“Well, I already have a good Loggy, but I could use someone in Plans and Operations, since my S3 is about to go out on maternity leave. Are you interested?”
“It would be an honor to work for you again, sir.”
Olds reached across his desk and unplugged the cord from his telephone and the ethernet cable from his closed Dell laptop. Then, in a quieter voice, he said, “I have to ask you this BLUF—bottom line, up front: What are your feelings about the ProvGov?”
“Frankly, sir, my feelings are mixed. I want to see law and order restored, but I don’t like seeing people’s rights get trampled. Maybe I’m too much of a freedom lover to fit in, in the New Army.”
Olds gave an almost imperceptible nod. “I’m glad to hear you say that. If you hadn’t, I would’ve had doubts about you. You’ll find that there are a lot of ruthless bastards in the New Army and in the coalition forces. We are going to face some tough issues in the months to come. And just between you and me, I want to let you know that my first and highest loyalty is to the Constitution, not to some buffoon from Mayberry named Maynard.”
Laine whispered, “Likewise, sir.”
Olds opened his desk drawer. After rifling through it, he pulled out a handful of Velcro-backed divisional patches and then a bundle of small gold Oak Leaf patches—insignia for the rank of major. He slid them all across the desk toward Andy and said in a louder voice, “The job comes with a bump to O-4.” After a pause, he added with a nod and his characteristic squint, “‘Commander’s Discretion.’”
22. Belly of the Beast
“The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.”
Fort Knox, Kentucky
August, the Third Year
The brigade had just one company of Stryker IFVs. All the rest of the vehicles were German Boxer wheeled APCs. Outwardly, they looked similar to the Stryker, but they differed substantially, mechanically. Built by Krauss- Maffei Wegmann & Rheinmetall, the thirty-three-ton eight-wheeled German APCs had a mix of 40mm grenade launchers and .50 caliber machineguns for their primary armament.
The Boxers dwarfed the eighteen-ton Strykers. But since the brigade’s Strykers all had slat armor appliques, they looked nearly as big as the Boxers.
The brigade had a “fluid” Table of Organization and Equipment (TO&E) and a polyglot of troops: roughly one third American, one third German, and an odd mix of Dutch, Belgians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Bulgarians, and Britons. A few of them wore beards. Most carried either M4s or AK-74s, although a few had FN P90 bullpup carbines. There was an assortment of handguns carried in hip or shoulder holsters, mostly Beretta M9s, Glocks, HKs, and SIGs. But there were also a few ostensibly “civilian” pistols like FN FiveSevens, FN FNPs, Springfield Armory XDs, HK USP Compacts, and a Taurus 24/7. Andy was dismayed to see that there was no standardization of uniforms or web gear, either. The net effect was that they looked like a band of mercenaries rather than a professional army. And, as Andy later described the scene to Kaylee, that is exactly what they were: mercenaries.
Andy’s first walk-around in the motor pool meeting the troops and seeing the mix of vehicles and equipment was enlightening. Andy was led by the brigade’s Belgian
The vehicles were in a mix of paint schemes: Woodland CARC, desert tan, flat olive drab, and the Bundeswehr’s desert camouflage. Andy was surprised to see the interiors of the IFVs were crowded by a large number of locking Hardigg boxes. They looked similar to the cases used for storing M4 carbines that Andy had seen at remote outposts in Afghanistan. But each of these was stenciled with the name and service number of an NCO or officer. And each of these cases was chained to the floor down the center aisle of each Boxer and Stryker vehicle, and secured with an assortment of padlocks. These boxes were each slightly larger than a standard footlocker. When he asked the
Seeing the AK-74s as well as a few Russian GAZ-3308 trucks in the motor pool, Andy asked if there were any Russian troops in the North American UN peacekeeping force. He was told that there were only a handful of Russian technical advisors. These were mainly “he comes with the equipment” types that accompanied specialized vehicles and electronics. Later, in reading some strategy papers, Andy learned that there were no Russian troop units because their army was badly bogged down in fighting rebels in Ukraine and the Stans. But there was a substantial quantity of Russian and former Soviet Bloc equipment brought in from Europe via Roll-on, Roll-off (RORO) ships. Most of these were older-generation second-line vehicles, including a large number of Russian and Ukrainian BTR-70 APCs, as well as the German equivalent—the SPW 70 (
Andy was caught up in a blur of activity as he settled into his new job. The major whom he was relieving was anxious to start her maternity leave, so she was briefing Andy nearly nonstop. He furiously took notes on a yellow legal pad. Late in the afternoon of the first day, Ed Olds rapped his West Point ring on Andy’s open office door and said, “For most of my PT sessions, I run out to Heard Park and back, four days a week. Meet me in your sweats in front of my quarters tomorrow morning at 0600.”
“Will do, sir,” Andy answered.
The next morning, Andy walked up General Olds’s driveway just as Olds was coming down the steps. Both men were dressed in well-worn Army PT sweats, with black bottoms and gray tops.
“Good to see you, Andrew. You’re prompt, as always.”
After wordlessly doing some stretching exercises, Andy and the general started out at a lope, running side by side. They soon settled into a steady, familiar “Jody” running pace. There was no vehicle traffic.
Ahead of them, a platoon of soldiers ran in formation singing a familiar “Jody” tune—but with some lyrics in German and Dutch. The platoon crossed the intersection in front of them, heading toward Agony Hill. Seeing them reminded Andy of when he was posted at Fort Hood five years before. The only difference was that they had dispensed with the road guards in optic orange vests, and instead they now had four soldiers with loaded M4s— two ahead and two behind the formation—as ATEs—Anti-Terrorist Escorts.
After the sound of the platoon had faded into the distance, Olds said in a casual voice, “It’s good to be able to talk freely without a lot of European backstabbers listening.”
Laine nodded, and Olds continued, “Let me fill you in. The New Army is essentially a sham. It is a cover for a foreign occupation force. Don’t have any illusions: The UN is calling the shots. Anyone that steps out of line gets shown the door—that is, if they’re lucky—or they conveniently disappear—with that blamed on resistance kidnappers—or they have a sudden ‘heart attack,’ or they ‘commit suicide.’”
Andy groaned and said, “That’s not too surprising.”
