Soldier Up (14 page)

A week later the two teams that Colonel Clayton had sent out to find the Marines in Alameda and San Bruno came rolling back in the main gate in their DPV’s.  Behind them was military vehicle after vehicle it looked like it went on for miles and probably did.  They rolled up to the Camps HQ were Colonel Clayton was waiting for them, the guards at the gate had telephoned and let him know there was a shitload of vehicles on their way.

              The SF Soldiers arrived first and exited their vehicles, marched up to the Colonel, came to attention and saluted, the Colonel returned the salute.  “Get lost boys?” the Colonel asked.

              The Soldier’s smiled at their Commander, “Sir Oakland and San Francisco are hell, literally hell,” said Master Sergeant Healy. “People are doing their best to get out of the cities, there’re thousands and thousands of refugees heading out in every direction.  We had to work our way through them, people were stopping us everyone and asking for help, especially help for their kids.  When we arrived at Alameda the Marines were under attack by huge gangs that were running everyplace.  It’s like the city has been divided up by the gangs and they are now hundreds strong.”

              Master Sergeant Healy was looking at all the trucks roll in before continuing, “Sir it was bad still is, we fought are way in and hooked up with the Jarheads, but damned if it wasn’t a lot easier to get in then out.  Once we got in they wanted to know where the hell we came from.  I told them all about what we have here and gave their CO your letter Sir.”

              Colonel Clayton said, “Well you got them here, that’s what’s important.”

              “Not everyone Sir they lost about a dozen or so men defending the place and getting out.” said Master Sergeant Healy.

              “How’d you get out?” asked the Colonel.

              “Well Jake and I here, went over the wall one night and planted all sorts of explosives around the Marine Barracks, then we took up sniper positions.  The main force of the gangs attacked at sunrise and we blew the shit out of them, and then started picking them off.  That’s when everyone in the Marine Barracks made a break for it, as they exited they were firing at everything that moved.  I gotta believe Sir when they broke out, they left hundreds dead.”

The Colonel nodded his understood, “Sir not to be the bearer of bad news but all those refugees a lot of them are heading this way.”

“How many?” asked the Colonel.

“Thousands Sir Thousands.” said the Master Sergeant.

The Colonel turned to Sergeant First Class Peterson, “What’s the story in San Bruno?”

“Pretty much the same Sir.  The Marines there were holding their own, but it was pretty grim there too.  There’re refugees’ there were heading out in all directions including our own, their looking for food and water.  Sir, we saw a lot of killing and rapes, we tried to stop it when we could but there was only the three of us and it wasn’t the mission.”

“Try not to worry about it Sergeant Peterson, you’re right it wasn’t the mission, always mission first.  So how many came with you?”

“Sir,” said Master Sergeant Healy. “A hundred Marines and about a quarter have families.”

SFC Peterson replied, “Four hundred Marines and a quarter with families.”

              “What’s going on at Moffett?” asked the Colonel.

              Master Sergeant Healy said, “Sir we couldn’t get close there were so many refugees there it was unbelievable.  There were probably a dozen or so armed gangs mixed in with all of the people there.  The base was being overwhelmed.”

              “Do you think it would make sense to fly into it and see if we can make contact with them that way?” asked the Colonel.

              “That would be an option Sir, but if we have to evac by land we will have to fight our way in and out.” replied the Master Sergeant.

              “I don’t have a problem with that but let me think on it.” said the Colonel.  “Alright guy’s thanks for the update I appreciate it.”

              “Colonel, me and Peterson were talking something over.  We noticed on our way out and back in that there are a lot of RV dealerships with all them empty RV’s, Campers and trailers just sitting there.  Why don’t we start towing them in and using them for housing?” said the Master Sergeant.

              The Colonel raised his eyebrows, “Thank you Master Sergeant we hadn’t considered it if anything we might be able to provide some housing to the refugees gathered in front of the gate. Thanks again guy’s, get the vehicles turned in, weapons cleaned, and grab some chow.”

              Once the Colonel was notified that the Marines were on their way in he contacted the Marine Captain, Captain Jack Shultz, and told him that some of his brethren were getting ready to join him and for him to high tail it over to HQ.  Captain Shultz was a bit confused who exactly his brethren were but he was ordered were to report to HQ so he hustled over there.  Once there he saw hundreds of Marines rolling onto post, he was one happy Marine.

              Over the last few weeks outside of the main gate hundreds if not thousands of refugees had settled there.  They were living in tents mostly; some only had sleeping bags and were camping out under the stars.  It was a very large refugee camp and they were there mostly for security, there were unsavory types in the refugee camp who tried to riot and overwhelm the main gate onto post.  But Colonel Clayton and his Senior Staff had recognized early on that areas around the post could be breached by large groups of refugees who would knock down the gates.  They sent out the Seabees to reinforce the areas throughout the post which had kept them very busy.  It was a very large job and it required help from other units on post. 

              That was accomplished by the end of the week; every week a different unit was relieved of their current duties, unless essential to the running of the camp, and rotated in to help the Seabees. The refugee agitators were dealt with harshly by the military as a whole, if armed and they started anything, they were arrested and sent packing, they were told if they returned they would be killed, if they tried to fight they were killed.

              With the help of the Dublin Police Department an office was opened at the refugee camp to help the military control the refugee problem which was growing daily.  There wasn’t enough food and water to feed everyone.  Some people had serious medical needs and were sent over to ValleyCare but there was only so much they could do too.

              Colonel Clayton ordered as many GP Medium and Large tents set up in the refugee area that they could spare.  He had holes dug for latrines and then structures built over them; they set up a local government within the camp to help with the communication between Camp Parks and Dublin.  The current Mayor of Dublin didn’t really like this, but he was the fifth Mayor in just three months, so he wasn’t taken as seriously if Majors weren’t changing like someone changed underwear.  Three Mayors had been shot and killed when they tried to mediate when food riots broke out, one Mayor just up and left never to be seen again.

              Dublin had gone from a population of over 79,000 people to about (estimated) 15,000 which included the refugees around Camp Parks.  People left when they couldn’t get any food or water they headed out to other parts of the country by foot, bike, motorcycle or a car if they had one that ran.  How far they got in a vehicle was unknown.  Most of the people left within the first three weeks and didn’t realize then that Camp Parks would become the security for the region, what security it could provide.

              The large tents that were set up were to be used for families first, two families per GP medium and three to GP large.  He also had tents distributed to singles and couples that they had taken from the stores around town.  Now the military being the military wasn’t going to let them set things up any old way they wanted, they had the tents set up dress right dress.  They had small trenches dug around each tent for water drainage. 

              They were using the military generators at night only to provide lights; there were butane lanterns, refrigerators, and stoves.  Many of the refugee families had food but most didn’t or water.   The Seabees and other engineers that the Colonel had been able to recruit to help, the trade was they could live post, got to work on solving the water problems.  They got down to the Dublin Water Authority and looked over all of their schematics for the area.  Again, they came up with ingenious ideas to get water flowing into town with the tools they had, they all figured the Romans did it two thousand years ago and were able to bring water to millions.  Two thousand years forward they were sure they could come up with better ways to get water and they did.

              It took time to get some water flowing to the Camp but they did via aqueducts they built, using windmills to get at ground water and more.  They had water which was the good news but there were still careful and conserved when possible.  In the refugee camp they had taken another lesson from ancient technologies.  They built several fountains throughout the refugee camp which were turned on at certain times of the day where people could get water.  At first the military provided five galleon containers to people so they could get water and keep it.  That lasted as long as the supplies of those containers lasted, but one thing people found was that those were generally not items looted and found them at local sports stores still in stock.

              Regardless people found ways to get the water from the fountain back to where they were staying.  The next obstacle that was how to feed everyone long term, that was partially solved by growing crops, they had plenty of seeds to grow anything they wanted.  They had enough food, plenty actually, to get through the first winter, then they were plowing up any fields they could with the help of the Seabees. 

              They would need firewood so people in the refugee camps stared to cut down whatever trees they could find.  It would be stacked and stored for everyone to use, wood burning stoves were in high demand, and Colonel Clayton sent out his squads to look for them but had no clue where to start.  The military had their own diesel burning stoves which were generally used inside the tents, but they could also be used as wood burning stoves.  They set up quite a few in the refugee camp but warned them about leaving them unattended in the tents and fire extinguishers were a must.  It still didn’t stop all of the fires though; Camp Parks did have its own fire station, the fire engines no longer ran, they out fitted a couple of the military trucks to act as fire engines, it carried several barrels of water that could be pumped into a hose to help put out a small fire, several of those trucks could put out a large fire.  The trucks were also stocked with all sorts of fire extinguishers and other equipment that you would find on a fire engine.  Innovation, innovation, innovation was the new key to survival.

              Those trucks were still operated by fire men and women, they had stayed as long as they could live on post, the fire station there served Camp Parks and the refugee camp. 

With success come problems.

Word had spread about Camp Parks, which was causing a refugee crisis at the post.  More and more people were leaving areas for security reasons then food and water.  Many of the neighborhoods in San Francisco, Hayward, San Bruno, Union City, Oakland you name it had become increasingly under attack by large gangs which in effect had become small armies.

              These small armies were run by war lords, the descriptive term used throughout history, regarding a man or woman who ran rampant through areas pillaging and raping, then killing anyone who disagreed with them.  To an extent they could be compared to ISIS or Al Qeada during the wars, which conquered large swaths of territory using strength through arms and intimidation. The war lords for now steer cleared of Camp Parks and for the most part Dublin although they were knocking on the door.  Up to this point Colonel Clayton and his Senior Staff had been monitoring what was going on outside of Durbin but had taken very little action.

              The largest confrontation they had so far was the securing of Moffett Field; they had flown one of the aircraft into the field, which surprised the hell out of the command there.  The aircraft was large enough to carry a full A-Team and its weapons; this also happily surprised everyone there.

              The A-Team Detachment Commander, Captain Alexander Reid, met with the Moffett Field Commander Lieutenant Colonel Oscar March.

              “Sir,” said Captain Reid. “Need a bit of help?” smiled the Captain and shook hands with the Colonel.

              “Well Captain I don’t think you’re men are going to stop that crowd out there.”

              “No Sir we won’t, I’m here to give you a heads up.”

              Then all of a sudden gun fire was heard at the main gate to Moffett, then the sound of a heavy machine guns, something like a ma deuce followed by more small arms fire.  “Sir, can you get word out as quickly as you can for your people to get their heads down, I think the Colonel arrived a bit early and that’s them knocking on the door.”

              “The Colonel? Knocking on the door?” said the Colonel.

“Sir, just spread the word please.”

              With that Captain Reid and his men took off at a run towards the gun fire.  The pilot and co-pilot secured the plane.  Colonel March turned to the pilots, “What the hell is going on?”

              “Sir we suggest you get the word out, we don’t want anyone getting hurt who shouldn’t.  All of your questions will be answered soon.”  The Colonel returned to his office and sent runners throughout the post to notify the various commands and asked them to keep their heads down and don’t engage. 

              By the time Colonel March had gotten the word out the combined forces Army and Marine had already subdued the gangs at the main gate and moved through it.  Within minutes they arrived at the Headquarters building where Colonel March’s office was.  Colonel Clayton got out of his vehicle and walked towards the building entrance.  Colonel March met him there holding a 9mm Berretta, pointing right at Colonel Clayton, with this the men with Colonel Clayton raised their weapons and pointed them at Colonel March.

              “Who are you?” asked Colonel March.

              Colonel Clayton looked down at his uniform, pointed to the tab that read US Army then pointed to the other tab that read Clayton, and then pointed to the Eagle on his lapel.  “Any more questions?”

              “We still have an Army?” asked Colonel March.

              “Yes we do and the Marines, who are over there, I wouldn’t piss them off though.  We have an Air Force and Navy too.” replied Colonel Clayton.

              Colonel March slowly lowered his pistol, “What took you so damned long to get here?”

              Colonel Clayton laughed, “Damn Oscar I didn’t even know until a few days ago what was going on here. I came as soon as I found out.”

              The two men smiled and hugged each other; they had been good friends for years.  Colonel Clayton’s men lowered their weapons while shaking their heads saying just loud enough, “Fucking Officers.”

              Colonel Clayton called a quick command meeting, he ordered the commanders from the various units to spread out and check out the rest of the field, if they run into any resistance eliminate it and secure the field, then to let him know when they were done.  A collective, “Yes Sir.” and they all turned and left.

              The Colonel’s headed into Colonel March’s office where Colonel March had been living.  He had no family to speak of and had dedicated himself to the Army and the 63
rd
Regional Support Command.  “What happened Oscar?”

              Lieutenant Colonel March sighed, “The 341
st
MP’s are doing the best they can, but they are only a company if that.  A lot of them left to protect their families then there’s the Pysch Ops boys over at the 7
th
who were are all but useless.  It’s a tough nut to crack trying to secure all of this especially when we’re connected to a civilian airport. How’s Camp Parks?”

              “Secure for the time being, we have about 1,000 troops Soldiers and Marines, a couple hundred Sailors, and a hundred or so Air Force.  We’re supporting the families too.”

              Colonel Clayton when onto explain the situation at Camp Parks, the logistics, man power, everything.  Colonel March was impressed and told him so, most of the people under his command were either ready to die here or move out on their own. 

              Colonel Clayton invited all military personnel and their families to Camp Parks; he stated that he wouldn’t be able to leave any sizable force behind right now to guard Moffitt, not now at least.  If they wanted to go back to Parks they would need to take everything they could carry or drive back with them, everything.  Colonel March thanked Colonel Parks and told him he would get with Moffitt’s units and find out what they wanted to do today, if that was ok and then let him know NLT tomorrow morning. 

              Colonel Clayton told him he would be more than happy to meet with any of the unit Commanders and talk with them if he needed them too.  He made clear though, Camp Parks and all military personnel were still part of the United States of America, which meant they were still part of the US Military and they still a had a job to do.  Colonel March couldn’t agree more, knowing this also brought some normalcy back to their lives. 

              While Colonel March was out talking to the area Commanders; Colonel Clayton made checks on his own units, they reported back they had secured the rest of the base without any further incidents.  At the main gate there were wounded civilians who were caught in the crossfire between the various gangs who wanted a fight with the military, who were more than happy to accommodate, and who paid a heavy price with their lives.  Fortunately most of the civilians that were injured were not hurt bad and were able to be treated and released.  All of them wanted to know if they were staying in the area, they were told no they would be moving on in the morning.

              The civilians told of the gang armies that were heavily armed and were running rapid through the cities, women were being raped and children made slaves.  In some circumstances they were reporting cannibalism, no one was safe.  There were horror stories to be sure and Colonel Clayton knew something would have to be done soon to help people; he just didn’t have a plan yet.

              Around 2300 Colonel March found Colonel Clayton hanging around a CP that he had set up which was actually just a few offices down from his own.  He was amazed, he had radios and radio operators, they had generators running for electricity and most of all they had coffee brewing.  His staff had put up some maps of the area which showed Moffett Field and the surrounding area.  On it were marked the military units on base as well as where his own units were set up.  There was radio traffic coming in with the status of each unit.  It was running like a military organization was supposed to be.

              “It’s unanimous they all want to go to Parks especially after the show today, can they have another day to pack it up though?” said Colonel March.

              “Sure take a couple of days if you like.  The A-Team that came in by plane will be taking off in the morning and they can let my XO know we will be a couple of days behind them.”

                “That’s great John, by-the-way we have four running Bradley’s what should we do with them?”

                With that news Colonel Clayton almost spit his coffee out his nose. “You have Bradley’s?”

              “Yeah I just said that.”

              “Why aren’t you using them?” asked Colonel Clayton.

              “We tried but damn near killed ourselves doing it, after trying a few times we gave up.” replied Colonel March.

              “What? C’mon they aren’t that hard to operate.  Do you have ammo for the 25 mike mike? Do any of them have TOW mounts and if they do, do you have the missiles? Do you have the 249 for them too?” All of these questions came rushing out of Colonel Clayton.

              “Geesh, yes, yes and yes, actually plenty of ammo as far as I know for all of them.” said a smiling Colonel March.

              Colonel Clayton hustled back into the office and told his staff to find him four Bradley crews, we got a lot of infantry types and I’m sure some have got to know how to operate a Bradley.   Within thirty minutes four Bradley crews reported to the Office, three Army and one Marine.

              “You boys sure you know how to operate the Bradley’s?” Colonel Clayton asked.

              Each man answered in the affirmative, all of the men stated that one time or another they had been part of a Bradley crew and knew the vehicles very well.  Colonel March showed the men were the vehicles were in storage.  He told them they were started once a month for the last year but hadn’t really moved.  They were here for to help protect the airfield but the never got the crews for them.  The men climbed onto the vehicles and then crawled inside them.  Luck was still with them as each vehicles engine turned over and roared to life.  The doors were open and they drove them out to the armory where they could pick up their basic ammo load and the 249’s. 

              Once they had their basic loads they went to the fuel point, where the new pump was installed and topped off the vehicles.  Then drove them over to HQ as they were driving up Colonel Clayton thought they were one of the most beautiful things he had seen in a long time.  He told his staff he wanted the Bradley’s position at and along the main gate, he wanted them to see the firepower, “That’ll make them think twice,” he thought to himself.

              It took three full days to get all of the units who were going back to Camp Parks loaded up.  While the units were busy packing Colonel Clayton had instructed his units to scavenge anything not nailed down that they could use.  They had even brought five empty fuel tankers and topped them all off, no point in leaving fuel behind.  They took everything from the PX, which was actually a lot, it wasn’t looted as bad because it was on post, the men and women on post had certainly gone through it but only taken what they needed.

              They went through the mess and medical facilities and took everything they could, it was almost like Christmas.  On the morning they were leaving to go back to Camp Parks he had received a radio call from one of the squads that they had found something he really needed to see at one of the bases fire stations.

              He ordered them to move on and get back to their units that they were moving out, but the men were insistent that he come and see it.  Fine, he told them, he had them sit tight since it was on the way out he would stop by to see what they had and to pick them up.  He didn’t want to hold up the convoy too long it was almost fifty vehicles long, with two of the Bradley’s out front of it and two at it rear.

              At 1300 the convoy moved out heading to Camp Parks, but had one more stop to make, the fire station, Colonel Clayton wondered what the hell could be so fricken important.  The convoy stopped a couple of hundred yards from the station.  Colonel Clayton got out of his vehicle and into the back of one of the Bradley’s, couldn’t be too careful.  The men could have been compromised and the entire thing could be an ambush, he thought if that were the case it was unlikely that attackers had any anti-armor weapons.             

              The three other Bradley’s moved to positons back and sides of the station with the Bradley the Colonel was in headed straight for the front.  As they got closer the front doors that allowed the fire engines to exit the building were opened.  The Soldiers stepped out signaling that everything was alight.  The Bradley with the Colonel in it pulled alongside the front of the building and dropped its rear ramp.  The Colonel walked out and looked at the men, then looked behind them, “Wow!” was all that came to mind.  There in front of him was a vintage 1936 Maxim Fire truck in excellent condition.  “It runs too.” said the squad leader.  “We sort of figured since Camp Parks didn’t have a real fire truck we could take this one, it’s all topped off and ready to go.”

              Colonel Clayton walked over to the truck and ran his hand along it, he wasn’t some sort of fire truck enthusiast by any means but he could certainly appreciate the beauty of the truck.  “Yes, yes by all means, great find men.  Who’s gonna drive it?”