SHTF. I knew I would eat less to make sure there was enough for my girls. I trusted Dr. Jerrod to keep us from going too far.
Looking around reminded me we needed to find a barber. All of us were looking a might shabby. Once the stragglers finished their meal, we gathered in a corner of the café for our after-action review.
Everyone wanted to focus on the shooting first, but I forced them to step through the whole operation.
We agreed that being prepared for several days in the field was a good practice, even though it wasn’t needed this time. We discussed the positive outcome of smoking the tangoes out using their own stoves but thought we should have brought tear gas, pepper spray, or smoke grenades as part of our planning. Even though we brought grenades, flash bangs might have been a better choice.
Having two men from FOB George go up to get the lay of the land before the whole unit deployed would have
been helpful.
The consensus was that conducting the operation in the daytime was a good choice.
There was a serious discussion about the rules of engagement, especially since we ended up shooting the long-term Militia. The presence of female non-combatants and the substantial quantity of ammo we retrieved caused the group to support the original ROE. While we could have avoided any casualties by burning the last hut down, the non-combatants, ammo, mortar, assault rifles, and two LAWs made it worth the risk.
The suggestion was made for more of the team carry quiet pistols on ops of this type. The mix of M4s and SK17s had no appreciable impact on the outcome, although the suppressed M4s helped maintain the element of surprise.
All agreed with relocating FOB George to the edge of the compound before starting the assault.
The assault on the last building was all that was left to review. Ben was the leader of the assault team.
“The door opened into a mudroom,” Ben admitted. “We had our tactical lights on, but visibility was poor due to the smoke. We should have pulled out and ventilated the building before attempting a search. We knew there were a lot of guns. Taking a few minutes to be sure everyone was out would have been smart.”
“Any of us could have made that call,” said Pete. “We were in a hurry to get the op over. I certainly wanted to get out of the smoke and into the fresh air.”
“With better visibility, we would have spotted the tango before he shot,” Joe said. “It is hard to pull back and wait for conditions to improve. We still should have done it.”
“I could see the smoke billowing out the door,” I said. “I should have waited to let the smoke clear before sending you in. A few minutes questioning the prisoners would have revealed we were missing the head guy. If we were going to have a kamikaze, then it was going to be him.”
Zeke stepped up and brought the AAR to a close. “If we learn from this it may keep someone else from paying the price. We had the time, we should have used it. We are lucky we have Dr. Jerrod and a first-class operating suite. At some point, the drugs and high-tech stuff will run out. We can’t afford to have one of us get shot during every op. We may be all that stands between the innocents in this valley and a bunch of raiders.”
Tom, our medic agreed to find out from Dr. Jerrod how Scott was doing. He cautioned us that if everything went well to expect Scott to remain in the hospital at least another week.
We checked the assignment monitor and split up to begin the day. Zeke and I were the only ones without an auxiliary assignment. Several of the guys were assigned to hog butchering, others to shifting materials. Tom was detailed to Dr. Jerrod. Buzzer and Matt were helping Uncle George with the cattle.
Zeke and I rode Ninjas to look over the current perimeter. FOB Echo expanded since our last visit. Our guys cut several trees and stacked the logs to provide a redoubt for the watch standers. A piece of galvanized roofing provided some protection from the rain. It was still a miserable muddy location. Stacks of logs forced anyone driving on the roadway into a serpentine detour.
The two people assigned to the outpost each carried a short-range radio that communicated with the valley radio hut. They checked in every half hour and were designated for three-hour shifts. They also had a flare gun for backup.
I heartily approved of the changes made to the location. This was a natural pinch point, and they hardened it substantially. It would alert us to the arrival of vehicles. Those on duty understood their main assignment was to sound the alarm. Stopping vehicles was the secondary consideration. Their own escape vehicle was tucked away from the redoubt. They were prepared to either escape to their transportation or to disappear into the woods and not attempt to engage a superior force.
The FOB could probably alert the valley to the arrival of a single vehicle or a string of vehicles but was very vulnerable to infiltrators on foot. Depending on the timing, it could be half an hour or more before any alarm was raised.
One of the main benefits of the FOB was to show the flag. But I wasn’t convinced that was sufficient reason to risk two of our members in such a vulnerable spot. It was also a substantial manpower commitment.
We still maintained the 24-7 watch at the bridge and on the radio hut. Zeke and I needed to look at our electronic assets. But first I needed to locate a gate.
My dad got a good deal on a variety of gates some years before. While it took my mom only a few minutes to pinpoint their storage location, it took several hours for Zeke and me to shift enough stuff to retrieve one of them.
We checked out the tractor and installed the auger on it. Some quickcrete, a wheelbarrow and some shovels and we were in business. I balanced the gate on the front-end loader, where we carried the cans of water, quickcrete and tools.
The guards on duty helped unload the gate and put up the posts. We would mount the gate after the concrete set overnight. We cut a few more trees and blocked the sides of the road to ensure anyone driving would have to go through the gate. We located the gate inside the established perimeter, after whoever was driving into the valley already made several sharp turns enforced by log barriers.
It was time to set up our wireless monitoring systems. We asked for help from one of Steve’s solar gurus to set up the support structure. We planned to add driveway alarms and solar trail cameras to the mix. While the technician was setting up the wireless system between the remote area of FOB Echo back to the valley, we sat down with Sally to discuss the changes coming her way.
The solar powered blackout cameras were triggered by a motion sensor and used no-glow infrared. Once triggered the camera sent the photo to the monitoring computer, which we placed in the radio hut. If the trigger was human based, the radio operator would sound the valley alarm.
The solar technician ended up mounting the solar wifi nodes on telephone poles along the road. I thought he would have to climb trees, but telephone poles worked, too. I wondered whether we could use the telephone wires, but left that for another day.
We placed cameras along the road and along several game trails I felt might be exploited by saboteurs. We made no changes to the watch schedule, anticipating a few growing pains. Some batteries needed charging before becoming operational.
I left Zeke working on his saltpeter pit while I went to discuss the changes with Roger.
Several days before, Zeke buried a large plastic container in the ground near the armory. He shoveled horse manure into it and was recruiting the guys to piss into it as often as possible. I made him put up a screen to shield any young eyes from the pissing. I didn’t know how much saltpeter we could generate from this, but I agreed with the long-term need. I knew he was already thinking of raiding local caves for nitrate-rich deposits.
I caught up with Roger at the hog butchering class. Uncle George recruited him to help educate a new generation about where meat came from.
I approved of the changes made for butchering hogs. Having a clean room, chain hoist on a rail and a big enough hot water vessel to scald the pig was a serious step up from an old barrel and rope hoist of my youth.
I suspected we’d be eating blood sausages for breakfast tomorrow, not one of my favorites. Supper would probably be head soup. Right now, freezing the meat was the most resource efficient way to preserve it. We were conserving our finite amount of salt and curing salt, but for now, electricity was still free as long as the sun shone. I knew we were also curing sausages and hams as part of our long-term food strategy, but it was more backup than mainstream.
Uncle George was everywhere, offering advice and directions to those gathered. I suspected the goal was only partly to train people on how to butcher pigs, it was also aimed at showing a large percentage of our population where their meat came from. I suspected too many of our new arrivals thought meat came nicely trimmed in a Styrofoam container at the mega-mart.
Having so many hogs was new to us. Until this season we usually had one or two with one harvested after the first frost and the other in January
or February. Because we ramped up the production of all meat animals over the past year, selling to the local farm-to-table market, we had a lot of meat animals ready to harvest and in the pipeline. Having 30 swine ready for harvest was a major enterprise. I was glad we had the freezer space, though I knew Uncle George was planning on harvesting 10 this time, another 10 in January and the final 10 in February.
I wondered whether we could share some of the pork with those in town. Something to discuss with my mom.
It was easy to drag Roger away from the butchering class. We discussed the changes to our surveillance, and he was happy to pull back from FOB Echo. He shared my concern about their vulnerability. We agreed that once we had the locked gate in place and confirmed the efficacy of the trail cameras, he would reassign the patrol.
He went back to class, and I headed to talk with my mom about the townies.
While my mom shared my concerns about the townies, she was reluctant to send them food. While 30 hogs were a lot to butcher during the winter, there was enough freezer space to accommodate the glut. She expected to have more hogs to harvest next winter, but they wouldn’t be as well fed as we balanced the growing of animal feed and people food.
