Florida Defense Forces Headquarters
Ocala, Florida
The attitude inside of Florida’s Joint Forward Operations Center was even more chaotic than the storm outside. Several dozen personnel, including several civilian contractors and trusted volunteers, alternately screamed, pleaded or threatened into twice as many phones and radios.
In the eye of the storm, some six-foot colonel with a pro swimmer’s build attempted to stare down a lanky S-3 officer. For the skinny guy, the big man was just one more bullet point on a long To Do list. He listened courteously, but with little interest, while trying to balance a laptop on his knees, a radio on the shoulder, a satellite phone in one hand and a coffee thermos in the other.
“No way the general signed off on that op order, Major. My brigade is the most experienced fighting force you have. We sure as hell proved that against those paratroopers up at Blanding. Seventy percent of my troops have at least one combat deployment under their belts and we’re at 98 % preparedness, with nearly every single combat platform up and running. Despite all that, you’re telling me we’re being held in strategic reserve?”
He kept talking right over Gorgas.
“You’re going to let that disorganized militia mob form the center of our defensive line and that joke of a ‘Minuteman Brigade’ cover the flanks, while keeping us spinning our wheels back in the sticks!? I didn’t expect brilliance from a simple staff officer, but I expected at least basic competence!”
Gorgas wiped the colonel’s spittle from his computer screen and feigned confusion.
“That’s why we need a leader like you to bolster the line, sir.” Major Gorgas intentionally ignored the contribution of the blowhard’s unit in order to penetrate straight to the colonel’s ego. He kicked it up a notch by lowering his voice and letting him in on the “Big Secret.” The great big secret that should have been obvious.
“I think you deserve to know the truth, sir. Those vigilantes aren’t expected to hold the line. The Feds will plow right through them. The whole point is to get them to speed down here convinced they won’t encounter significant opposition. That’s when you’ll strike back. Our best commander, personally leading our best unit must deliver the decisive blow. Just like you so famously did at Camp Blanding. Sir, please, we need you!”
Colonel Beauregard pondered that for a moment. “Well, aren’t you a sneaky son of a gun. Ok, if the general wants me there, that’s where I’ll be. Carry on then, Major.” He showed the major a new measure of respect by returning a half-assed salute before strutting off.
Gorgas wasn’t the type to mull over confrontations and get all stressed out by them. He built his whole career on smoothing ruffled feathers, pampering delicate egos and just generally manipulating senior officers into actually doing their jobs. All the while being looked down upon as a cowardly staff officer.
To be fair, he was an oddity. The Army tries hard to rotate officers between staff and command positions in order to broaden their horizons… or to keep them from becoming competent at any one job, depending on your point of view. Gorgas had the dubious luck of always falling through the cracks. Training, planning, organizing, but in his 20 year career, he’d never once commanded soldiers.
The strange thing is he really was combat arms by training, an artillery officer. It was just that at every new unit he arrived in they never seemed to have a command slot available. So, they’d plug him into a staff support role while he waited for his chance. There he would always commit the same mistake: he’d do a good job. Just like in the civilian world, nothing keeps you from being promoted more than being irreplaceable.
That’s why he left the regular Army and joined his home state Guard. Pretty much the only chance he’d ever have to make lieutenant colonel someday. Then the president just ups and declares war on his home. Florida needed every leader they could get; surely now would be his chance. No dice. Turns out, building an army from nearly scratch requires a real organizer. Apparently, he was the man for the job, or so said everyone who didn’t want to do it. He never could catch a break.
He wasn’t particularly proud of the militia trick that impressed the colonel so much. That’s only a minor game that may or may not pay off. His success in unifying the new Florida Defense Forces is where his pride came from. The real trick was the Herculean task of organizing scores of independent National Guard and Reservist units, with widely varying grades of loyalty and motivation, as well as thousands of civilian volunteers into a somewhat cohesive army with a unified command, control and supply network.
But he did it. All in the span of just a few weeks and with hardly any funding, since the Federal Government wasn’t chipping in anymore. Organization might be boring. It definitely wasn’t sexy like clever battlefield tricks, strategic surprises or secret weapons. Still, all those cool things weren’t useful, let alone even possible, without an efficient foundation.
From the ancient Romans to modern armies, it wasn’t brilliant leaders or super weapons that were dangerous, but rather the simple bureaucratization of war that allowed killing to be so efficient. That’s what both won wars and made them so terrible.
It’s not the highly skilled, renowned sniper that’s the real threat on the battlefield. It’s the far seeing planning staff that puts him in the perfect firing position and the well-organized supply staff that ensures he has ample food and ammo. Those paper plans and background support are what makes sure that the war fighter can keep on killing. If a sniper is taken out, a new one could be simply reassigned to take his place. If that discipline and organization breaks down, then the fighters are as good as dead, no matter how well armed and courageous.
Of course, he couldn’t claim all the credit. Having General Cooper on board was a lucky break. The man was the closest thing America had to a respected general. The best part was, he hailed from Texas and wasn’t just a local hero. Should help to show the nationwide breadth of their struggle. So they hoped. If nothing else, his briefing style excited and motivated the civilians.
General Cooper was also the one who demanded a free hand from the politicians to prepare the Florida Defense Forces as he saw fit, and had the guts to keep them from trying to micromanage things. He even sold the idea of not taking every halfwit with a gun into the FDF. President Dimone’s now famous call to arms rallied close to a 100,000 volunteers in that first week! The politicians, as usual, wanted to take them all without the slightest idea what they were supposed to do. Throw them in human waves at the Feds? Hoping they ran out of bullets before we ran out of idiots?
Just feeding, equipping and paying, well, promising to one day pay, the 16,000 they did take was difficult enough. They were at the point, a bit past even, of optimal efficiency. Any more men and it would be necessary to cannibalize arms and equipment from other units and so dilute the supply chain that the army would be less combat effective as a whole.
He was surprised by the quality of these vetted volunteers. A good 60 % were veterans, mostly young vets from America’s multiple 21st century wars. They had assigned most of them to outfit a second mechanized infantry brigade. The vehicles and equipment of that unit were courtesy of a sympathetic (or treasonous, depending on your point of view) Daytona-born captain of a massive container ship, who decided to make a short port call in Key West due to unspecified “mechanical problems.”