Winter Kill 2 - China Invades Australia

by Gene Skellig

  Other than the forty men of his Force Recon Platoon, the only other Marines he saw on a daily basis at JBLM were the Marines from 4th Landing Support Battalion, USMC, also based in Fort Lewis. However, these Marines were not part of US SOCOM, and were really focussed on sending logistical support to the 3rd Marines more than getting involved in any deployments or direct action.

  Blakely and his Force Recon men wore their USMC pattern combat uniform, “MARPAT”, on a daily basis, and looked so different from the vast majority of soldiers and airmen at JBLM that they occasionally had comments from “the locals.” When shopping in the PX, for example, Blakely had experienced people asking him if he was a visiting soldier from some foreign country. It was one thing to have anonymity, and not be identified as special forces, but it was another thing altogether not to be seen as an American serviceman. Of course this would never happen in a community serving a USMC base, like 1st Marine Division’s Camp Pendleton, in San Diego, where Marines truly were at home.

  Over a Jameson, double – neat, like his father the barrister drank when thinking through an upcoming court appearance, Captain Blakely sipped at his Irish whiskey while he thought about the pro’s and con’s of his Permanent Change of Station.

  For any other captain, an accelerated promotion to major would have been enthusiastically embraced. The PCS detailed a three year assignment to a place called ‘Robertson Barracks’, in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia as US Pacific Command, USPACOM, Host Nation Liaison Officer, HNLnO, within MAGTFA.

  Being permanently assigned, even moving his entire family to live in Australia for the next three years, and working as the link between the Australian Army and the 3rd Marines, would have been seen as positive to just about any other Marine captain, but not for Joe Blakely.

  The problem was that it took him out of SOCOM, out of the Special Ops world, and back into the Marine Corps proper. And that meant being confronted with hostility, alienation and animosity – not from the host nation military or the civilian population, the Australians, but from his very own USMC because of his recent Special Ops employment with MARSOC within SOCOM.

  As a member of US Marine Corps Special Operations Command, MARSOC, Joe Blakely had been out of the mainstream of US Marines and thrown into a bizarre and artificial unit which, from the perspective of pretty much every other Marine, was an insult to the Corps.

  The problem was one of reality versus self-perception for the Marine Corps. The reality was that the USMC had been under-represented within US Special Operations Command, USSOCOM, where the pre-eminent special forces of the various branches of armed services of the United States were managed. At the core of USSOCOM was the US Joint Special Operations Command, USJSOC, comprised of units such as the US Army 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment - Delta Force, US Navy Seal Team 6, and the US Air Force Special Tactics Squadron. However, in addition to the more specialized and well integrated units of USJSOC, USSOCOM at large drew from the Special Operations Commands of the US Army Ranger, US Air Force Special Ops Command, US Navy Seals, and, since 2006, the US Marine Corps Special Operations Command, MARSOC.

  Captain Blakely had been with MARSOC for six years, and accepted the requirement for MARSOC to exist. But it flew in the face of Marines Corps self-perception. Blakely, living within this dual Marine – SOCOMD reality, had at first been surprised to encounter animosity from regular Marines, who saw themselves as part of the elite of the elite of US armed services; each and every Marine, in fact, was a special forces caliber soldier. To the Marines at large, MARSOC simply did not need to exist – as personified by MARSOC operators like Captain Blakely – as it implied that the rest of the Marine Corps was somehow less capable than those Marines attached to MARSOC; as if the MARSOC Marines were the ‘first amongst equals’. Hence the insult.

  Eventually Blakely accepted that bridging the gap between MARSOC and the rest of the USMC was way beyond his pay grade, and a problem that he did not have to deal with while working within 1st Special Forces Group at JBLM. But now that he was being reassigned to a front-line Marine unit, he had to come to terms with it.

  His thoughts seemed to have stalled, bogging down on the question of his own re-integration into the fold, so he turned his attention to the LnO job itself.

  Technically, he was being re-categorized as a “Miscellaneous Military Occupation Specialty, Category II, 8248 Foreign Area Officer, East Asia (Excluding PRC)”. This meant that he had to develop a deep understanding not only of the Australian military’s structure, Order of Battle and general operational procedures, but he also had to become intimately familiar with ORBAT of each and every power in the US Pacific Command Area of Operational Responsibility.

  The USPACOM AOR was immense, with essentially one half of the world’s population and seven or eight significant militaries to consider, starting with the largest, China, with 1.4 billion people and 5.2 million in uniform; and India, with 3.5 million in uniform out of a greatly reduced population of just 800 million remaining of their former 1.1 billion population in the aftermath of the Indo-Pak war. Next came Taiwan, with 25 million people and 2 million in uniform; to Indonesia, with 240 million people and 1 million in uniform; Singapore, with 5 million people and 500,000 in uniform, to the Philippines, with 105 million and 320,000 military; to Japan, with 130 million people and 280,000 soldiers; and a host of smaller powers with considerable military capabilities.

  To top it all off was the most important consideration: the strategic needs of the United States of America. Soon-to-be Major Blakely did not know much at all about the region, its militaries, politics or issues. But he did know that the US had long recognized that the region was a potential powder-keg, well beyond the capabilities of the US, even with the 3rd Marines and the 7th Fleet, to contain. As a result, President Obama back in 2011 had begun to “rebalance” US foreign policy in what was termed the “pivot to Asia”. Much of this centered on the fact that the region was now the economic center of the world. However, on the strategic military side it was all about knitting together alliances with western-leaning - albeit somewhat totalitarian in nature - nations in the region. Each was a potential problem for China. Other than India, however, none were in any position to stand up and compete with China directly. Hence the strategy of building a regional alliance to box China in.

  So while the strategic importance and intellectual challenge of his new assignment had great professional appeal, it was actually the personal dimension that gave Capt. Blakely the most trouble.

  Captain Blakely knew that he had to suck it up, deal with the hostility and win back his place amongst the Marines at large. So as he drained the last of his drink in the quiet of his study, his mind began to work at a furious pace. Before he even realized it, he had formed a strategy which he could implement even before his new assignment began. Inspired, he now knew what actions he should take at the outset in order to return to the fold and to quickly establish himself within the closely knit community of the 3rd Marines; to quickly and unambiguously eradicate the stigma of having been with MARSOC, while still being effective as the US SOCOM and MARSOC Subject Matter Expert, SME, for his liaison role with the Australian Army.

  To this end, he cast his mind to the few encounters he had had with men from the 3rd Marines. The only guys I know from the 3rd Marines were those two guys from that exercise in Germany. What were their names? Gammon? No, Gannon. He must be a Master Gunnery Sergeant by now. And his big black side-kick, what was his name? Oh yeah, Rideout. Strange one, that guy. You’d never expect a man that muscular to be so philosophical, and yet so crude! Rideout would have actually fit in well with the psychological warfare guys in SOCOM. Anyhow, earning the respect and, frankly, the support of Staff Non-Commissioned Officers like those two will be essential, he thought. The SNCOs are the key, both to my own reintegration into the Marines and to shaping the Marines rotating through MAGTFA to be effective in support of Australia, the Host Nation. So really, he realized, my mission is to draw some SN
COs into the mindset of counter-insurgency, Australia style, adapting Marine Corps Standing Operational Procedures, our SOPs, to be more line with how we approach it in MARSOC. Getting them into the right frame of mind, way outside of their normal comfort zone in the 3rd Marines, will help me accomplish both sides of my mission.

  What I really need to do is talk to that Thorne guy from 1 Commando, Australian Special Forces, before I ship out. I need to get the skinny on who the incoming SNCOs will be for the next rotation into the MAGTFA in Darwin. I’ll get Thorne started on them, quietly, without broadcasting it to everybody, as long as I get Chain of Command concurrence from the 3rd Marines...

  As he thought about the shaping operation he was conjuring up for the SNCOs, Joe thought about the normal requirement to run such things past the Chain of Command, CoC, in 3rd Marines, and then decided that it might be better not to. I’m going to be a Liaison. That means consulting with my peers in the Host Nation, like Captain Thorne in 1 Cdo, giving advice meant to ensure the success of our mission – that of not screwing up our welcome in Australia; that of working well with the Australian military to prepare them for war. I won’t have to clear any of that advice through the 3rd Marines CoC. More likely, I will back-brief them on it when I am on the ground in Darwin. Besides, if Thorne goes with the plan, it’ll be his operation, not mine.

  I’ll get him to go after Rideout, if he’s on rotation to Darwin, because a guy like Rideout, if he is a Top Sergeant or Master Gunnery Sergeant by now, will have enough influence to make or break it between the Host Nation and the Marines. Rideout is the key….

  Lost in her own thoughts about packing up the house and getting the Blakely family ready for the unexpected move to Australia, Tannis Blakely went into the basement to check on Joe. He was busily typing away on his computer, composing an email, and looked up with a happy expression on his face as he hit ‘Send’ and then turned around to face Tannis.

  Tannis noticed a change in her husband’s mood. He had somehow cheered up, from the moodiness he had shown for hours, since sharing the news with her about the reassignment. After a few hours in his study in the basement, not quite a ‘man cave’, it was his sanctuary, and a place where Tannis usually left him undisturbed.

  “Why are you suddenly so happy? What’s up, Joe?” Tannis asked, noticing the bottle of Jameson, which seemed about a third lower than the last time she had seen it.

  “Nothing, Tan. Just thinking about the new assignment, and what I have to do. I’m actually getting into it, you know, what the job will entail, how I can use what I have learned these last three years with SOCOM. You know, ‘soldier stuff’.

  “Well, I think you need to take some time away from that, and use your ‘situational awareness’ here at home,” Tannis said, motioning upstairs with her eyes.

  “What?” he asked, and then got up to follow Tannis up the stairs. He was blindly heading into a crisis which he had no intelligence on.

  When he saw his daughter in tears, madly typing away at her laptop on the dining room table, and seeing the small face of the man she was communicating with, he understood immediately.

  Seeing her father, she abruptly folded her laptop screen, and turned to face her father.

  “This really sucks, Dad. Can’t you do anything about it?”

  “Aggie…” Joe stammered, unsure what approach to take. His 16-year old daughter, Agness, was clearly distraught, and it had something to do with her boy-friend.

  “Well, it is true? We really are moving to Australia? Dad, can’t it wait a couple of years, till I’m 18? I could go to university, like Sunny. Then you could just leave me here.”

  “I thought Sunny was in Grade 11. He’s more than a year from university.

  “Duh,” she said, rudely. “He is now. But he will be in university next year, Dad. So obviously when I’m 18, and get into university myself, he’ll already be a sophomore at UW.

  The Blakelys were a modern family, and had no particular problem with the fact that Agness was sexually active with her boyfriend, Sunny Yao. Sunny was a very polite and trustworthy young man, and had shown that he had something of the respect and honor that his father, Stanley Yao, clearly had tried to instill in his only son.

  Over the years, the Blakelys and the Yaos had gotten along very well, both families hoping that their children would not rush headlong into the marriage that was clearly in their future. Both Sunny and Agness had excellent grades and were likely to be awarded scholarships to the University of Western Washington.

  Stanley Yao and Joe Blakely often wound up playing racquetball at the local YMCA, both men finding themselves looking for a match on the 20-minute ‘buzzer’ court, where players could find opponents on a drop-in basis. Not quite pals, they got along better than neighbors, what with the strong relationship that their kids were in, and the common values they shared in terms of wanting only the best for their kids.

  Thinking about the young Chinese-American boy, and his father, reminded Joe of something that Stanley Yao had told him a few weeks ago.

  “Wait a minute,” Joe said, perplexedly, “What about their move? Aren’t the Yao’s moving soon as well?” Maybe that will make it easier on Agness to move on, if Sunny is also moving, he thought.

  “Moving? Sunny didn’t tell me anything about that. He’s just come back from seeing his mom, in Oregon, and wanted to meet with me to give me some bad news. I was in the middle of telling him about your Orders, and that we have to move to Australia this summer, when you came up…” said Agness, suddenly yanking her laptop cover back up, no longer afraid that her parents would read her private correspondence.

  Moving politely out of the line of sight to Agnes’s laptop, Joe and Tannis made themselves busy by the coffee maker, and quietly talked while Agness typed franticly on her laptop.

  “When we were kids, we’d just use the phone,” said Tannis. “What’s all this about Sunny moving?”

  “I’m not sure, but Stan said that he may have to leave for some new job someplace. He was not sure how his son would take it, and he was not sure if he was going to accept the job, but had seemed to want to give me a heads up that there could be some drama between our kids over it,” Joe said, quietly,

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I forgot. Besides, he asked me to keep it under wraps until he made a decision. No point getting the kids worked up over it, if he decided not to take the job.”

  “Where was the job?”

  “I don’t know, but it was with some mining firm, Broken Hill Properties, I think.”

  “BHP!” shouted Agness. “Based in….dah-to-dah-dah…Australia!” Agness had logged off from her chat with Sunny, and left her computer open, displaying a Map. She sat upright, looking like she had just won the lottery.

  “What? BHP? Australia? What do you mean?”

  “Mom, Sunny’s bad news, that he was setting me up to hear, is that he and his dad are moving to Australia! He was all upset about how to tell me, and wanted to tell me in person, but when he read my blast about our news, just now, he told me everything. Look at the map. Sunny’s going to be at this boarding school, in this little town called “Charter’s Towers”. It’s not far from Darwin, Dad, where we’re going!” Agness said, excitedly, showing her parents the map on the computer.

  “So where’s Stanley going to be, if Sunny is going to be in Boarding School in Charter’s Towers?” Joe asked, looking carefully at the map.

  “All over the place. That’s why he’s dumping Sunny at some sort of posh boarding school full of rich ex-pat kids – paid for by the mining company. His dad’s going to be evaluating lots of mining companies that BHP might buy, or something, so he’ll be travelling all the time. Sunny loves the idea, and so do I. Sunny says that we could go to university in Sydney. And until then, we’’ll be able to see each other on the weekends!”

  “Uh, Aggie, do you have any idea how far it is from Darwin to Charter’s Towers?” Joe asked,

  “Can’t be
far, a couple’ of hours’ drive…” Agness replied, looking at the computer. “Oh. Shit. Dad, is twenty-three hundred kilometers far? – in miles?”

  “Oh yeah, that’s like, fifteen hundred miles, Aggie. About two days of hard driving.

  Not the least bit discouraged, Agness switched gears. “How long in an airplane? Two hours?”

  “More like three.”

  “OK, what’s the airline there?”

  “QANTAS” said, Joe, relieved that his daughter was now on-board with the move to Australia.

  Momentarily frustrated at her laptop, Agness asked “I can’t find them. What am I doing wrong?”

  Reading the “Q U A N T A S” that Agness had typed in the search window, Joe smiled, remembering the rejection letter that an old friend of his had shown him. His buddy, a former Marine Corps pilot turned civilian, had gotten a rejection letter that had pointed out that the guy had misspelled the company name in his application. The airline had poked a bit of fun at him, correcting his spelling while at the same time clearly rejecting him: “There’s no ‘U’ in QANTAS,” Joe said

  “That’s weird. Oh, that works, Dad. ‘Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Service, Q-A-N-T-A-S,” said Agness, “wonder if that works in Scrabble.”

  Tannis and Joe watched over her shoulder as she quickly searched for airfares between Darwin and Charter’s Towers.

  “That’s not too much,” said Tannis. “I think Dad and I can spring for a few flights, for you and Sunny. Maybe on long weekends, or school breaks. What do you say, Joe?”

  “Sure. As long as you’re doing well at school. I know Sunny will.” Joe said, to which everybody laughed. Sunny was an honor-roll student, every bit the stereotypical Chinese student, kicking ass on his white classmates. That he was second-generation Chinese, and spoke Chinese out of respect for his family, he was not the slightest bit Chinese at his core. Actually named “Yao Ming” in Chinese, Sunny’s Birth Certificate listed him as “Sunny Yao”. His classmates didn’t even know his Chinese name, and they knew his father as “Stanly Yao”, rather than “Yao Ping”, the Chinese version. But Sunny was every bit an American, with the same loyalties, prejudices and ambitions as his white classmates.