Soldier Up (13 page)

The Sergeant Major came to the Colonels office, “Sir we have the Dublin Chief of Police at the front gate he’d like to talk to you.  He’s on foot with a couple of his officers.”

              “Let them through and once they get here send them right in.” said Colonel Clayton.

              “Sir,” the Sergeant Major said.  “The mechanics got two HUMVEE’S (HMMWV) running, but we had to use parts from the underground storage facility to do it.”

              “Roger that Sergeant Major, can someone pick up the Chief of Police in one then?”

              “Yes Sir that’s why I mentioned it.”

              “Ok, send someone to pick them up.”

              About ten minutes later the Sergeant Major escorted the Dublin Chief of Police and two of his Officers in to his office.  Colonel Clayton approached the men and shook each of their hands while being introduced.

              “It’s nice to meet you Chief what brings you here?” asked the Colonel.

              “I got a report that some of my men ran into a couple of your patrols, what’s that all about?” the Chief was coming across as confrontational.

              “Yes Chief I sent out two A-Teams early this morning to try to confirm what might be happening.” said the Colonel staring down the Chief.

              “Your teams refused to obey the Officers orders I can’t have that and they were heavily armed.” said the Chief.

              The Colonel could see where this was going and he needed to nip it in the bud real quick, “Frankly Chief I don’t give a flying fuck what you or your Officers think.  My men did what they were ordered to do.  From what I understand your Officers ordered them to surrender their weapon and that just wasn’t going to happen.  Now Chief we can have a great working relationship or not, that’s entirely up to you.”

              The Durbin Chief of Police was not used to anyone talking to him like that, “Fuck you Colonel this is my town.”

              Colonel Clayton laughed, “Chief you had to walk to the post on foot how effective are you and your men right now?  My guess is Zero! How many reported in or reported in and left? And do you have any idea what’s going on?”

              “Well Colonel I’m going to need as many of your vehicles as I can take.” said the Chief.

              “Chief the only thing you’re going to get is my foot in your ass as I kick you boys out of here and off this base. I take my orders from the Department of the Army or the President of the United States and you’re neither, now get the hell out!”

              “You’ll regret this Colonel I swear it, all of your personnel are restricted from entering Dublin.” said the Chief.

              “Chief as of this time Dublin is under US Military Control, you want a gun fight we can do that too, I promise you will lose and you will die. I have no problem with that.”

              The Chief looked around the room and at the Colonel, he thought about his quick ride over he saw what looked like hundreds of armed Soldiers.  For all he knew there could be thousands and there was no way he and a handful of Officers were going to stop them, hell he didn’t even know what was going on. The Chief sat down in the chair across from the Colonels desk with a thud and a huge sigh, “Fine Colonel have it your way, what the hell is going on?”

              “That’s the first reasonable thing you said since you came in here,” said the Colonel. “Can I offer you and your men some coffee?”

              This perked up the Chief, “I would love a nice cup of coffee about now.” The Officers who were with him shook their heads yes enthusiastically.  Colonel Clayton called for the Sergeant Major who walked in armed to the teeth, carrying a side arm and M-4 Assault Rifle.  “Yes Sir, problem?”

              The Colonel shook his head chuckling, “No Sergeant Major, can we get our guests a cup of coffee.”

              “Yes Sir right way.”

              Colonel Clayton then went on to explain to the Chief and his Officers what they believed was happening, he answered all of his questions and brought him up to speed on the local hospital and the other potential issues that were going to happen over the next few days and weeks to come.

              “You’re sure of this Colonel?”

              “I’m as sure as I can be Chief, like you we have no communications with the outside world.  Look around you; it looks a lot like an EMP event to me as well as others who are familiar with the symptoms.”

              “To answer your other questions Colonel I have about half a staff right now, either they didn’t report in and that could be because they live too far away or they wanted to stay with their families.  I have about twenty Officers right now for the entire city.  And that’s just not going to cut it as you know.”

              “Thanks Chief now we have something to work with.” said the Colonel.  “On your way over here did you see any cars running on the road?”

              “Nope not a one.” replied one of the Officers.

              “The two car dealerships that sell some of the older cars down a few blocks did any of you try to start any of them?” asked the Colonel.

              “No why?” asked a puzzled Chief.

              “We have a bunch of POV’s that are running, well not a bunch but several.  They started right up.  Look for older vehicles like old pick-up trucks with no computer electronics, I can send a team out with you to help you and your men locate some vehicles if you like?”

              “You’d do that even after how I just spoke to you?” asked the Chief.

              “Yes of course, listen I get it your under a lot of stress, the shit just hit the fan and your concerned about being able to do your job. We have to work together Chief, its sink or swim altogether.”

              “What can I expect from the US Army?”

              “We will do what we can to help, but our primary positon is that we are here to defend the US from enemies foreign and domestic.  Within the coming weeks we are going to see a huge number of people leaving the San Francisco area heading in all directions.  They’ll be hungry and thirsty and looking for help, what you need to decide Chief is what you can do for your people that live here now.  These people that will be coming will be desperate and some will do whatever they have to, to get what they want which includes kill for.”

              “You think it’s really going to come to that?” asked one of the Officers.

              “I do Officer very much, we need to secure the city’s water sources and look for any additional source for the future and try to secure that.  Whoever controls that controls the population.”

              “Colonel you really need to talk to the Mayor.” said the Chief. “Now you’re getting into something the Police have no interest in.”

              “But you do Chief, absolutely.” stated Colonel Clayton. “Soon water is going to become gold people will be fighting and dying over it, so yeah it’s a law enforcement issue.  Here’s a suggestion to the civilians you can pass on; put out anything they can to catch rain water or moisture in.  For big storms clean out their old trash cans, it’s not like anyone is coming to get it anyway, but a plastic bag in them or leave them empty and boil the water. “

              “Those are great idea’s Colonel, you really need to talk to the Mayor.” said the Chief.

              “I’ll try, but let’s get you started on getting some squad cars that run. You’re going to need some manual pumps in the long run to get gas from gas stations or syphon it out of other cars that don’t work. 

The first day of the end of the world as we knew it was a long one, and the first night it was going to be a long one for the average Joe and Jane.  No electricity, no running water, maybe or maybe not a way to cook food, many people would have camping equipment or RV’s and would feel secure for the night.  Others would be locked away in their homes with no idea what to do.

              Over the next few days the population of Camp Parks grew and grew with the families arriving.  Most of these families were amazing and pitched right in to start helping to set things up, they were also instructed to bring what perishables they had as well as canned food, it would all be added to the food bank for everyone. Yes, some people kept some of their food but they weren’t going to send out the food police, the feeling was peer pressure was going move them along. 

              There were also Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Air Force personnel who were on leave or passing through that were now stuck, they were reporting in single or with families.  Camp Parks was a US Military post and would accept all US Military personnel with or without families. 

              The Soldiers were integrated into existing Army units, the Sailors were sent over to the Seabee’s who were on drill and now integrated with everyone else.  Much of their equipment worked, many of their vehicles were EMP hardened and or many of their vehicles were all engine and didn’t have any modern electronics.  The Air Force personnel went out to the airfield where they were able to get half dozen planes to work or that already worked. 

As of a week ago they had one Marine, now there were almost twenty-five and out of that was a Captain and a couple of Lieutenants, there was one Gunnery Sergeant that was Force Recon the rest were lower enlisted.  They now formed their own platoon, almost all of the Marines were combat MOS’s, some had families but most didn’t. 

              One of the issues was there were mess facilities on post and there were US Military Mess personnel there but not enough to handle the large influx of people on post.  This is where the military spouses really stepped in to help. 

There were schools being set up for the kids who may have thought that with everything going on school was over forever.  Nope, the families were reaching out to the school district, well what was left of it and getting teaching materials such as books and other supplies.  If the schools were empty they simply took the items they needed and left notes behind telling them where it all went and who they could contact.

Over the last few days patrols had been reporting looting especially the gun shops those were emptied.  Colonel Clayton didn’t want to get into looting but he also felt that if they didn’t secure as much as possible it would be gone and most of it wasted.  He talked to his staff and they all agreed they needed to secure as much as possible to bring it on post for use by them and the local civilian population, he sent out the two platoons of the 184
th
, the Marine platoon and some of the Soldiers from the 91
st
.  They sent them out to secure the Costco and Walmart’s in town as well as any others that were close to town.  Once they secured the stores they started to haul it all back to the camp and put it into the warehouses, they also hit the pharmacies, many of them had been looted, but there were areas of the pharmacies that were secure the looters couldn’t get into but the US Army could. 

Things were starting to get a little scary after the first week out of the wire, the teams and squads running patrols were taking fire, it was unfortunate for the people that fired on the Soldiers and then tried to stand their ground they were quickly outgunned and cut down.  Anyone exiting the wire with weapons had rules of engagement, which were primarily defensive. 

Colonel Clayton was very big on showing the flag and the presence of the US Army, he even found a couple of buglers that could play Reveille in the morning as the flag was raised by the guard detail and retreat in the evenings as the flag was lowered.  As far as the Colonel was concerned as well as the Officers and NCO’s, it may have been the end of things as we knew them, but the US Military would continue to drive on and do their Job.

As they entered the third week a convoy of vehicles with 105mm Howitzers arrived from Walnut Creek, the unit was the 1
st
Battalion, 143
rd
Field Artillery.  The vehicles where M35A2 2.5 Ton trucks, some POV’s and a few other military vehicles that they had gotten to run.  They brought everyone and everything with them and the kitchen sink.  The unit had been contacted by one of the three man teams from the 19
th
Special Forces Group that Colonel Clayton had put together to reach out to other military units, regardless of branch.  The purpose was to consolidate what units they could and convince others to come to Camp Parks. The Colonel reasoned that they as a group needed the military might of the US concentrated in at least one area for now to be able to project power.

One of the three man teams was sent to make contact with the Marines Reserve, 4th Battalion Force Recon, 4
th
Marines in Alameda but there had been no word from them in days.  Another team went to San Bruno to make contact with the Marine Reserve, 4
th
Marines, there is a rifle company, a HQ company and a UAV company (not that they have a lot to do now).  No word from them either, but it had been a couple of days so the Colonel was doing his best to be patient.

There were eight-hundred and fifty-three Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Air Force personnel at Camp Parks now many with families.  It was a sizable force but it was a big camp it could handle more, with more service members coming in everyday.

As for the Dublin Police Force, after they had gotten their new squad cars a few weeks ago they started patrolling a bit more but were severely restricted by their lack of fuel.  They hadn’t quite gotten the hang of getting fuel out of their own fuel tanks that were located on the Police lot, however they had gotten real good at syphoning fuel from other cars.  They turned to more foot patrols and bike, but when they got into trouble they really couldn’t call for back up.  The civilian population was in one way becoming more dangerous, there were lots of guns on the street, but the amount of ammunition was finite.  The gangs were still there and still fighting over turf, which was stupid because there really wasn’t much to fight over, but their numbers were dropping, when one was wounded in a shooting or knifing, they died, there was no ambulance coming to rush them to the hospital.  Some of the gangs had run out of ammunition and were now fair game to other gangs that had some. 

Other people who were somehow still waiting for the Government to come and rescue them, these people had also become gang bait; people the gangs preyed on for their own survival.  These people didn’t ever believe in guns had done their best to vote them out of the State of California and were in total denial.  Even though they could see people dying almost every day in front of them, it was sad really. 

Some neighborhoods had joined together for mutual defense which was so far the best civilian strategy there was.  Those neighborhoods were well armed, well organized and in some cases trained as very small militias, but who knows what would happen when they were challenged.  Some of the teams and squads form Camp Parks had gone into these neighborhoods to make sure everything was going ok.  Most of the civilian neighborhoods were very happy to see the Military patrols, they knew when the patrols were present anyone that was looking to hurt them was far away.  The military had vehicles and firepower and could call for backup; some of the gangs had tried to take them on, when that happened Colonel Clayton sent one of the infantry companies to clean out the entire neighborhood.  In some cases the military leveled the neighborhood when there was a large gang presence that was threatening other areas.

The ValleyCare Medical Center the first two weeks suffered horribly, every person who was in an ICU or a child that was in the PICU died, there was no way to keep them alive.  Tom Lowell resigned as the CEO because he found it devastating hard to make many of the life and death decisions, even though it wasn’t his job.  The senior staff found it equally hard to make the decisions believing there could be legal ramifications if they allowed someone to die, they still didn’t get it that the legal system they knew was gone.

The issues were huge; there was only so much medication to go around, such as insulin.  The quandary is who do you give it to? A child who has potentially many years of life ahead of them or the elderly that had potentially a few years left, where do you draw the line when you have to pick.  Several wanted to give out the medication to everyone hoping more would somehow turn up, others wanted to give it to everyone and when it runs out it runs out they all die, most believed they should be giving it to the young because they had the most to lose, which was the final decision

It was difficult for the medical staff to go from advanced medical care where they depended on computers and other advanced electronics to treat people and keep many alive, to treating people using techniques from sixty years or so ago.  For Cancer patients who needed radiation therapy that died when the power did and patients with pacemakers some lived and some died, it all depended on the pacemaker and how much metal shielding it had.

Colonel Spears brought in temporary butane refrigerators so blood and medicines that needed refrigeration got it.  He also had butane stoves brought in; lantern’s anything and everything they could think of.  There were plenty of butane containers throughout the area that weren’t looted so they were gathered up by the Soldiers and stockpiled specifically for the hospital.  The military generators were still running and providing light and other services.  Some of the Marines had come up with an ingenious idea for a new pump that would allow them to get the fuel they needed out of the gas stations and other fuel storage devices.

Word was spreading about Camp Parks and what it might be able to offer people, it offered them hope.