Korean Chaos

by Pete Thorsen

  With the coming of spring, the real estate market is starting to perk up again. Obviously, houses sell in the winter, and people refinance their homes in the winter, and both of those give me some business. But spring and summer are the months for real estate sales, at least in states that have winter.

  My business is slowly starting to come back alive just like the grass after the winter. Winter is the time of year that we as a household have the lowest income. But we have no debts, and Karen’s job easily pays all the monthly bills, and I do still get some jobs during the winter months. We have plenty of money in the bank, so it is not like we have to go hungry during winter.

  The biggest problem during winter is I get antsy from lack of work. I always try to save projects around the place to do during the winter months but I still always seem to have plenty of time on my hands. Usually, Cassy is home with me during the winter. There are still days she goes to the sitter when I have to go out on jobs, but she does spend a lot more time here at home then.

  So when I run out of projects, I spend more and more time on the computer. I research hundreds of things but especially things that I feel might be beneficial to do to the place here to make our lives easier or better or to be better prepared.

  One such thing was solar power. When I first designed the house, my thought was solar power. I situated the house, so one side of the roof was facing just right for the best solar absorption for when I put solar panels on the roof.

  But we never did anything with solar. We could, but we didn’t. It just did not make economic sense. If purchased and installed the solar panels would never pay for themselves over their natural lifespan. And just having solar panels seemed to make no real sense unless you also had a fair sized battery bank so you could go completely off-grid if you wanted to do so. Then it was way more money along with maintenance issues and maybe only a ten-year battery life before you would have to completely replace all the batteries. So it just did not make economic sense no matter how much I might want to have solar power here at the place.

  Even though I had researched the solar thing before, over winter, I did so again. Solar panels were getting cheaper. There was more competition out there, so I decided to do the research again. I was thorough and checked prices to find the best deals on panels and inverters and added everything up again. It was not as bad as before but it was a big investment for very, very little gain and that was just the panels and a grid-tied system where the extra power that we generated would be sold back to the electric company.

  So that was with no battery backup. And we would have no power except when the power company’s grid was active. If the grid went down our solar system would cease making power too. This was to prevent our solar system from sending power into the lines and possibly electrocute any linemen working on the downed line. This made sense but made any system we installed useless to us in a grid down situation.

  Chapter 7

  Then something happened that changed everything. Actually it was two things. But one was way more important though they both were done by North Korea within a week of each other.

  The North had tested many different missiles including two different successful tests of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles or ICBMs. In those tests, they shot the missiles many hundreds of miles up into the air before sending them down to land in the ocean. Those landed near their enemy Japan. They could have landed the missiles anywhere but picked landing them there just as a threat to Japan.

  This time their test was different. The missile again made a very high arc but landed almost all the way across the Pacific Ocean and landed in international waters well off the coast of Chili in South America. It was proof that they could indeed strike with a missile anywhere in the United States a fact that they broadcast far and wide in their own country and to the world.

  It was a serious kick in the face to the United States. And they were also taunting the United Nations to show that all the sanctions imposed on their country meant nothing to them and had not in any way deterred them from perfecting and testing an ICBM.

  The news channels were choked with reporting on this successful missile test. Countless people were interviewed, and several governments released various statements about the test. The test was the talk of the air waves, but nothing was done and really no one expected anything to be done, same as after all the other missile tests.

  Then North Korea had another nuclear test. They had these too many times before, but this one was quite different. All previous tests were fission tests. Nuclear fission is the easiest kind of nuclear bomb to produce but also the smallest in terms of power. This test was a fusion bomb. A very powerful fusion bomb. This test was a very big deal.

  Again the news channels went wild. Now everyone was told that not only could North Korea certainly hit any city in America with a nuclear-tipped missile but also the nuke could be as powerful as any processed by the United States itself. For the first time, Americans sat up and took notice of the possible threat from North Korea.

  And they did not like it. And to play it up again the leader of North Korea threatened to strike and as he said ‘devastate’ the whole country of America and they are now shaking in fear. While Americans disagree on just about everything they do not like to be threatened.

  They came together to say they wanted that threat removed. They did not ask about whether it could be done. They did not ask for a risk assessment should we try and remove the threat. They did not ask if any Americans would die if we tried to remove the threat. No, they just resoundingly shouted that our government should use the most powerful military the world has ever known to remove the threat the nation now faced from that one small rogue nation.

  Luckily our military leaders knew the risks. They knew the power we had and that we could indeed stop the threat from North Korea for many decades to come. We could do it all but the financial cost would be very high, and the cost in American lives could also be very high. Way higher than our citizens really knew. And there was still that very real threat that China may back North Korea with all their military might.

  So things went exactly the same as many times before. America appealed to the United Nations. And we moved some of our military assets closer to North Korea in a show of force. But we did little else. The UN placed even stricter sanctions on North Korea. Just like many times in the past. The US government told the world that the actions of North Korea were provoking and totally unacceptable. Just like after other tests.

  I was a little more than just concerned now. I thought that this could not end well. Even if nothing happened right away, there was little doubt in my mind that something would indeed happen with North Korea and it would not be good.

  They would continue to upgrade their military power and capacity all the time. At some point either they would strike, or the United States would strike them. Either way, it would be a very ugly situation. And I was not alone in thinking this either. I think all countries knew that this standoff would end only with war. It was a ticking time bomb that might touch off another world war. And even if it did not it would still affect every other country to some extent if this war between America and North Korea did erupt into an open shooting war.

  What does the Larson household do about it? That was the question. We placed some orders for additional LTS foods. We purchased additional orders for other odds and ends around the place. We planted more fruit trees. And I got off the fence on the solar system.

  There was one option I had thought about, and Karen and I had talked about a few times. That was a leased system. You signed a lease with a solar company, and they put solar panels on your roof at no cost to you. They owned the panels, and you just paid them a monthly fee instead of paying the electric company for your electric power. You were still hooked up to the grid. And your power would be off if the power grid went down. Kind of worthless for why we wanted it.

  One leasing company offered something a little different. They did lease and
install the roof panels at no cost to you. But they did offer to hook up a battery backup system. You had to foot the entire cost of the battery system, but then if the power grid went down, you would still have full power. Your solar system would keep the batteries fully charged all the time. If the grid went down, you would still get the power from the roof solar panels and still have power at night using the battery backup.

  We signed up. There was a long wait before installation. We waited and hoped the installation would happen before something really bad happened. In the mean time, we stored away the things we had ordered as they slowly arrived at the place. We were not the only ones to be ordering LTS food. There was a big resurgence in the whole preparedness movement and many shipments were slow to arrive.

  We bought additional ammunition and one more rifle. We bought additional work clothes for both Karen and me along with several sizes of clothing for Cassy so she would have clothes to grow into. We all got more shoes and boots, and Cassy again got a few sizes. We bought a grain mill and a few buckets of wheat so we could grind our own flour. My thought was that we could maybe make our own flour from the tons of acorns the local trees produced every year.

  We both kept thinking of more and more things that we should maybe buy. We had money in the bank. At least we did have. We took that out and turned much of it into silver. After we had paid for all our many purchases and set aside the sizable amount of cash needed for the battery bank for our hopefully soon to be installed solar system, we bought silver to stock pile along with some extra cash to have on hand.

  Karen was still working, and surprisingly I was fairly busy with work. It seemed that many were still buying houses. Sometimes I lost sight of some things. We were expecting bad times to come any minute, but for most people, it was just another day. They were just pursuing their normal lives and were mostly oblivious to anything bad that might possibly happen. The initial worry about and the demand for action had faded from the minds of the American people for the most part. It proved again that most people had very short attention spans.

  Things were normal for most everyone and outwardly for us too. And then we got the call we wanted that our solar system was set to be installed.

  Chapter 8

  To get ready, I had added a section on to our house. I built it the same as the rest of the house. It had no basement and was just on a slab but it had cement block walls and a rock face to match the house. It also had a matching metal roof. It would be unheated and had several small vents so there would be no build up of gases from the batteries.

  This was where the entire electrical hookup would also take place, and the inverter would be placed. It had a simple but very sturdy thick wood door that I made myself. I had installed a simple, strong latch on the door because I could think of no reason to ever lock the door. Karen asked me to install a lock now just in case we ever did want to lock it for some reason in the future. It was a reasonable request that I promptly made happen.

  Everything was ready when the solar installer arrived on schedule and installed the system. The system included many read outs that told us how much power was being used and how much was being produced by the solar array and how much excess power was being sent back to the electric company. It also had battery monitors that carefully kept track of the health and capacity of the batteries.

  I made sure I was there for the whole installation, and I asked a thousand questions of the poor installers, and likely I cost them plenty of extra time. But they were pleasant with me and answered all my questions through every step of the installation. When done they said I knew as much as them now.

  That had been my plan the whole time. I wanted to know everything in case I needed to repair or replace anything on my own. When I had asked questions about replacing something they always told me that they would always come back if there were ever anything wrong or anything needed replacement. But they also answered my questions about replacements likely just to shut me up for awhile.

  We still had the generator and extra stored and treated gasoline. The generator could be used at any time to recharge the battery bank if we had a long stretch of cloudy or stormy weather. And the generator could always still power the house and well just like we had originally bought it for too.

  Through all of this, I had not forgotten about North Korea. I read everything I could find on the internet about what was and wasn’t happening on the Korean Peninsula and the surrounding area.

  One thing I noticed was right after this started the USA sent a bunch of military assets into that area like they had done other times too. But this time I never heard anywhere of those assets ever leaving that area. I wondered if they were indeed still there. I could only assume that if indeed they all still were over there then it must be for a reason. The hundred dollar question was just what was that reason?

  I’m not sure who you could say started the war. North Korea certainly made the first shot, but we had quietly moved a ton of hardware over near there, and while North Korea did shoot first, we had fully loaded B-2 bombers in the air and close to the Korean Peninsula when they did shoot.

  With all the artillery that the North had opened up on targets south of their border many thousands of people died in that first two minutes. We apparently had a strike planned and were just about to start it when the North opened up. Besides the B-2’s there was a wave of cruise missiles inbound at the time of the North’s attack or within seconds or minutes of it happening. I can only guess that somehow North Korea was forewarned but not very long before our attack was to start.

  There was an awful lot of deadly ordnance flying through the air on or near that Korean Peninsula from both sides in that war. Our cruise missiles and stealth bombers took out all anti-aircraft batteries and other military targets first thing. Once the anti-aircraft batteries were down, then waves of different aircraft were in the air to bomb North Korea. South Korea had a lot of military hardware too, and they were certainly in on this one hundred percent. They were throwing everything they had into the fight.

  There was never a question of who would win the war. That was never the issue. The real question was how much damage could North Korea do before it was bombed out of existence. The answer, unfortunately, was way more than we had ever expected.

  It wasn’t just South Korea that was throwing everything into the fight. Both Korea’s knew this was a fight to the death for both of them. It was a total blood bath using both old and new weapons. We found out that North Korea had more intermediate range missiles than we had thought. And they launched everything they had as fast as they could.

  Many were aimed at Japan and many of those struck with limited success. But it was South Korea that was taking the brunt of the North’s attacks. But not all. Three of their largest ICBM’s were launched. They were headed for the United States, and we were to find out that all contained nuclear fusion bombs. The first one struck Los Angeles. The next two exploded in the upper reaches of the atmosphere at altitudes of between two hundred and three hundred miles up.

  The first one of those exploded over South Dakota while the second one went off over Ohio. The one that hit LA was not an air burst but instead was a ground burst. This was apparently done on purpose to produce the maximum nuclear fallout over the greatest possible area carried by the westerly winds across the USA.

  The war with North Korea did not take all that long. While Japan had not been involved in the initial attack due to their defense only military stance, after their island was hit they immediately threw everything they had into the fight also.

  North Korea had every military installation bombed out of existence. The capital city of Pyongyang was bombed multiple times. Railroads and rail stations were all bombed along with all bridges and parts of all major roadways. All major infrastructures were bombed including electric generating stations and dams. When done North Korea would have no way to move people or any kind of freight for many years.

  South Korea continued bombing we
ll after the United States quit. Japan though late to the party had suffered from the unprovoked attack on their island. They also continued to strike any target they could find still standing.

  Two nuclear ground explosions occurred in South Korea. These were not any kind of missile but bombs that had been secretly smuggled into their country at some time in the past and were just waiting to be used by the North. They caused a massive loss of life. It took some time to finally silence all the artillery that the North had near their border. It took way too long to stop them, and many thousands of people died because of it.

  But the fighting was still not done. Large amounts of North Korean soldiers poured into South Korea. At the same time, hidden hit squads from the North that were already hidden in South Korea started hitting prearranged targets there. Though North Korea was done as a country, South Korea would take many, many years to recover and would never be the country they once were.

  Japan finally stopped their bombing of the North and sailed back home to their damaged country. When Japan had moved to attack North Korea, they had moved the bulk of their forces to do so. This was what the North Korean submarines had been waiting for, and they promptly attacked Japan. They sank every military vessel that they could get to and then started on all civilian vessels with no regard to what country they happened to be from.

  Some of these submarines were seen by people on shore to launch small drones. These drones seemed to do no harm and were then thought to be just surveillance drones. The same was seen in South Korea as ground troops from the North launched small drones for reconnaissance. Only much later was it found out that these drones were being used for a biological attack as it took some time before the first people started getting sick and dying.

  Japan also had a dilapidated looking but fair sized fishing boat sail into one of their largest ports. The boat had a launch that departed the anchored boat and went ashore. It was about two hours later that the nuclear fusion bomb in that old fishing boat exploded completely destroying that big port and killing many thousands of Japanese.