The Last Marine
Page 1
No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
For information contact:
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All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1539894179
ISBN-10: 1539894177
Acknowledgments
I would like to give a special thanks to author G. Michael Hopf, my friend, brother, and mentor, in making this book a reality. He, literally, spent years encouraging me to make this happen. He has been a big inspiration to me.
I would also like to thank my wife, Shannon, for her love and support through this process. She picked up the slack, when I spent time writing. I’d also like to thank her and my Aunt Christine for their advice and help.
As well, I’d like to thank my friend Kevin for his input and encouragement throughout this process.
Lastly, I would like to thank our Creator for the freedom to pursue my happiness.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
John 15:12–13 ESV
“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
George Orwell (attributed)
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
About the Author
Chapter One
Joel hated airports and always had. Today was not an exception; in fact, it was the apotheosis of why he hated airports. It had taken ninety minutes to work through the line of cars backed up because of FedAPS agents searching cars as they entered the new Seattle-Tacoma Federal International Airport.
Since parking was not allowed within a five-mile radius of the airport, travelers were left with the option of hiring a FedAPS-approved car or taking the light rail and then traveling by shuttle to the airport. As a journalist/historian for the Federal Times of Seattle, Joel’s Federal Government pay was enough to afford the FedAPS hourly rate for the car; or so he thought before the ninety-minute delay.
The line at baggage check-in looked to be as equally miserable, but with just one carry-on bag, Joel skipped that level of hell and went straight to the terminal security checkpoint. Joel was about to embark on his least favorite part of air travel, but he felt a slight sense of emancipation as the escalator rose towards the terminals. This was the last hurdle before he boarded the jetliner that would take him to Washington, DC, for an interview that would, if all went well, escalate him into the ruling class.
After eighty minutes Joel had made his way to the security ropes where the end of the line was intended to be. All sense of emancipation had been replaced by a strong sense of having to urinate. He looked around, trying to take his mind off his full bladder. Keeping it very casual, he did not want to attract unwanted attention from the FedAPS agents by looking anxious. There were no agents within his line of sight, but one always had to assume he was watched. There were cameras and drones throughout the airport.
During the construction of STFI, the Seattle Federal Times reported assurances from the Federal Government that its citizens would be more secure than nearly any other place in the Pacific northwest. Indeed, outside of Federal Government office buildings, airports had the most thorough security in the country. Everyone was watched, screened, and profiled for suspicious movements, actions, behavior, and even clothing. Federal practice was that anyone who caught the attention of a FedAPS agent was extracted, detained, and/or questioned to “an extent appropriate for the circumstance.” Americans learned the secret to negotiating airport security was to never move too fast, never stand anywhere too long, and never display too much emotion lest you attract attention from FedAPS and be detained for an appropriate extent.
Joel thought the whole security protocol added way too much unnecessary stress to traveling. He understood the purpose of it all; he definitely did not consider himself to be some kind of freedom nut when it came to the public good. He agreed with all the public service announcements posted throughout the airport:
The Price of Security is Convenience.
The Price of Security is Comfort.
The Price of Security is Time.
The Price of Security is Freedom.
As Joel glanced from the FedAPS posters to the extremely large buttocks of an obese white woman in front of him, to the young black mother whose two children were shrieking and giggling as they wiggled across the floor and bumped into people, to the group of brown-skinned men holding cardboard boxes closed with duct tape, to the score of travelers taking off their shoes, belts, and clothes on their way to be questioned, x-rayed, and frisked; he wished the whole process did not have to be so degrading. Did the price of security include dignity as well? His discomfiture was exacerbated all the more by feelings of guilt. Who was he to be angry over safety protocols? Was his dignity worth the loss of even one life? Was he to demand his “constitutional rights,” as his grandfather had always done, and put the lives of innocent people at risk?
Joel had very conflicted feelings about his grandfather. He remembered him as a kind, loving old man, always ready to give Joel ice cream. Even in the middle of the afternoon before dinner.
“Abe! You’ll ruin his appetite for dinner.” Joel’s mother used to chastise with a smile.
“You’ll clean your plate for Pops. Right?” Abe would smile and wink at his only grandson.
Joel loved his grandfather and, privately, still mourned his death. Joel’s father never mentioned him. In fact, Joel’s father was embarrassed and ashamed of his own father. Other than to collect a monthly check from a trust fund established by Abe Levine, Joel’s father would not even acknowledge the existence of his own father. There were no pictures in the house. No wisdom was passed on from that generation of the Levine family. All that survived were the loving memories in Joel’s mind. Yet Joel abhorred everything that his grandfather believed in, everything that his grandfather stood for, everything that his grandfather thought was proper. Abe’s entire ideology and philosophy towards life was the complete antithesis of Joel’s. To Joel’s shame and embarrassment, Abraham Levine had been a vigorous and enthusiastic participant in the American Renaissance.
Most federal historians described the American Renaissance as a period of excessive patriotism, blind xenophobia, and unbridled greed. Joel had learned in school that it was yet another example of sin against humanity and another source of national shame that the American people were so notorious for.
“But we were fighting for our lives, our very own survival!” Abe explained to his grandson. Joel found his memories ironic since his grandfather had not actually served in combat, but served as a Navy doctor. Nonetheless, young Joel was fascinated with his grandfather’s stories of the invasion, the war, and Americans pulling together to “do the impossible.”
“It was everything that has alway
s made this country great. As a people we looked reality in the face, stepped up, and kicked its ass,” Abe would say in a hushed tone, as if sharing a secret. Joel had loved those moments as a small boy. His grandfather would say, “Let’s talk man to man.” It felt as if his grandfather were sharing a grand wisdom with him and using some grown-up words that his mother would not approve of. He felt loved by the old man. He felt proud to be of that man’s family and of that man’s nation.
Not without pain and sadness, that pride would dissipate through Joel’s education in the Federal School System. For he learned that while President Joseph P. Leakey was a well-intentioned progressive, he was, arguably, not a particularly good president. Of course, some people, like Abe Levine, described Leakey as incompetent at best and a traitor at worst. However, these people had no sense of social justice. They did not understand, or perhaps even disdained, the virtue of equality. Leakey had the courage to make tough decisions, as unpopular as they were. He understood the greater need of the People. He understood that it cost a lot of money to make everyone equal. The American culture of greed was such that many did not want to pay their fair share for the American dream. Their sense of equality and freedom didn’t go beyond their own needs and desires. Many Americans could not sense a need for security beyond their own homes and retirement accounts. Leakey understood the needs and dreams of the oppressed underclass. He had campaigned on slogans of No Sacrifice is too Great for Equality and The Needs of the Many over the Greed of a Few.
Leakey boldly pushed forward his progressive agenda, outflanking resistance in Congress through executive orders. Leakey raised income taxes and initiated a national sales tax, as well as a national communication tax. He nationalized education, retirement, housing, and banking all in one fell swoop. He began the confiscation of privately owned automobiles, recreational vehicles, and firearms. He nationalized agriculture and began to secure the land needed to feed the nation. He ordered the regulation of “destructive” media. He gave legal equality to all “Americans” no matter what their citizenship status was. No debate, no compromise, just action. He masterfully used the taxation and law enforcement agencies at his disposal to enforce social justice for the American people. He fearlessly challenged Congress to impeach him for serving the needs of the suffering.
“What are laws compared to equality?” Leakey responded to a question of the constitutionality of his actions. “If you want an omelet, you got to break a few eggs.”
“But he always broke somebody else’s eggs,” Abe would recall to Joel. However, Joel learned that kind of thinking was shallow and selfish. His teachers had taught him that like many social progressive pioneers from the Gracchi brothers of the Roman Republic to Americans like Senator Robert M. La Follette, Vice President Henry A. Wallace, and Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson, weaker humanity buckled and resisted the change that they needed. While President Joseph P. Leakey had done so many great things for the people, they lacked the courage and the intellect to appreciate his agenda. The fear of national debt, of a regulated economy, and propaganda against fair taxes led to a landslide defeat. Forty-eight states voted against Leakey in his bid for re-election.
Of course, Abe’s recollection was that it was a historic night. “He was the greatest president since Abraham Lincoln,” he would always say. “Knowing now what was going to happen, it was divine providence that George R. Clark was elected president. He was the right man at the right time.” Joel thought if there was a man that embodied the American Renaissance more than his grandfather, it was George Clark. The two men thought exactly alike. Old Abe Levine was indeed right; everyone in the modern world thought the election was historical. It set the world on a path that would forever change it.
Joel had studied the election in detail, not just as an undergrad in his political science course, but as a journalism/history grad student. He’d written three different papers on the event. It was a classic campaign of propaganda and demagoguery. Clark was the face of all that disgusted Joel about the old America. He was tall and muscular. He was white and Christian. He was a veteran of the United States Marine Corps. “He had everything but ‘fascist bigot’ tattooed on his forehead,” one of Joel’s professors had joked during his freshman year. The professor had bemoaned Clark’s lack of experience. “The man only had a bachelor’s degree, and he spent most of his time in college playing football. So he’s stupid enough to get his leg blown off in the Islamic Wars and suddenly he’s qualified to be president of the American people?!” Actually Clark was not elected to the presidency straight from the Marine Corps, but he was a first-term senator from Arizona.
Joel had written a research paper on the Clark Campaign. He compared America to a child that was too afraid to grow up. Leakey instituted change in America. Change that was needed for social justice, but most did not have the foresight, nor the intelligence, to understand how necessary changes would play out. Just as an older child might become frightened by oncoming adulthood and cling to his teddy bear, so the American people reached out to their past when they elected George R. Clark.
All of Joel’s professors chided Clark as a stupid man, but Joel wrote that he thought this assumption was a mistake. He thought that any man that had so successively set back American Progressivism had to have some intelligence. Enough intelligence to manipulate the fear and ignorance of the American people, anyway. As evidence, Joel described the tactics and slogans of the Clark Campaign. Where Leakey had installed change through the efficient means of executive order, Clark would quote the Constitution. Where Leakey cultivated an unofficial alliance with the People’s Republic of China to graciously finance change in America, Clark screamed for American independence and self-reliance. Where Leakey’s campaign cited Clark’s lack of government experience, Clark responded that he had the “American Experience” to guide him. Clark wrapped himself in the Stars and Stripes and claimed that American History and Western Culture was the road map to “Freedom, Strength, & Wealth.” Clark claimed that by looking to history, Americans could see for themselves what had worked in the past and what had failed. He often cited stories about the Greeks, Romans, and British as examples of self-government and the rule of law. Conversely, he used examples of the same people to show the pitfalls of centralized authoritarian government. Of course, he threw in examples from the Russians’ pioneering of communism and American atrocities in government in order to cover his true racist attacks of Chinese, North Korean, Cuban, and Central Americans’ Progressivism and to frighten the voters even more than they were. Joel recognized the cleverness in all this. He had seen his teachers use history the same way for their own progressive purposes. Joel’s thesis on that paper was that Clark had perverted history for the purpose of manipulating the fear of the American people and advancing his own agenda. His work had earned him an A+ and the realization that he had a gift for understanding politics and history.
Right or wrong, Joel had conflicted feelings about his work on Clark’s election and of Clark’s career. His analysis and academic decimation of it had led to his own academic and, so far, professional success. His grandfather, as misguided, bigoted, and nationalistic as he was, still was a loving and kind grandfather. It was his work, his money, that had put Joel through college and graduate school. To have hurt his grandfather so was painful to Joel. Even now, as he waited in line for airport security, Joel could not understand how such an educated and gifted medical doctor, with a passion for helping others, could be so wrong about American history, politics, and ideology. It did not make sense.
“But you weren’t there! Good God, we were fighting for our own survival,” Joel remembered Abe ranting on more than one occasion, “To hell with the Goddamned Chinese! They hit us first. This is after they had financed and supplied the Jihad against us. This was after they had tried to finance our own destruction through that dumb son of a bitch Leakey, and then those little yellow bastards had the nerve to sucker punch us!”
“Of course now, Joel, it’s easy to look back and say it was one of our greatest moments, but at the time we were scared for our lives. Our backs were up against the wall.
“It was on an Easter Sunday of that year. Those lousy, little ChiCom bastards tried to one-up the Japanese Empire, I guess. They hit us at 0500 Pacific Coast Time. It was a multipronged attack. For all their faults, they are a disciplined and precise people. They hit Seattle, Hawaii, and about every major port on the West and Gulf Coast. They hit most of the air bases in California. Hell, they even occupied San Francisco and the surrounding area for a time, from the base that that jackass Leakey leased to them. They attacked our southern border as well from their Mexican bases.
“Had to have been the bombs that woke me up. My eyes popped open that morning and I had a feeling that something was wrong. The rumbling in the distance, you could even feel it, sounded like thunder. There were all kinds of sirens going off. I reached over for my tablet and logged on to the news. Oh, Joel, it was as if the world was coming to an end; and, actually, for many Americans, it really was.
“Around ten or so that morning President Clark addressed the nation. He reported the damage to our country and he told us of the demands made by the People’s ‘Republic’ of China. The ChiComs weren’t looking to destroy us. Oh no, that would be like killing the golden goose for them. In exchange for financing all of Leakey’s bullshit reforms, that jackass gave them the best that this country could produce. It was like opening the front door of our house and saying, ‘Come on in. Take whatever you want.’ Leakey called it a ‘patriotic’ labor tax. The proper term is slavery. They took oil; they took technology; hell, they even took people! American prisoners were sent off to Chinese labor camps. Leakey gave them land. United States soil! Two military bases in California, all the bases they built in Mexico, plus the jackass let them take full possession of the Panama Canal. American industry was shut down or not allowed to start up, so we had to import Chinese-made goods at high prices. No, the Chinese bastards gave Leakey and his bureaucracy the money, but the American people were paying for it.