Story How I Joined the Militia ....

WTR100

Member
I found my self 50ish, 40 lbs over weight and with time on my hands now that second son had headed off to college. I decided to look into the militia. Yes I know it could be a batch f nuckle dragging clamsmen or a bunch of whannabe geer queers but what the heck. Worst case maybe I scare up some students for the CCW classes I teach, make a few bucks that way.

They said to pack food for a full day so that week I made a pan of Logan bread. Logan bread is named for Mt Logan, dense and full of nuts and dried fruit. We used to make it for week long Boy Scout canoe and backpacking trips. My version has pumpkin in it, extra black strap molasses and dried cranberries and dried tart cherries. I vaccum sealed 4" squares. Making it brough back memories of Hudson Bay Bread. From the Boy Scouts Northern Tier High Adventure Base the traitional version was oatmeal , lots of butter , corn syrup, sugar , honey , maple flavor and slivered almonds. My version was simpler oatmeal, maple syrup, coconut oil and sliverd almonds. I made a batch, looked like a sheet cookie, and again cut into 4" squares and vaccuum sealed them.

At Walmart I grabbed a couple of the flavored tuna packets, some of those caffinated drink sticks, single serve gatoraid mixes. On the way out I spotted the little cans with the red devil on them, Underwood meat spreads. Hmmm chicken, ham , roast beef, corned beef or liverwurst which to pick. Unable to decide I get two cans of each.

I decide to pack like the Allen Gallon Challenge - each scout put his food for the day into a zip loc freezer bag. I put in two squares each of Logan and Hudson Bay Bread, a single serve peanut butter, a can of underwood liver wurst, some crackers, some hard blue mints and some caffine drink mixes. Wow that's a long list who's writting this, J.W. Rawles?


RealTree cammo was the Militia Standard but the only RealTree I owned was a set of artic bibs and coat. The OIC said in an e-mail that BDU's or whatever were fine so put on heavy green Carhart cargo pants , much better quality and less expensive than the official BSA pants, heavy blue cotton long sleeve t and a really disreputble looking plain khaki ball cap I got from Menards. The only true military stuff was my boots - USAF Green Corcorans. I got 'em for $70 at a gun show and they were the best boots I'd ever owned. The older I get the more I like good tall boots. My day pack was bought 30 years ago a thick black nylon thing, it pre-dated the MOLLE stuff and ALICE wasn't cool back then so it was just thick black nylon. It did have a padded waist strap and chest straps.

We weren't supposed to be armed at this event but that went against my personal policy of never leaving my cave without my club, hat tip Mr Mark Walters, so I figured my little Kahr MK9 in the pocket wasn't bending the rules too bad. Beside what would they do court martial me?

I got to the TA or 'training area'. It was a picnic area way back in a state park. I arrived early as is my habbit. A guy by the name, well call sign everyone uses a hadle or call sign, of Gravy greated me. He was a trim, weathered looking guy head to toe in Real Tree BDU's complete with boonie hat and trousers bloused into his vietnam style combat boots. Each collar had a blacked out captains train track, his right shoulder has black and white US flag with one blue stripe in the middle, on the left shoulder was an olive oval patch with a rust brown III. He had an old school pistol belt with two canteens and a single butt pack held up by suspenders and had the de ringur Shemag in green and black. We chatted a bit, he thanked me for comming, directed me under the picnic shelter.

I signed the muster and filled out a paper. I asked the huge lady in RealTree if I needed to fill it all in. The answer was no, fill in what I wanted but do note any medical stuff they should know about and contact info in case I got injured. By the time I was done more folks had arrived. A knot of them had formed, drinking coffee, shooting the breeze and smoking cigars. A personality flaw of mine is despising cigars. The only thing worse than cheap cigars is expensive cigars. They cost more money and are as reprehnsible as the cheap ones. I stayed upwind of the noxious cloud. There was a group of obvious newbs such as myself. They either had brand new RealTree or like me no real tree.

There were all sorts of people now in various bits of RealTree. Some with stripes or rank baadges on hats or sleeves or collars. There were all sorts of pins and patches to be found. Some guys looked like a walking patch collection. Most were serious but some humorous. One guy had one on his left shoulder that said 'Chairborne', cute. Another was a tab like a ranger tab that said,"Regular Guy". I'd find out later he thought of himself as anything but a regular guy and had the interwebbook props to prove it.

A simple flagpole had been put up. They, or is it we, formed up for 'colors'. The color guard was mismatched. The bugle playing to the colors was ragged and there was every combination of hand salutes, hands to hearts, hats on, hats off but the flag got up in the air. The CO lead the assembled masses in something that resembled an oath of enlistment. The a guy with crosses on his collar gave a blessing.


There were 21 regulars in three squads, four 'state cadre' or big shots and five newbs including myself. Morning was land nav. Most folks dug out those military lensatic compasses, I pulled out my trusty Boy Scout Silva baseplate compass. They passed out toppo maps. Gravy came by to give me a hand then reaized I was pretty good at it already. We trooped through the woods looking for rally points, each squad getting a couple newbs tacked on. My squad was friendly enough but it was clear I was along for the ride but it was cool.

Towards the end we were about about to hump up a steep hill to hump down another to then hump up a second hill to find the final point. I spoke up, "We could just follow this creek bed down and around to where the other crek bed comes in back track it to the curve then attack a bearing off that to get do." Regular Guy looked skeptical but said "Lead on Mc Gee." My rout worked rather well, not sure RG was that happy about it. We did a nice 5,000 meters or so as the crow flies so more like 6,000 or so as the militia wanders.

We broke for lunch. Lots of the establishment types broke out MRE's or the really cool dudes like RG broke out First Strike Rations. The cigar club fired up - did I mention this is nasty. I was surprised how many folks here smoked - I guess working in corporate / IT world so long. Anyway Gravy came over to say hey. He was interested in my 'Alan Bag' even tried some of the Logan Bread and was impressed.

Half way through lunch they switched to lunch and learn were we kept eating while some guys did first aid training. The had everyone toss out their med kits. A guy with a patch showing a winged angle with a sword and the word Paramedic around the edge and a name tape saying Nurse Ratchet was inspecting. He made good natured fun of some folks only having a zip-loc of bandaids. Others had full on 'downed operators' kits.

"What for ewe has two bags?" he asks me.

I explained one was a boo boo kit with bandaids, anti-biotic ointment, immodium and aleive while the other was a blow out kit with tourniquit, kerlex gauze , ace wrap and duct tape. "I like it he pronounced. Simple, effective, cheap"

Afternoon training was GPS. Again we did a lot of plodding through the woods in a straight line. While it worked didn't seem the best way to go at it.

The final exercise was a LAND NAV with first aid. The newbs were formed into a squad. The other squads charged off into the woods. I held out group up a second. To the guy holding the GPS, 'What is bearing and distance?" He gave it to me, it was off our toppo map so I had everyone walk to the big park map. The map was huge, 4' square. I found the picnic shelter on the map, luckily it had a distance scale on the botton. I applied bearing and range to the map.

"Yeh but how accurate is that map?" someone asked.

"Should be close enough, why don't we drive to this point here then use the GPS to guide in the last 300 yards, it'll save us 4,000 yards of so of bush whacking."

We piled into one guys's diesel bro-dozer pickup, this thing was huge. I wonder if he has air stairs at home, anyway we drove to a curve in the road and parked. Then used the GPS to overland out way to the designated point. The training staff hadn't even set up the 'wounded' yet!


I got home early in the evening, wife was heading out with friends to play some sort of chick card game. So I showered and fixed myself a small rib eye , sweet potatoe and cracked open a Sam Adams and intended to surf the web and then watch some walking dead.

I was lurking in AR15.com. I don't post much there, after an unfortuante incident I was banned from the site. I went through a couple alternate ID's until those were detected and banned. I managed a final id that I mostly lurked with, having less than 20 posts in over a year.

Surprisingly a message box opened. Wierd it had no 'from' UserId

"Saw you at training today."
"We are Impressed."
"Keep going to training."
"Eyes open. Mouth Closed"
"Lose 30 lbs by Spring"
"Liberty or Death..."

Whut duh fuq? I tried to get into my PM's again and it was gone. How did they know my AR15.COM ID? Either spooky or a very well played joke.
 

WTR100

Member
Chapt Two

------

Around 9:30 that evening I started to get e-mails. "Welcome Patriot". "Download this app, we don't use message boards any more." "Mandatory gear list."

The gear list seemed typical stuff. They were really intent on a few things. One was an AR15 in 5.56. This was the one non-negotiable item it seemed. I was rather fond of my Palmetto State AR in 9 mm but of course what normal American didn't have at least one AR15 in 5.56? My go-to AR was a Rock River lower, with a Spikers Tactical slick side upper, 16" stainless full profile barrel, simple Troy fixed rear sight and TRS25 red dot sight.

Most interesting was a message from 'Gravy'. Seems he owned a farm and his squad was doing some live fire training and was inviting selected newbies to get us up to speed next weekend. All we needed was AR , pistol, load vest, magazines and such. Sounds like fun and I can always use getting up to speed.

I've been teaching CCW classes for several years now and taking a defensive firearm course once or twice a year. For CCW class I taught in an old USGI pistol belt with the Y type suspenders. My buddy Nick made me a basic Kydex holster and two mag pouch for a Glock 17. It wasn't fancy but it worked and the suspenders kept the whole thing from sinking to half mast. I had a few USGI doo-dads to hang on it, 30 round mag pouches, 100 and 200 round SAW gunner pouches and an old school 1 qt canteen. I decided to set up for my 'getting up to speed' with two USGI mag pouches (green), my kydex holster and pistol mag pouches and one brown 200 round saw pouch with a tourniquet and home brew pressure dressing in it.

I put the whole rig on an looked in the mirror. Well I'd never make the best dressed edition of Militia Quarterly, nothing matched. The belt was tan, suspenders and rifle mag pouches green, holster was black, pistol mag holders were grey. Oh well, a newbie will look like a newbie.

I had replied that I'd love to come and received a response: "Great. We'll meet outside the diner in the town of Kickapoo then car pool to the farm. Be sure everything is unloaded and cased."

Hmmmmm. Seems a little to double oh, secret squirrel for my tastes. "Hey guy seems a little too James Bourne to me maybe another time but thanks."

A few minutes later, "HA! Yeh OK. We'll meet you at the diner and you can follow us out. I'd give you address or directions but GPS will take you to the wrong place and it's kinda tricky the first time."

"Ok thanks."

The next Saturday arrived bright and crisp. Gravy met me and two others at the diner. One was a guy at last weeks field training or FTX. Can't bring up his name, I'm terrible with names. The other was a lady, a very tall lady. I'm 6'1" on a good day and I bet she wasn't an inch shorter than me. It was a quick 25 minute drive to Gravey's farm and he wasn't woofing about a bit tricky.

There was a flag up already and a quick opening with Pledge of Allegiance and quick prayer. Gravy had three other 'regulars' with him, Sea Dog, Nurse Ratchet and MollyB. Looks like they planned to have a coach for each of us. Gravy's cadre as I thought of them had on pretty tacticool gear. Plate carriers, load bearing vests with pistols in chest holsters or sometimes in drop-leg holsters, a pair of gloves held in a carabiner through the right front belt loop.

First order of business was gear inspection. Tall Woman as I thought of her had a basic duty belt with Taurus 24/7 pistol in 40 S&W. She was being loaned a Wyndham Polymer SRC with a simple Primary Arms Micro Red Dot and a USMC Tactical Vest.

Other Guy was loaded for bear. His pistol was a Glock 29 , a mighty 10 mm , with a light attached to the rail. His rifle was a Noveskie with a 10" barrel and a rule beater Shockwave brace stock but not a stock.

Ok this just proves how stupid the short barrel rifle rules are and maybe how retarded the BATFE is but I digress. He had a high end red dot on it, he had a magnifier on the red dot, he had one of those fore grip gizmos on it, he had some crazy high end tactical sling on it. I'd guess all in he was well north of $2500 into that rifle no pistol - whatever.

I was feeling down right in inadequate with my plain Glock 17, wait it did have a Lone Wolf barrel so I could shoot cast bullets, and my minimalist AR15 and web gear that was mismatched and almost could have come off a soldier in Viet Nam. Then things really came off the rails when Nurse Ratchet looked at my 9 mm ammo.

"Is this reloads?"

"Yeh."

"ALL of it?"

"Uh yah, why?"

Gravy, "My bad, we typically don't allow training with reloads out here. Do you have any other ammo with you?"

Lovely, if they send we out to get more ammo I'm just going to blow this popsicle stand I think. "No it's all reloaded, even the rifle ammo." DOH! Why did I volunteer that?

Gravy, "How about this. We'll have you shoot a few rounds of each, we'll find the empty cases and look for pressure signs."

Well that seemed a reasonable plan. Since I reload right down the middle of the load data I passed with no problems. After which Gravy raised his hand in the 'blessing' position, "I here by dub thee Reloads to be your lawful militia handle until someone comes up with a better one!' Great now I too have a nom-de-gurre.

We would wear our weapons all day. Training started with handguns, Nurse Ratchet would be my coach it seemed. Before long we were being trained in presenting from a holster. Gravy must have been an NRA Instructor like I am or at least he used the NRA's method.
Grip, Chest
Pull, Chest
Rotate, Chest
Join
Extend
Fire
Safety, Chest
Reholster

Nurse Ratchet asked, "Do you have a carry permit?"

"Yup"

"It shows, looks like you've done this before."

"A time or two ...". Yup I've led these drills once a month for the last three or four years. But I said nothing, tryng to keep mouth shut and eyes and ears open.

Class was actually fun. By lunch we were drawing and engaging multiple targets. Fun stuff. I think Shorty , the gal, and Boomer , the guy, were both getting beat pretty good and were ready for lunch.

Towards the end of lunch Gravy asked if I would talk about Logan Bread and Hudson Bay Bread. Sure I even had an extra square of each so I could pass them around. "These are Boy Scout trail foods. Logan Bread is a wheat based bread where Hudson Bay is oat based. They are pretty much the same to make - mix the batter / dough, press into a sheet pan and bake like cookies or brownies. I cut mine into 4" squares then vacuumed seal and freeze. The Logan is three parts whole wheat, one part rye with pumpkin and molasses and dry cherry and cranberry. There's other stuff in there too probably." I opened and passed the Logan around. "Hudson bread is simple, oatmeal , coconut oil, maple syrup and slivered almonds. Both fill you up and store well. Both go good with butter or jelly or peanut butter on top. They are pretty high calorie though and mostly carb and fat', I warned.

MollyB , "Can you post the recipes up?"

"Sure once I figure the board / app thing out."

Chuckles from the others.

Afternoon was rifle practice. I guess I'm more a pistolero than a rifleman. A lot of what they did was new to me but it made sense. We started zeroing at 25m. Mine was already zeroed there, so yay me. Shooting next to the 10 inch pistarbfle was an experience. IT WAS REALLY LOUD, Boomer was really earning his name.

Shorty was doing well I thought. The Wyndham polymer lower and upper was shooting just fine. I'd always heard bad things about them on the interwebnet ... amazing not exactly true. Of course we weren't running and gunning mutant, ninja, UN, zombie bikers yet either.

During a break the cadre left us be and Boomer was holding court with Shorty. "You really get what you pay for in a rifle. You really owe it to yourself to get the best rifle you can afford." When Boomer was looking away Shorty rolled her eyes.

I was squirting a little Ed's Red onto the bolt carrier of my rifle and offered the bottle to Shorty. By now Gravy had joined us. She looked at him before accepting the tube, it was his rifle.

"I that CLP?"

"More or less, it's Ed's Red, kerosene, mineral spirits , acetone and synthetic tranny fluid - equal parts of each and then a quarter part of some 80wt synthetic racing motor oil I got from the brother-out-law."

Gravy chuckled at the brother-out-law joke. "I've heard of that stuff, go ahead and do you mind if I steal a squirt? Now in my mind an AR doesn't need to be squeeky clean as much as well lubed." He offered the tube to Boomer who of course used only Frog Lube. I thought to myself aren't frogs pretty much self-lubricating?

We'd been shooting paper and 25 meters. We next did the 'mess with your buddy drill'. Your buddy gave you 4 magazines and 20 rounds. The cadre gave you 5 dummy rounds. You randomly loaded the magazines then your 'buddy' shot them clearing malfunctions as they went. I got to load for Boomer and the devil got in me. I loaded the first two mags with a single round. This left me with two mags, 18 rounds and 5 dummies. I loaded one mag with the first and last round as a dummy and a the other the first, third and last rounds were dummies.

To add to the fun we faced 5 silhouettes from 25 to 75 yards and several cover options. We were to engage each target with at least 3 hits and we were under the timer. I slipped the mags into Boomers high end tac vest such that he would grab the mags with one round first. He got a little twisted around after the first two malfunctions and dropped a loaded mag on the ground when he should have tap-racked. He was not happy with me. I'm a jerk, it's the way I am. I did ok but Shorty rocked it. She was a stone cold killer, at least against paper.

To finish the day we moved to the 300 yard range and steel. The steel plate was a full size silhouette with a swinging head 'flipper thing' and a swinging torso 'flipper thing'. I guess these were kill zones? Anyway Boomer had a devil of a time keeping the short barrel and short stocked Noveskie on the steel even with the optic and magnifier. Shorty was a machine. Once she was slung up she could make it ring every second lick a ticking clock. I tried to get cute and ring the head shot flapper thing. Trying to remember the drop difference between the 250m battle zero and 300. I think it was 4", not much wind so ignore it. Held top of head squeezed.

Nurse Ratchet, "Your way high, nicked his left cheek."

Adjusted to the top of the right side of the head. Squeeze.

Nurse Ratchet, "Split the gap in the kill plate. Are you taking head shots ya show off?"

Third shot nailed the kill plate.

Nurse Ratchet, "Ok Mr Hathcock, now how about we speed thing up and you shoot the center plate?"

Not a bad day of shooting. On the way home I called the wife and suggested I pick up a pound of bbq beef brisket and a pound of pulled pork for dinner from our favorite BBQ joint. The thought it was a great idea. She'd put some corn-on-the-cob on. Oh and there was Jason Borne movie on the satellite thing tonight.

Wife crashed after the movie so I got on the web to do some surfing. I went to AR15.com half expecting the mystery man to contact me. But was locked out. Drat foiled again. Well I'd slum over at survival boards for a bit.

Hmmm a PM from /dev/null? How can a user be /dev/null?

/dev/null: "Dont make people mad"
/dev/null: "Dont show off"

me: sorry - the deeble made me do it, Gravy is this you

/dev/null: Keep going to training.
/dev/null: Don't move into leadership
/dev/null: Lose 30 lbs by spring.

me: Sure.
me: Hey my AR15.com account was permabanned is thig going to happen at survivalboards too?

/dev/null: No
/dev/null: Will fix AR15.com

me: Are we going to chat after every militia training

/dev/null: No

Then I was logged out of survivalboards. Well hell I thought, did they get me banned here too? But I was able to log back on. Of course the PM from /dev/null was gone. There was no user /dev/null in fact I don't think a user name can have a slash in it.

The next day I looked at the fitness center in out little hick town. Jarred was the guy who ran it with his father Paul. They had me doing battle ropes and kettle bells and beating a tractor tire with a sledge hammer. I was surprised how reasonable the price was. Besides just coming to work out Paul or Jarred would work with you or leave a 3x5 card stuck to the wall with what you were to do.
 

WTR100

Member
Chapter 3

-------------------------

Working out 3 days a week and changing diet dropped weight really quickly. On advice from trainer Jarred my Monday through Friday breakfast was radically changed. One spoon full of cheap orange flavor fiber powder , aka metamucil, and a scoop of protein powder in a glass of milk and shaken like crazy. The idea was protein and fiber to fill me up. The next part was weird but surprisingly good black coffee slightly strong. So far so good. Two table spoons of butter, huh? Two table spoons of coconut oil. Put it where? In the coffee? Blend or mix like mad. It was surprisingly good.

I guess the idea was no carbs or very little carbs. Lunch was meat at vegetables. Lots of veggies. Typical lunch might be half a bag of frozen broccoli and half a pound of deer burger or ground pork or a big chopped chicken breast with vinegar and olive oil. Snacks could be carrots or cheese or nuts or fruit or sometimes olives. I ate whatever the wife fixed for dinner just less of it and try to not eat after 8 or 9.

My late fall I had lost 10 lbs. I decided to get some of the required gear, especially after an 'order' came down from above that the Militia was moving to a dual standard uniform. In addition to RealTree solid, muted colors such as olive green, sage green, khaki and coyote were authorized specifically not authorized was

Black - too ninja
Sherriff's Dept Brown - too sheriff's dept
ACU - don't want to look like Army
MARPAT - ditto Marines
ABU - ditto Air Force
NWU - too weird even for the navy

Companies or squads may wish to standardize at unit leader discursion for identification, unit cohesion and esprit de corpse. Corpse was not a typo the message said corpse not corps. I had a little money from a larger than average CCW classes I taught so I did some surfing - wow some of these makers were mighty proud of their wears, $60 or even $80 for a pair of trousers to run around in the woods?

I found LA Police Gear. They had an inexpensive line , of course made in China, that looked functional enough and not crazy expensive and was even made of fairly heavy cotton canvas duck. I was composing a note to Gravy when he sent a group message. He'd been in contact with a surplus outfit about 90 miles away. They had 20' shipping container full of Austrian Milsurp just in. Austrian was high quality gear and rather than cammo it was a dark green. Unlike a lot Milsurp it was said to have a lot of XL and XXL.

The deal was if we come help unload the container, sort, sift and pack the stuff we could get two sets of trouser, two sets on tops , a fleece jacket , an outer jacket, a wool watch cap and a wool jeep cap for $50. Plus you'd get the secret friends and family discount code for a year that's good for 50% off.

We showed up bright and early at their warehouse on Saturday morning. The owner of the place was there. He said this is always the most exciting part. It seems they buy the stuff 'pig in a poke', so you really never know until you open it. This container was huge or it looked huge to me, 20 feet long and 8 feet square. He cracked it open and peee youuuuuu.

"That's the smell of money or Austrian moth balls, depending on your point of view." He flipped on two big floor fans to properly circulate the stink around. The first layer of stuff was in bales for lack of a better term, bundles of garments tightly wrapped in a heavy plastic sheeting and heat fused closed. They weighed about as much as a hay bale and you couldn't use hay hooks on them! We used little kindergarten cutters to open. It was surprisingly hard work and the smell gave me a pounding head ache.

End of the day though it was all sorted and bagged and stacked and counted with some surprise finds. Cases of really nice 5 button wool sweaters. Some super heavy duty web or duty belts with a crazy Austrian buckles. You could likely hook these belts end to end and use them as a tow strap. Boxes of canteen kits with a cover , metal cup and metal stove thing. The owner was quite happy with the work and insisted everyone take some extra gear. In fact he piled stuff on us.

I walked out of the deal with two heaping armloads of stuff. Best of all was the gore-tex like rain suit and probably 12 pairs of the nicest heavy wool socks I've ever had.

Gravy and I stopped for some haughty quzine on the way home, Hardee's. Over manly man half pound burger and cherry cokes he asked. "Hey I think I saw your name on the State Police list of CCW instructors. Are you an NRA instructor?"

"Guilty. Kinda left it out of my info sheet. Seems like you were an NRA instructor at one time too. "

"That's cool and no I'm not NRA certified. I did get home of their personal protection lesson plan and sort of self-studied it. I am an Appleseeds Red Hat and United States Rifle Association Rifle and Pistol Instructor though. Anyway you still teach CCW? My three daughters are 21, 23 and 24. I want to get them their carry permits, would you run a family course at the farm?"

We agreed and he actually haggled the price back UP to my normal full price. We did the 16 hours of training at his farm and it went well. Gravy and his wife sat in on the training too, although the already had carry permits. I have to say that was one well-armed family. I think they might have been on Mr. Gaston Glock's person Christmas card list.

All of the girls had both a double stack G26 and a single stack G43. Mrs. Gravy , ok Anne , had a double stack G19 to go with her G43. I shudder to think how many Glocks Gravy owns, my suspicion is many, many. He brought to class a Glock 17 with a full Saurez International internals and Trigicon RMR slide. That thing was sweet. Gravy brought out a 50 cal ammo can darn near full to the top with 147 gr lead reloads. I shot Gravy a look, cast lead in Glocks?

"Lone Wolf barrels."

"Gotcha."

We flew through the basic shooting drills. By lunch time the girls were shooting one handed, weak hand against the clock. I broke out my Palmetto State Armory 9 mm AR15 that fed off Glock magazines. It was super basic 16" barrel and A2 front sight and fixed rear sight. Well MagPul furniture is kind of fancy, right? A Primary Arms Red Dot is super deluxe fancy too, well kinda, maybe. A little?

The ladies loved it. It ran like a champ with everything except single stack mags. Of course the single stacks didn't fit and fell out so that might have been part of the problem. End of the day Gravy says to me, he says "I guess I'm building four of those for Christmas this year." No doubt about it I want to be on Gravy's Christmas list ....

The next militia training was squad patrolling in a rural environment. Part of me wondered what the point of this was. I didn't exactly see Red Dawn or Patriots as actually happening but we could be doing close order drill on a parade ground so I went with it but if they started showing us how to make ghilli suits after lunch I was outta here.

We were on 200 acres of wooded private land. Everyone was going to patrol with weapons. We ran weed whip line through the muzzle and out the action. It looked slightly retarded but was effective and cheap so there was that. Tradition seemed to be for squads to form up pretty much at random and for squads to elect a squad leader who appoints an assistant.

I'd geeked out a little and sewed two patches on the Austrian BDU's. On was the First Naval Jack (subdued) on the left shoulder the other was a subdued field forward US Flag. I hadn't gone full potatoe to get name tapes made so i had strips of duct tape with my Nom De Millitia "Reloads" in sharpie marker stuck above my right chest pocket and the back of my hat.

Now back in the day I was a sailor man , surface warfare officer in the US Navy , so patrolling through the woods wasn't exactly something we trained on. But somewhere along the way I learned to keep all the straps and what not tied down, some of my squad mates not so much. Our Squad Leader for the day was a bearded, cigar chompimg guy dressed head to toe in well-worn real tree. He was one of the walking patch displays. His rifle sported both a collapsible stock and bipod and rather large scope so i was a little concerned. When he started to lecture us on Rodgers Rules of Rangering I wasn't sure if I should be relieved or panicked. Why do I need a hatchet and why hell would I scour it???

Turns out he was actually quite competent. Go us organized and we 'moved to an objective' and set up a 'rally point' and even 'linked up with another unit'. It was quite an enjoyable time in the woods. During lunch I traded a 4" square of Hudson Bay Bread to our 'squad leader' for a chocolate dairy shake and hoo ha bar. This MRE stuff ain't half bad.

MollyB asked if I'd we willing to supervise the making of HBB and LB at next month's training. She owned and ran a catering business and commercial kitchen. She had mixers, food processors, baking sheets and ovens. Everything we'd need. Hummm I guess this stuff is a bit of a hit.

Afternoon was road block training. While a little less interesting than 'patrolling' the woods it seemed a little more practical. They spiced it up with a fake IED blast and some first aid. They went fairly all out with a loud BOOM and some darn realistic looking injured people. It got a little extreme when idahijs swept through and 'killed' us all while we treated the wounded.

In all not a bad day. I was getting the measure of this crew. There were plenty of blow hards and whanna be's and more than a few extreme arch righwingers and even a few really kooky libertarians, but then again is there anything other than kooky libertarians. But in all most of the folks were pretty solid.

I was home by late afternoon, got a shower and took the wife for dinner and college basketball game. i can't hardly stand basketball but she enjoyed it and they do have killer nacho's at the civic center ...

We got home and I did some surfing. Survival boards was quiet tonight, looks like my AR15com account was back. Interesting.
More interesting a PM awaited. I wondered if it was a moderator. Odd a PM with a blank from address. The title was 'Listen to this' inside was a link to my Audible account. There was a new book waiting for me , The Guerilla Factory, even odder I still had 17 credits on my account.

Another PM arrived from 'blank'. With the title - 'write this down'.

ICM Associates - 123 Park Street - ask for Avi.

I wrote it down and decided to try to copy and paste the message. Oddly I couldn't grab the text. Wierd. I tried to screen
shot the message and why whole browser immediately closed. WTF?

Logged back in and there was another PM

" ": Do not do that again.
" ": Hudson bread is good, Logan bread is excellent. BZ
" ": Listen to book.

Then the browser closed. Of course when I logged in again the messages were gone.

Guerilla Factory was all about Special Forces Qualification course.

I tried to look up ICM Associates on the web and there was nothing, zip , zero, nadda on it. I figured I swing by on the way home from work. Park street was in a light industrial part of town. The building at 123 Park was sort of small warehouse looking with windows ringing the whole way around the top. There were a basic pickups in the front lot. The door was solid steel and locked. It had a key pad and a buzzer.

Oh what the hell, I buzzed.

"May I help you?"

"Is Avi there?"

"What book are you listening to?"

"Uh? Excuse me?"

"What book are you listening to?"

"Oh ah 'The Guerilla Factory'"

BUZZ! Click! "Come ahead."

Inside was a gym. It looked like a boxing or karate gym. Lots of mats and open space. Some heavy bags, some speed bags. Avi
was a tiny little fellow, swarthy with grey hair. He had on non-descript loose green pants and a grey cotten t-shirt.

This was a Krav Maga gym, Krav Maga being a rather practical self defense form from Isreal. Avi pointed me to a locker room, telling me there was a locker in there where I could find some workout clothes. He spent 30 minutes testing my strength and flexibility and wind. He asked about my current fitness program. He explained a little more about Krav Maga.

"You keep up with what you're doing for maybe 6 - 8 more weeks then come back and we'll start training."

"Ah ok but how much will this cost?"

"Consider yourself a scholarship student for the first few months."

Ok this is getting a little weird....
 

WTR100

Member
------

Chapter4

What happened next? A lot of nothing. I was getting fitter and losing weight. Every now and then a book would appear in my audible library but my credits wouldn't go down. They were all quite good like 'On Combat' By Grosman or 'Day of Wrath' by Foretschin.

The next militia training we joked about having a Bake Off. It started with MollyB , from the unsinkable Molly Brown, doing a lecture on food safety and sanitation. Not exactly high speed low drag stuff but something that made a lot of sense to me, feeding people could be a scenario where the militia could really help. Molly sensed the boredom of some and laid out her plan. If large numbers needed to be fed the militia could prepare food here in her big kitchen then take the food to the people. This way the food stocks would be relatively secure. She had a decent stockpile of food staples for her business that she's be willing to press into service. Her husband DuckHunter was an electrician by trade and had installed a heavy duty Generac diesel generator on the place.

The practical side of this exercise was making Hudson Bay and Logan Breads. I passed out samples of each to the dozen or so in attendance. MollyB had set out butter, peanut butter and apple jelly to have with it. I explained some of the ingredients like using pure maple syrup in the mostly oatmeal Hudson Bay Bread to prevent the drop in blood sugar that comes from simple sugars that in turn provokes hunger. MolleyB provided wheat flour , oatmeal, white sugar, butter, maple flavor syrup and raisins. I'd sent the recipes ahead and quite a few people came prepared with their own more expensive ingredients like nuts , dried fruit, maple syrup. MollyB's commercial grade equipment made a huge difference. She had a food processor that turned oats used in HBB from oat meal to a not very course oat flour in next to nothing. Her mixers could mix cement if needed and the convection ovens baked in less time and more evenly. It was found the pans could be removed from the oven maybe 2/3 of the way through baking , the contents flipped over cut into squares and returned to the oven for the remaining time for a drier end product.

MollyB even made a chocolate version of Logan Bread by replacing molasses with golden treacle and adding coco powder and tart dried cherries. Following her lead SpeedyG , Speedy Gonzalez, made Mexican Logan bread by adding chocolate, cinnamon and cayenne pepper. While it would not be much of a treat to a hungry venture crew of boy scouts it was quite tasty in an odd way. In the end everyone had at least one full sheet pan of either Logan or Hudson and many had one of each. Since each pan yielded 54 bars everyone had 50 or 100 sealed ration bars.

The following weekend was Thanksgiving. Friday night and Saturday was an unseasonably cold snap, well below zero. Early in the morning on Saturday I received a warning order

!!Warning!! Warning!! Warning!!
Situation
1. Extreme cold has moved into the area . Causing higher number of homeless to seek shelter at Christian Industrial League (CIL)
2. Holiday is causing short staff at churches that normally staff CIL
3. Church scheduled to provide evening meal at CIL reports kitchen issues and may be unable to provide evening meal.

Mission:
Establish a preliminary count of personnel available to respond if needed to cook, transport and serve on the order of 250 people. Term of service not expected to last more than 12 hours.

Commanders Intent:
Upon receiving an order to execute November Company musters at MollyB place of business. MollyB to supervise the preparation, transport and set up of meal at CIL site. Once meal is set up NurseRatchet supervises serving of food under direction of CIL staff and return of supplies to MollyB place of business where MollyB supervises cleaning and stowage and dismisses company.

Administration:
Uniform is to be either Garrison or Civilian - NO FIELD UNIFORMS
Transport - CIL is in a questionable section of town - carpooling to the CIL is desirable - report availability of high capacity vehicles to Gravy

Signal/Command
Signal - standard cell phone app - cell voice when needed
Command - Overall - Gravy,
At MollyB place of business - MollyB
At CIL - NurseRatchet

Gravy sends.

Wow that looks down right official. I spoke to boss er wife and son's about possibly helping fix / serve food. We'd done it before but never at Christian Industrial League. Wife was up for it as was #2 son, #1 was a little less interested. The sons and I had just set down for turkey sammichs and punk'n pie when I received a 'Fragmentary Execution Order'

!!!!Execute!!!! Execute!!!! Execute!!!!
Order to execute is given! November Company to muster at MollyB place of business. MollyB to supervise the preparation, transport and set up of meal at CIL site. Once meal is set up NurseRatchet supervises serving of food under direction of CIL staff and return of supplies to MollyB place of business where MollyB supervises cleaning and stowage and dismisses company.

Report ETA via IAmResponding app.

Gravy sends.

Garrison uniform was khaki pants, black militia polo shirt with grey t-shirt and black boots or shoes. I hadn't bothered to buy a 'militia' polo but did have a solid black Rugby shirt so threw that on #2 son put on his Order of the Arrow lodge sweat shirt and #1 son this Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity sweat shirt. I slipped my Kahr Mk9 and pocket holster into a pocket and spare 7 round magazine in the other. We were off to MollyB's in the wife's suburban assault vehicle ...

We arrived as Gravy and his daughters arrived. At the door Shorty was 'managing the muster'.

MollyB was IN CHARGE here. The menu was to be Tomato Soup 'Plus' , grilled cheese with or without ham , carrot sticks, citrus aid and brownies plus. It was obvious MollyB had this planned for a while. Tacked to the white board / wall were 'mission cards'. Each card had a task to be done and a time to start it. At the moment most people were mixing and baking brownies. One son started peeling and cutting into strip carrots. The other son began to mix citrus aid - lemonade , frozen orange juice and lime juice powder.

Wife and I got soup duty. How hard could that be, open tomato soup can, dump in giant bowl thing , repeat until full. Not so with MollyB's soup. First went can after can of stewed tomatoes. Then the soup went in followed by 'flavorless protein thickener'. It was more work but the result was much better tasting than the red dishwater that was typical tomato soup. It takes a lot of soup to feed 250 men and that's a lot of cans to open.

Taking a break before MollyB caught us slacking and cracked the whip Gravy elbowed me and pointed to the prep area where his #3 daughter was assembling sandwiches with my #1 son. "Seems like your's and mine are hitting it off rather well." They had quite a system going laying one laying out bread the other buttering it. One flips bread other drops cheese , one drops ham the other drops another slice of bread and finally butter the top. Move to another basket/ rack and repeat. I didn't know you could have that much fun while making grilled cheese.

We arrived at the CIL en mass right at 5:00 pm. The staff there was both glad to see us and taken a little aback at the organization of our merry band. We sort of steam rolled in and ruined their chi for a minute but Gravy stepped up and got it all settled down. As the guests for the night began to arrive Ratchet began to notice some frost bite. He set up a station to check for serious cold injury. He called in to a buddy on the fire/ambulance service for some help. They found two men with toes frostbitten to the point of needing hospitalization.

Christian Industrial League served adult males only, and was the hardest of hard core 'urban outdoorsmen'. Several came in chemically altered and were placed into a bull pen / waiting area for a while. A few scuffles broke out that were handled by off-duty police.

It took 90 minutes to feed everyone. MollyB started to call for seconds when she was shut down by the CIL staff. Molly looked hurt and mad.

"Do you have enough to give every one of them seconds? Cause if you don't we're going to have fights and then a riot here. You folks provided more and better food than most groups coming in here."

Packing up #1 son comes up and asks, "Dad do you mind if I cut out when we get back to the kitchen place? Emily and I want to catch the late showing of 'Muppet Christmas Carrol" in the 3D Imax at the museum."

"Sure but two things, Remember that kinda scary looking dude Gravy is her dad and Emily took my CCW class a few weeks ago, she packs a Glock and knows how to use it. Do you need some money?" He didn't but I gave him some anyways. I started to say be home by but he was 20 and she was 21 so I guess they could be back when they were back.

Later at home I poured myself two then three fingers of Pusser's Navy Rum and thought about the day. We were supposed to submit after action review. Maybe after church tomorrow. I thought about pumpkin pie but it was at least 30' away in the kitchen. A thought, I wonder what 'they' will have to say about this mission. I logged into Survival Boards, nothing. I logged into ARFCOM, nothing, WeTheArmed, nothing. The High Road, zip nothing nadda,

Damn unreliable mystery omniscient PM poster ...
 

Dosadi

Brown Coat
Aye, enjoying it.

ya know the evil powers that be (hence forth identified as EPTP) would have splody heads seeing people taking responsibility for the care of themselves and others without any dependence or asking permission of the EPTB.


Good stuff

Thanks

Dosadi
 

WTR100

Member
Chapter 5:

I went back to see Avi maybe 10 lbs lighter than I was the first time. He judged me fit enough to be trained, in Krav Maga. We'd start with 90 minutes two parts, a one hour group beginner class usually at 7:00 am and a 30 minute private lesson with Avi himself. After a few months I could move to two 45 minute intermediate group sessions with an occasional workout with Avi or one of his senior instructors. My first lesson would start right now. I managed to survive 30 minutes of simple, effective and more than slightly brutal training. I was going to need to invest in bulk alieve.

I really enjoyed the KM training. It seemed to fill a gap in my personal self-defense training which to now had been exclusively firearms.


The December Training was half fun train and half Christmas Party, Potluck and Swap Meet. We rallied or was it mustered, can never remember which was which. At a unused horse riding arena. It was huge. Probably 200' long and 80' wide with an attached 40' x 60' retail space. Were a few days back it was unseasonably cold it was now unseasonably warm with afternoon highs expected in the 60's. We met, excuse me mustered, in the former retail space. It was a big turnout, the biggest I'd seen. We did colors and blessing.

I noticed three folks in verboten ACU. They had on the left shoulder a patch, a grey on tan downward pointing triangle that said 'Watchmen' and 'Illinois', Above that was a ranger style tab with 'FPG' in Red on a black background. They were introduced as part of the 'Watchmen of Illinois' Tomahawk, Hatchet and Bowie. They also had a company that ran Air Soft 'Experiences' parties or team building events with airsoft pistols. They were a little on the ubermilitary side for my tastes, standing at parade rest while addressing the class and using knife hands to emphasize points. Maybe it’s part of their 'schtick' for the air soft business.

The riding arena was to be a sterile areas so no guns, knives, Tasers, batons, tactical flashlights, pepper spray, billy clubs, saps or tactical pens were allowed in the area. We would be physically searched before entering and searched again if we left and re-entered. So most of use walked back to vehicles to divest ourselves of contraband. The even suggested pretty much removing everything from our pockets.

Thad done and patted down, hey big guy careful down there should I turn my head and cough too, we entered the arena. They had 'constructed' a small house. The used 8' poles set in car tires full of concrete like old tether ball or volley ball set ups. Between these went tarps to form walls, rooms, halls and such. Some of the walls had exterior windows. The even had movable doors in frames. I have to admit this is very cool.

They had nice steel replicas of 1911's that ran of gas stored in a removable magazine. "Do NOT DROP THESE MAGAZINES on the deck doing a speed reload! The gas inside the magazine is PROPANE so it is essentially a small bomb." Warned Tomahawk using multiple knife hands. There was one for everyone along with USGI belt and Kydex holster. Also for everyone was a gas powered CAR15 simulation complete with a web sling. They even had a few airsoft shotguns. These ran off fake shells that even fired 5 pellets at once.

Once we had eye protection on they lined us up in two lines, pistols holstered and rifles slung.

“Front rank 5 steps forward, march! Second rank on the command “Fire” draw and fire a single round into the butt or legs of the Operator in front of you.”

Say whut? Wait a second I am in the front rank!

“Scan for more targets. On the command ‘Safety, Holster’ return your weapon to the holster. Is everyone tracking? Don’t worry first rank you get to return the favor. Standby! Fire!“

Hey! Wait as sec. My mental protest was interrupted by a series of pneumatic pops. After a few seconds they stopped. Hey that didn’t hurt at all.

POP! Yeehowchhh! There was a stinging in my left butt cheek.

“Cease Fire! Safety! Holster! About! Faceeeeeeeeeeeee!”
“What is now the rear rank, the ones with sore butts, on the command ‘Fire!’ you will raise your CARBINES and fire a single round into the butt or legs of the operator in front of you. Does everyone savy?”
“Standby!”
Pause. Oh he’s being evil this time.
“Fire!”

Since the Watchmen hadn’t been ‘shot’ yet they allowed themselves to be shot with the multi-pellet shotgun thing. That looked really unpleasant.

We spent the morning getting in and out of vehicles, setting a perimeter and clearing the house room by room. We found they could rearrange the inside quickly and unexpectedly!

I’m not exactly sure when a militia unit would be storming and clearing a house. I’m also not sure how correct the training were where getting was. These Watchman sure seemed competent at what they did or at least extremely confident in how they did it. It was a blast so what the heck, if nothing else it was team building.

The Christmas party was a hoot. Pot luck with more chow than you could shake a shovel at. I made my infamous Spam chili. It started with orange tomatoes out of the wife’s garden , ok via the freezer. From my side of the garden came onions, dried red jalapenos and a touch of roasted and dried habaneros. It had the usual suspect chili powder and cumin. Of course it had pinto beans, black beans and kidney beans, you people out there screaming there are no beans in chili hush the big people are talking. The star of the show was Spam, four cans to be exact. One can of Bacon Spam, one can of Hot and Spicy Tabasco Spam, once can of Chorizo Spam and once can of good old Spam Spam . They were run through the meat grinder on extra course then fried in a black iron skillet. Once the grease started to run the dried peppers were added. Once the Spam was crusted up it went into the pot with the ‘maters and beans and the rest oh and half a bottle of a local brewed brown ale.

It seemed tradition was for folks to bring stuff to swap and sell as we ate and told lies and what not. I had blocks of Logan Bread, two blocks for a buck and Hudson Bay Bread three blocks for a buck. I’d made up and vacuum sealed some blowout kits containing two rolls of kerlex gauze, one roll Ace wrap bandage, two pairs of rubber gloves, about three feet of gorilla duct tape in a small roll, plus two strips stuck to the inside of the vacuum seal bags and three safety pins. The result was a package smaller than a grilled cheese sandwich. They sold like hotcakes. I was able to make a trade plus some cash for a really slick Vickers Tactical sling and for some of the best deer sausage ever.

Later that night while surfing I was surprised to see a PM from /dev/null , how the hell does he do that.

/dev/null: What did you think of Watchmen

Me: they thought a lot of themselves – a little too military for me

/dev/null: Family Protection Group is that way
/dev/null: Contact them. Use Google.
/dev/null: Go to some events. Do not join.

Then of course my computer rebooted and when I got back the PM’s were gone.
 

WTR100

Member
Chapter 6

The gym was crazy crowed after the first of the year so I asked Avi if I could increase my Krav Maga works. Oddly he said no. I offered to pay, still no. "You're not ready for more. If you need more exercise, put on a pack and boots and walk."

"But it’s winter. You know snow? Cold?"

"You noticed that did you? Well then wear a scarf. Now I have work to do. Off with you or our next session will be memorable..."

Doh! I already left these sessions barely able to walk. I live on 40 acres so I could walk with a rifle too if I wished. Just have to do it before the wife got home from work so she wouldn't think I'd gone nuts and joined a militia or something. Oh wait ... If nothing else the dog enjoyed the afternoon romps. There was only a dusting of snow on the ground at least for now. We trooped around the East field, across the damn to the North field then around that across the log walk over the culvert and up to the house. Two laps of that with an AR15 and my day back filled with enough old 2 liter soda bottles full of water to make 30 lbs.

I soon found 30 lbs of water in my day pack was ok but somewhat annoying. The pack had waist and chest straps but no frame. So it was sorta saggy. I had my Boy Scout pack but it was a monster expedition size. A trip to the local hole in the wall surplus joint yielded a couple things. First was a loathing of the place. It was dark and seedy , there wasn't much surplus to be had most of it was brand new junk from China. In a room marked 'private stock' behind the register I got a glimpse of what looked like Ayaan Nation 'stuff'. The old geezer running the place did help me root though a pile of Alice packs to get a serviceable pack and frame and kidney belt. On the way out I noticed a recruiting poster for Company B of the Tactical Militia. I stopped to take a picture of the contact info with my phone, who says old farts can't learn new tricks.

The geezer saw me and called out, "Those are good men you should check them out. They know what's what." He brought me a single page copy of the poster. I thanked him and moved on. I was already supposed to check out the Watchmen maybe I should check these guys out too. That night I did some google-fu. Their web page looked promising. I might not be fit enough for these guys and was lacking in beard and arm tats. They had a gear list that seemed pretty reasonable and they listed a pt standard, rifle standard and pistol standard. I figured I'd take some initiative and check these guys out. I bet /dev/null will be so proud. I was half way through the 'contact form' when my browser closed. W.T.H

When I opened it up again instead of my Google Homepage it opened to ZombieSquad and of course there a PM waiting for me. I wondered what /dev/null wanted. Wait this is a new person, /dev/zero.

/dev/zero : DO NOT CONTACT TACTICAL MILITIA - They sell methamphetamine

Well that is a new twist.

Me: Are you watching me 24/7

/dev/zero: maybe

I started to type a reply when the browser closed. How did they do that? Darn annoying if you ask me. Course they didn't ask me. When I opened the browser again it was pointed to a Suarez International AK47 Operators class hmmmm are they saying I should take a road trip? While Gabe was a wee bit of a loud mouth and very self-assured with his own self I really wanted to take a Suarez class. I wonder why the AK class, I of course own an AK, who doesn't. While pondering these imponderables my pusher - er FFL Holder of choice messaged me.

I was expanding my little firearm training business to provide handguns, belts and holsters for the basic ccw class. The initial 'early' adopters of CCW came to class with, for the most part, decent gear. My original philosophy was train with whut ya brung. As time went on students began to bring really marginal gear, floppy holsters , no belt , only one magazine. I decided to invest in some handguns and holsters, at least for the initial present from a holster. A student with decent gear already could run his own gear. I purchased four of the Canik TP9SA for their low price and dirt simple operation. I wanted a single stack of similar size and function for students with small paws. I came up with the Kahr CT9. Not everyone is in love with the Kahr trigger, I myself rather like it. Plus how would newbie students know the difference. Anyway my pusher had gotten me four of the Canik and two of the Kahr pistols, plus a total of three magazines per pistol. A friend makes holsters and was going to gin up some very basic kydex holsters for them. They were in so I went to his shop to fill out the king's paperwork and tell a few lies.

Looking at my class rosters we're actually looking quite full for the spring. Well this was good for my fun money.

I made contact with Watchmen in February. The Thursday night meeting was in a pizza joint that had a meeting room in the back. As a newbie I attempted to insist pretty insistently that be allowed to pay for the pizza buffet being served. As that just wasn't going to happen I figured I'd show them and bought double the pizza fee in raffle tickets. TAKE THAT! The group, Prairie State Watchmen, was larger than I thought with over 30 folks there. There was not an ACU to be seen, the uniform of the day seemed to be a green or brown t-shirt or sweatshirt with the Watchmen's logo a Black and Gold shield with a coiled Gadsden rattle snake on top. Most folks wore the t-shirt untucked, on the few that were tucked I could often see the straps or clips of a concealed carry holster.

The meeting started with a blessing and Pledge of Allegiance. It seemed to me they had the flags at their podium backwards with the state flage to the speakers right and national flag to the left. Then we got to eating. The pizza was excellent and varied. Everything from full on Deep Dish Chicago to cracker thin NY Cheese. One of the guys in the pizza line recognized me from the Militia Christmas party. "Hey I'm Sgt Maj Tomahawk, I got some of those ration bars from you. My kids and I got into them, damn tasty. My wife found a recipe on the internet but it wasn't nearly as good. Think you could give up your recipie?" He handed me his card. Here we are feared right wing militias and we're swapping recipes. He got my handle out of me and began to introduce me around. Oddly I knew more than a few of these people. Some were scout people, others were gun show or other gun event people and a few were even former CCW class students.

The meeting started with a legislative update. A rail thin, almost anorexic lady stood up and ranted for about 15 minutes. Somebody needs to switch this chick to de-caf and feed her some cheeseburges and jelly doghnuts. I was starting to think about jumping ship when she ran out of steam and tech time started.

This was quite interesting with a bearded bear of a man showing an Israeli Galil rifle. An interesting cross between an AR15 and an AK47 with a side folding stock. It had been designed jointly by South Africa and Israel when both countries were on the international **** list. Had it been made to run standard with AR15/M16 magazines it would have been quite a hit The Bear , his Watchman handle was THE BEAR , opined.

The quartermonky reminded everyone of the National ACU group buy and to get orders in ASAP.

The Airsoft Cadre spoke of an event in March at the riding arena where our Christmas Party has been. Also they had some 'commercial events' that could use some RO's. I'm not exactly sure what that was all about.

The Radio Shack was going to do HAM license study group/classes and the Baofeng radios would be in next month.

The SgtMajor spoke of the upcoming QX or qualification exercise in May. This was quite interesting to me. To obtain or maintain voting member status each Watchman did this once a year

1. Kit Inpection
2. Ruck March - two miles on flatish terrain with rifle and 35 lb ruck in one hour
3. Rifle qual - 100 yards 10 rounds into a B27 target from sitting , kneeling behind cover and standing behind cover scoring 21 of 30
4. Pistol qual - 10 yards into a B27 scoring 21 out of 30
5. Trek - Find three point via map and compass or GPS in 90 minutes

The also had to remain in the field for the entire event, pretty much 24 hours . Sleeping in vehicles was authorized but frowned upon and might not be authorized in the future. Any time of hootch or tent you cared to set up was ok. There would be a group fire pit or you could cold camp or bring your own stove.


FPG was having training for members , probies and whannabes. It was live fire bring ammo.

Then the meeting came complexly off the rails with the 'Commanders Time'. Col Wolf made legislative chick look like a wimp. I was wondering if I needed a tetnus or a rabies shot about half way though his rant on internationalists ...

On the drive home the QX seemed like fun. Scout stuff w/o scouts ....
 

WTR100

Member
Chapter 7

-------------------------------------

They used powered wheel chairs and high end baby strollers and shoes to smuggle in their equipment. The chairs and strollers where barely searched by the minimum wage ‘security’ staff at the park entrance allowing four Sig P226 pistols, ironically Israeli Police turn-ins imported into the US, and four cheap Chinese knock-offs of USMC Fighting Knives to be snuck into the park. Others of the faithful wore insoles in their shoes made of explosives. The parks several Family Restrooms were used either to consolidate explosives or distribute weapons. A solo member would meet with a couple with a stroller or chair and mingle then go into one of the many convenient Family Restrooms. There the transfer took place.

The process was slow taking from early entry time of 7:00 am until almost 2:30 pm. By then three suicide vests had been constructed with 10 kg of Iranian high explosive and one kilo of 5 mm hard glass beads. To make the injuries from the beads worse they had been coated in Coumadin aka Warfarin aka Rat Poison. The strong anticoagulant would cause heavy , difficult to control bleeding in wounds. In addition to the vests there were four pistols and four large knives. Unknown to the planners several of the courier boys, those who walked in with explosive insoles to their shoes had not left the park but instead had acquired non-metallic knives, sneaking them into the park to join in the killing.

The attack was to begin at 3:00 pm. The date had been chosen to be one of the busiest of the year. The park was actually two separate parks connected by a shopping and restaurant district. The focus most popular part of each park was the most hateful part, full of sorcery and wizardry. It should have been hateful even to even these decadent Christians but was by far the most popular. The Wizard World was so packed the vests could barely move.

One of the knives was getting more and more enraged as he walked through the park. He had assumed it would be full of infidel Americans. But there were a surprising number of the what should have been the faithful. He saw several hijabs, some niqab and even a few burkas. When he saw several early teen girls in hijabs in obvious colors of the fictional Wizard factions or houses. Instead of waiting for the vests to blow he attacked immediately. He screamed ‘Aloha Snackbar’ and charged the early teen age girl in a red and gold striped hijab. He stabbed her low in the back hoping for a kidney. The cheap Chinese steel was none the less razor sharp and plenty strong. He plunged the blade a full seven inches into the poor girl. She screamed and fell to her knees as he pulled the blade out. The next closest girl in a blue and gray hijab had instinctively turned toward her friend. She received seven inches of knife into her belly.


-----

Dianna Valesquez , actually SSgt Valesquez USMC was on leave between classes of 'boots' at USMCRD Parris Island South Carolina. She was a Military Policemen by profession and a Martial Arts Instructor by assignment. She was one of a small number of women in the entire USMC with a Black Belt in Marine Corps Martial Arts Program (MCMAP) Instructor Trainer Certified. She was treating her 18 year old sister and 19 year old niece to a few days in Orlando. They were having a blast in the park. They had breakfast early and skipped lunch to this point so Dianna was thinking of a late lunch , early dinner at one of the nicer sit down restaurants, if you had to pay $13 for a stupid turkey leg may as well pay for a real meal. Sis and Niece were heads down into phones when Dianna noticed the commotion in the crowd. The hairs on the back of her neck were just starting to perk up when she heard one low crump followed by a second crump. A tour in Iraq and a tour in Afghanistan told her exactly what that was. She grabbed Sis and Niece and pulled them at right angles to the crowd. They came to a fence / gate, it was closed and locked but a quick kick fixed that. Beyond the gate was a service area behind several restaurants. The restaurant workers were standing around looking dumb. Through an open door Dianna saw a prep area with several large knives. She picked up one, tested the edge and discarded it. She chose another a wicked boning knife, 5 inches long and sharp as sharp can be.

Rather than flee blindly Dianna decided to fort up back here. Hearing gunfire out front, though she had mentally said she's stay back here, Dianna found herself running to the sound of the guns. She found a man caking careful aim and firing a pistol the panicked mass. She attacked from behind and to the right. She trapped the pistol in her left hand and used the boning knife to slice the inside of his right arm. The professional quality chef's knife instantly cut to the bone severing the flexor tendons making it impossible to grip anything in the right hand. The shooter sank to his knees howling. She was about to kick him in the head when something bellowed to her rear. She spun in time to almost duck an on rushing attacker, his nonmetallic knife digging into her scalp. 'Damn that hurts', she thought. The attackers momentum carried him down an four step flight of stairs where he sprawled in a heap. She shot him in the head from 15 feet away. The slide locked open on an empty magazine, without thinking she ejected the empty then realized she had no spare. It made sense, it wasn't her pistol.

The man she cut was on hands and knees trying to get to his feet so she kicked him in the head and stomped on his left hand. She was panting and shaking now. She searched the man hoping to find a second magazine, no luck. Without even thinking she pulled his shirt inside out and over his head and pulled his pants down around his ankles. "Crap I didn't even think about a suicide vest, good thing all he has on is underwear." She thought. She repeated the process on the dead man, the only weapon he had was a strange plastic knife, "Cute", she thought, "this way it got through the scanner."

She was getting a serious case of the shakes right now so tucked the pistol in her jeans and headed back to her sister and niece, maybe escape though the back lot. Little did she know the whole event was captured in surprisingly high quality surveillance video. Within a month she would receive a numbered Challenge Coin from the Commandant, and drank shots of Irish Whiskey with the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps. The three minutes of video would be required viewing by every Marine Recruit. She would only ever be able to purchase her own alcohol with the greatest of difficulty in the presence of other Marines.


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I wasn't all that hot on going to Florida and spending four days in a hotel and theme park but the wife wanted to and it would possibly be the last chance for a family vacation. The rides were ok and #1 son was able get his Wizard on. I was amazed to see other college age people spending $50 on a stick er wand to wave at windows and see what the spell did. He was in fact much less wizarded out than many, who were in full costume with robes and stripped ties. He managed to spend quite a bit of time with a surprisingly attractive Electrical Engineering Major from Ohio State in short skirt, knee high socks and tight sweater. Who knew?

#2 son and I got to ride roller coasters. Which was pretty cool. He was way not into the whole wizard thing.

It was odd to walk around with not so much as a pocket knife after carrying a pistol for so long.

It was our last day and we were watching four guys juggle fish. Well plastic fish. It was a juggling, acrobatics and comedy show at the edge of the artificial lake that was the center of the dining and shopping area. While is sounded dumb in the park brochure these guys were hysterical.


BLAM!!!

Next thing I know I'm on the ground feeling like I've been hit by a truck. My ears are ringing and I can't see straight. I haul myself upright. Wife in in a ball on the ground but looks ok. #2 son normally wears a web riggers belt and he's trying to tourniquet a 10 year old girls arm. The lower arm is hanging by a chunk of meat for lack of a better term.

#1 son? Where is #1 son? I scan and see nothing. Then I see him. He's staggering down a dock out into the lake. He performs an adequate lifeguard water entry into the lake and rescue strokes to something in the lake. Turns out it's a small child blown maybe 40 yards into the water. He pulls her to the dock and starts rescue breathing while still in the water.

#2 son has gotten up is looking for more first aid supplies. I see a vending cart that sold of all things scarves laying on its side. We got to work packing wounds and attempting tourniquets. What worked best was to use two scarves as a pressure dressing. Use the first one top pack as much scarf into the hole and wad the rest on top. Use the second to wrap down as tight as possible to form a pressure dressing. #2 son managed to find a few wands, they were surprisingly stout and made workable windlass style tourniquet.

#1 son managed to revive the little girl in the water and passed her off to a park employee and was working to dressing wounds. Eventually dark clad SWAT dudes arrived. I locked eyes with one and one and got a curt nod back. Behind the SWAT dudes came regular cops, although carrying rifles , and firemen and medics. We eventually left the park and got back to the hotel.

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Outside Draper UT

The three men were retired 'forces guys' . They still worked for the National Guard Department of the United States Army. Hearing of the attack in Florida they geared up for a night of 24x7 news channel. One of them pulled a frozen block of chili from the deep freeze and put it in a pan on the stove to slowly reheat. They were also working with other 'forces guys' some retired and some still not on a side project. One that would use unconventional warfare aspect of the special forces in an unconventional way.
 

WTR100

Member
Chapter 8

James, aka #1 son , had a nightmare. Again. He woke in a sweat. In his nightmare he swam to the little girl, when he tried to pull her to shore the body split into pieces and sank. It was 2 am, and he was in his dorm room. He had become a bit of a celebrity on the tiny college campus. Video of him saving the little girl blown into the water had made it to the internet. It even caught the little girl vomiting in his face as she began to breathe again. But the little bit of fame seemed to keep the nightmares coming.

From the dark, “You ok Big J Man.” It was his roommate King, a monstrous football player from Arkansas. King was 6’5” and few fried chicken legs over 300 lbs., black as the Ace of Spades. He carried a 4.0 in Philosophy along with every running back or receiver that he got his hands on. His grand plan was to graduate, then Seminary then serve as an Army Chaplain in the Rangers or something like that.

“Just another dream.”

“Ok bro, listen and I’m serious here. Start coming to conditioning with me. Conditioning coach is more than cool with it. He’ll exercise all that **** right out of your head.”

“Thanks, King. You ok with me surfing the net some? I can go out to the lounge if it’ll keep you up.”

“That’s cool man, I’m going to get some Bible time while I’m up.” A reading light on King’s bunk lit up. King’s main hobby besides working out was reading various translations of the bible and making notes in a bound book of the differences.

James went to one of his comic book web sites. Then found himself surfing the Army and Marine Corps recruiting pages. A degree in Accounting seemed so pointless now. He browsed a couple three letter agency pages, CIA, FBI… He decided he was going to go talk to some recruiters. He dropped a few ‘contact me’

He swapped back to an Alternate History Fan Fiction page. A personal message box popped up.

/dev/ones: Do you really want to fight terror.

FanFicBigJ: Yes

Ok this is really weird how does this person no what I was doing and how did they get special characters in their user name.

/dev/ones: Do you really, really want to fight terror.

FanFicBigJ: Yes! I think I’m going to drop out and enlist

/dev/ones: No!
/dev/ones: Finish your Accounting Degree.
/dev/ones: If you want go to Air Force bootcamp this summer.
/dev/ones: We’re going to switch your Senior classes to the Forensic Accounting ones
/dev/ones: To REALLY fight terror we need to track and fight their money.

FanFicBigJ: But those classes are outside my track

/dev/ones: Trust us it can be made to work. Get in shape.
/dev/ones: An Air Force recruiter will come see you.

Then his computer shut down and restarted. When he got back the thread was gone.

In the morning. “King, I think I’ll take you up on the conditioning thing.”

“Outstanding, we’ll start now drop and give me 50 pushups! Just kidding. We’ll start with your diet. I’ll spot you some protein drink. Then at breakfast you can have all the meat, eggs, cheese and fruit you want. No bread or pancakes or cereal. One little glass of juice, no sugar soda… “

James was nervous and almost didn’t go to the gym for the first work out. But he was welcomed by the players and coach. He didn’t quite die on the first day and the nightmares were gone.

A few weeks later Jame’s cell rang. “James this is Staff Sergeant Wigger USAF, I understand you’d like to enlist. Would you care to grab some dinner and talk about it? “

Wigger picked him up in a slate grey jeep and they went local BBQ joint. Wigger was a short little dude in Carhart jeans and a grey flight style jacket and wellington boots. In the restaurant he had on a maroon polo with a pararescue emblem on the chest.

“Ok this isn’t the standard recruiting pitch. I’ve seen the video with the little girl as a Pararescueman I give you a big ‘hoo ya!’ over that. I think you might have a future in that community but that’s not what we’re here for.”

“So are you on recruiting duty?” James asked.

“Not quite, convalescent and rehabilitation.” He hiked up his left pant leg showing the prostatic leg underneath.

“Anyway here’s what we have to offer, eight and a half weeks of basic military training in lovely San Antonio Texas. But wait there is more. We’d like to put you in a SOC platoon. These are guys who are fitter and smarter than the average boot. Most of them want to be PJ’s like me or Combat Controllers or some such. You’ll do a little more PT so the academic classes are run a lot faster. You’ll do a lot more pool work but being a lifeguard that should be less of an issue for you. To be honest boot camp ain’t all that tough and this is just a little tougher.

“Then what?”

“To be honest Iduhno. I’m going around and pitching to guys like you for something special. Not like ape special like mad scientist special, cyber war, financial war. For you I understand you come back and finish college then I don’t know if they send you to office school or what next. Oh and you get $300 a month allowance in school. So are you in?”

James hesitated. “Listen man I don’t know exactly what this is but the people running it are no BS. They been there and done that and most lost the body parts so they don’t need no t-shirt. If it was me I’d jump on it.”

James jumped.


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I’d always said if the group started to make ghillie suits I was out of there so what was the next meeting, making ghillie suits. To my limited mind this was the height of foolishness. Sniping in a rural environment seemed the least likely ‘mission’. The warning order for the training said to bring an old field shirt or coat and binoculars or spotting scopes, notebooks and writing Implements. The order made reference to the ‘Battle of the Cowpens’.

To my limited understanding the Cowpens wasn’t so much a sniper action as a defense in depth and excellent bit of leadership. American General Morgan had in mind to never ask more of his men than they were capable of. Morgan had regulars, militia and riflemen. Back in the day the milita was seen as next to useless and liable to run at or before the first shot. Riflemen not much more reliable with the real fighting done by regulars.

Morgan set two companies of riflemen in skirmish order out front with orders to ‘fire at the big hats’, those being the sergeants and officers. Then to fall back and form up with the militia.

The militia was formed in line in front of the Regulars. The militia, reinforced with riflemen, was to fire two volleys then retreat behind the hill the regulars were on.

The plan worked almost exactly as expected. The riflemen eliminated much of the British leadership. As the British advanced on the militia they mistook the shift to the rear after the second volley as the militia breaking. So they charged intending to sweep the field. But instead of fleeing a broken militia they ran headlong into regulars. Morgan even managed to rally the militia behind the hill marching them around the hill and into the British flank.

The result was a devastating loss for the British.

Back in modern times the make ghillie class was actually somewhat interesting. They showed both the traditional sewing burlap strips on and faux-ghillie using camouflage netting. After lunch we had classes in observing. I found this very useful. They guys teaching had been to some of the higher end civilian ‘sniper’ schools. I learned a lot about what good binoculars or a good spotting scope could do. We spent time glassing areas noting the items seen. We tried peering into windows, look mom Peeping Tom 101! Finally our instructors stalked up on us in ghillie, not sure exactly what that was good for but it was interesting.

The day ended with talk of GOTT’17 , Gathering of the Tribes 2017. It was a 5 daylong event to bring together militia units from several states. One the one hand it could be a lot of fun – on the other it could get way way way sideways really fast. Maybe the voice in my head , er computer, would chime in Gravy and Ratchet were both planning to attend so that was a good sign.

Back at home the wife had chilly on, she was headed out for a hen party of gals playing one of the bizarre card games women play. #1 son was home but soon to head out to see Gravy’s daughter Emily. They were beginning to become a bit of an item. “Where are you going?”

“Saturday night service at her Church then dinner at her folks place. Maybe a late movie. Hey can you help me brush up on my shooting? They’re talking about going to their farm if it’s not too cold tomorrow … “

Now both sons knew how to shoot but #2 was much more into it than #1. “Sure Bud but sounds like you’ll have to be up early”


I figured I’d get contracted during my surfing session that night. Nothing. Damn unreliable mysterious internet presence. I looked up GOTT and it seemed legit. Seems like it would be on public lands in South Dakota. Trailers would be ok but no electric or water. Temps would typically be chilly at night but nice during the day. Well I had my trusty French Army tent. Folks laughed but two simple poles and it was up. The bathtub floor was super thick totally waterproof and the top and walls were extra thick as well.

The was the first campout I will have been on with an assigned radio frequency list …. Well definitely maybe.


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March training was called Sergeant Paul Bunyan training. A guy from the Son’s of Liberty was apparently a Stihl chainsaw dealer and trainer. I’d never seen SOL before but they seemed to prefer the old school olive drab uniforms. This guy was an awesome trainer. We started with how to sharpen axes, chain saws and even bow saws. He demonstrated using hatchets, axes and bow saws to fell trees and then to piece them up. Then we got to practice on real live trees. Well real dead trees in a river bottom.

Over lunch he talked of his time as a hot shot firefighter and smoke jumper out west. He demonstrated the fine art of preparing ‘Smokejumper Spam’
1. Build small fire if you’re not already in the middle of one
2. Open can of spam
3. Take out knife wipe majority of funk from it
4. Cut deep tic-tac-toe pattern in spam, still in can
5. Liberally sprinkle orange bug juice powder on top of spam, lemonade powder is good too, red is acceptable any other color is an offense against God and nature
6. Work can into the edge of the fire until it begins to sizzle
The bug juice will mix with the spam fat to form a glaze of sorts. I took the chance to taste some, quite good.

After lunch we got to use chain saws. He demonstrated why chainsaw chaps are a must, using an old pair of chaps to show how quickly they could stop a saw. He demonstrated a sharp chain vs a dull chain. He demonstrated the green low kick back chain vs the yellow professional chain. He checked out everyone’s saw, my Stihl 290 got a thumbs up, and set us to work. Something manly about using a chainsaw. At the end of the day he demonstrated special carbide saw chain. Where a regular chain dulls when you saw into a nail or into the ground a carbide one keeps right on going. Making them very popular with rescue squads and such. The down side was three fold, first it was expensive, second it was very high potential for kickback and lastly it right though protective chaps.

This was some of the best training we’ve done. Very relevant in my mind to a mission we might actually do. It was somewhat entertaining to see the huffing, puffing and wheezing of the smoking crew. Small of me but there it is. I made a mental note to check out the Sons Of Liberty group.


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The idea for The Network stated as a capstone project with a then Special Forces Major at Naval War College. His thesis was on the value of a civilian militia. As the regular military is prevented from operating in the US. There were numerous militia groups being formed in the US, could these groups be harnessed. The paper earned the Major a the lowest passing grade, B-. The Major didn’t care, he was just punching a ticket to get back to the SF community. It might have ended there but one of the board that reviewed his work was a Navy Captain, a SEAL navy Captain. Who thought to himself hmmmm. The Captain passed it to a Spec Ops general he knew and a high ranking official in Homeland Security. These folks thought to themselves hmmmmm. And so it started. The project was quietly classified and the Major promoted to LtCol and transferred to 19th Special Forces Group in Draper UT.
 

WTR100

Member
Mini chapter - political stuff - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

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The Presidential election was a mess. Several states were won by less than a single percentage point with reports of ‘irregularities’ rampant. Voting machines were inaccurately recording votes, oddly enough all in the same direction. There were precincts with 100%, 102%, even 108% turn out. In other precincts with lines out the door the recorded vote was 30%. By Wednesday morning neither candidate had the required 270 electoral votes. The vote too close to call in what was normally an insignificant state. By Friday morning lawyers from both sides were doing legal battle in earnest. Federal courts often with judges recently appointed by the sitting President made ruling and issued injunctions. Higher courts stayed and reversed. Several states went from decided to recounting. Some states ordered to recount refused to comply.

It was a huge mess. It had not clarified by Thanksgiving. The country took a pause to feast, watch some parades and some football. The country was shocked when it was announced the president would address the nation the evening of Thanksgiving. The NFL frantically worked to reschedule the evening game around the president’s address to the nation from his vacation in Hawaii. It was unlikely the president read from the teleprompter that the election results were unlikely to clarify in the mandated times. Any attempt to force this would make a large portion of the population not accepting of the results. He was there for ordering ALL states to recount the election 100% to be supervised by the justice department. As it would not be legal for the President to carry on beyond the end of his second term and it would be unseemly to turn over power on the 20th of January he would resign on January the 19th with the vice president taking power with the title of President Pro Tempore of The United States.

Pause for feasting, football, parades and shopping over! The internet went WILD! The 24/7 news channels went wild!

I told the wife planned shopping for the following day was canceled, at least until well after daylight and we had a chance to see what was shaking out. I decided to get up early to watch some Fox and see what was shaking. I hauled the bread machine out deciding to set it to have fresh Bimany Bay bread – a dense yeast loaf with whole wheat, oatmeal, eggs and molasses. There was something about early morning news with fresh hot bread and butter. Oh and coffee, hmmmm the jar was low and I had bought myself some Black Rifle Coffee Company Murdered Out Blend, “It's darker than a steer's tuchus on a moonless prairie night."

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Nobody was happy with the solution. But the President, normally feckless and incompetent, was crafty with his plan. He well knew the Supreme Court ,SCOTUS, was a 4 - 4 tie and both sides of the SCOTUS had closed ranks. In a shockingly political move the VP now President Pro Tempore had nominated his party's Presidential candidate to be his Vice President Pro Tempore.

The congress responded by doing nothing. That is the majority party essentially went on strike. Preventing a quorum and stopping all business. It was threatened to have US Marshalls bodily bring Congressmen and Senators to the capital.

The military was in quite a quandary. Who was National Command Authority? Did they follow the orders of the President Pro Tempore of The United States? Could they not follow orders? Several of the Joint Chiefs wondered aloud about resigning to which the Chairman angrily replied he'd have the Sergeant Major of the Army break both their hands so they couldn't sign a resignation letters.

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WTR100

Member
chapter 9

The Network was the brain child of a Special Forces Major ( Lt Colonel selected ) while a student at the Naval War College. Being the unconventional thinker that SF officers are the Major proposed harnessing the various 'millitia' elements forming up in the states. The Major reasoned while some of these groups were cosplay whannabe's and others were racist whackaloons, many and even most were people of varying levels of skill and motivation, exactly what SF was used to working with. The thesis earned him a B-, the lowest passing grade. It was joked the professors were afraid to give him a lower grade for fear of having their throats cut in the middle of the night. The Major was simply relieved to have this box checked and move on with his life.

One of the instructors reviewing the work was a Navy Commander, in the Judge Advocate General Corps, a lawyer. He was a bit of an outside the box thinker himself and slipped it to an Admiral knew in the Pentagon. Lunches were had, noon time runs were taken, rounds of golf were played and rounds of drinks were downed. The idea morphed some. There would be two parts to The Network. One part would be people inside the government, eyes open , quiet and very unofficial. The others would be outside the government, some of these would be militia members selected for level heads and general good personness others would be retired members of the Spec Ops community. Mostly these would be from Special Forces but commandos and raiders from units such as SEALS, Rangers and the like. They would have special skills and maybe even special equipment in very extreme circumstances.

In theory it would work with the inside the government seeing a situation. Contacting outside the government assets, providing information and requesting action. The outside the government asset gets his group moving. They may link up with other units or with retired assets.

"So what if we pass down a tasking and the militia says 'No'"?

"We'll be no worse off than before and maybe we ought to rethink that tasking."


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I decided to attend GOTT. So I sent for info. The first thing that came back was earlier information was incorrect, trailers were a no go. Pickups with bed campers 'should be able to make it' . A bunkhouse with wood floor , cot and weather proof roof would be available first come first serve for a fee. All vehicles should be 4wd with a minimum ground clearance. There would be a dinner available for a fee each evening BBQ Beef and beans , BBQ Pork with rice and Fried Chicken and corn on the cob were the offerings, with sides , desserts and sweat tea. It was to be an absolutely dry affair as Camp would be a hot range, all guns loaded all the time. Fresh water would be available but 'Some folks systems might object to drinking it so having a quantity of your own drinking water might be to your advantage.'

I registered and got an odd e-mail. It provided directions to a small town in the butt end of South Dakota. In town was a decent 24/7 stop and rob , thought robbing said mini mart in rural SD might be hazardous to a robbers health. At the mini-mart it was recommend to buy any last minute supplies, especially the buffalo jerky, then call the designated short wave frequency for directions andGPS co-ordinates. Again 4wd was pretty much mandatory, trailers were a no go. Travel at night to camp was not recommended. Be sure to close all gates once you pass through them. Cattle has the right of way.

I guess it was time to splurge on one of those BaoFeng radios, hopefully it'll be less than $100 bucks. I shoot an SIM ( secure instant message) to Sparky they militia ham dude. He laughed at my request for a $100 BaoFeng radio. Oh boy I thought , here's an expense I wasn't planning for. He sent me two links, opening the links I found to my great relief a $49 unit and a $69 unit with Sparky recommending the $49 unit being more durable and with a longer battery life and 'simple enough for me to figure out'. Gee thanks pal. He even sent me a discount code and said to call when it arrived and he's help me set it up and 'hack it'.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=- Months Later

The drive out to SD was quite nice. I binge listened to my gun pod casts and subsisted on high protein energy drinks, power bars and beef jerky. I overnighted in a little motel somewhere in eastern South Dakota. The little attached restaurant served a killer beefalo burger with bacon ground right into the burger before grinding and cooked over a bed of onions on the grill. Heading from the resturant to my room I caught a flash of four red jackets in the parking lot getting out of a suburban assault vehicle aka Cadillac Escalade - black of course.

I didn’t think much about it and headed to my room for an evening of finishing up the Civil Affairs manuals I'd been assigned to read. I was afraid it would be dull in the extreme but was actually quite interesting. I never realized the Civil Affairs worked hand in hand with Special Forces before I stated to study training materials about it. The room had crazy fast internet so I killed an hour watching Trauma Monkey you tube videos.

Breakfast at the restaurant was typical small town diner excellence, in my case eggs and hash browns smothered gravy with three shakes of tabasco. I could hear my arteries clog as drove away. I could afford to splurge once in a while these days, I was 50 lbs lighter than I had been when the adventure started.

I arrived at the designated small town gas station around noon. As I was firing up the radio I noticed the suburban assault vehicle from the motel with one of the red jacket crew on a radio just mike mine. He flashed me a thumbs up. I got my co-ordinates and decided to check out the store that was more of a small Walmart/General Store than a stop-and-rob.

In the Escalade a large black man got out wearing a bright red jacket and placed a rather snazzy red beret on his head. We met at the door to the store. He said, "I believe we might be headed to the same place."

"Inside the store?" I dead panned.

He hesitated for half a second then laughed loudly, "That too, that too." He stuck out a massive black hand, "Charles Washington, St Louis Guardian Angles'

I took it, wow this dude has a grip. "My nom de millia is Reloads, or you can call me Phil. I run with the Militia " Managing to extract my hand before permanent damage was done, "After you sir."

"I thank you sir. " Entering the store he took a huge sniff spied the ancient coffee pot and headed over. He inhaled deeply again, "Oh now is that some sweet smelling coffee." He selected a large foam cup, poured and took a sip. "Oh yeh, Oh yeh." He finished filling the cup then picked up a pod of creamed examined and held it for me to see. "Now this Mr. Reloads is how you tell a fine establishment. What you have here is real dairy half and half creamer. It comes from a cow like God hisself intended it, not that non-diary who knows what's in it. And not the crime against humanity that is French , carmel , irish flavored stuff." He dumped three pods into his large cup.

We wandered about the store picking up some last minute supplies. I found real pemmican bars. Dried meat and suet and dried berries, made by the local Oglala Lakota tribe. Beef and cherry, bison and cranberry , turkey and peach. The wrapper even joked the last one was 'off the reservation'.

Checking out Charles asked, "Care to join us in some lunch?" He indicated some fast food booths in the Store. "We have a bit of a proposition for you."

Minutes later I was seated in a booth with Charles, Hyme , James and Carlos. Before me was a Bison Brat and a small mountain of fries. "It might come as a surprise to you but we're not exactly outdoors kinda people." Laughter. "We were wondering if you could take a look at our gear. Make sure we don't look like 'those black guys from the city who don't know nothing'."


We talked about their gear. They want back into the store to buy two large tarps, one for under and one for inside their big cabin style tent , and a roll of black Gorilla brand tape. Each also bought a large native made wool blanket and watch cap to supplement the 40 degree sleeping bags they had with them. Each man wore high end Danner Ft Lewis boots , immaculately shined, quality black bdu style pants with heavy nylon riggers belts. Getting well off the 'Guardian Angel' , which strictly forbids firearms, program they had Canik TP9SA pistols in basic paddle holsters and a S&W M+P Sport rifle with three p-mags each. The rifles and pistols looked anything but new. As Hyme put it, "We been training to not embarrass out selves any more than we need to."

We convoyed out to the GOTT site. My truck in the lead with Carlos riding shotgun, Charles driving the Escalade , actually rented , behind me. They weren't kidding about cattle gates once we got off the highway. We had it down to a science quickly, I didn't even stop the truck sometimes. Carlos would jump out run forward and open the gate as I slowly rolled through. He'd jump in as I came though. Hyme would jump out as Charles drove though then run and hope in. It was immature. It was unnecessary. It was a hell of a lot of fun!

We checked in at the GOTT site it was amazing. A flat in a valley with a small river / large stream. We were given a safety brief. The whole area was a hot range, all weapons could be loaded at all times. The firing range was over the hill. In another valley. Water from the stream was drinkable and quite tasty. The 'grub hut' wouldn't be open until tomorrow night. There was mandatory colors at the flag pole in about two hours. We were pointed to the 'camp area' , a large open bit of ground. "One patch is as rocky as the next!"

We decided to camp together. I showed them the trick on one tarp below the tent and one inside. The laughed at my French F1 pup tent. Camp more or less in shape and an hour before colors the 'Angles' decided to work out. In a flash they had knocked out 50 pushups. Then they moved into martial art that looked a lot like the Krav Maga I knew. I joined in and soon we were all working out. It turned out the St Louis Angles trained mostly in Hagana. Charles was fluid and fast as a snake. Turns out he was a rated instructor in Hagana and knew quite a lot about Krav Maga.

By the time 'Colors' rolled around maybe 80 of the 300 expected had arrived. The Dakota Freemen provided the color guard. The Pro Tempore Commander spoke a few words before sending us off.


We set out chairs at camp. The Angles passed out mre's for dinner, I cut up some hot dogs and put a can of pork and beans on my little camp stove. Jokes about me remaining downwind for the night were countered with at least I might be able to visit the pit toilet before the weekend was over.

We talked about the Angles and their safety patrols thought St Louis , not so bad , and East St Louis , really really bad. The Angles had been invited out to GOTT to provide some hand to hand training, boy could they ever do that. But more to bridge the gap not so much in color as in rural , urban and suburban. Charles had a real vision in his head.

I asked if anyone wanted to try some back packer brownies. "Aren't we brown enough?" joked Charles. My expression must have been priceless cause they all howled in laughter. I set some water to boiling. I crushed graham crackers into a zip loc bag and added chocolate chips , instant hot chocolate mix and a teaspoon of instant coffee. With the water at a rolling boil I added a few spoons full to the bag a squiched it around. Not 100% happy with the consistency I dipped the bag into the boiling pot for a few seconds then resumed the squiching.

In my best professorial tone, "The key to proper backpacker brownies is correct squiching." I pressed the slightly molten dough into a thin layer in the bag and allowed it to harden for ten munutes. Using my knife I opened the zip lock cut into five pieces.

"Oh damn that's good." Rumbled Charles. "That little hint of coffee with the chocolate, mmmmmmmmmmmmm"

With that Hyme , James and Carlos began to fish things out of their thigh pockets.

"Oh hell no." Rumbled Charles. It was cigars and cutters and lighters.

"Comm'on we'll stay down wind. Yo Reloads care for a cigar?"

"Sorry, not a fan of them."


From out of the darkness in the next camp. "Hey bring them ceeegarssssssssssss over here, sit and chat for a spell we've about to fire up some stogies our selves."

Hyme , James and Carlos happily took their chairs and smokes over to soon be engulfed in billowing clouds of smoke and deeply involved in cigar talk.

"Hey now don't get this wrong but I noticed you have a USMC Civil Affairs manual. Wasn't snooping just noticed it and it's not the kinda thing most folks read. Does anything odd ever happen with your computer?" Charles was holding a US Army Civil Affairs training manual.

"You mean like instant messages that pop up. Then your computer reboots or shuts off and they're gone?"

"Exactly, are you supposed to be 'met' here.

"Yup..."

"Damn ......."


=========================

US Software companies had used both off shore sub-contractors and foreign nationals on H-1B visa's to save a buck for a long time. Almost always these folks just did whatever job they were paid to do with a varying level of quality but at much reduced price. Sometimes even government projects were done this way. Such was the case for a flight plan entry system for the Dept of Transportation. The project came off only a few months behind schedule, quite good for a government job and not outlandishly over budget. The trouble is some programmers took some side money to leave a backdoor into the system. The back door survived unnoticed for several years, the system not being exactly national security critical. But the ability to spoof a flight plan was there waiting ....
 

mudlogger

Veteran Member
It'll likely be a week before I more more of the story over :siren:

We don't care if you need to repair the roof, till the garden, rescue the drowning or tie your own shoelaces, we want more! (anybody see what I did there, with the last two? Know what it's from? Only thing I got from that book, actually)

No, really, have a good weekend, and remember that we're...all...waiting.
 
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