by Steven Linde
Chapter Seventeen
They flew into Yuma Proving Grounds like they did the Marine Corps Air Base, but with a key difference. The US Army was clearly well into a fight with the Mexican Army, with each side slugging it out. Major Carol and Colonel March decided to throw a wrench into the fight by buzzing Mexican troops on the ground. They were clearly surprised to see an airplane and it was enough to cause chaos in the Mexican lines, hopefully enough that the US Army could take advantage of it. There was an additional problem they were taking fire from the ground, and they knew that if they didn’t get out of the AO quickly and on the ground they were going to be shot down.
They gained some altitude, circled the base once, and hit the runway a bit harder than they intended, but it was still a good landing as long as they could walk away from it. As they suspected, they were quickly surrounded by Soldiers, but this time they didn’t mess around because the base was under attack and they were sure the Soldiers were in no mood for jokes. Major Carol and Colonel March quickly exited the aircraft and asked to speak with the OIC. The Captain that met them was all business, and he explained that the post commander was personally involved in the battle and could not come at this time.
Colonel March told the Captain he understood and handed him a message from General Watkins US Army. Colonel March briefly explained to the Captain that this was an order from a General Officer instructing the posts CO to get his ass on the radio now, and if he refused he would be court martialed and thrown in the stockade until the General felt like releasing him. In the meantime, Colonel March ordered the Captain to take them and the boxes he had to the Commanding Officer’s office. The Captain was wondering what the hell was going on. First an old World War II airplane, then a Marine and Army Officer with a letter from a General he had never heard of? Well he thought he had better do what the Colonel was asking, just to be safe in case he was outranked.
The Captain helped load the boxes into a Humvee and off to the CO’s office they went, and once there they off loaded the boxes into the Colonel’s office and the Captain took off to find the Colonel. Once they were in the Post Commander’s office, Colonel March and Major Carol unpacked the boxes and set up the radio. Once the radio was put together, Major Carol cranked up the hand generator and the radio came alive. Colonel March contacted Camp Parks, but this time he got in contact with Colonel Clayton. The reason was the Post Commander Colonel Yelp and Colonel Clayton knew each other from the Special Warfare community. Colonel Yelp was more likely to deal with all of the news than hearing it from a General he had never heard of.
Once Colonel March had Colonel Clayton on the net, he gave him a rundown of the current status of YPG. It looked like the US Army was struggling against the Mexican Army, and it was easy to understand, they were outnumbered four to one. Colonel Clayton told Colonel March he was notifying Travis and birds would be in the air within fifteen minutes. Once in the air he would give him an ETA to his AO with the frequencies to contact them. Hopefully Colonel Yelp would be here soon so they could coordinate the strike, but if not the strike would go through regardless and they would hope and pray for no American casualties.
Twenty minutes later a very visibly angry Colonel Yelp stormed into his office. “Who the hell do you think you miserable son-of-a-bitches are?” yelled the Colonel.
Colonel March had connected the radio to a squawk-box, as the Colonel was yelling at the two officers. Colonel March kept the radio keyed so Colonel Clayton could hear everything being said. Colonel Yelp for whatever reason missed the radio entirely. He hard over the squawk-box, “Yelp you asshole you need to sit down and shut the fuck up!” Colonel Clayton said.
“Who the fuck are you?” Colonel Yelp looking around to see where it came from and then eyeing the radio. “I’m Colonel Clayton United States Army, Special Forces, you dick!”
“No shit?” said Colonel Yelp recognizing his friend’s voice. “What the hell John? What’s going on?” Colonel Yelp took a seat behind his desk.
“I’ll explain later, right now there’s a bombing sortie heading your way, you need to pull your troops back now. We’ll take care of the Mexican Army get those troops back now!”
Colonel Yelp didn’t ask any questions. He called the captain and the major who had accompanied him. “Get the word out now pull back to the perimeter!”
“Sir?” both the Captain and Major exclaimed. “If we pull back the Mexicans will be all over us, our defenses will collapse.”
“Damn-it Major, there is some serious hurt coming down from our side, pull the troops back now!”
The two Officers responded “Yes sir” and exited the Office at a run. Within fifteen minutes Soldiers were pulling back from the lines. During this time the radio in the Colonel’s office kicked alive with the lead pilot telling them they were ten miles out and asked asking them where they wanted the ordinance dropped. Colonel Yelp went to the maps hanging in his office and started barking out coordinates, which Colonel March relayed and the pilot read back and verified.
Colonel Yelp sat there and hoped to God that they would get everyone pulled back. He stood and looked out his window and high in the sky he could see dozens of bombers flying over the base. Over the radio the pilot said, “Two minutes to drop.”
Two minutes passed. . “We have bombs away! Bombs away!”
The ground all around YPG and well into Yuma was shaking as the bombs found their marks, and the explosions were loud and vicious killing anything and everything around them. These were not guided munitions, it was carpet bombing. Around the perimeter of the base the Mexican Army was massed preparing for its final assault on the base, then everything around them started to explode. After the raid, what was left of the Mexican Army in the AO was not even worth attacking, there were so few of them left.
Colonel Yelp didn’t know that though, so after the raid he ordered the resumption of the attack. The Soldiers picked themselves up and moved out all of them a bit shaken after the raid, but they were a happy bunch though figuring that the raid took care of a lot of their work. Back in the Colonel’s office over the radio the lead pilot said, “Returning to Travis, have a nice day.”
Colonel Yelp smiled and replied, “Smartass and thank you, out!”
Reports began to filter back to the Colonel’s office after thirty minutes that the Mexican Army for the most part ceased to exist. Thousands were killed, they were caught in huge massive formations. Clearly not expecting to be bombed back into the stone-age, the Colonel was notified that they were collecting prisoners. They left the dead, for now.
After the battle had settled down, Colonel Yelp turned to Colonel March and Major Carol. “Ok, can you two clowns tell me what the hell is going on?”
Chapter Eighteen
Aboard the USS Hornet, Admiral Walcom had received the condensed briefing that was collected by the Force Recon teams. He and his staff had made final preparations for the invasion of the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach. The key was to eliminate the HLA within both Ports. They hadn’t reconnoitered the Long Beach Port, but they felt that the plan they were going to implement would take care of any potential issues there.
At sunset, 2nd Battalion of the 184th Infantry Regiment (Airborne) would jump in to the northern most point of the Port of Los Angeles. As the paratroopers were making their jump, the USS Iowa would begin firing its Volkswagen size shells onto the port at the last known coordinates of the HLA campsite. While the USS Iowa was shelling the port, the Marines would move by landing craft to the various landing sites identified by Force Recon. Once the Marines hit the point of departure with the landing craft, the shelling by the Iowa would stop. Any hostiles left after the shelling would be driven north by the Marines into the waiting arms of the 184th. If the Marines or paratroopers needed additional fire support, they could call on the Iowa for gun support or the Hornet for air support.
As the sun began to set, there was tremendous amount of activity throughout the battle group. The Marines were in
the landing craft and the dozens of C-47’s were minutes out from their drop zones, and the Admiral gave the final go to all forces. The invasion of Los Angeles was on and they wouldn’t leave until the city was secure. The city itself held no value other than strategic, as it bridged the gap between Northern, Central, and San Diego where most of the military forces were located, and the oil refineries located in both Ports. Los Angeles had no other military forces within it other than the United States Space Command, which was a goal to secure. That for now was a separate operation being conducted by US Army Special Operations.
There was a separate aircraft that was sent from Travis with an A-Team on it. They were jumping in near the base and if everything looked good. They would approach and secure it if it wasn’t already secured. They were to either notify the Air Force of the movement of US Forces towards them from the port or to secure the base to the best of their ability and hold it until relieved, and when that happened it would be any ones guess.
The A-Team had jumped at the same time the paratroopers made their jump. As for the Hispanic Liberation Army, they weren’t entirely blind to the situation. That morning several of the HLA members did notice a dozen or so specs of something above the horizon in the ocean. They didn’t think anything of it because they really didn’t remember if those were the cargo ships forever docked offshore, but of course the HLA knew of the Sailors threats, whereas an aircraft carrier was coming and other ships. They didn’t take it seriously though.
By noon that day, those specs had grown and grown, yet no one had noticed. A couple of hours before sunset, it was very apparent that there was an aircraft carrier and what looked like a battleship, but still no one paid much attention to it. The USS Pampanito had returned to the Hornet and retrieved two SEAL teams, which they then turned and headed back in, but this time into the Port of Long Beach where they deposited the two teams. The two SEAL teams were there to reconnoiter the area as best they could. They were to take over watch positions to watch all of the avenues of approach or exit from one port to the other. It was expected that as the Marines began to turn south in the Port of Los Angeles the bad guys would start to retreat south into Long Beach.
Following the Marine landing crafts were the AAV’s and various LAV models headed for the marinas where they could access the boat ramps and head into the port from there. The heavier equipment such as the Abrams, Bradley’s and M113/114 would be offloaded from frigates once that part of the port was secure.
The USS Iowa began to open up, and there were huge loud violent explosions that rocked the entire port and well into the surrounding communities. The HLA members were caught in the open, as they had been busy starting the night bonfires, cooking dinners, washing up and other chores. The first shell landed right in the middle of couple hundred of them that had gathered in the center between all of the buildings. Everyone one of them died instantly, No survivors. The shelling continued taking out many of the buildings. It didn’t matter, the original owners of the buildings were dead or at least presumed dead. The HLA members that weren’t initially killed started to spread out and run in panic, heading onto those same buildings that would be hit five minutes later. There were fires every place in the port, and it seemed there was no place safe from the bombardment. El Jefe was dead with the large group that was first hit. There was no leadership right now.
There was no HLA member to lead them against the Marines that were now starting to land. The shelling by the Iowa had stopped, but it had been devastating even though it hadn’t lasted that long. The HLA was in chaos. They scattered like cockroaches with the lights turned on. The Marines quickly advanced into the port, as they were taking fire and returning fire much more accurately, killing everyone they came in contact with. Soon the LAV’s and the AAV’s arrived with the AAV’s offloading more Marines and using their machine guns to suppress any fire that came their way. The LAV-25’s started to open up with their 25 mike-mikes, mowing down anyone that opposed them.
The LAV-M’s were receiving fire support calls for mortar fire, and they were right on the spot when needed. The Marines were pushing hundreds of HLA members into the waiting 184th guns and they were more than happy to help them meet their maker. At the southwest end where the two ports met, some HLA members were trying to evade the Marines via that avenue, absolutely unaware that the SEALs were waiting for them. They were easy pickings for SEAL snipers that were poised on top of several of the buildings. Not all of the LAV’s and AAV’s had entered the Port of Los Angeles. Half the force had gone to the Port of Long Beach, as their primary objective was to secure the Oil refineries.
The Marine approach to securing the Oil Refineries was different from the Army’s. Where the Army used Special Forces A-Teams to secure the refineries first and hold them until follow on forces arrived, he Marines were using the AAV’s to move Marine squads into the refineries with back-up from the LAV-25’s. The AAV’s would bust through the gates and taking on anyone firing on them with their own vehicle mounted guns. Once the fire on the vehicles was suppressed, the AAV’s unloaded the Marine squads. The squads took it from there and cleared the rest of the refinery.
Unlike the refineries of San Francisco, the HLA didn’t take advantage of the refineries and secure them. The Marines found the refineries easy to secure and there were no large gangs or militias to fight. The refineries in the Ports hadn’t been active in a year and would need to be inspected and restarted. The problem was that they had no engineers to do that, so engineers would have to be brought down from San Francisco to help out, unless of course they were able to find some here.
Once the Marines had secured the refineries, there were follow on Marine Civil Affair forces that would relieve them, set up their own security, and do their best to sort things out. It was there job to find engineers or contact Admiral Walcom and let him know that status and what their needs were. He would take it from there and go directly to General Watkins, as he had resources to spare once it was safe to do so.
The shelling had killed the majority of HLA members, one hundred in fact. The Marines basically went in, secured the refineries, and pushed all the bad guys into the 184th or the Marines in the Port of Long Beach. The Navy’s frigates that carried the Abrams, Bradley’s and Armored Personnel Carriers (APC) or M113 or M114 moved into port and began to off load the vehicles. They also had Humvee’s, M35A1 2.5 ton trucks, and an assortment of other vehicles to include artillery pieces.
The Marines weren’t only here to liberate the two Ports, as this was their beachhead and the ultimate goal was to make it home to Camp Pendleton. Soon the Hornet and Iowa would start to move further south, and the Marines would still get air support when needed. The Marines felt they had secured and cleaned out the two ports and were pushing out from them. They were ready to take on all comers and god help them because the Marines wouldn’t.
Chapter Nineteen
General Charkin, Admiral Meyer and General Watkins were now in constant contact with each other thanks to the shortwave radios that had been delivered to Camp Pendleton, NAS North Island, and 32nd Street. Admiral Meyer outranked everyone, and eventually he would take command, but this wasn’t the time and place to discuss that. Quite frankly Admiral Meyer didn’t think he wanted the command of all four branches, the Navy was just fine with him, but it’s something they would discuss later on. As far as he was concerned, General Watkin had been a hell of a lot more successful than both he and General Charkin together, largely thanks to one Colonel John Clayton US Army Special Forces.
The C-47 had also allowed them all to meet and set up regular staff meetings. Like everyone else that had visited Camp Parks and its surrounding areas, they were awestruck by what they had been able to accomplish in the last year. Life was about as normal as it was ever going to get there, or anywhere, and people were making the most of it. It was certainly something they wanted for themselves, their command, and their communities. The great thing they found out was that Camp Parks was instrumental in out
reach programs to other posts as well as the communities that surrounded them. Both General Charkin and Admiral Meyer knew they were going to need their help and teams were being flown into Pendleton and North Island to help now.
Mrs. Clayton was no longer able to travel because the kids were to the point where they needed more supervision and she was still sick. Unfortunately, much of medical science took a header the day the event hit. What was once done with computers that could see everything was gone; doctors had a much more difficult time diagnosing illnesses, they had become too dependent on technology. Colonel Clayton was no longer traveling too because he was afraid to venture too far from his wife. He was still able to conduct day-to-day business at Camp Parks and meet via the radio systems with the other commanders. If someone needed to travel, he sent Colonel March in his place because Colonel March enjoyed the travel and the work. He had seen a change in his boss, as Mel had gotten sicker and sicker. They both knew what it meant, Mel did too, but no one was talking about it.
Fortunately Mel had trained her teams well. Her absence was missed on a personal level, and the legacy she left was incomprehensible: she had solely taken a society that was collapsing and helped rebuild it almost single-handedly. Every military commander that had come through each time they brought a new base online was astounded at everything she was able to do. Admiral Meyer and General Charkin were no different, they wanted to emulate everything about Camp Parks as they could. First, they needed to be able to get to the civilian community to gather the items needed to help them. They also needed the Mexican Army to go away forever, and they were hoping that would happen in the next several weeks. Word back from the fleet was that everything was moving along according to plan.
