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Global War Of Terror: Montage
Nov. 23rd, 2017 08:46 pmGlobal War Of Terror: Montage
[A montage is a series of cut scenes in which fragments combine to produce a desired result. See also: https://youtu.be/fhWiTORp22k ]
Our plucky hero did not inherit a well trained, disciplined band of survivors. As with nearly everything else, it had to be manufactured from materials at hand.
Day 5
"Listen. Hold the butt of the pistol up against your thumb and forefinger, like so. In that V notch. Now point the barrel. Good. Shit! Shit!"
I draw my own handgun and hold it at low ready, menacing the band of men approaching the gate where I am giving an on the fly shooting lesson. They have already ignored signs, and the bell, and the small pile of bodies. Animal and otherwise.
"STOP! Armed security, private property!"
"Whatcha gonna do, shoot us?"
They spread out, two raise clubs. They are dressed in several expensive layers, obviously looters. They must have left the shopping carts out at the road. At night we would have heard them. Not during the day.
"Stop or I kill. Last warning."
One laughs and takes a step. So I kill him, one shot, center mass.
The second raises his club and steps forward. I hear from behind me BANG BANG BANG and he falls forward on himself. Less accurate, same effect.
The rest scatter and run.
"Like that, boss?" my trainee asks. Then throws up.
I keep scanning left and right, watching the would be intruders run away. We will need to double the watch tonight, and I will need to be here with them.
"Yes, like that."
Day 7
"Push down on that, HARD. No! HARD, tighter!"
The employee is bleeding out from the wound. A stupid wound -- he ran around a corner and impaled his arm on a barbed wire fence we were putting up, then yanked out the stake, leaving a chunk of flesh on it and a big hole in his arm spurting blood.
The other employee ... he used to be a janitor ... is mumbling and swearing in Spanish. I have committed a cardinal sin and applied a bandage out of my own Individual First Aid Kit. This is bad; I should save that for myself, I may be needing it at any instant. But if I go back to the bicycle for the pannier bag, he'll bleed out before I return.
So I whip off my belt and quickly loop it above the wound, then crank it down TIGHT. Both employees scream -- the injured one hoarsely, the uninjured one in sympathy.
I take out my baton. This may be the one time than an ASP baton is actually good for something. I loop it under the strap and crank it down, ruthlessly and hard, ignoring the screaming and riding the man's injured arm and shoulder with my legs to keep him from getting up.
"Your belt," I order coldly to the uninjured employee.
He takes it off, shivering. I use it to tie the baton tight to the upper arm. The extremity below the injury is already turning white, but the bleeding has slowed to a still life threatening trickle.
"Go to the bicycle. Bring it to me. Do this now."
He runs to obey.
"Echo 18 to Control. Medical Emergency, west side of Building 4. I need responders Code 3 for an arm injury."
There is no reply.
I check radio and frequency. All correct.
"Echo 18, Control. Emergency Traffic. Respond immediately!"
"What do you want?"
I make note of the voice.
"Echo 18, Control, Emergency Traffic. I need medical responders to the west side of Building 4 right now."
"OK, OK, hold your horses."
I change frequencies. "Echo 18, Master Alarm, Immediate Action. I repeat, Master Alarm, Immediate Action. The Reaction Team WILL RESPOND to the Security Operations Office. Immediately. Master Alarm, Security Operations Office. Do this now."
I hear the alarm go off - we have repurposed the fire alarm - and a crowd of employees and hangers on gathers outside the buildings.
Soon we have designated first aid responders to take over the injury and carry the man to the infirmary.
People scatter out of my way when I get on the bicycle.
Day 7 - Twenty Minutes Later
I am explaining the basics of emergency radio procedure. Forcefully. With emphasis. With the tip of a bloody baton. Into sensitive body parts.
"You. Will. Answer. Emergency Traffic. As If. It Were YOU. Bleeding. To Death!"
The former dispatcher is crying. He has good reason.
"You are dismissed from the Security Department. Report to Landscaping for reassignment. Oh, and someone take him to the Infirmary."
"Is he hurt that bad, sir?"
I think about it, and whip out the baton into the former dispatcher's shin. He screams.
"Maybe now he is. But I want him to meet the man he nearly killed. See to it."
"Sir!"
Day 12
The employee volunteers are willing to show up and pretend to pay attention. But when they realize they are being taught the fundamentals of marksmanship with BB guns, they are having trouble taking it seriously.
I can't do it all. So I have asked a Marine to take over this block of instruction for me. Strictly speaking, I am one of the students -- and rifle marksmanship is not one of my skills.
But when the employee manager turns around to me and negligently permits the muzzle of his BB gun to point at my torso, I see a learning opportunity.
I punch him in the gut, take the BB gun away from him, and in a gentle, controlled manner, touch his forehead with the butt of the BB gun with blurring speed. In CQB it would have been a killing blow.
Then I draw my very real, very loaded handgun and put it to his forehead.
"YOU DO NOT MUZZLE PEOPLE YOU DO NOT INTEND TO KILL! ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME MISTER?!? ARE YOU?"
His bladder cuts loose. I holster.
"This is not a joke, this is not a game. There are thousands of starving desperate people who are willing to KILL YOU and KILL ME and KILL US ALL to get a meal for their worthless spouse and hungry little brats. If you can't CODE and you can't FIGHT ... YOU CAN GO JOIN THEM!"
Day 12 - Thirty Minutes Later
I leave Legal One's office in a towering but utterly controlled rage.
The misbehaving manager has been dismissed from Reaction Team. He is returning to coding with a new purpose - bring up his metrics or be delivered to the South Gate for dismissal.
I have been threatened with dismissal. I offered my resignation. My resignation was refused.
It took ten minutes of screaming for Legal One to think through the implications of dismissing his only trained combat leader while 1) he was armed and 2) Legal One was not.
I of course could not offer a single solitary word hinting in that direction - that if I were not in fact utterly disciplined and utterly willing to submit to lawful and proper authority, these buildings would be burned out shells and Legal One would be decorating a light pole by the neck.
I offered my resignation a second time. He considered it.
To buy time Legal One summoned witnesses. I stood at attention, as is proper, while he interrogated and dismissed them. He then began to give me corrective action while the last witness was present.
"Sir, with respect, it is not appropriate to discuss this with Sergeant Wilshire present."
He continued. I kept interrupting. Finally he shut up when I shouted in command tone, "NOT APPROPRIATE! SIR!"
The good Sergeant, knowing better than to be caught in this particular crossfire, excused himself stage right.
I then briefly and forcefully explained that to discipline someone in front of their subordinates damaged the chain of command, often beyond repair, and that while he could say anything he liked to me behind closed doors, that I could not let him do this under these conditions, combat conditions.
I then offered my resignation a third time after tossing my pistol on the desk in front of him.
He stared at it like it was a snake.
He picked it up, locked and loaded. He pushed it with a finger, experimentally.
I had a backup weapon, and I'm an OK draw. But that wasn't the point.
That this was life and death, and that both his behavior and my own needed to be judged against that standard ... was.
Not all education is instructor to student.
Day 17
"This vehicle has failed inspection," I stated as I passed the clipboard back to the Motor Pool manager. Its deficiencies each lovingly documented -- and obvious.
He worked his way through various excuses. Then, in the presence of witnesses, he offered me a bribe.
I made a counter proposal involving his wife and my genitals and the same bribe.
His subordinates had to grab him when he started to take a punch at me.
I then briefly, baldly explained that there was 1) no bribe worth a life and 2) therefore attempting to bribe me _or anyone else_ to ignore life safety under these conditions was skirting close to premeditated murder.
Day 17 - Twenty Minutes Later
"... seventeen ... eighteen ... nineteen ... twenty ..." I gasped out as I did pushups in Legal One's office with the door locked. Then stood.
"Dismissed."
Day 22
The truck's engine stalled.
"Herringbone!" I ordered and the convoy stopped in that formation.
The driver kept trying to crank the ignition. I stopped him after the third time.
Buddy and I popped the hood. Loose battery cable. Five seconds to fix. Five seconds you wouldn't have during an incident.
Day 22 - Two Hours Later
I tossed the two pieces of paper on Legal One's desk. The latest set of documented vehicle deficiencies with the Motor Pool manager's signature that they had been fixed, and my report of what had happened with the loose cable.
"Pick one. Me or him."
Day 22 -- Two Hours Ten Minutes Later
The motor pool manager was frog marched out of the South Gate by two unarmed security officers. He kept trying to turn around, but they were more than able to overpower him.
With a last push, he was outside the white line painted on the ground.
He turned and started to walk back, to freeze at the metallic clack of the rifle being charged. Unnecessarily, as a loose round flew that would have to be picked up later. But perhaps it would be enough of a reality check that we would not have to shoot him.
He walked away.
Legal One and I watched, at a distance that allowed private conversation.
"Did we have to do that?"
"Absolutely. I can work with incompetence. I can work with theft. I can't work with thieving incompetence. You would have had a convoy not come back. We are at four days of food right now. That would have done it."
"What do you think will happen to him?"
"Don't fucking care, sir."
Day 27
"Fire In The Hole," Mohammed announced briefly. No one did anything.
Then, as prearranged, the string of firecrackers went off in the middle of the benches the trainees were sitting on.
The two sergeants and I screamed at them, "Cover! COVER! Get IN THE HOLES! COVER NOW!"
I called the all clear. The trainees got up out of the pits and resumed their benches, not without checking them for more surprises.
Good.
Day 29
Janine screamed at the stretcher bearers.
"Your LIFE is that stretcher! Your hope of survival is that stretcher! You want to complain because you have to carry a few pounds around? What the hell is wrong with you? You could be ON that stretcher, think about that!"
I nodded approvingly. People were starting to get it.
[A montage is a series of cut scenes in which fragments combine to produce a desired result. See also: https://youtu.be/fhWiTORp22k ]
Our plucky hero did not inherit a well trained, disciplined band of survivors. As with nearly everything else, it had to be manufactured from materials at hand.
Day 5
"Listen. Hold the butt of the pistol up against your thumb and forefinger, like so. In that V notch. Now point the barrel. Good. Shit! Shit!"
I draw my own handgun and hold it at low ready, menacing the band of men approaching the gate where I am giving an on the fly shooting lesson. They have already ignored signs, and the bell, and the small pile of bodies. Animal and otherwise.
"STOP! Armed security, private property!"
"Whatcha gonna do, shoot us?"
They spread out, two raise clubs. They are dressed in several expensive layers, obviously looters. They must have left the shopping carts out at the road. At night we would have heard them. Not during the day.
"Stop or I kill. Last warning."
One laughs and takes a step. So I kill him, one shot, center mass.
The second raises his club and steps forward. I hear from behind me BANG BANG BANG and he falls forward on himself. Less accurate, same effect.
The rest scatter and run.
"Like that, boss?" my trainee asks. Then throws up.
I keep scanning left and right, watching the would be intruders run away. We will need to double the watch tonight, and I will need to be here with them.
"Yes, like that."
Day 7
"Push down on that, HARD. No! HARD, tighter!"
The employee is bleeding out from the wound. A stupid wound -- he ran around a corner and impaled his arm on a barbed wire fence we were putting up, then yanked out the stake, leaving a chunk of flesh on it and a big hole in his arm spurting blood.
The other employee ... he used to be a janitor ... is mumbling and swearing in Spanish. I have committed a cardinal sin and applied a bandage out of my own Individual First Aid Kit. This is bad; I should save that for myself, I may be needing it at any instant. But if I go back to the bicycle for the pannier bag, he'll bleed out before I return.
So I whip off my belt and quickly loop it above the wound, then crank it down TIGHT. Both employees scream -- the injured one hoarsely, the uninjured one in sympathy.
I take out my baton. This may be the one time than an ASP baton is actually good for something. I loop it under the strap and crank it down, ruthlessly and hard, ignoring the screaming and riding the man's injured arm and shoulder with my legs to keep him from getting up.
"Your belt," I order coldly to the uninjured employee.
He takes it off, shivering. I use it to tie the baton tight to the upper arm. The extremity below the injury is already turning white, but the bleeding has slowed to a still life threatening trickle.
"Go to the bicycle. Bring it to me. Do this now."
He runs to obey.
"Echo 18 to Control. Medical Emergency, west side of Building 4. I need responders Code 3 for an arm injury."
There is no reply.
I check radio and frequency. All correct.
"Echo 18, Control. Emergency Traffic. Respond immediately!"
"What do you want?"
I make note of the voice.
"Echo 18, Control, Emergency Traffic. I need medical responders to the west side of Building 4 right now."
"OK, OK, hold your horses."
I change frequencies. "Echo 18, Master Alarm, Immediate Action. I repeat, Master Alarm, Immediate Action. The Reaction Team WILL RESPOND to the Security Operations Office. Immediately. Master Alarm, Security Operations Office. Do this now."
I hear the alarm go off - we have repurposed the fire alarm - and a crowd of employees and hangers on gathers outside the buildings.
Soon we have designated first aid responders to take over the injury and carry the man to the infirmary.
People scatter out of my way when I get on the bicycle.
Day 7 - Twenty Minutes Later
I am explaining the basics of emergency radio procedure. Forcefully. With emphasis. With the tip of a bloody baton. Into sensitive body parts.
"You. Will. Answer. Emergency Traffic. As If. It Were YOU. Bleeding. To Death!"
The former dispatcher is crying. He has good reason.
"You are dismissed from the Security Department. Report to Landscaping for reassignment. Oh, and someone take him to the Infirmary."
"Is he hurt that bad, sir?"
I think about it, and whip out the baton into the former dispatcher's shin. He screams.
"Maybe now he is. But I want him to meet the man he nearly killed. See to it."
"Sir!"
Day 12
The employee volunteers are willing to show up and pretend to pay attention. But when they realize they are being taught the fundamentals of marksmanship with BB guns, they are having trouble taking it seriously.
I can't do it all. So I have asked a Marine to take over this block of instruction for me. Strictly speaking, I am one of the students -- and rifle marksmanship is not one of my skills.
But when the employee manager turns around to me and negligently permits the muzzle of his BB gun to point at my torso, I see a learning opportunity.
I punch him in the gut, take the BB gun away from him, and in a gentle, controlled manner, touch his forehead with the butt of the BB gun with blurring speed. In CQB it would have been a killing blow.
Then I draw my very real, very loaded handgun and put it to his forehead.
"YOU DO NOT MUZZLE PEOPLE YOU DO NOT INTEND TO KILL! ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME MISTER?!? ARE YOU?"
His bladder cuts loose. I holster.
"This is not a joke, this is not a game. There are thousands of starving desperate people who are willing to KILL YOU and KILL ME and KILL US ALL to get a meal for their worthless spouse and hungry little brats. If you can't CODE and you can't FIGHT ... YOU CAN GO JOIN THEM!"
Day 12 - Thirty Minutes Later
I leave Legal One's office in a towering but utterly controlled rage.
The misbehaving manager has been dismissed from Reaction Team. He is returning to coding with a new purpose - bring up his metrics or be delivered to the South Gate for dismissal.
I have been threatened with dismissal. I offered my resignation. My resignation was refused.
It took ten minutes of screaming for Legal One to think through the implications of dismissing his only trained combat leader while 1) he was armed and 2) Legal One was not.
I of course could not offer a single solitary word hinting in that direction - that if I were not in fact utterly disciplined and utterly willing to submit to lawful and proper authority, these buildings would be burned out shells and Legal One would be decorating a light pole by the neck.
I offered my resignation a second time. He considered it.
To buy time Legal One summoned witnesses. I stood at attention, as is proper, while he interrogated and dismissed them. He then began to give me corrective action while the last witness was present.
"Sir, with respect, it is not appropriate to discuss this with Sergeant Wilshire present."
He continued. I kept interrupting. Finally he shut up when I shouted in command tone, "NOT APPROPRIATE! SIR!"
The good Sergeant, knowing better than to be caught in this particular crossfire, excused himself stage right.
I then briefly and forcefully explained that to discipline someone in front of their subordinates damaged the chain of command, often beyond repair, and that while he could say anything he liked to me behind closed doors, that I could not let him do this under these conditions, combat conditions.
I then offered my resignation a third time after tossing my pistol on the desk in front of him.
He stared at it like it was a snake.
He picked it up, locked and loaded. He pushed it with a finger, experimentally.
I had a backup weapon, and I'm an OK draw. But that wasn't the point.
That this was life and death, and that both his behavior and my own needed to be judged against that standard ... was.
Not all education is instructor to student.
Day 17
"This vehicle has failed inspection," I stated as I passed the clipboard back to the Motor Pool manager. Its deficiencies each lovingly documented -- and obvious.
He worked his way through various excuses. Then, in the presence of witnesses, he offered me a bribe.
I made a counter proposal involving his wife and my genitals and the same bribe.
His subordinates had to grab him when he started to take a punch at me.
I then briefly, baldly explained that there was 1) no bribe worth a life and 2) therefore attempting to bribe me _or anyone else_ to ignore life safety under these conditions was skirting close to premeditated murder.
Day 17 - Twenty Minutes Later
"... seventeen ... eighteen ... nineteen ... twenty ..." I gasped out as I did pushups in Legal One's office with the door locked. Then stood.
"Dismissed."
Day 22
The truck's engine stalled.
"Herringbone!" I ordered and the convoy stopped in that formation.
The driver kept trying to crank the ignition. I stopped him after the third time.
Buddy and I popped the hood. Loose battery cable. Five seconds to fix. Five seconds you wouldn't have during an incident.
Day 22 - Two Hours Later
I tossed the two pieces of paper on Legal One's desk. The latest set of documented vehicle deficiencies with the Motor Pool manager's signature that they had been fixed, and my report of what had happened with the loose cable.
"Pick one. Me or him."
Day 22 -- Two Hours Ten Minutes Later
The motor pool manager was frog marched out of the South Gate by two unarmed security officers. He kept trying to turn around, but they were more than able to overpower him.
With a last push, he was outside the white line painted on the ground.
He turned and started to walk back, to freeze at the metallic clack of the rifle being charged. Unnecessarily, as a loose round flew that would have to be picked up later. But perhaps it would be enough of a reality check that we would not have to shoot him.
He walked away.
Legal One and I watched, at a distance that allowed private conversation.
"Did we have to do that?"
"Absolutely. I can work with incompetence. I can work with theft. I can't work with thieving incompetence. You would have had a convoy not come back. We are at four days of food right now. That would have done it."
"What do you think will happen to him?"
"Don't fucking care, sir."
Day 27
"Fire In The Hole," Mohammed announced briefly. No one did anything.
Then, as prearranged, the string of firecrackers went off in the middle of the benches the trainees were sitting on.
The two sergeants and I screamed at them, "Cover! COVER! Get IN THE HOLES! COVER NOW!"
I called the all clear. The trainees got up out of the pits and resumed their benches, not without checking them for more surprises.
Good.
Day 29
Janine screamed at the stretcher bearers.
"Your LIFE is that stretcher! Your hope of survival is that stretcher! You want to complain because you have to carry a few pounds around? What the hell is wrong with you? You could be ON that stretcher, think about that!"
I nodded approvingly. People were starting to get it.
