Daisy chain. That is, hook them all together so they'll go off at once.
The problem being, I'm doing all this without orders. I'm getting prepared to destroy a whole bunch of billions of dollars worth of Uncle Sam's equipment (nineteen billion and change) and nobody in my chain of command has suggested that is a good idea.
It was early September when we started. Compared to some deployments we hadn't actually been left in place all that long. Three and a half months since we'd been left.
But this wasn't a normal deployment. Look, we had one guy get sick. Doc didn't know what was wrong with him. Thought it was appendicitis. (Turned out it was food poisoning. His honey had fixed him some "special" food and hadn't been quite as sanitary as she should have been.)
I got on the horn to the States. Got a soldier with possible case of appendicitis. Request evac.
Nada.
Fucking NADA.
The U.S. mililtary does not leave you to die. They've killed crews trying to save civilians. What they do for their own sick and wounded is astonishing.
There was no way to get us. No. Fucking. Way.
The only possible choice was to move a whole fucking Marine Amphib unit into the Gulf and fly helos up to us. Maybe just a frigate.
Only problem was, all the ships were back in the U.S. zone.
The nearest "stable" zone, barely, was Israel. And there wasn't a helo on earth that could make the run. Oh, there was a way to do it with tankers and special helos. But the Israelis didn't have the capacity, even if they were willing, and our tankers and helos were in the States saving lives.
We didn't have a doctor. We didn't have a hospital. (Well, we had one but no clue how to use it.) We were on our fucking own.
The point being, this was not a normal deployment. Hell, women cooking and washing and providing "aid and comfort" weren't a normal deployment. I cannot for the life of me recall where I heard the line. Something about "and the last centurion took a barbarian wife . . ."
That was us as far as we could tell.
I didn't want to start up a local dynasty. But if I did start one, I wasn't going to let all this ammo and gear fall into the hands of my enemies. And it was way more than I could ever use.
And if we did what I figured was most likely, the bug-out boogie to Israel, I wasn't going to leave it to the RIFs. Surely there was an adult in my chain of command who could get that logic.
The problem being, the next guy in my chain of command was the battalion commander.
Chain of command is holy writ in the Army. You do not violate the chain of command.
But I was getting dick all from the BC. I violated the chain of command.
We had commo information for higher command levels. Hell, this thing had a commo link to the National Military Command Center but I wasn't going to call NMCC. I called the Brigade S-3.
Yo, Bandit, wassup? (He'd been a company commander in a sister battalion when I was a lieutenant. He could call me Bandit, too.)
What the fuck? No medevac. No deadline for "replacement"? What the fuck?
No medevac?
Appendicitis, we thought. Got over it. No evac.
Fuck. Bad shit here.
Bad shit everywhere. Refugees. Attacks. Replacement?
No fucking idea.
Plan if we get hit bad? Bombers? Nukes?
No fucking idea. Battalion?
()
Okay, point. Plan?
Blow and run.
()
Go-To-Hell-Plan. Replacement. Reinforcement. Redeployment. What The Fuck Ever. None? Blow and run.
Battalion? Told?
(Video link. Stand up and wave hands around ass.)
Okay, point. Send memo. Chain of command.
(Stand up . . . )
Situation? Seriously.
Official or unofficial.
Official then unofficial.
Officiaclass="underline" Nominal. Security Threats. Action plan. Insufficient force. Unofficiaclass="underline" If we knew when we were going home and weren't worrying about getting overrun, not bad. Nepos and local civilian personnel left behind. Gets weird.
Try Savannah. Voodoo doctors. Send memo. Stay frosty.
Fuck you.
Sent the memo. I attached my full "action plan" in the event of "action by superior enemy force." Which amounted to "kill as many as we can, blow the place the fuck up and run like hell."
Rigging the place had required a detailed destruction plan. I attached it.
Got a call two weeks later from the brigade commander.
"Bandit, Colonel Collins."
"Yes, sir."
Shit bad here. Unofficiaclass="underline" You're fucked.
How fucked?
"There are no forces capable of evacuating your unit closer than Japan. And they're not going to be redeployed to pick up a straggler company of infantry. The shit everywhere is just too screwed up. There's a MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit: Brigade of marines and ships) in the Med but they're tasked out. The official line continues to be that all stored material is to be "maintained and secured." Think you're bad off? We left a damned unit of SF in Colombia. They've dropped completely off the net; no clue what happened to them. Unofficially, and I'm told from a very high level, in the event you are hit by forces you cannot resist, blow it the fuck up and run. But you'd better be able to justify it pretty well. And even then, I can't guarantee that you won't end up in Leavenworth even if you do make it back to the States."
"Yes, sir. Can I get an official order to implement my action plan in the event this unit is faced by an overwhelming force?"
Long silence. Much forehead rubbing.
"Send your action plan to your battalion commander." Hand goes up to forestall protest. I wasn't planning on making one except in my head but he must have seen my face. Of course, he also had to deal with my BC on a daily basis. "Send it to your battalion commander. It will be approved."
"Thank you, sir."
"What, you think I like one of my fucking companies being left out to rot? But shit's bad everywhere. If you lose commo for any reason, all I can say is good luck and good hunting."
So I sent the action plan to the battalion commander.
What the fuck? No fucking way! Are you crazy? If you were here you'd be relieved and I'd make sure you spent the rest of the emergency as a private, you complete dickhead moron, who the hell could think you had the authority to blow up nineteen billion dollars worth of . . .
A week later I got the action plan back. Redlined. That is, he was telling me all the things wrong with it and wanted me to do "corrections" of all the items.
Which was weird because that meant it was conditionally approved.
Of course, it was also fucked up because he'd left out blowing up half the shit and most of the changes meant nothing would get blowed up. Most of it had to do with "demilitarization" of material. Yeah. Like we had a few thousand people available to do that.
(Demilitarization: Drill holes in the guns. Drilling holes in an Abrams gun requires very serious drills which we didn't have. Thermite barely scratches the motherfuckers. I know. I experimented.)
And we'd already done most of it my way. Sure as shit wasn't going to do it his way.