Power Games: Operation Enduring Unity I (16 page)

Florida Defense Forces Headquarters

25 February: 1300

The attitude inside of Florida’s Joint Forward Operations Center was even more chaotic than the storm outside. Several dozen personnel, including several civilian contractors and trusted volunteers, alternately screamed, pleaded or threatened into twice as many phones and radios.

In the eye of the storm, some six-foot colonel with a pro swimmer’s build attempted to stare down a lanky
S-3
officer. For the skinny guy, the big man was just one more bullet point on a long To Do list. He listened courteously, but with little interest, while trying to balance a laptop on his knees, a radio on the shoulder, a satellite phone in one hand and a coffee thermos in the other.

“No way the general signed off on that op order, Major. My brigade is the most experienced fighting force you have. We sure as hell proved that against those paratroopers up at Blanding. Seventy percent of my troops have at least one combat deployment under their belts and we’re at 98% preparedness, with nearly every single combat platform up and running. Despite all that, you’re telling me we’re being held in strategic reserve?”

He kept talking right over Gorgas.

“You’re going to let that disorganized militia mob form the center of our defensive line and that joke of a ‘Minuteman Brigade’ cover the flanks, while keeping us spinning our wheels back in the sticks!? I didn’t expect brilliance from a simple
staff
officer, but I expected at least basic competence!”

Gorgas wiped the colonel’s spittle from his computer screen and feigned confusion.

“That’s why we need a leader like you to bolster the line, sir.” Major Gorgas intentionally ignored the contribution of the blowhard’s unit in order to penetrate straight to the colonel’s ego. He kicked it up a notch by lowering his voice and letting him in on the “Big Secret.” The great big secret that should have been obvious.

“I think you deserve to know the truth, sir. Those vigilantes aren’t expected to hold the line. The Feds will plow right through them. The whole point is to get them to speed down here convinced they won’t encounter significant opposition. That’s when you’ll strike back. Our best commander, personally leading our best unit must deliver the decisive blow. Just like you so famously did at Camp Blanding. Sir, please, we need you!”

Colonel Beauregard pondered that for a moment. “Well, aren’t you a sneaky son of a gun. Ok, if the general wants me there, that’s where I’ll be. Carry on then, Major.” He showed the major a new measure of respect by returning a half-assed salute before strutting off.

Gorgas wasn’t the type to mull over confrontations and get all stressed out by them. He built his whole career on smoothing ruffled feathers, pampering delicate egos and just generally manipulating senior officers into actually doing their jobs. All the while being looked down upon as a cowardly staff officer.

To be fair, he was an oddity. The Army tries hard to rotate officers between staff and command positions in order to broaden their horizons… or to keep them from becoming competent at any one job, depending on your point of view. Gorgas had the dubious luck of always falling through the cracks. Training, planning, organizing, but in his 20 year career, he’d never once commanded soldiers.

The strange thing is he really was combat arms by training, an artillery officer. It was just that at every new unit he arrived in they never seemed to have a command slot available. So, they’d plug him into a staff support role while he waited for his chance. There he would always commit the same mistake: he’d do a good job. Just like in the civilian world, nothing keeps you from being promoted more than being irreplaceable.

That’s why he left the regular Army and joined his home state Guard. Pretty much the only chance he’d ever have to make lieutenant colonel someday. Then the president just ups and declares war on his home. Florida needed every leader they could get; surely now would be his chance. No dice. Turns out, building an army from nearly scratch requires a real organizer. Apparently, he was the man for the job, or so said everyone who didn’t want to do it. He never could catch a break.

He wasn’t particularly proud of the militia trick that impressed the colonel so much. That’s only a minor game that may or may not pay off. His success in unifying the new Florida Defense Forces is where his pride came from. The real trick was the Herculean task of organizing scores of independent National Guard and Reservist units, with widely varying grades of loyalty and motivation, as well as thousands of civilian volunteers into a somewhat cohesive army with a unified command, control and supply network.

But he did it. All in the span of just a few weeks and with hardly any funding, since the Federal Government wasn’t chipping in anymore. Organization might be boring. It definitely wasn’t sexy like clever battlefield tricks, strategic surprises or secret weapons. Still, all those cool things weren’t useful, let alone even possible, without an efficient foundation.

From the ancient Romans to modern armies, it wasn’t brilliant leaders or super weapons that were dangerous, but rather the simple bureaucratization of war that allowed killing to be so efficient. That’s what both won wars and made them so terrible.

It’s not the highly skilled, renowned sniper that’s the real threat on the battlefield. It’s the far seeing planning staff that puts him in the perfect firing position and the well-organized supply staff that ensures he has ample food and ammo. Those paper plans and background support are what makes sure that the war fighter can keep on killing. If a sniper is taken out, a new one could be simply reassigned to take his place. If that discipline and organization breaks down, then the fighters are as good as dead, no matter how well armed and courageous.

Of course, he couldn’t claim all the credit. Having General Cooper on board was a lucky break. The man was the closest thing America had to a respected general. The best part was, he hailed from Texas and wasn’t just a local hero. Should help to show the nationwide breadth of their struggle. So they hoped. If nothing else, his briefing style excited and motivated the civilians.

General Cooper was also the one who demanded a free hand from the politicians to prepare the Florida Defense Forces as he saw fit, and had the guts to keep them from trying to micromanage things. He even sold the idea of
not
taking every halfwit with a gun into the FDF. President Dimone’s now famous call to arms rallied close to a 100,000 volunteers in that first week! The politicians, as usual, wanted to take them all without the slightest idea what they were supposed to do. Throw them in human waves at the Feds? Hoping they ran out of bullets before we ran out of idiots?

Just feeding, equipping and paying, well, promising to one day pay, the 16,000 they did take was difficult enough. They were at the point, a bit past even, of optimal efficiency. Any more men and it would be necessary to cannibalize arms and equipment from other units and so dilute the supply chain that the army would be less combat effective as a whole.

He was surprised by the quality of these vetted volunteers. A good 60% were veterans, mostly young vets from America’s multiple 21
st
century wars. They had assigned most of them to outfit a second mechanized infantry brigade. The vehicles and equipment of that unit were courtesy of a sympathetic (or treasonous, depending on your point of view) Daytona-born captain of a massive container ship, who decided to make a short port call in Key West due to unspecified “mechanical problems.”

The beaming captain called his FNG brother-in-law and told him to find the highest-ranking person he could and come on down South. When the other guy mentioned he was way too busy for games, the captain switched on the video feature of his smartphone and panned over the cargo bay. Hundreds of vehicles, from tanks to trucks, and mountains of ammo pallets filled his mini screen. A complete heavy brigade equipment set, everything except the troops, returning from Germany and in route to Texas was just “requisitioned.”

Gorgas organized the rest of the civilian volunteers, virgin fighters but as motivated as you could find, into four light infantry “regiments.” About 2,600 carefully vetted men, and a surprising number of women, in each. Technically motorized units, if you count the 500 or so pickups confiscated per unit.

Frantic work done on a few to weld on light steel armor gave some crude protection. A great idea on paper, but the hillbilly tanks weren’t all that useful in practice. They soon abandoned the whole idea and agreed the vehicles would be best deployed as battlefield taxis. Speed and not looking so obviously like a threat were the best armor they could improvise. Better to spend the time doing as much hasty training as possible.

Their small arms were a mix of private weapons and whatever could be spared from police and Guard armories. At least almost everyone had a semi-auto rifle and ammunition was plentiful. They were a well-armed posse, but a weak army. Of course, if things went according to plan, these irregulars would never have to fight against the professional soldiers. Their whole mission was to penetrate the enemy’s lines and harass the rear areas. He wasn’t morbid enough to throw these amateurs up against veteran combat troops.

He did make sure to outfit every regiment with two professional National Guard officers to act as commanding and executive officers. At least one professional NCO was assigned to each subordinate company. Young ex-soldiers with combat experience in Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria were tasked as junior militia sergeants and officers whenever possible. Still, raw civilians with more guts than brains made up 90% or more of each unit.

Gorgas was inflexible about making sure everyone had uniforms, no matter how much Tallahassee bitched about the expense. Maybe just the old-style BDU’s, but it was crucial they had matching uniforms nonetheless. It was the best he could do in the short time he had to make them feel like a real army, part of something bigger than themselves.

A couple weeks of training, even as intense as their program, is simply not enough time to instill the levels of discipline, teamwork or confidence necessary to turn a bunch of civilians into real soldiers. To say nothing about teaching them marksmanship, field craft, or tactical drills. At least they were flooded with gung-ho paramedic volunteers. Something the major feared would be important when these regiments were thrown into the grinder.

There was one kernel of luck in this shit pile, at least. Enough civilian police officers volunteered to allocate one to each platoon. Their presence imparted a level of discipline, of professionalism and, not to put too fine a point on it, legitimacy not found in most armed mobs.

The few heavy machine guns, grenades, antitank rockets and other boom stuff the Guard could afford to strip from the regular units were kept centralized in a special company under the direct control of every regimental commander. Not terribly efficient, of course, but it was the best way to guarantee that the weapons and their tiny stock of ammunition would only be used during the most decisive moments of battle.

They also had some experimental weapons, like UAV guidance jammers and Hellfire missiles mounted on ground vehicles, but those were just unproven toys. With some luck, they might help a bit, but this fight wouldn’t be decided by technology. This battle would be won or lost by rifleman face to face with the enemy. All the other stuff existed solely to make sure those shooters could get in range of the enemy without being slaughtered.

In short, the whole thing was one of the most complicated strategic and logistical challenges in military history, and he almost single handily sweated it down to manageable size. The result? No one gave a damn! The importance and subtle intricacies of flexible organization, relevant training and dynamic control structures were apparently too complicated for these supposed leaders to grasp.

He took some cold comfort in knowing that, if his own side didn’t appreciate the sweeping changes he’d made to the Florida Defense Forces, then it wasn’t likely the enemy did. How much value would that surprise have? History was full of clever and carefully organized forces being stomped on by the side with more men and artillery.

Speaking of artillery, he waved the supply officer over. His whisper this time was genuine. This one was a bonafide secret. “So, Kamil, have our tropical friends come through yet? I’ve got six batteries worth of ex-gun bunnies on a tight training schedule rotating through the mockups, but we need the real deal. Combat is hardly the best time for initial gunnery practice.”

The S-4 smiled. “All 36 pieces were offloaded last night. They’ll be trucked off and deployed tonight. Your obsession with secrecy is what’s taking so long, but maybe you have a point. I don’t know how much the Cubans were paid, but they sent even more ammunition and spare parts than we were promised. Which is damn good, because I haven’t been able to find a contractor able to fabricate replacements on such short notice. We do have some options for self-manufacturing in the future. I found several places not only able, but willing to retool and copy these things, or any type of artillery for that matter. We just need more time.”

Gorgas shook his head as one of his phones rang. “I love that you’re thinking so far ahead, but if this drags on into a protracted war, we’re fucked. We can’t hold this thing together for much longer. Everybody’s dick is hard now, but that passion fades. Don’t forget, we have to pay for all of this eventually. At some point, all these IOU’s Tallahassee are throwing around will come due.