299 Days: The 17th Irregulars

Chapter 200 The 17th Irregulars

Everyone got their things together and waited for Lt. Col. Hammond to stand. He did, and dismissed them by saying, “To the hall, gentlemen.” He looked at two female soldiers and said, “And ladies, of course.” Everyone started walking out.

Ted said quietly to Grant, “Nice job, Grant. Hammond likes you.”

“Where are we going?” Grant asked. He was all business tonight. He didn’t want to start patting himself on the back when there was important work to do. He had the quite boat ride back that night to think about how well things went.

“The community hall, a block away. It’s where we have big meetings,” Ted said.

“What’s the meeting about?” Grant said. It was 1:30 a.m.

“You’ll see, Lieutenant,” Ted said with a smile.

“Lieutenant” sounded so weird. The idea of him commanding a military unit seemed so crazy. “You’re in day-to-day command of the unit,” Grant said softly to Ted. “You know that, right?”

“Roger that, Lieutenant,” Ted said. “We’ll talk about it later, but don’t worry. You don’t have to be some battlefield commander.”

“Thank God,” Grant said. As confident and calm as Grant had been the whole night, he had been terrified of being responsible for knowing how to command a combat unit. But, that’s what Ted and Sap were for.

The hall was not visible from the marina so Grant hadn’t noticed it when he first got off the boat. But, hidden away, was a big community center. It looked modern, probably built with stimulus money from a few years ago. Might as well get something out of that money, Grant thought. How ironic: using a hall built with stimulus money to plan how to topple the government that built it.

The closer they got to the hall, the bigger the crowd became. Most were military people, but there were lots of civilian-looking people like Grant. Some of them looked like true civilians, in pure civilian clothes, not the tactical clothes Grant had on. There were many contractor-looking guys, but they were probably SF, like Ted and Sap.

The crowd settled into the community hall. It seated about a hundred and was almost full. A soldier was sitting at a desk, checking names at the entrance. It was Grant’s turn.

“Grant Matson,” he said. Ted mouthed to the solider, “He’s with me.”

The soldier looked on the list. “Yes, sir, here’s your name. Welcome.”

“Welcome to what?” Grant asked Ted.

“You’ll see, Lieutenant,” Ted said. “You’ll see.” It continued to seem so odd for Ted to be calling Grant “Lieutenant.” It was also odd that Ted could instantly go from calling Grant by his first name to “Lieutenant” without even thinking.

Everyone sat down. Most people didn’t seem to know each other. People were upbeat but fairly businesslike. There were others in the room that appeared like Grant, unsure of what the meeting was about.

Grant was surprised to see a large group of Arab men in a corner. They were dressed in American clothes. They kept to themselves and talked in a language Grant couldn’t understand. What were they doing there? Grant wasn’t a racist or anything, but weren’t there Muslim terrorists out there blowing things up? Had the Patriots joined some anti-Loyalist alliance with the Muslim terrorists? That was not what Grant signed up for.

“Who are those guys?” Grant whispered to Ted.

“They’re cool. You’ll see,” Ted whispered back. Grant was completely mystified why the Arabs were there.

After about one minute, most people stood up abruptly. Grant looked around, saw them standing, and did the same. He didn’t know why they were standing until he saw Lt. Col. Hammond walking in.

Hammond went up to the podium and said, “Please be seated.” Everyone sat. The room was silent.

“I am Lt. Col. Hammond, commander of the Free Washington State Guard’s Special Operations Command. I’m in charge of things like our irregular units, which are led by Special Forces personnel. This meeting is about the irregular units.”

Hammond continued, “At the outset, let me say that irregular units are essential to our strategy for victory. These aren’t bands of poorly trained, poorly equipped ‘bubbas.’ There are some of those and we’ll use them effectively, but not as irregular units. No, the kind of irregular units we’re talking about tonight are trained and led by FUSA Special Forces personnel with whom I formerly served at Ft. Lewis. Our SF Irregulars will be, for the most part, tying down the Limas in their rear areas. Attacking strategic assets in Lima territories. Eliminating Lima officials. Stealing supplies from the gangs and getting them to our units and the people. Causing maximum chaos for the Limas, and thereby requiring them to siphon off their regular units to deal with our little, elusive, irregular units. This means they’ll have fewer regular units to deal with our regular units, which gives our regular units an advantage. And that is what our irregular unit strategy is all about: giving our regular units an advantage.”

Hammond looked at the audience and smiled, “This strategy of using SF-trained irregulars as a force multiplier to tie down lots of enemy regular units has worked in every part of the world it’s been tried.” He knew because he’d done it.

“Many of you came from long distances,” Hammond said. His voice was loud enough to be heard in the hall without a microphone but he wasn’t yelling. His voice projected strength and competent leadership.

“You came through dangerous territory to get here,” Hammond said, “so I’ll be as brief as possible and get you back on the road or water, or in one case, air, so you can travel back in the dark.”

“The purpose of this meeting tonight is to get all the irregular units together, get some basic briefing, let you meet each other, and get your quadra,” Hammond said.

Quadra? What was that? Grant wondered.

“This will probably be the first and last time we’re in the same room for the whole war,” Hammond said. Then he smiled and said, “Don’t worry, we’ll have a nice party when we win. One hell of a blowout.” Most people smiled at that.

Hammond turned to a subordinate and said, “Captain, have them count off.”

The captain said, “I need a representative of each irregular unit to come up to the podium and form a line from left” he pointed, “to right.”

Grant looked at Ted who said, “You’re the representative, Lt. Matson.” Ted motioned for Grant to get up and go to the podium.

Grant reluctantly did so. As he was standing up and looking clueless, he realized that he still thought of Ted as being in command of the unit.

That needed to change, at least for things like this meeting. Grant needed to accept that he was the officer for the unit, but that Ted was the day-to-day and battlefield commander. Grant needed to start working on his command presence. He was being properly humble by acknowledging that Ted was the real commander, but he needed to have the rest of the world know that he was the lieutenant. It was understood that a lieutenant, while technically in command, wouldn’t know everything; the highest ranking sergeant would. In the two seconds it took him to finish standing, Grant became confident about his new role. He strode up to the podium with command presence.

Grant walked up the front of the room and stood next to some others. There were about two dozen, including two women. Nearly half were in military uniforms, two others were apparent civilians in tactical clothes like him, and the remaining half or so were civilians in purely civilian clothes.

Grant looked into the audience and saw Ted and Sap and similar FUSA military-looking guys. Most of the audience seemed to be Special Forces trainers, like Ted and Sap, with some regular military walk-on guys sprinkled in. The audience was smiling, like they knew the people at the podium were about to get an award or something.

Once all the representatives of the various units formed into a line at the front of the room facing the audience, the captain said to the first person, “Count off.” The first person said, “One.” The second said, “Two” and so on. By the time it got to Grant, he said, “Seventeen.” The counting ended at twenty three.

Hammond looked at the men and women in the line at the podium and smiled. “Welcome to the Special Operations Command, ladies and gentlemen.”

The audience clapped. They seemed to know what was going on.

Hammond said, “The number you have is your unit number.” He let that sink in. “So you, Lt. Shaddock” he said pointing at the person who said “one” “are the First Irregulars. You, Lt. Potach,” Hammond said pointing at the person who said “two,” “are the Second Irregulars.”

Grant had called out “seventeen” so he must be…the 17th Irregulars. Grant thought about it. He was the commander of the 17th Irregulars. Wow. This was for real. Commander of the 17th Irregulars. He let that sink in.

Grant looked out at the audience. Everyone was smiling and clapping. Now he understood why. This was a big moment. These would be the unit numbers described in the history books…if the Patriots won and got to write the history books. If they didn’t, then these unit numbers would be used in indictments and military tribunals for treason. That was a dark thought. Grant felt, when he first told Ted and Sap at the yellow cabin “I’m in,” that he had committed to the cause. Now he really felt like he’d committed, in a very no-going-back way.

Grant looked side to side and saw his fellow commanders. They started shaking hands and grinning. This was something to be proud of.

Hammond let the commanders shake hands and exchange pleasantries, but needed to keep this meeting moving. They had to be out of there soon to get back home by dawn.

Hammond looked into the audience and said, “Now I have something to tell you that none of you saw coming.”