Nobody knew how it had leaked out. I guess we did too good a job. Some Fobbit SOB just had to send it to some friend on the Internet and then it had all gone bad. It had one of the highest hit counts on record on YouTube (which was back up). I tried to figure out if there was some way we could get residuals, given that we'd sweated blood for it. And were about to sweat more.
But that wasn't the problem.
Was all that force necessary?
They destroyed how much equipment?
Why was the equipment still there? Hadn't all the troops come home?
Why did we still have troops in Iran?
Are we still going to have to fight terrorists as well as the flu? Isn't it time for peace to have a chance?
Where had the Ghurkas come from?
Britain had sent an official query asking how an American unit had come to be in command of their troops. So had Nepal but that one took longer to be noticed. Except, as far as either knew, they weren't missing any Ghurkas. But they had on the right uniforms. They were even wearing kukris. (I told you there was some strange shit in that place. Hell, there were cavalry sabers and saddles and . . . You wouldn't believe the list. I wish I could have kept it but there was no fucking way.)
Congressional investigation. Congressional fucking investigation.
Except for one problem.
Witness A would be me. And I was in fucking Iran.
They wanted to video-conference me in.
It ended up with the Army Chief of Staff explaining. On national TV. Bet he loved that.
"By order of the President, we had over fourteen 'support and maintain' detachments scattered in as many countries around the world. Six were evacuated when the security situation reached critical. And in all six cases the equipment on site had to be destroyed or fall into the hands of the enemies of the United States. As of this date, there are two units responding, including the unit under the authority of Bandit Six. The other six units have all been lost. Two we do not know what happened to them. They simply stopped responding to requests for update. The other four are confirmed by reports at the time and satellite imagery to have been overrun. Total lost military personnel over one thousand, making it the highest KIA/MIA single action operational loss since the Vietnam War! One of them destroyed some or all of the material under their control. That was Bandit Six and he was under orders to do so rather than have it fall into the hands of enemies of the United States.
"I've been watching my men being overrun one by one sitting on material that has exactly no value to the United States under the current world conditions and you want me to explain why a captain and one company, a hundred and sixty troops, had to destroy the material in the face of SIX THOUSAND? Is that what you want me to explain, Senator? Senator, I'm glad my boys are ALIVE!"
Most of the damned session, as is normal with congressional hearings, consisted of fucking idiots talking about nothing and then asking a koan. Four minutes of the importance of the Health of Children Opportunity Bill followed by "Why did he use rock and roll music?" I swear, they must slip some sort of fucking psychodelic into the water in DC. But a few of the questions, from Republicans naturally, were on point. Okay, actually the best Q&A came from a Democrat.
"You were ordered to leave the equipment in place by the President?"
"Yes, Congressman. There was no logistical option. That is, we couldn't pick it up and bring it home. Things were and are in a situation such that disaster relief takes priority."
"Understood. And to bring back all but, and I quote, 'absolute minimum forces. No more than a company to be left behind.' Is that correct?"
"Yes, Congressman. That was the order from the President in consultation with the Secretary of Defense."
"What did you think of that order?"
"I was given an order by the Commander in Chief and carried it out to the best of my ability. In situations where a company was unavailable I tried to leave equal or better forces. Such as the SF battalion in Colombia which had the approximate firepower of a company. And which was the first we lost contact with."
"But what did you think of the order?"
"I thought I was being given an order, Congressman."
"You're a member of the Joint Chiefs, correct?"
"Yes, Congressman."
"And your job, as a member of the Joint Chiefs, is to advise the President on military matters. Were you asked for your advice in this case?"
"Yes, Congressman."
"And what did you advise?"
"Destruction in place and recall of all personnel. Barring that, choosing force levels sufficient to ensure security and maintain an ability for extraction."
"And your advice?"
"I was given a different order, Congressman. I carried out the order I was given."
"General, I was a captain in the Army, you know that, right?"
"Yes, Congressman."
"General, you left units scattered all over the world with no way to get home. No plan to get them home. Thousands of troops that could have been brought home if we just destroyed the equipment in the first place. I'm not asking about how you felt about the order. I'm asking how you felt about that situation. It's a subtle difference; I want to hear your answer."
"Congressman, I was ordered to leave guys out in the wilderness to die. The fact that we got back six of the packets is a miracle. If we get back Bandit Six and his boys or the unit in Kazakhistan it's going to be more of a miracle. How do you think I feel about that, sir?"
But the classic was:
"I don't understand why there are Chinese troops there, General. Can you explain that? Aren't they a risk for the H5N1 virus?"
They're Nepalese not Chinese. Look, let me show you a map. I thought this might be asked. See? Different countries. Good light infantry. Also some other contract personnel . . . Hoping to get them all back to the States for either residency or eventual repatriation when that becomes possible.
So the Chief of Staff was on record asking for me to bring back the Nepos.
But the Israelis were still balking.
Then The Bitch apparently got involved.
People had a different opinion of the world, and of soldiers, after the Plague. The good people of America were getting fed by soldiers every day. They were getting medical attention from the Army. They were, now, interacting with soldiers day in and day out. If there had been a military coup in late 2019 nobody, I think, would have batted an eye.
Sure, there were lots of bitchers about the government. And every bitch about soldiers was being picked up by the news media. Fewer were getting broadcast about people bitching about The Bitch. That didn't mean they weren't.
Warrick wanted me off the news. Big time. The "Lost Company" was now big news. Human interest. Actually, maybe it did make sense.
The majority of the print and broadcast media, Fox being an exception, was pitching us as murdering and destroying bastards. The "nineteen billion" number was repeated again and again. Along with suggestions that we'd fired on the civilians.
Fox was showing the RIFs pouring over the berm in an unstoppable tide.
Thing was, people still didn't have power and TV, period. But that didn't mean that stuff wasn't getting around. A lot of radio stations were back up. They were the main medium of news. I hadn't realized it at the time, but that really helped.
You see, most of the news stations were still "talk radio." And that had been dominated by conservatives for a long time. Liberals had tried again and again to break into it and bounced. You had to have some logic to be able to work in talk radio. Not to mention a sense of humor which tofu-eaters were notably lacking.
Oh, there was some backlash. Warrick had used her FCC and "Emergency Powers" to shut some down for "hate speech." Which got broadcast by others. Which had caused a bunch of questions in Congress. Which was getting restive under some of the shit she'd been pulling.
Elections were coming up. Everybody wanted to blame somebody else for the fucking disaster in the U.S. Deflect some of the fucking damage, politically.
The one group that was coming out smelling like a fucking rose was the U.S. military. The congressional investigations about my little destruction spree were supposed to kill that, to tarnish our image. Make it look like Abu Ghraib or some shit.
It was doing exactly the opposite and they quickly saw that. The Army, which was the only group that seemed to actually be doing anything for people, had been ordered to abandon its troops, America's troops, in wastes far from our blessed shores by the same woman who had screwed up every step of the disaster.
Warrick wanted us off the news. To get us off the news she had to get me back to the U.S. and into a quiet grave if she could arrange it.
But the Israelis were still balking. Warrick had pulled some shit about Israel in her time. She was not a fair-haired girl in their estimation. They shucked and jived very good. They'd gotten better spokespeople lately. Flu threat. Security problems. Flu.
Send a MEU?
The one in the Med was on its way back to the States. They'd done all they could do. And send a MEU for one fucking company? That would look great on the news. Helos, ground threats . . .
Fly us out?
From where? Abadan airport was too big for us to hold. Any airport capable of supporting planes big enough to fly us out was too big for us to guarantee security.
I got told by the 3 that somebody, I think it was the BC, had suggested dropping a Ranger Battalion in to hold the airstrip while we evacced.
Look, Rangers are tough. I went to the school. Yada, yada. But my fucking company had more firepower than a Ranger battalion. Rangers are always portrayed on the news like they're the heaviest infantry in the world. Not hardly, brother. Heaviest infantry in the world was a full up Mech unit with Bradleys. Next down the way is us. The Stryker boys. When you care enough to send the very best. Sending a Ranger unit to "support" a Stryker unit is like sending a PeeWee league to pitch for the Yankees.
The order, for once, was not micromanagement on her part.
"Tell them to get out of Iran and off of the news."
We were headed home.
But how?
Israel was saying not only no but hell no.
There was a port in Jordan down on the Red Sea. There was a bare possibility of getting a ship in there.
Only problem was, it was held by the wrong faction. And they were tough. We, possibly, with the help of Hussein, Junior, could have shifted them out.
But we'd take casualties.
And there weren't many ships.
Fly out from Jordan?
Again, no good airstrip and birds were blocked out, big-time. I think that the brass were, at that point, using us to stick it to the Bitch. Just being passive aggressive. "Can't do that, can't do that . . ." Wasn't sure how I felt about that at the time. Despite the hell we went through, I'm good with it, now.
Why? Because the Bitch needed to be taken down. Not by a military coup. By showing the American people what a fucking fruitcake they'd elected.
I don't get or like human interest. Back before the Plague, it had ruined all sorts of stuff. The Olympics for one. Back when I was a kid, you'd watch the Olympics and it'd be about sports. By the time I was a teenager it was all about "poor Bobby was born with a heart defect but he managed to overcome it and become an expert male syncronized swimmer!"
The fucking Olympics are about who wins and who loses. Period fucking dot. I don't give a shit if Bobby has a heart murmur. Did he get a gold? No. Fucking loser.
But, I don't get most people. The world's a very black and white place to me. That's good in a soldier. Not so good in a politician. And to be a senior general you have to be a politician. It just goes with the fucking job. You cannot do your job if you're not one.
Well, we were good human interest. Poor homeless waifs that, nonetheless, were carrying the flag. Good boys. Have a biscuit.
It pissed the hell out of me, but there you are.
Questions about the Battle of Abadan were opening up other questions. Why had the immunization distribution been fucked up? Why weren't we cracking down on the violence in the cities?
The latter had started to spill over. With most of the food shipments cut off, the gangs had been moving out looking for food, loot, women, whatever. There had been "encounters" between them and not only military and police units but some of the "random associators."
(Fox called them "local volunteer organizations" which was pretty accurate. Every other broadcast and print news organ seemed to call them "right-wing militias." This, of course, being a code for "Bad Dog! No Biscuit!")
Warrick realized her orders were being circumvented. But even the Mainstream Media couldn't always cover up that the people she wanted supported were mostly murderous thugs. So she didn't push the issue.
But she also didn't push for a crackdown. "Negotiate." "Collaborate." "Minimal force." Kumbaya. Whether, at that point, it would have worked or not, I'm not sure. But the point was, she was sitting on the fence as much as possible.
And things were getting ugly. Er.
So more and more questions were getting asked. Not congressional investigations. Oh, no. Democrat Congress. They could squash those.
Right wing radio? Oh, yeah. Fox? Some.
Internet?
Oh. My. Fucking. God.
It seemed like the whole Internet had shifted. Most places it still wasn't up. But the places it was up all seemed to be in the "red" zones. That is, fly-over country.
Things were coming up in fly-over country much faster than in the kumbaya lands. This was pitched by the media as some sort of plot. Possibly by the military.
Nope. It was just that the people in fly-over country weren't taking the shit that the "blues" were accepting. Governors were using state police, National Guard where they could get away with it and even "right-wing militias" to take back their cities. With very liberal Rules of Engagement.
Things were starting to resemble civilization in parts of fly-over country again.
The lower population density and survivablity, in general, also worked.
And in "blue" country, times they were achangin'.
Okay, maybe it's time to talk about California.
California is a desert. Not quite, but close enough. Southern California, at least. Northern much less so especially in the Valley. But southern California is a desert made green by much effort.
California was also densely populated. After the Plague it was still pretty densely populated. Temporarily.
Most of southern California's water came from a very complicated system of canals, tunnels and pumps. They had some local reservoirs, but mostly it came from way back east. They'd been in "drought" conditions (actually, quite normal conditions) for fucking ever. They were always short on water. And power. And everything else that makes for a modern industrialized society except people.
When the Plague hit, they lost a good half their population. It had a lot of people. It even had areas of high trust. But they were, pretty much, fucked.
California had a lot of agriculture, too. But much of it was dependent on irrigation. The whole Imperial Valley for starters. And there had to be people to run the irrigation canals and weirs and locks.
So they ended up short on food and short on water. Things got very ugly very quickly. Lots of low trust areas. Borderline civil control in a lot of areas already. No food. No water.
L.A. pretty much started to empty out by May. The only problem being, there weren't any better areas around. Water was scarce everywhere. And going east was just going into areas with less water.
San Diego was a bit better off. They had Pendleton Marine base and a Navy base there. The Navy ships, those that weren't tasked elsewhere, had big desalinators for water. Between the Marines and the Navy they managed to keep civil order. Wasn't easy. There was pretty much an invasion going on from Mexico. The Marines had machine guns.
A lot of people from L.A. headed south. Not all of them bad people, mind you, but there were enough that it mattered. There was a lot of killing in the areas south of L.A..
But it's a long way to San Diego on foot. And much of it is Pendleton, which isn't exactly overrun with food and water. There are a few streams. The term here is "dysentery." Which means you dehydrate faster than you consume.
Cars? California was the car capital of the U.S. The roads were choked. As in, not moving.
It was a fucking death-trap.
Marines and the few National Guard that had assembled did what they could. And a couple of NG units were wiped out for it. But something like two million people are believed to have died in the area south of L.A. That's on top of the estimated four million from the direct effects of the Plague.
Some made it over the mountains into the Valley. The Valley was better. Services were starting to come back, there was more water and such.
Then Fresno got hit by about a million refugees from Los Angeles. Most of them the toughest and meanest. Things were ugly for a while.
Estimates again. Deaths in the L.A. metropolitan area, total population about 12 million pre-Plague.
Four million direct effects. One in three again.
Maybe another four million in the first breakdown of order.
One million or so from secondary effects and secondary epidemics in the next four months.
Evacuees?
Well, Orange County, as of last census, has about a half a mil as noted. Rattling around like peas. Total L.A. metro area is a mil and change. Say a mil and a half.
And most of those went there after the Plague. Still not a bad place to live. If you're not addicted to water.
Like I said, it emptied.
Point is, a lot of the "blue" areas were like that. L.A. is worst case, but it's not completely off.
San Francisco got hit hard by direct effects of the Plague. Okay, one of the reasons, frankly, was AIDS. The drugs that HIV "sufferers" took kept them alive. It didn't rebuild their immune systems. But that was, at most, a couple hundred thousand. Nobody quite knows because the records were "secret" and nobody's bothered to dig out the no longer secret records.
But they had something like 40% mortality rate from direct effect. Worst noted mortality in the U.S. Reason? Nobody quite knows. See all the previous factors and reverse them is my guess. Low societal trust, healthy eating . . . Water, again, became an issue. They got it from across the Bay. Pumps weren't working. No water eventually equals death. Movement started, north and south.
South was The Valley again. The Valley had gotten hit, too. But there were big pockets of "high trust" zones. Suburbs, yeah, but farming communities, too. Those that hadn't gotten eaten by the suburbs.
The Valley mostly was able to absorb the refugees from the Bay area and even L.A. Not easily and the fringes in both directions got hit, hard. But they managed to absorb the blow.
Thing about it is, the Valley was one of the most conservative areas of California. The "blue" people from the cities were dependent on the charity of those evil "red" people. Who were clearly busting their ass to help.
Bottomline: Various and sundry effects of the Plague hit liberals hardest. Oh, the "poor" too. But if you look at the demographics of the Democrats they tended to be uppermost echelon of income and lowermost echelon of income.
The Plague, except for the tiny fraction at the very top, tended to hit both groups harder than middle class.
And if you looked at the demographics of the Republicans, they tended to be middle class.
There's one last point. Prior to the Great Depression, the Democrats were a minority party. The Grand Old Party (GOP: Republicans) had dominated every Federal office since the Civil War.
Hoover killed that. His response to the Great Depression was to tell people to pull up their socks and quit complaining. Not a functional response. People couldn't afford socks. It went over as well as "let them eat cake."
FDR simply did things that made sense to people. Oh, they were considered "communist" at the time, but they made sense. He put people to work. He made sure people got fed. He led. "A chicken in every pot" was his mantra. (Back then, chickens were high-cost food. They were hard to raise and focused primarily on egg production. The modern chicken farming industry was started at least in part by it being a "Hero Project" if you will.)
Warrick's response to the Plague had been:
Screw up the vaccination distribution. (The vaccine worked sometimes.)
Bitch about conspiracies.
Ignore all the experts on recovery.
Pour all her efforts into places that were free-fire zones.
Play the victim card.
Start seizing every business in sight and proceed to run it further into the ground.
Talk about the wonders of socialized medicine.
Talk about the environment.
Play the race card . . .
It was getting old. People were as tired of her "Plan for the Future" and "Conversation with America." They were tired of her waffling and she was starting to look a bit weird every time she was on TV. Like a robot or a brain-eating zombie. (Heavier and heavier doses of tranquilizers as it turns out. Good ones, too.)
Even liberals will see sense when survival was on the line. Just as a lot of Republicans saw sense in 1932. It's hard to call someone a "mindless myrmidon" or a "babykiller" when he's handing you food. And looks at your kid and gives you some more under the table.
Point is that a lot of good, devout, tofu-eaters were starting to go the other way. And the problem with unthinking zealots is, they tend to stay unthinking zealots.
When a long-term vegan has to eat meat or die, they have to rethink their morals. When a PETA "animals are people" lover has to kill and eat a house cat to survive, they then have to justify their choice. To themselves if to no one else. Ditto some long-term gun-hater who gets a gun for self-defense fighting her way out of L.A. and has to use it. Multiple times.
And if they are truly unwilling to adapt, they just die.
A conservative is a liberal who's been raped. There'd been a lot of that in places like L.A.
The Plague and the depression that resulted were causing a lot of grasshoppers to choose being ants or die.
Warrick was looking at taking her place in history next to Herbert Hoover crossed with Saddam Hussein.
The last fucking thing she needed was her former radical liberal tofu-eaters, now quickly becoming radical conservative fire-eaters, swooning over a company of Hellenic Mold Heroes cut off in Iran.
I was told, later, that my "winning looks" had a part to play in all this. Given the sexual orientation in some of the "switchers" I'm not sure that was a good thing.
And the Brass was being notably passive aggressive.
Then I got The Call.
So there I was, trying to stay away from the flies . . . Really, it was the only reason I was lolling around in bed. Oh, that and that it was, like, 2AM again.
And the phone rings.
"What now?"
"Sir, you've got a call."
The on-duty RTO wasn't real happy. It was either brass or reporters again.
"I'll be right over."
"It's . . ."
"I'll be right over."
So I sit down, wearing my best uniform and at least half awake.
Guy comes on. Colonel in dress uniform.
"Captain Bandit? Stand by for the President."
"Roger."
Oh, holy FUCK. No, no, no, NO!
Yes.
So there's the robot bitch. And to add to the misery, there's the fucking Chief of Staff and the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State on other screens.
I'm a captain. They're the Gods. This was not going to be good no matter how it turned out.
Look, yes, I hated the Bitch. Still do. But she was, after all, the President. Anybody who sits in that chair carries a certain mystic chill. The weight of history, etc. She was sitting in the same position as George Washington and Lincoln and Reagan. Yes, she looked as if she wanted to eat my brains. But she still was the President. Making fun of her in abstract was one thing. Looking her in the eyes was another.
I resolved to put the words "robot" and "zombie" out of my lexicon.
"Captain, I'm told that all standard conceivable methods of extracting your force are impossible to effect at this time."
"Yes, ma'am?"
"And you have . . . issues with moving your troops over to Israel."
"Yes, ma'am. The security situation in southern Iraq is notably unstable and the Israelis refuse to accept my Nepalese attachments or the local contractors. It would be . . . dishonorable to simply leave them behind. I hope to get them to the U.S. Barring that, to some area of relative safety."
The "security situation" I'd thrown in just to throw her. But the Nepalese were a major telling point.
The "Ghurka Meme" had infected the reports. Overnight, it seemed, we turned from being evil murdering destroying bastards to "heroic fighters." You see, the news media had noticed that we had little brown brothers we were helping. That made it all right and good.
Getting the Nepos out was probably right up there with getting us out in her mind.
"So how are we going to get you home, Captain?"
"The Ten Thousand, ma'am."
"Excuse, me?"
Yeah. Shows how much she knew about military history.
Group of Greek mercenaries from various city states at one point hired out to a pretender to the Persian throne. This was between when they'd kicked Persian ass at Thermopylae and Marathon and before Alexander ended up teaching the Persians who was the real boss.
Their side lost. Not far from here, again. Hey, there's a lot of history in this area.
Anyway, they ended up fighting their way home. Look up "Anabasis."
What I was proposing was the same thing.
We were going to march to the sea. The Black Sea in this case. Well, part of it. Sort of.
"Anabasis?" the Chief of Staff asked.
"Yes, sir. Bosporus, actually. I think the Greeks might be more willing to take us in."
"Turkey is not willing to permit your movement," the secretary of State said, cutting off that suggestion.
"There is no Turkey," the Chief of Staff said, giving him the exact value he deserved. "How are you going to cross the Bosporus, Captain? There's a very unfriendly Caliphate in the way."
Fuck.
"Dardanelles?"
"No bridges."
"Cross that strait when I come to it," I said.
The Prez might have been a fuck-up but she wasn't a complete moron.
"So you're suggesting that you march through Turkey to Greece, Captain? Can you do that?"
"Yes, ma'am," I said. Fuck it. I was fucked anyway. If the Chief of Staff didn't like it he should have sent me a fucking MEU. Or something. "I have sufficient supplies to take the full unit, including attachments, to the Bosporus. And beyond."
"The security situation in Turkey is not the greatest, Bandit," the Chief of Staff said.
"Yes, sir. Duly noted. I'm better prepared than the Ten Thousand and I've got better troops."
The last was debatable. Those Greeks were kick fucking ass motherfuckers. But I had to say something.
"Approved. Break this down."
That was it. No "good luck." Nothing. Just "Approved."
You know, Johnson used to get on the radio and order around companies. We lost that war.
Then there was the question of the Greeks. Would they let us in? All of us?
"Oh, sure. No problem, buddy. By the way, could you bring some supplies?"
There was one Greek government. Not four. One. All the surviving ambassadors agreed and there was even a U.S. Embassy still open. They'd had some major issues, still did. But they were, well, the Greeks. Sure, they hadn't won a war since Palatia. But they'd been fought for and over and through for centuries and they just kept being Hellenes. As long as there was enough mutton, retzina and ouzo they were good. A company of infantry replicating the Ten Thousand's march. Oh, hell, yeah! Come on over! We'll bring the ouzo! You're cute, you know that? How's your butt look?
Great. Problems settled. All we had to do was fight our way through Iraq and Turkey, over some stone bitch mountains which were already starting to fill up with snow, dragging along some Nepalese irregulars, who might be some good in the mountains come to think of it, and a trail of camp followers.
This was starting to feel too much like the Ten Thousand.
And I hadn't even found out the bad parts, yet.