Soldier Up

by Unknown

  At 1430 at the Camp Parks Movie Theater one week after the move from Fort Irwin had been made, all Officers and Senior NCO’s had a mandatory meeting there. At the meeting the operations plans were discussed, what unit was going to do what, how they would move out, everything they needed to know. Colonel Clayton, Colonel Boxer, Lieutenant Colonel March and others in the senior staff conducted the briefing, it lasted until 1800.

  The entire camp was on lock down as well as the troops at the vehicle park in Pleasanton, no one was allowed on or off post without special permission. After the meeting broke commanders moved back to their units to brief their Officers and NCO’s, in turn they would brief their people. The operation would kick off at 0200 there would be a lighting break out of the area, lighting being a relative term meaning they would move as fast as they could. It was roughly a twenty to thirty mile drive to various refineries located in the Bay Area.

  They would attack them all at once, the plan was to send Special Operations as well as three companies of paratroopers that had been trained, they would jump into the refineries, secure and hold them until the main forces arrived to relieve them.

  Planes would be in the air providing forward looking Intel to units on the ground, they found that they could use the PRC-77 within two miles for plane to ground communications and sometimes depending on the terrain and weather they could get out to five miles. There were various avenues of approach the different units would take, the I-580 would take them straight through Dublin to the Bay, they could also take secondary roads to 92 to get further south and around the bay or connect through I-850 from the 580 and there were a lot of secondary roads to be used. Depending on the unit’s mission depended on the roads and the work around to them if they were engaged.

  Also, as they got closer they would have contact with the units inside the refineries and oil facilities assuming everything went to plan. They estimated that it would take between forty to fifty-five minutes for a column to make it to their embarkation point and ready for their assault. So much of this depended on if any of the militias were determined enough to take them on before they reached the point, they had to assume the worse that they would and they planned for it.

  There were twenty plus aircraft of all shapes and sizes involved in this, they had short flight time, for the paratroopers it wasn’t the typical hook up shuffle to the door the planes weren’t that big, although the larger airplanes had all seats removed and were strictly used for cargo and troop transport, that was the plan anyway. Most of the SF and paratroopers would be on the ground within thirty minutes of takes off and battling the militias, it was going to be a long night for them because they had no idea how long they had to really hold them once they were secured.

  The Martinez refineries were actually the closest; the first assault would start with them as other columns continued to push out to the other ones. The refinery the furthest away was going to take the longest fortunately they column assigned to it could take I-680 just about all the way there it was Phillips 66, Rodeo San Francisco Refinery in Rodeo. The largest refinery was the Chevron U.S.A. Inc., Richmond Refinery in Richmond up the 680 too then they would branch with one unit heading directly to the Chevron in Richmond and the other heading a bit further north to Rodeo, thank fully they wouldn’t have to pass through Oakland right now which had the largest militia in the area. But if push comes to shove they were more than willing to slug it out through Oakland, right now the orders were to take on anyone who cared to fight.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  At 0230 chutes were in the air at 0231 the fight was on!

  An A-Team and Company B, 1st Battalion, 184th Infantry Regiment (Airborne) they used to be Air Assault but since there were no more helicopters were reprovisioned, jumped into the first Martinez Refinery. They were immediately engaged in small arms fire but were quick to react and suppress the fire directed at them. The militia members seemed unorganized and in chaos they were running around shooting at shadows, the Soldiers were able to cut the lights which gave them the upper hand with their night vision equipment.

  At the same time a second A-Team and Company A, 1st Battalion, 184th Infantry Regiment (Airborne) was in the process of securing the second Martinez refinery. They were following the same playbook as B Company, they were running into the same problems, possibly because both facilities were run by the same militia. With the lights out at both facilities the Soldiers went through a methodical process of eliminating the militia members one by one. Within the hour both facilities were secure but the lights stayed off and the Soldiers took up positions around the each facility and readied for a counter attack. Thirty minutes later they heard 120mm cannon fire, several actually. This was followed by m249 and ma deuce machine gun fire then that was followed by the 25 mike mikes, then as soon as it started it was over, they could see fires from their positions in the refineries.

  The two columns would remain in place around Martinez until defenses were set up and they knew for sure everything was secure. Patrols were sent into the City of Martinez to find out what was going on there. Prior to the event residents of the area were largely unarmed except the criminal element, San Francisco was very much anti-gun as a whole which now left most of the residents in the entire Bay Area unable to defend themselves and at the mercy of the criminal element. The city had a population of over 37,000 prior to the event and now there wasn’t a soul on the streets to be seen anywhere.

  One of the patrols was ordered to the Martinez Police Station they approached it carefully not wanting to spook any Officers who might be in, several squads of Soldiers and two Bradley’s would be enough to spoke anyone. They moved and stopped, moved and stopped, about a hundred feet from the entrance to the police station a single squad of Soldiers stacked on the outside against the wall, on the count of three one man pulled the door open and the others rushed in with weapons up and ready, as they entered they yelled US ARMY US ARMY. Like many other places in town it was also abandoned, they cleared all of the rooms and did notice the weapons lockers was cleared of everything. The weapons could have been taken by anyone to include the police and they man not even be in town anymore. Odds are the militia had them, well those weapons were being gathered along with any ammo and everything else weapons related as they investigated the town.

  Other patrols were ordered to check out grocery stores, pharmacies, and big box stores anything that might help them. Everything was looted, some stores still had camping gear though which they found odd people still didn’t get it, life wasn’t going to return to the way it was. A couple of pharmacies had locked type safes for certain drugs those were still locked and didn’t look to be looted; they had ways to get into them though. As they found these places they felt they could exploit they wrote them down and would give the lists to command and they would decide what to do. Martinez wasn’t quite a ghost town there were lots of dead bodies every place. The Soldiers wished they had time to bury everyone, but as they moved through the area they found hundreds if not thousands. It was horrendous, some died violently others looked skinny, emaciated if you will. While they were there they found no one, it’s possible that the people that were there hid from them, and they didn’t really know if they were the good or bad guys, who could blame them.

  A small part of the assets from the first and second column would remain behind to help with the two refineries security as well as general area security. The two columns moved down the John Muir Parkway heading west, once they hit I-80 one column would head north to Rodeo and the other south to Richmond.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Like the other refineries an A-Team along with C Company, 1st Battalion, 184th Infantry Regiment (Airborne) jumped into the refinery at Rodeo at the same time the others executed their infiltration. They followed the same playbook, except when they took out the lights the militia was ready and had lights in areas that had their own generators, there were dozens of them located throughout the refinery. The Soldiers also found booby
traps and snipers the Soldiers reasoned that this militia must have some ex-Army or ex-Marines helping them.

  The A-Team carried an M-107 .50 Cal sniper rifle they said they would take care of the snipers, the M-107 gave them a lot more distance and hit, ruin your day if they found you with it. The A-Team said they would take care of the booby traps, each team had an 18C – Special Forces Engineer who dealt with demolition and other aspects field fortifications and topographical surveys. The A-Team Detachment Commander realized that his after action report would include the training of both Army and Marine infantry on how to disarm the booby traps; they had no EOD to call on so it was up to them.

  Several Soldiers had been wounded by the snipers, but not killed; they were quickly treated and put back in the fight. Within minutes a loud thunderous rifle discharge was heard, it was the .50 cal, scratch one sniper. It also alerted the militia that there was a new challenge for them to overcome, and then another round from the .50 cal was fired, scratch another sniper. This was repeated a few more times than the sniper fire stopped. A machine gun opened up on the Soldiers, it was either a SAW or an m249, and the boom the .50 cal fired again, the machine gun fire stopped and was subsequently overrun by the Soldiers who killed the two remaining militia men.

  As the Soldiers came up on the generator lights they found if they rolled a grenade under them it did a nice job of taking them out, the A-Team had reported that they had taken care of all of the traps they could find but to keep aware of their surroundings. All of the lights were finally knocked out and the Soldiers switched to their night vision equipment. It was easier now to secure the refinery the militia men were blind, it was pitch dark they couldn’t see a thing. They were being pushed back into the far corner of the refinery and cut to shreds as they continued to fire.

  It took them an hour and a half to secure the refinery, word had come from the plane though that there was a large, very large militia force moving towards them. All they needed to do was to hold the refinery and not let anyone else in it. They sure hoped the column would get here soon, what they didn’t know was that the column was still about thirty minutes out, they had wrapped up in Martinez about fifteen minutes ago and were on John Muir heading towards them, as long as they didn’t encounter any problems they would be there soon.

  The A-Team sniper turned around to face out towards town where the threat was coming from, through his scope he could see quite far considering the people that were coming had lights with them, it was about 0400, the sun wouldn’t be coming up for another two hours. Charley Company took up positions at the entrance to the refinery and other areas they believed to be ideal avenues of approach or places that might be easily breached, as they got closer they could tell there were hundreds of them, they were easily outnumbered.

  They set up the two m249’s one at the entrance with cider block and sand bags around their position, the sand bags were from the militia positions. The other m249 was set up on the second floor of a building that had a view of the entrance and the street leading down it. The sniper radioed down the types of weapons they had and number of vehicles, for some reason they stopped the approach two blocks down, they sent a couple hundred down each side street, this wasn’t unexpected so the Soldiers had set up several claymores that should blunt the advance once they trigger the traps. It wouldn’t be pretty.

  They also had two three SAW’s two they brought with them and the other they took off the dead militia man. Two of them were placed within the refineries in the event they were able to breach the front entrance; the third was being carried by one of the Soldiers so they could set up a hasty machine gun fighting position. The A-Team Engineer had taken the booby traps he had disabled and placed them at various positions down the street from the entrance.

  Everyone was told to hold their fire by Charlie Company Commander and the Detachment Commander. However, the A-Team sniper had reported men with RPG’s and was asking for approval to engage, the Detachment Commander gave the sniper and only the sniper permission to engage the RPG teams.

  The shot from the M-107 rang out; he wasn’t so much shooting for the man firing the weapon as the weapon itself. He was trying to either disable the weapon or destroy it, if he could destroy the weapon and kill the firer even better. His shot was aimed at the actual grenade that was loaded into the weapon, direct hit to it and it exploded in a ball of fire killing four people next to it. He quickly shifted fire to the next one, fired and hit the man who was preparing to fire it knocking him several feet backwards. Now the crowd that was heading for them was running for cover but the RPG was still laying there in the street, the A-Team sniper had a bead on the grenade but was waiting for someone to make the move to pick it up, when that happened he would fire taking at least one more militia man with him. He didn’t have to wait long, two men ran out from cover they sprinted for the weapon and got within reach of it and the sniper fired hitting the grenade, it exploded killing those two men instantly.

  With that the militia started firing in the direction of the refinery, but no one in the finery was firing back. The Soldiers had still not received permission to engage the enemy. Then a claymore went off down the street to the left followed by two more in the same location that was a lot of metal balls flying. The load explosions got the attention of the militia directly down the street. The claymores on the streets to the right went off causing more death and destruction. Some of the militia started to pull back, their leaders started yelling at them to keep moving forward or they would kill them anyway.

  The A-Team sniper saw this and asked permission to engage the leaders, permission was given. A shot rang out dropping the first leader, then another shot dropping the second and the final shot dropping the last leader. Now the militia was scared and trying to figure out what to do, then the Soldiers heard it and recognized the sound they all knew so well, it was the sound of a 25mm gun humming away firing burst after burst, then another 25mm gun was heard, the militia members started dropping dead in the street, many tried to run but there was a huge explosion in front them spewing shrapnel, it was from a 120mm canon.

  Apparently the column from Camp Park had arrived, on the streets to the left and right .50 cal and m249 machine guns could be heard, it was the machine guns on the M1 Abrams, they were lighting it up. This was only half the column the other half moved to north Rodeo and would circle back in to clear any militia from that area. It was also what they did for Martinez too, but they had a lot more power than.

  Although the militia had some military help from prior service members they really had no idea what they were up against. It was learned later on by captured militia members that they thought the entire force consisted of the Soldiers at the refinery. When they were asked wouldn’t that have been stupid if they didn’t have any back up, they simply shrugged their shoulders and said, “I guess.”

  The column that had moved to the northern areas of Rodeo engaged the main militia fortress. This time the Army took its time, from a mile away it set up its artillery and sent out its FO’s. The Soldiers never got close enough to engage the men and women in the militia fortress, it was leveled within thirty minutes by an artillery barrage that the occupants of the fortress thought was hell on earth. By the time the Army was done not a sole was living in the fortress, when the Army finally did enter the camp they found men and women but no children. Everyone was armed but dead; the Army knew what had happened too many of the families as they found mass graves on the way in that had bodies in them and they hadn’t been covered yet.

  The Soldiers spent the rest of the day mopping up the militia they then went to work covering the mass graves; they wondered what kind of people could do this. Although they thought it would be a useless exercise the orders were to gather what they could from local grocery stores, pharmacies and the big box stores. They were right the militia and gangs had gotten everything, but where did they put it? That’s what command wanted to know. The logical place to start was at their fortress, most leader
s such as militia war lords would want to keep everything close fearing everybody and trusting no one.

  They had searched all of the buildings that were left standing, which weren’t many and sifted through the ruble of the others and found nothing. There was a lot of self-storage around this area they broke out the bolt cutters and sent squads out to check them. What they found astonished them; they didn’t find the loot they were looking for but found people living in the lockers. It made sense to varying degrees, if they were threatened they could retreat back into the locker and lower the metal door and secure it from the inside. Except in this case the Soldiers had metal type saws the fire departments used to cut open cars. The first couple of times they cut open a locker they found a woman and her three children huddled in the back, the Soldiers stared, leaving the family they cut open the next one and next one and found something similar. After that they started knocking first and announcing US ARMY they got a lot of them to open up the ones that didn’t open took some convincing from their neighbors that it was really the US Army, eventually they all opened.

  The find was radioed to command that sent over an A-Team Doc and several medics to check everyone out. They also bought with them a hundred boxes of MRE’s to give out and water, essentially they ended up setting up and aid station for the civilians in the area.

  Word spread through Rodeo and the surrounding communities that the militia had been eradicated and the US Army was hunting the rest of the gangs. People started to come out of hiding and they found they needed to move the aid station out of the public storage areas with all of the new people arriving it made the occupants of the lockers nervous.