Power Games: Operation Enduring Unity I (21 page)

5 March: 1830

1-6 Infantry Task Force raced east along Interstate 10. Racing, by the standards of armored vehicles, meant a convoy speed of 45 mph. Even at that breathtaking pace, they were less than 15 minutes away from the I-10/US 90 junction. Once they could occupy the intersection they’d cut off those small, retreating Guard units coming from Jacksonville and annihilate the militiamen pouring in from the coast. Slaughter they would; they were loaded for bear.

Even running in both directions of travel the unit couldn’t be all seen at once. The 30 M2 Bradley
IFV
’s, 14 M1 Abrams tanks, dozen
M113
’s, including a mortar platoon and 20 some odd trucks and Humvees bringing up the rear were still spread out over a mile. It was an impressive site to behold, and beheld it was.

As soon as the battalion entered the bottleneck of the Osceola National Forest, a series of spotters began making cell phone calls. The most lethal of which came from a forward air controller perched in a forestry fire watchtower. Without even setting down his cappuccino, Starbucks and not instant, since he wasn’t in the friggin’ Army, he ran the prey’s speed and location through his hand held computer. With a few short code words over his radio he ordered death as casually as regular people order a pizza.

Fifteen miles farther east, an assortment of 16 prop-driven Cessna’s cruised at tree top height. They resignedly acknowledged the targeting information and began climbing as fast as mechanically possible. Each had been hastily modified to carry and fire, with somewhat reasonable accuracy, four Hellfire antitank missiles.

These top of the line and hideously expensive missiles, as well as their targeting accessories, were in plentiful supply thanks to the politicians. When the governor requisitioned the large stock of advanced ordinance at the sprawling Lockheed Martin complex in Ocala, Florida business leaders screamed murder. They were happy to contribute to Dimone’s campaign, but that sense of civic mindedness disappeared when real sacrifice was required.

Appropriate aircraft were also ubiquitous in a state full of retirees with plenty of time and hobby money. The only things in short supply were pilots willing to fly them. Donating your insured plane to “The Cause” was one thing. Risking your precious, irreplaceable ass something else entirely.

All things considered, these sixteen reasonably competent and mostly sober pilots were an impressive turn out for such a Hail Mary endeavor. Unknown to them, their “suicide mission” became a lot safer even as they popped into radar detectable height and braced for enemy jets to pounce them.

A hundred miles north, the Feds’ E-3 AWACS, watching for just such low altitude threats, shut off its powerful radar and dived for the deck. A pair of long range, PAC-2 surface-to-air missiles closed fast on its tail. The giant radar plane had been circling a few miles inside the Georgia border and over watching all of North Florida. No one on the planning staff ever expected some clever National Guard Patriot missile unit would be deployed so far forward.

The Patriot battery crew on the ground, cut off by the speed of the federal advance and temporarily forgotten by their command, didn’t wait to see if the plane and its 22-person crew survived. They packed up immediately, but it was too late. Both the plane and missile crew were already dead despite their desperate attempts to escape. An orbiting fighter spotted the outgoing smoke trail and let rip a
HARM
missile at the source. The pilot howled when he received permission to follow up his strike with a regular bombing run on the first call. Without the big “eye in the sky” giving him directions, he never saw the real threat below him.

The Cessna armada leveled off roughly parallel with the interstate. Impressively, the amateurs kept a tight formation. The crudely fashioned targeting displays in their cockpits didn’t allow for much manual selection. All they could do was point the mini radar in the approximate direction of the mass of targets four miles west and 5,000 feet below. They rippled off their payloads with the help of some last minute adjustments from the ground spotter network. Praying that the $100,000 fire and forget missiles had at least some targets within their narrow engagement envelope.

None of the vehicles barreling down the highway noticed the barrage. The barrage of smoke trails blazed only a kilometer away before the first soldiers noticed. A few quick thinkers popped their automatic smoke grenade launchers, hoping to blind the weapons’ sensors. That saved a few lives, but there wasn’t time to do much about the supersonic missiles homing in on them. Most of the crews never knew what hit them.

None of the giant, 72-ton main battle tanks leading the formation were hit. They all had “low profile” heat kits installed, making their thermal signature drastically smaller. To the mindless heat seeking warheads, they represented a much less inviting target than, say, the Bradley fighting vehicles packed with helpless infantrymen behind them.

A couple of missiles misfired and failed even to launch from the makeshift racks. Nearly half that launched failed to find a target and, of those that did find some prey, several rocked the same vehicle. Nevertheless, the strike utterly destroyed 16 random Bradley’s in seconds. One hundred and forty men were killed or seriously injured without ever knowing what hit them. With far more luck than the rebels had hoped for, both the battalion commander’s vehicle and the executive officer’s track were shredded as well.

Most of the task force halted and dispersed as much as possible along the road while trying to extract the wounded from the burning, twisted death traps. A 26-year-old company commander now found himself in complete command of the battalion with far from complete information. He pushed his scout platoon ahead, backed up by the tank company, while he tried to reorganize the shattered core of his unit.

The advance party encountered the first roadblock only a couple miles short of the objective. Local police and armed civilian volunteers laid down an impressive volume of small arms fire on the lightly armored scout Humvees, but quickly lost their nerve with the first blast from a tank. They scattered so fast the soldiers believed it had to be some type of trick, part of some larger ambush strategy.

The tanks were unwilling to leave the open road without infantry support and were convinced the road ahead was mined or otherwise somehow a death sentence. There was just way too much strangeness happening today. They took up a defensive posture against the unknown and radioed higher for guidance.

The young captain turned battalion commander received the report just after having his second request for air support denied, or delayed as some staff officer said. Apparently, the poor Air Force was spread a little too thin and stressed out. Helicopter support was likewise out of the question until air superiority could be reestablished. Far too many whirly birds had already been blasted out of the sky by the surprising resurgence of Florida aircraft.

The boss weighed his options. Either take the objective by driving forward into a likely dug-in enemy of unknown strength or follow the book by breaking contact, rallying in a safe area and coming back with overwhelming strength. He made up his mind when someone shouted “incoming.” A pair of stretcher-bearers nearby, and their wounded cargo, disappeared in a cloud of flame and smoke. The whole task force broke contact by companies while the mortar platoon thumped out a smoke screen to make life harder for the enemy artillery spotters.

Less than 10 miles away at the targeted road junction a river of rebel reinforcements poured into Lake City unmolested from the east. Two armed civilian “regiments” and a few light National Guard/Reservist companies suddenly entered the equation just when the Feds thought they had it solved.

To be fair, thousands of refugees headed in both directions along the highway, but those semi-organized militia regiments were clearly visible. Miles above them a pair of FA-18’s, loaded down with precision laser and satellite guided munitions, circled and reported all they could see. What was so clear to them was not so self-evident to the senior officers many miles away. To give the order to engage and risk killing innocent civilians, American civilians, was a responsibility none were willing to shoulder.

The US military had always been sensitive to civilian casualties, but previously were willing to accept the losses if they took reasonable efforts to mitigate the risk. This would be the first time they would let humanism cripple combat operations. The sad thing was, even this hesitancy, this acceptance of higher military losses in exchange for protecting noncombatants, wouldn’t save civilians from having the brutality of war dumped on them.

5 March: 1900

Embedded in a front line unit, Jessica couldn’t summon the same excitement as her editor a thousand miles away. The first armed confrontation between two state National Guard forces since the Civil War might make for a wild show, but the real story was here in the headquarters. Unfortunately, her interviewee didn’t agree. Congressman Alfred Eliot was too fired up about seeing “the rebels brought to justice” to just sit around the command post and palaver.

So, like a true professional, Jessica ignored her better judgment and accepted his invitation to ride along with him to “the front.”

A mile short, Representative Eliot hollered at his driver and flashed Jessica a thumbs up. “Slow down; let me pump up these guys.”

Eliot lowered his window and waved at the federal troops waiting on the side of the road. “Onward to Miami! Give ‘em hell, boys!” The cheering was all in his head.

The congressman sped away from the silent soldiers as soon as Jessica’s cameraman snapped a short video. Jessica forced a polite smile. He wasn’t the only camp follower around, but out of the thousands of politicians, celebrities, activists of every stripe and ambulance-chasing lawyers tagging along with the Army, the congressman stood unrivaled in idiocy.

Annoying or not, Eliot did possess an uncanny sixth sense for where the action would come from. With all the major fighting farther south, he seemed to be the only person, in or out of uniform, worried about the mixed Florida Guard and paramilitary force coming from the coast.

The staff at the federal command post, far more interested in the surprisingly stiff resistance encountered by the main body, gently kicked him out. They were all so confident that the Georgia Guard, backed up by US airpower and the bulk of the division’s artillery stationed in town, could deal with this rag-tag flank attack.

Congressman Eliot was no military genius, but he did have a politician’s uncanny ability to sense weakness and opportunity. Historic weaknesses and photogenic opportunities.

Eliot fiddled in his seat like a kid on the way to Disney World. He poked his assistant wedged next to Jessica.

“Hey, do you think we can get one of the soldiers to give me a gun? Maybe get some photos of me from the top of a tank?”

His staffer pleaded with his eyes. “Hmm… yeah, I guess not. A gun might offend some of my constituents. Do we at least have an American flag somewhere?”

While Eliot and staff debated the most photogenic way to hold a flag, Jessica buried herself in making notes on her IPad. This whole damn operation was ridiculous. Borderline insane, even. Sending 50,000 troops to capture a handful of hotheads was the most wasteful and dangerous folly she’d ever seen… and she’d been covering Wall Street scandals and repeated taxpayer-funded bailouts for years. Didn’t the Brits try something similar way back when? It didn’t turn out so well for them.

From the few prisoners and locals she’d gotten a chance to talk to, not one called themselves a “rebel.” They all whined about having their backs against the wall. How they had no choice but to defend themselves. They were under attack by the mad president and power hungry Washington elites. How many of these combatants would just go home if the Army did? Half, for sure. Maybe most.

Of course, that’s not what her editor wanted to hear. She wrote several variations on that same story, only to have each one kicked back. An hour of raw interview footage with dejected militia detainees and confused federal soldiers was edited down to 60 seconds of defiant sound bites.

Jessica bit her lip, trying to find some way of wedging context into the 140 character Tweets her editor wanted sent every fifteen minutes. Why even bother? The battlefield was crawling with reporters like a tornado had struck a celebrity murder trial across from the Super Bowl while the Pope was visiting. All those journalists rushing about, but all throwing out the same click-bait reports. With so much money at stake in corporate news, the truth was often the first thing to be downsized.

Even with the gravity of the situation, she couldn’t help but smile when they arrived at a Wal-Mart, or the forward operating base of the Georgia National Guard Task Force as they called it at the moment. Far from getting an occupied territory vibe, the soldiers were the ones surrounded. A horde of protestors and camera wielding gawkers besieged their mini-encampment in the parking lot.

Eliot jumped out before the car even came to a complete stop. Jessica and her cameraman did their best to keep up. It was just dandy that the congressman had a stressed out security detail to keep the crowd at bay while searching for a way into the perimeter. Jessica didn’t have such support.

During their short hike to the gate, someone spilled a beer on her, another thoroughly lost reporter tried to interview her and someone else shoved a religious pamphlet in her hand while screaming about the Lord’s wrath. The cameraman on her hip bought a burrito, hit someone trying to pick his pocket and got flashed by a drunk girl who thought the camera was running. Except for the armored vehicles, a pretty typical Saturday night at Wal-Mart.

When they finally made it inside, the atmosphere in the National Guard camp was quieter. Quiet, but far from calm. Four camouflaged men and a skinny, shirtless man knelt zip-cuffed in front of the headquarters tent. A steaming Georgia National Guard colonel finished some little speech just as the congressman approached. Jessica’s cameraman had his own quick instincts. He started filming with a wide lens but left it dangling at his side.

Without a sideways glance, the colonel drew his sidearm and shot the cuffed and half-naked civilian through his right temple.

Representative Eliot’s gut wrenched and he skidded to a stop. Not from the sight of the gore, but from the realization he personally might have been caught in any camera shot. He relaxed a little when it was clear that the only camera around wasn’t recording. He waved for his security team to holster their weapons and began browbeating the colonel without introductions.

“Who the hell do you think you are? Your orders are clear that no one will be executed under any circumstances! This is still the land of the free!”

Eliot lost his righteous indignation when he remembered no one was filming. “Shit, Major or Colonel, whatever. Do you know how bad it looks if we start killing these hillbillies out of hand?” Jessica’s cameraman raced off to find a Wi-Fi spot to upload his soon-to-be Pulitzer Prize winning “rebel execution” clip.

The colonel finally stopped glaring at the body and holstered his weapon. He spoke as much to the soldiers crowding around as to the politician. “That was no rebel. We caught this meth head trying to pilferage our medical supplies. He scammed his way into the triage tent and stabbed one of my men in the neck when they surprised him stealing morphine. No, folks, this wasn’t an execution. That was justice.”

He crossed his arms and stared down at the uniformed prisoners. “I wish I could do the same to you. I never expected that my own men would try to sabotage our mortars and then desert. That’s worse than cowardice in the face of the enemy, in my book. You all are a disgrace to the uniform you wear and I will personally see to it that you spend the rest of your lives in Leavenworth!”

Inside the command tent, fifty yards away, the colonel’s young radioman couldn’t see or hear all the details going on outside. He knew several guys had been caught trying to desert or something. The rumor mill was all over the place. The colonel had stormed off to chew them out while muttering something about mutiny.

The gunshot outside crystallized everything. He wasn’t one of those soldiers that hated this mission and joked they were fighting against the wrong side. It didn’t matter either way. He tried to stay a professional just doing a job. He genuinely believed in the Old Man. His faith in the boss was unshakeable, or so he thought.

No one in Florida had ever shot at him, but now his own commander was killing fellow Georgians. Not that there was anything he could do about it. His job was to man this radio and document the reports received. Well, perhaps he could make a report of his own…

*

What the National Guard colonel regarded as an isolated case of sedition was a rampant disease throughout his unit. Georgians, like most Southerners, were fiercely patriotic. Proclaiming loyalty to your country is easy. Even traveling far overseas to fight other people that hate your land is fairly straightforward for a proud Southern man. To follow an order to kill your cultural kin, and in several cases throughout this South Georgia based battalion, your actual kin, just to show loyalty to a regime a thousand miles away was a different story.

Peer pressure, as much as professionalism, kept the guardsmen in their hasty fighting positions. Now, when that peer pressure turned the other way things got ugly. Some condescending report from the Tactical Operations Center that the colonel had executed a deserter and would do the same to anyone else that failed to carry out their orders changed the whole dynamic. Perhaps, in the heat of battle, the threat of death from your own side can provide a temporary motivational boost.

It has the opposite effect if the men have a little time to contemplate the threat.

The colonel’s personal assurance over the radio a moment later that no troops were executed only made things worse. What the hell was going on at the
TOC
? Were they lying then or were they lying now? Even the soldiers that defended the colonel’s draconian approach to discipline were put off by the idea of secretly killing their own men. The whole episode left a dirty taste in everyone’s mouth.

What started out as a mild heat of uncertainty in the mission and general lack of faith in their leadership achieved fever levels with the news from above. By the time the poorly organized Florida Defense Forces began to breach the east side of town, the entire Georgian’s unit cohesion teetered on edge. In every subordinate National Guard unit, NCO’s busied themselves breaking up fistfights among the junior enlisted men, even while suspiciously eyeing their own officers.

Individually, or in small groups, the whole Task Force soon decided what side they were on. Sitting in the crosshairs, they didn’t have the luxury of waiting on the fence and seeing how things played out.

The lines were drawn. The only question was who would make the first move?

Things likely would have calmed down and turned out quite differently if the first contact with the rebels came against a different Georgia element. In one of those fateful little mistakes in history, the advance FNG party missed their planned turn. Instead of entering town along a side road, a path defended by a loyal Georgian officer who hated the homeland of his ex-wife, the militia barreled straight into town along the main boulevard.

The captain commanding Bravo Company guarding that street had gone to college at the university down the road in Gainesville. He’d even married a local woman. His first sergeant grew up not too far away and his parents still lived there. Almost all of his soldiers had some connection to their neighbor land. From a favorite fishing hole to a sweetheart, no one wanted to kill anyone here. Those few soldiers who didn’t care much for Florida weren’t so passionately opposed as to break with their battle buddies.

The Florida militia gunner in the lead Humvee laughed when a federal officer stepped out from the shadows and stood in the street. He waved a white flag before a shot had been fired. The militiaman knew he was badassery personified when leaning back with a MK-19 in his hands, but it couldn’t be that easy. He nearly pissed his pants when his truck stopped and he got a better look around him. More than a hundred riflemen and a dozen camouflaged Bradley’s all pointed black barrels his way.

Even after the Georgia Guardsmen stood up, dropped their weapons and shook hands with the Florida militia fighters he couldn’t stop shaking. Had he ever come so close, without knowing, to such hidden death before? He hoped he’d never find out.

At the Wal-Mart down the road, the Georgian battalion commander shook as well, but for different reasons. In his anger, he forgot that not everyone was listening onto the battalion command frequency and knew about the surrender.

“Net call, net call. All elements: consider any member of Bravo Company an enemy combatant!”

He dropped the radio and spun on the mortar platoon leader. “Give me a fire mission on Bravo Company, ASAP!”

The mortar man, who didn’t know anything was wrong besides his commander going insane, glanced at the other senior staff for support. Most were too busy arguing amongst themselves to help.

“Uh, sir… I will not fire on our own troops. I don’t know what this is all about, but…”

The colonel’s radio operator started rattling off names of platoons refusing to comply. The colonel snarled and drew his sidearm.

“I won’t stand for any more treason, Lieutenant. Now which side are you on?” He raised the weapon for emphasis.

Some random private already had his rifle up. “Drop it, sir. I didn’t sign up for this shit! If you want to kill Americans, you’re as crazy as the president!” The click of his safety sliding off was hard to miss.

A supply sergeant appeared from nowhere and butt-stroked the private in the back of the head with his rifle. “Friggin’ anarchists!”

Some medic ran up to the crumpled soldier. The medic rocked back to his feet and roared at the supply soldier. “You broke his neck, you son of a bitch!” He snatched the rifle from the sergeant and swung it at his head like a baseball bat.