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.
Ten feet away, the battalion commander calmly shot the medic in the leg. “That’s enough of this-”
The battalion sergeant major stepped up behind his commanding officer and pistol-whipped him over the head.
Then things got confusing.
Fifty yards away from the melee, Jessica begged her camera guy to leave, but he just shrugged her off his arm.
“Jessie, are you nuts? This is career-making footage here! This friendly fire is going to land me in the history books!”
He pivoted slowly with the video camera on his shoulder, trying to cover the Hell breaking out around them. He panned back and forth frantically, capturing every gruesome detail as Floridian militiamen swarmed over the squabbling Georgian National Guard troops. Every pic of a sullen prisoner was a cash bonus, every shocked death mask a magazine cover.
Congressman Eliot was a lot less concerned with history and much more interested in saving his dear ass. He ran back to his car the second the shooting started. Jessica watched the real story moving away.
“Well, good luck with that!” She clapped her cameraman on the shoulder and chased after the congressman’s entourage. She hadn’t planned to ride in the SUV with him, but as she drew near, stray rounds cracked overhead.
“Get in and stay down!” One of Eliot’s security people snagged her arm and shoved her into the backseat out of reflex. She didn’t even have a chance to object before the driver gunned the engine and the Mercedes peeled away from the chaos.
The two SUV mini-convoy swung west on the big highway, only a few seconds ahead of a dozen pickups loaded with whooping rebel militia folk. Jessica’s story eye noticed the mixture of civilian and military weapons, rudimentary organization and the extra antennae masts on the trucks. All that equipment and semi-professional discipline implied a much higher level of coordination between these “rag tag” mobs the Army joked about and the professional Florida Defense Forces.