Power Games: Operation Enduring Unity I (18 page)

North Central Florida

5 March: 1130

US General McDowell couldn’t sit still any longer. Everywhere he looked government troops secured one sensational success after another. All federal forces except for his command, that was.

“God Damnit!” From his perspective, he deftly and methodically advanced his unwieldy horde into Florida. His troops crushed any minor resistance encountered with decisive and overwhelming force. At the same time, they took every precaution to avoid unnecessary losses, especially to civilians. No matter how much that slowed them down. This perfect operation should have been the highlight of the general’s career and not the most embarrassing moment.

McDowell buried his face in a map, doing his best to ignore the politicians cluttering his headquarters and trying to catch his eye. To the bigwigs around him, he plodded slowly and ineptly down the center of the state against little resistance, with no politically vital, spectacular successes to show for it. In the age of TV war, that was tantamount to defeat. His unit’s greatest accomplishment so far was capturing Lake City, some evacuated little town in the middle of nowhere, and only 60 miles from the border.

Conversely, another federal task force took Jacksonville by H-hour plus two.

“Sir, check it out!” McDowell faked a smile for his excited staff while watching the disgusting television feed streamed over the internet. The news hailed that other federal commander as a hero for so swiftly relieving the surrounded naval base and liberating a city of a million people. All without a shot fired by either side. The rival general’s live interview, explaining the intricacies of his tactical brilliance, was interrupted by an even greater disaster to the west.

Tallahassee had fallen.

Which was the worst possible news of all. McDowell always hated that impudent ass from VMI who commanded the Panhandle Task Force. Sure enough, McDowell watched from his aid’s tablet as his career-long archrival reached new heights of grandstanding. Ever the showman, he must have planned this well before the invasion kicked off.

The other task force general posed on an M1 tank turret, in his spotlessly clean full battle rattle, and surveyed the “brutal battlefield” around him. He wore every ribbon, badge and medal from his Class A dress uniform attached to the body armor. A light machine gun rested casually under his broad shoulder, the belt removed from the ammo box and looped impractically over the weapon. His unit’s standard, carefully shredded by some staffer to appear “battle worn,” waved defiantly from his left hand. The stub of an unlit cigar in the corner of his mouth completed the ensemble.

McDowell’s command team snickered at the ridiculous, borderline disrespectful fool. Most of the millions of civilians watching missed out on the humor. The general was clearly some awesome fusion of Chuck Norris and John Wayne. Raw, pure Americana baddassery personified. The camera shook with the operator’s excitement. These were career building, history book type shots right here.

McDowell crossed his arms and ground his teeth. “Jesus Christ. The show’s just getting started.”

Behind the federal general, someone had removed the Great Seal of Florida that flew over the dome of the Capitol building. In its place, they raised a colossal 25’ x 40’ American flag, confiscated from some used car lot, on a brand new pole. The crane doing the heavy lifting would later be Photo-Shopped out, but the four soldiers struggling, Iwo Jima-style, to guide the flag into place would stay in.

Just as the cameramen and producers orgasmed, four F-15’s flashed by in a perfectly synchronized, high-speed flyover. Better than the Super Bowl. Some singers were already recording country songs about this. The already cheering crowd roared louder and spontaneously sang the Star Spangled Banner. With mostly the right words even. A million flags waved hysterically; red, white and blue fireworks burst over the capitol grounds. Tears and hugs were passed all around.

General McDowell struggled to keep his breakfast down. Even his junior soldiers muttered in discomfort. The senior senators and congressmen in the tent with him shook their heads in disgust at the general they foolishly decided to ride along with. McDowell’s second in command hung up a satellite phone, frowning.

“Was that the White House again?” The general didn’t make eye contact with anyone.

“Yes, sir. They want to know what the holdup is. I told them you were inspecting the front and it would take a moment to transfer the call. I suggest we–” One congressman in the corner couldn’t stand it any longer.

“General, are you going to keep hiding from the enemy like you do from your president? You were supposed to represent the sharpened heart of the liberation force. You outnumber these rednecks several times over, and they’re not even fighting back! How many more opportunities do you need? You could end this war today if you would only have the courage! If you were half the leader…”

The senator didn’t need political instincts to realize it was time to shut up. McDowell’s murderous glare made that clear. This fabulously rich man had never been close to physical danger in his entire life, but something in the soldier’s suddenly loose stance told him he was just one careless word away from serious bodily harm.

No one, of any rank, spoke for an uncomfortably long time. At long last, the general said the one thing no one expected.

“Ha! I think I finally figured it out. We’ve been drastically overcomplicating this mission from the get go. I see it now. This whole ‘last stand’ of the enemy is just a stunt. The politicians on the other side are exactly like ours. They want one great big glorious battle to show their resolve and bring the other side to the bargaining table. We’ve been treating this like a real military operation and forgot it’s all a damn game. A deadly game, but bullshit just the same.” He spoke louder, so that the whole tent could hear.

“Let’s see how they like it when the pawns move on their own. Where’s my G-3?”

A grinning colonel leapt up, notepad in hand. “Ready, sir.”

“I need you to organize a
FRAGO
. We’re going to push south as fast as possible along every major road. Third Brigade will continue down the interstate, secure Gainesville, and then Ocala but stop before making contact with the enemy’s main body. First and Second Brigades will move east and west of them. I want them broken down into battalions, companies even, if necessary. Whatever will enable our troops to cover as much ground as fast as possible. They need to move as quick as they can and then some.” His officers looked skeptical, but the general only looked more thoughtful.

“Yes, speed is the key. We’ve about five hours before sunset. I want Orlando surrounded by dinnertime. If we set up our FOB here in Lake City, we can leave the slow support trail and most of the vulnerable artillery, engineers and air defense assets in one safe, central location. Slimmed down to pure combat power, the maneuver units should be able to make it. Yeah, that’s the key. We need to own as much real estate as possible by nightfall.”

McDowell clapped his hands behind his back, savoring his Patton pose.

“Come morning, the enemy will be left a lonely island in a sea of federal troops. Tomorrow we’ll push on to Miami. In 48 hours, these rebels will be an army without a country. What choice would they have but to surrender? Maybe some little negotiation, but they won’t have any good bargaining chips. Total victory, without the big bloody battle these ghouls want so much. That’s the goal. Work up the details, Colonel. I want our people moving in 20 minutes.”

To his credit, the general fostered an open debate atmosphere among his command staff. No one was afraid to challenge the boss. “Sir, that’ll leave us terribly vulnerable. Our reconnaissance has been badly hindered. I mean, there are gaping holes in our intelligence profile. We don’t know for sure that all the enemy’s strength is waiting south of Ocala. If we move as rapidly as you envision, our units won’t be able to support each other. Our greatest strength is numbers, and we’ll be giving that away.”

“You vastly underestimate the superiority of our men and equipment, Colonel. Troops on the offensive enjoy a formidable morale boost. No, we’ll have no problems overcoming any little surprises the enemy might be able to muster. Come on, gentlemen. We’re talking about weekend warriors and untrained civilian levies here, not real soldiers.” A few heads nodded around the tent.

“As long as the bulk of the rebel forces stay concentrated while we’re dispersing around them, then any temporary success they have anywhere else won’t change the final outcome. We just have to adapt and overcome. We’re wasting time, everyone. Get our boys moving!”

A great commander realizes the key to high-level leadership rests with knowing exactly the capabilities and limitations of his unit. He will make sure that his command is simply never placed into a position where victory isn’t likely. A poor commander knows his unit’s strengths and weaknesses as well, but assumes that by some force of his will and/or his own tactical brilliance he’ll somehow always generate victory under any circumstances.

The former is a craftsman who carefully shapes the project in a way that can be managed with the tools and resources at his disposal. The latter believes that a square peg can fit into a round hole with enough force and determination. That physics is merely a matter of morale. In the rare occasions where he’s successful, both the peg and hole are left permanently damaged and useless.

The first peg to be flattened was the federal army’s Seventh Cavalry squadron. Those 500 men lead the First Brigade’s mad charge south along Highway 41. They advanced in parallel to the main thrust on the interstate, just a few miles east, but might as well have been a hundred miles away. There was no coordination with any other unit. The troops were as fired up about the race as their commanding general. Everyone wanted to be the first into Miami. Liberate all those beach bunnies.

A cavalry squadron is basically a slightly larger, faster moving and armor heavy battalion sized task force. The mailed fist of the modern battlefield. Their specialties are so-called “reconnaissance in force” missions. Using a battalion of 27 M1a2 TUSK tanks, the cutting edge Abrams mod with all the bells and whistles, 39 equally souped-up M3 Bradley’s, an armored mortar platoon and 6 armed OH-58 Kiowa helicopters all as a light recon force was just the type of gentle, subtle touch the Army was famous for.

Their organic Kiowa air support drew first blood. Flying in three pairs, each a mile apart and several miles ahead of the Squadron, they enjoyed a bird’s eye view of the enemy. These were small and old helicopters, first seeing action in the Vietnam War and practically obsolete. Just like old soldiers though, there’s a reason they were still kept around. They’d proven themselves deadly.

At the I-75/ Hwy 41 junction in the middle of nowhere, four green and brown FDF tanks unwisely deployed on top of the overpass. The open location was perfectly situated to cover the east/west and north/south approaches. It was just too tempting to have an elevated field of view in a state that was so hopelessly flat. A great firing position to engage the enemy at maximum range.

Perfect, except that maximum visibility cuts both ways. Those 16 ex-soldiers manning the recently requisitioned tanks didn’t pay attention to how silhouetted they were. None of the Florida volunteers noticed the long range missiles fired from the low flying scout helicopters until far too late. Every man on that overpass had been out of the Army for several years before rejoining the Minuteman Brigade. They struggled to readjust to tactical thinking. When they died, they thankfully went to a better place that didn’t require such attention to detail.

The scary thing was that the antitank missiles on the choppers were mere accessories. Even destroying a fair fraction of Florida’s armor in a matter of seconds was merely a fun bonus project. Only after their million dollar thermal imaging sets, mounted on a mast above the rotors, displayed scores of poorly camouflaged armored vehicles in the strip mall behind the overpass and in the surrounding woods did the crews activate their scout platforms’ primary weapon: the radio.

Normally, a few magic words spoken into that black box would bring down the wrath of God, delivered in the form of fast movers or massed artillery. These were far from normal times however. With the general’s maniac demands to reach the next town by yesterday they were operating well outside the range of artillery support.

Those guns were still sitting 20 miles north in Lake City and not going anywhere. As for air power, well, no one even bothered forwarding air support requests higher. No mission would ever be approved in this built up civilian area. Instead, miles back, the Squadron’s commander methodically redeployed his company sized Troops. He was going to have to do things the messy way.

One of the Kiowa’s hovered in place a little too long while examining some strange roadwork. The old highway must of had some potholes freshly repaved, judging from the heat signature. After all the route clearance operations they’d flown in Afghanistan, none of the crew believed in coincidences. Just as the gunner clicked his radio on to report the possible mines, a Stinger missile lanced out from the roof of a cheap motel half a mile down the road. The pilot dumped all his flares at once and dived for the deck.

He damn near made it.

His wingman raked the source of fire with a .50 cal. Too late to save the flaming Kiowa, but it at least made them feel better. After confirming there were no survivors from their leading helicopter, the other birds fell back to cover the flanks of the advancing ground element. With the goals of finding the enemy, determining his strength and general disposition completed there wasn’t much point in risking themselves now. It wasn’t their job to make the final kill.