GWOT IV - Structure of the Red Lion Society

The Red Lion Society is the California Republic's national aid society, on par with the American Red Cross, Iraqi Red Crescent, and Israeli Magen David Adom.

Red Lion Society is NOT a member of the International Red Cross & Red Crescent movement (ICRC) but has been recognized by various combatants including USA, Washington Trust Territory, Canada, Mexico, Texas and Arizona as a protected humanitarian relief organization. ICRC would prefer to not acknowledge Red Lion's existence.

The ICRC has identified seven Fundamental Principles or values which guide it and its member organizations. Red Lion's take on these is sufficiently a departure that ICRC will not recognize it.

Humanity: the Red Lion Society prioritizes its efforts in the protection of _innocent_ human life. Noncombatants are treated and cared for prior to combatants, even those who are hors de combat.

Impartiality: the Red Lion Society will not provide services to members of organizations who engage in war crimes as policy.

Neutrality: the Red Lion Society is not neutral in its opposition to inflicting suffering on innocent persons for political, racial, ethnic or ideological reasons. The Red Lion Society is not a combatant. But if the Red Lion Society is compelled to classify a combatant organization as war criminals, the Red Lion Society will non-violently oppose and frustrate that organization as much as the laws of war permit. Numerous Red Lion Helpers have been killed as a result, as the Red Lion Society strictly forbids its members the use of arms.

Independence: the Red Lion Society is "too" independent. It submits only reluctantly to IHL, International Humanitarian Law, and will break local laws and regulations to save lives. Only in obedience to IHL does the Red Lion Society play by the rules.

Voluntary Service: the Red Lion Society hires mercenaries, accepts donations, starts for profit businesses in war zones, and will pay auxiliaries in food and medical care.

Unity: the Red Lion Society exists in parallel with other humanitarian aid societies, and is not willing to be subsumed (or supersumed) by the Red Cross. Many members are _former_ American Red Cross volunteers who are utterly disgusted with that organization. The Red Lion Society goes where the work takes it, and disregards geographic territories. Again, numerous Red Lion Helpers have been imprisoned and killed as a result.

Universality: the Red Lion Society confines its operations to the North American continent, and rejects the idea of sending aid anywhere else in the world. The Red Lion Society has active international exchange programs but these are for professional development and research, not for the world's benefit. The Red Lion Society famously engaged in civil disobedience at the United Nations in New York, in protest of the Homeland camp system, and shut down the UN for three days until sufficient numbers of UN peacekeepers could be brought in to eject them from the grounds.

The Red Lion Society is an offshoot of the California Resistance. Those Californians who decided not to engage in armed resistance to Homeland, but were not willing to stand idly by and watch Homeland and the US Army's Internal Defense troops continue atrocities, organized Red Lion.

The combat logo - uniforms, patches, vehicles - of the Red Lion Society has a raised middle finger from a fist. Close examination shows that this middle finger is actually an uncircumcised penis. The electronic presence of the Society, printed documentation, etc. pixelates this. This is a precaution against impersonation.

Red Lion units in the field are organized in a military structure with seven enlisted ranks, a warrant officer rank, and five officer ranks.

Assistant Helper - the initiate rank of a member of the Society.

Apprentice Helper - six months or two disasters.

Helper I - the journeyman rank, equivalent to Staff Sergeant. Commands a relief section. Helper I requires a three day experience called "Hell" that is taught by senior officers of the Society. It is known that Hell consists of no sleep, study of disasters including numerous horrific photos and videos, and exercises in organizing camps, protecting refugees from combatants, battlefield survival and what a military would call SERE: Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape. For some reason a human cadaver is required for this course, and it is considered an honor for a deceased Red Lion member's remains to be used in this way.

Helper II - equivalent to First Sergeant. Commands a relief platoon.

Helper III - equivalent to Master Sergeant, these are rare. They provide the support or NCO channel of the Society.

Helper IV - the warrant officer rank equivalent, Helper IVs are very rare. They are often philosophical leaders or critical non-medical technical specialists, such as sanitation or civil engineers.

Helper-Lieutenant - the purpose of Red Lion having officers is to force combatants to recognize them as equivalent in rank. A college degree or equivalent knowledge or experience is required to be a Helper-Lieutenant. They go through a commissioning process of which the details are not known but the experience is said to be extremely brutal. Commands an independent relief platoon or is executive officer of a relief company. Typically either a paramedic, a field relief nurse or a law student.

Helper-Captain - a surviving Helper Lieutenant with six months to one year in active deployment, or three to five disasters. Commands a relief company or is an officer in a relief battalion, or commands a field aid station or a clinic. Has either substantial medical training or substantial legal training, or a mixture.

Helper-Commander - commands a relief battalion, an independent deployment, an operational area or a hospital. Almost always an attorney or a doctor, sometimes both.

Helper-Colonel - commands one of the six Brigades of the Red Lion Society. Most are admitted to the California Bar.

Helper-General - the commander of the Red Lion Society. This is for a one year term, after which the officer reverts to Helper-Colonel and is ineligible to advance again for at least two years, if ever.

The Society hires medical personnel as needed, especially technicians and dentists.

The Society provides opportunities to intern in both medicine and disaster relief.

The Society hires mercenaries to protect the operations of the Society, but these mercenaries are strictly forbidden to engage in offensive or unauthorized operations. It is understood that

GWOT VI - In The Time Of Cholera

Foreground: a woman and two men, wearing uniforms he had never even heard of. A matte red, in BDUs, with reflective stripes sewn on pockets that appeared inside-out. The woman, a captain's bars. The men, wearing chevrons he'd learned the hard way to associate with sergeants. The unit tape: RED LION. The patches on both shoulders - a lion flipping off the world, with a paw that looked like a ... penis?

The seating - pews ripped out of a church and flung to the side, then hastily propped up.

Background: a church, from which the pews had come. He could smell the reek of feces from where he stood. It came from the people piled inside, where the pews had been.

Behind the woman, a man wearing white gloves streaked with brown and red, carrying a baseball bat painted red, also streaked with brown and red. His clothes were dirty but his armbands, a black letter "G" on a white field, were surprisingly clean. Notably so.

The man stepped forward.

"I am Sergeant Jones of the Refuge Emergency Militia. You have all volunteered to help. If you do anything else, fuck off - now or then, I don't care - or I will beat you to death with this stick. Even _think_ about messing with Red Lion and we'll find a tire to set you on fire with. Not kidding.

"Introducing Healer-Captain Wilson."

He faded into the background but his eyes did not stop moving.

"Thank you for the introduction, Sergeant. I am Healer-Captain Ernestina Wilson of the Red Lion Society. If you don't know what Red Lion is... well, that's possible, we are in Iowa. We're what happens when you torture Red Cross workers. On Firecracker Day, I was a medical student at Stanford. Three weeks later I was running a radiation sickness camp in Concord. Eight weeks later I was interned, along with my patients, by Homeland. Eighteen months later the Resistance liberated the camp infirmary I was running - my seventh.

"You will call me Healer-Captain Wilson. You will call them Healer-Three Anetsky and Healer-Two Nguyen. We are here in Iowa today for the same reason we go anywhere - to save innocent lives.

"This entire region, not just this camp, is facing a cholera epidemic. Two Nguyen, cholera."

The sergeant thus described, a thin Vietnamese-Californian with etched lines where most people keep their faces, stepped forward..

"Cholera. Bacterial infection. Originated in Ganges Delta in India in the 19th century. Now endemic worldwide, partly due to carelessness by world relief organizations including the United Nations. Reached Africa in the 1970s, reached South America in the 1990s, and from there to North America today. Caused by eating food or drinking water contaminated with bacterium Vibrio cholerae 1.

"Cholera epidemics do not exist in peacetime conditions because clean drinking water and sanitary toilets for feces prevents its spread. This is a severe poverty, disaster and war disease.

"Time of onset: 12 hours to five days. Symptoms: profuse vomiting, acute watery diarrhea. Mechanism of death: severe dehydration, can kill within hours. Death rate with antibiotics and IV fluid support: well less than 1%. Death rate with no IVs and no antibiotics, but oral rehydration salts and field nursing, 20%. Death rate without any treatment, 50%.

"Most infected persons are asymptomatic but their feces contain cholera for one to ten days, infecting others. Most people who develop symptoms have watery stools but recover quickly. Those who do not, are either given medical care, or supportive care, or die swiftly.

"Oral rehydration salts are packets dissolved in quarts of water. One adult moderate case may require six quarts and therefore packets per day. Field expedients for ORS are possible but require access to salt and sugar. Zinc is indicated for children under five. Breastfeeding must be strongly encouraged.

"Vaccines provide one to three years of protection. This is an unprotected population; only California soldiers and Red Lion Helpers are recently immunized.

"Handwashing with soap and water for twenty seconds, properly boiling or sanitizing water, storing food away from insects and controlling toilet habits of the sick and small children are critical control points. Proper disposal of infected human remains is vital but impossible in wartime conditions.

"Due to disruption caused by the Firecracker War, 2nd American Civil War, and continuing instability, World Health Organization classifies the former American states as cholera endemic.
Logistics reports that neither IVs nor antibiotics nor ORS are available in zone. Intelligence confirms that no public health medical surveillance is available in Western Iowa. We have sent samples for testing but have no laboratory. Ma'am."

She turned from him back to the crowd.

"Thank you, Helper."

"This is where you people come in. Red Lion offers to hire you as auxiliary field workers. The pay is two meals a day, a safe place to sleep, a vest to wear that you must wear, and the knowledge that you are saving lives. Also, when you become ill which you probably will, medical care equal to that given to others in the safe zone.

"What you will do is whatever needs doing. You may teach handwashing. You may teach how to build latrines; you may build latrines. You will wash the sick and give clean water to the sick. You will dispose of their infected feces. You will become initiates of the mysteries of death. You will carry corpses and you will dispose of them properly.

"Each of you may select one other person, who is not able bodied, to be fed one meal a day and kept in a secure camp. Such camps have been overrun in the past; there are no guarantees in war. But we will do what we can to keep your dependent safe. All able bodied people will work.

"There is no personal protective equipment. We have no vaccine with us. You just heard that we have no antibiotics and no ORS and no IV fluid support.

"If you take this job, about 20% of you will die.

"We estimate over one million refugees in western Iowa today, more with the war between the Churches and Refuge and the California Expeditionary Force.

"If nothing is done, half of them will die. Five hundred thousand, disproportionately children.

"Take one step forward or get out of here now."