by Steven Linde
By the end of the third week civilians started to show up at the entrance NAS Oceana and were demanding to be let onto the base. They were starving and thirsty, they were tired of hiding from the armed gangs that were murdering and raping indiscriminately. However, the base remained locked down, day-by-day the number of civilians continued to grow. At the beginning of the fourth week it was estimated there were five hundred civilians around the main gate now and still more came. It was becoming a huge problem soon the crowd would be able to overwhelm the guards at the gate and moving more Sailors or Marines might infuriate the crowds. Captain Bud “Ranger” O’Hara the base commander was faced with a difficult choice, his XO Commander Thomas Lasseter discussed the issue at length. They also drew in several of the other commanders on base and came to the joint decision that they would re-enforce the gate with a company of Marines.
Next they would, under heavy guard, begin an outreach program to the civilians at the front gate, but first they needed to get ahold of the external situation. A company of Sailors with a platoon of Marines with a civilian contingent of advisors were being sent to determine the needs of the community. The company of Marines marched in formation to the gate, as expected the civilians outside the gate started to panic feeling the Marines were there to hurt them. However, the Marines ceremonially relieved the guards at the gate, which caused the civilians to take notice and watch. The other Marines made no threatening move to exit the gate. Instead, a large five ton truck arrived the Marines unloaded tents and water.
The people outside of the gates wondered what was going on than another contingent of Sailors, Marines and Civilians arrived in two trucks. They unloaded tables, chairs, and boxes of other items. One of the trucks was backed up to the gate, a man climbed up onto the bed of the truck, he had a bullhorn in his hand, which struck most people as ‘wonder where he found a working one of those?’ The young Marine Officer said, “Attention! Attention! Can I get your attention please?” the young officer paused. People outside of the gate stopped and looked towards him. Not everyone outside of the gate could see him there were too many people. Once the Marine Officer was sure he had their attention he continued, “Ladies and Gentlemen, we need your help.” He paused again and looked around the parts of the crowd he could see. “We need for you to back away from the gates so we can set up tents and medical aid stations. We have people for you to talk to that will access your needs. But, we need your help.”
People were chattering amongst themselves outside the gate unfortunately they weren’t pulling back. This wasn’t unexpected the thought was that many would remain close as to be the first in line for anything that was made available. The next step the young Marine Officer was crucial to the success of the mission. “Ladies and Gentleman. “ The Marine said through the bullhorn. “The Marines will be moving through the gate here to secure the area that the tents are going to be set up in. Please don’t approach them and keep your distance.”
Three platoons of Marines moved to the front entrance while the Sailors began to take down the barricade. Once the barricade was down the Marines with weapons at port arms moved out the gate and towards the crowd. As the Marines moved forward the crowd began to back up. Once the three platoons were out the gate, they broke formation and stood abreast of each other. In lock step the Marines took slow steps slowly pushing the crowd back from the gate. When they were at approximately seventy-five yards from the gate they halted. They had created enough space so the Sailors and civilians could carry out the tents from the front gate to the grassy area right in front. When they had the tents out they began to set up three GP Mediums in a row. The tents went up fairly quickly and then the tables and chairs were moved in. The civilians took over at that time bringing their boxes and other office supplies. It was going to be a slow process because there were no more computers and everything was going to have to be done by hand.
After setting everything up the Marines roped off the area fifteen feet from the tents, set up a formal entrance and placed signs where the line will start. A water buffalo with potable water was brought up and set within the perimeter of the tents and was placed under guard. Hundreds of drinking containers that would hold up to five gallons of water a piece were brought out and would be distributed to an individual, a family would get up to fifteen gallons. Two hundred cases of MRE’s were brought up each box of MRE’s contained twelve meals. They would give an individual three meals for three days and for a family, they would get three meals for three days for each member of the family. This was only a start to what would be given to everyone, once they got through initial processing by the civilians in the tents and they retrieved their water and meals. They would be processed through another tent where they would be given a sleeping bag, a tent, backpack, a blanket per person, and additional camping equipment that the Marines had retrieved from stores or service members had donated.
Everything was set up and the announcement was made to the civilians to line up in an orderly manner at the entrance as dictated by the signs. If there were any problems they were told the Marines would step in, they would then pack it up for the day and take everything back onto the base. There was a lot of grumbling by the civilians they were hungry, on edge and fed up, many of them understood the process and were thankful for the military. Others only wanted what the military had and didn’t want to deal with the formalities. This was also planned for they knew that there would be agitators in the crowd, they had set up spotters around the edges of the base and around the crowd to look for them. If they found them, they would be pulled out, arrested for twenty-four hours, then released and told to get out-of-town. That was the plan anyway.
Another concern was that once the people started to receive their goods they might be preyed upon by others that would take what they had. To solve this they had set aside large areas of land where they could set up their tents and build small cooking fires. While the civilians were being processed and receiving items the Seabees were busy building outside restroom facilities for them. At the same time they were busy building a communal area where they could wash dishes. In addition, they were building in areas where they could wash up. The water to be used for all of this would be taken from a nearby lake and river, it was non-potable water, which they did their best to explain don’t drink it unless boiled. Next came the questions about taking a shower in it then, the response was don’t drink it’s ok to get a bit in your mouth that won’t hurt you. But, don’t guzzle the water down it may or may not give you diarrhea. The civilians were told that there would be roving security provided by the base made up of Marines and Sailors.
The processing started out at about 1000 that morning and was moving at a brisk pace with no problems. The first signs of agitators started to show up at 1500 ten men had corned three families that had decided to leave the area once they were done processing. The only thing that saved them was an alert Marine, Staff Sergeant Jorge Quinone’s, he saw the families leaving the area and for some reason watched them exit out of the area. He saw that once they left the safety of the base the men started to follow them. SSG Quinone’s quickly gathered his squad of eleven men and followed the men that were following the families.
When the Marines found the families they were several blocks away and had been herded into an alley by the men and were being brutally beaten and the women assaulted. The Marines arrived heard the commotion, they stacked behind the SSG, and he peered around the corner that led into the alley. He saw what was happening, he quickly passed the word down to all squad members they were entering the alley. Most of the Marines were either Iraqi or Afghanistan combat veterans or both, in some cases they knew what to do. SSG Quinones signaled the countdown to three, using his fingers, three-two- one the Marines charged into the alley, ‘US Marines! US Marines!’ they yelled with weapons up and ready to fire catching the assailants by surprise. One of the men actually had the guts to pull his pistol, but Lance Corporal Fernandez fired and killed him instantly.
The rest of them stopped, looked back to see the Marines advancing on them aggressively SSG Quinones saying, “Please, please go for your weapons please….”
The assailants seeing that the Marines were itching for a fight decided not to accommodate them they dropped their weapons. SSG Quinones yelled, “Down on our knees now, arms up - fingers interlaced at the back of your head!”
Like back in Iraq or Afghanistan the Marines moved to the back of each man and using plastic zip ties they secured each man’s hands behind his back. Once the hands were secured the man was helped to a standing position and searched. Once searched they were escorted to a wall and were forced to stand there facing it while being covered by the Marines. While the securing of the prisoners was going on Lance Corporal Smith and Corporal Harrington ensured the civilians were ok and taken care of. As things settled down SSG Quinones gathered up the civilians and spoke to them, “Where are you folks headed?”
They looked a little nervous, they turned and gathered into a small circle and whispered amongst themselves. A tiny woman broke off from the group, “Are we free to go?” she asked.
“Yes of course you are you’re not under arrest you can still go any place you want. But, the further away you get from the base the less likely we can protect you. Men and women like them, “SSG Quinones pointed to the handcuffed men. “Are out there and they will kill you for what you have.”
The tiny woman turned back to the group, they all nodded one at a time towards her, “We appreciate what you did here for us, we do. But if it’s ok we’ll keep on moving.”
“No problem at all.” replied the SSG. “We’re going to head out with the prisoners and take them back to the base. I wish you the best and take care of yourselves.”
With that the tiny woman returned to her group and they all walked away together. There was something quite odd about them SSG Quinones thought but he couldn’t quite figure out what it was. He shrugged and announced, “OK Marines let’s get the scumbags back to post and drop them off with the Provost Marshall.”
The Marines grabbed the men and forced them to walk back to the base, SSG Quinones was very straight with the men, he told them if they tried to run or weren’t co-operative he would have no problem putting a bullet into their respective head. The Marines escorted the men back through the crowds in and around the front gate if anything, it sends a message to the civilians that the military wasn’t going to put up with any lawlessness.
Chapter Fourteen
At JFK Center located on Fort Bragg was the home of US Army Special Forces. The Special Forces command was nervous after having to come to the aid of the 82nd at one of the local Walmart’s. It wouldn’t take long for it to get around that they had some kind of working radios and night vision devices. They needed to come up with a viable response that the regular army types would believe, Lieutenant General Charles T. Ontario, the commander of the Special Operations Command, wasn’t ready to let on their little secret. He put out the order to all of the groups to find an explanation they could use that the folks in the 82nd would believe.
A Master Sergeant in the 7th Group found his answer, he was the communications NCO for one of the teams and was cleaning out their Conex and came upon several old PRC radio sets with batteries. The radio’s had been stored at the rear of the Conex and hadn’t been touched in years. Master Sergeant Stan Gregor thought for shits and giggles, he would give one of the radio sets a shot before tossing them in the trash. The batteries were at least seven years old and the radio he pulled out was covered in dust and spider webs. Which obviously said that no one had inspected this Conex in quite some time, in fact the storage unit had sat far in the back and only a few people had access to it, no one asked much about it so MSG Gregor didn’t offer up any information.
He grabbed anyone of the ten radio sets sitting there and pulled it out. He brushed off and blew off the dust, then turned it on, as he expected nothing happened. He reached into the box and pulled out one of the old batteries for it, opened its box and pulled it out. He replaced that battery in the PRC, sat it down on the ground and turned it on…
There was static coming out of the radio speaker, white noise, the MSG couldn’t believe it, ‘I’ll be damned!’ he said to himself. He then grabbed the other nine radios and pulled them out. He set them on the ground, cleaned them, and turned each of them on and nothing happened. He then pulled out one of the large boxes that had a dozen batteries in it. He took nine batteries from the box and placed them in each radio set. He then turned on each one and to his great surprise each radio came to life. He knew that he had struck some sort of gold and he needed to report this ASAP, he turned all of the radios off and gently placed them all back in the Conex and locked it up.
He hustled back to the team room and retrieved his fellow team mates which include the team’s commander. He didn’t tell them why he asked them to please come with him he had something important to show them. None of them were real busy and although MSG Gregor could be a pain in the ass and loved playing practical jokes the men gave him a pass, he seemed pretty serious about whatever it was. They followed him out to the Conex and stood silently while he opened it, once inside he reached in and pulled out one of the radios and handed it over to the teams CO, “Turn it on.” he said.
Captain Alliso looked at him skeptically knowing that it wasn’t going to work, “Why it’s not going to work.”
“Just turn it on sir.” asked the MSG.
Captain Allisio turned it on to placate the large MSG and the radio roared to life. It caught all of the men by surprise. MSG Gregor pulled open the doors to the Conex, “All of the other nine work too.” The men stood there stunned, Captain Alliso finally spoke, “Travis go get the CO and have him get the Battalion CO and Sergeant Major have them come now.”
“Roger that!” replied SFC Travis. He took off and a run to the company and within ten minutes the company and battalions CO’s were standing there with them. The sergeant major was rummaging through the Conex looking for the handsets and antennae’s for the radios, he found them and pulled them out. He handed off each set to the team and told them, to get them installed now, he then gave each man a frequency. He had each man take one of the radios a hundred yards in each direction once he was satisfied each of the men were spread out enough, he began his radio calls, each man responded that the radio set was functional.
The Sergeant Major looked at the Battalion commander, “Well sir, this looks like it gets our asses out of hot water for now.”
“Yea Sergeant Major it does, but the bigger issue here is how many PRC’s Battalion wide do we have that work. Sergeant Major put out the word that I want every PRC in the Battalion checked out. If they don’t work at first switch out the batteries I want an answer to this in two hours, can you get it done?”
“Yes sir I get the word out now.” The Sergeant Major left the area at a trot heading for the other Company areas in the battalion. Soon the hardtop would be filled with men pulling out equipment out of their respective storage areas.
At the end of the two hours the Sergeant Major reported back to the Colonel in his office. He rapped on the door and entered, “Excuse me sir I have the information you wanted regarding the radios.”
“Alright give it to me let’s hear it.” said the Colonel.
“Sir we have a hundred various PRC radio sets out of that we have eighty-five that are working. “
“Damn, that’s not bad Sergeant Major, not bad at all.” The Colonel was thinking. “I need to head over to Special Operations Command and have a talk with them. I’m sure they’re going to want to have the radios checked group wide and the General will order that the post Commander be notified. This could solve some of the communication issues in the interim as long as the batteries last.”
“Sir I happen to know we have hundreds, possibly a couple thousand of these batteries in group storage facilities across post.”
This perked up the Colonel, “Are you sure?” he asked.
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“Yes sir, positive.”
“Let’s get what we can back here and distribute them to the various companies for safe keeping. They’re going to be worth their weight in gold in about an hour.”
“Yes sir I’ll get right on it.” The Sergeant Major turned and left the office once again on the move.
The Colonel wasted no time either he picked up his beret and headed out of the office to operations.
Chapter Fifteen
Captain Ward met with what remained of the hospital staff which was mostly nurses and some doctors. When the event hit it was in the middle of the night on a weekend so staffing was light, when daylight came there was very little relief for the staff that was there and they were exhausted. They lost twenty-five patients that night and another ten would die by the end of the day if power wasn’t restored which now they know wouldn’t happen. In total Captain Ward learned that thirty-three patients died only days after the event happened.
At this time Carrie DeToya was the senior administrator present and was ultimately responsible for the patients and the hospital as a whole. She hadn’t been home since the event which was ok by her; she was single and had been for over a year. Her kids were grown and lived in California near where they went to college. The hospital had become her life and she loved everything about her job, well not lately people were dying and there was little to nothing she could do about it. Carrie wasn’t sure what to think of Captain Ward and the other Soldier that was with him sitting before her now. She also understood the need for security but had this really become the new reality.
