GWOT V - Civil Defense
Mar. 5th, 2021 03:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyGWOT V - Civil Defense
As the days turned to weeks, and the weeks turned to months, we developed a routine in our operations. This was as expected, of course, and I would have been dismissed for cause if we had not.
Our primary base facility at Camp McNasty, and our satellite bases at Campo, what everyone including us now called Homeland Station, and the semi-permanent checkpoint on CA-8, dramatically improved. This also was as expected. However, many of the things we did to achieve this were ... unconventional.
Part of the joys of going to El Cajon for R&R was coming back with some good salvage. Greater San Diego was still ruined, and some of the ruins had little value or interest for the locals but a lot of value to us.
First priority had been to establish basic amenities at McNasty. At first only the infirmary had been under an actual roof, and everyone shat in field latrines. We'd found the old camp blueprints in a dusty collapsed attic, and we'd mapped out the existing underground pipes and cables. This allowed our re-construction for new purposes to be much more rapid than it would hae been.
Campo and Homeland Station were firebases. No bones about it. You could see Mexico from there, and our very first installations were trenches and bunkers, dug by hand, the old fashioned way, and roofed with whatever beams and metal we could scrape up. Then came towers, both the tall spindly comm and camera towers as well as the short, squat personnel lookouts. These latter were not nearly as armored as I preferred, and the duty of hanging ones ass out as sniper bait in one rotated every thirty minutes.
The vehicle checkpoint on CA-8 was a whole different matter, involving as it did six other state agencies - Highway Patrol, CalTrans, Immigration Services, Department of General Services, Department of the Controller and last but not least, the Franchise Tax Board. This was in addition to us - the California Military Department.
For one thing, it was 100% stop in both directions, 24/7/365, and staffed by a mixture of armed contract security, armed CHP civilians, heavily armed CHP Troopers and armed California Immigration Officers.
When they dialed 911, which happened depressingly often, it was my people who came to their rescue.
Finally I skipped the small stuff. We established mortar pits high up on either side of the pass, with nearby sniper overlooks. The mortars were thoughtfully preregistered on several points - the failure to stop line, the emergency center divider split, and the diversion lanes. We could and would drop 81 millimeters of joy on any vehicle that attempted to violate SOP. As the signs said, "Traffic control devices and officers will be obeyed. DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED."
They had better chow than we did. And - importantly - they were assigned 24/7 Freeway Service Patrols, heavy wreckers, and CalFire armored bulldozers and ambulances. That last was important. CA-8 was a vital corridor, a military highway, and we would open it under all conditions. Even if someone had to climb down the ravine to go get the driver whose car had been pushed into that same ravine by a bulldozer blade.
We also had emergency contingency plans at all four bases for what would happen if we suddenly had to dine and doss a hundred - or a thousand - detainees. The former happened several times; the latter happened only once, but if we hadn't planned for it, it would have been very bad.
McNasty was the one place we had room to spread out. This meant patrols, both on foot and with light vehicles. Another trick I'd borrowed from site - a pickup truck goes out with six troops and four bicycles in the back. They drive up the hill. The bicycles roll down and the pickup truck, with appropriate attention to safety and the brakes wired accordingly, rolls as well. Saves a bit of gas and more importantly is silent when done properly.
McNasty had our garages, our main fuel depot, our helibase, our TDC ("Transit Detention Center"), the pit loading dock that finally became our main warehouse, and as horrible as it sounds, our administrative offices. I tried to spend as little time as possible in my own office, but my replacement would want one. It also gave us a place to stick VIPs on ice until we had time to deal with them.
Campo was tight. It had been a small town. Now it was a crossroads controlled by us, amid the ruins of foundations.
Homeland Station had a commanding position overlooking a network of unauthorized roads and trails, both east-west and north-south. I'd stolen another trick and constantly fucked with those using both logs and abati - the latter being logs with huge steel spikes that made a vehicle suffer for running into them, and would occasionally pop tires.
Before the War, there'd been off-road enthusiasts all over these hills and low mountains. Now no one had the time or the money for such entertainments, and if you wanted to off-road, you could join the California Military Department and we would find you a driver slot.
Both sites hosted reaction forces. That was their purpose - a safe place to wait, drink water, take a shit and/or change a tire while waiting for something bad to happen somewhere along the Border.
Which it always, always did.
407th Combat Engineers found an excuse to visit Campos sector monthly. Only part of this was the high speed, low drag whorehouse in Campos Nation.
And I had a long, long list of projects for them to do.
One set of projects, however, was not my idea.
###
To: All California Military Department Facilities
From: Office of the Adjutant General
Re: Civil Defense Preparations
Every fixed facility of the California Military Department shall be equipped with the following provisions for civil defense operations.
-- a weather monitoring station with datalink
-- a radiological monitoring station with datalink
-- sufficient canned, bottled or otherwise potably stored drinking water for 21 days of occupancy by ten times rated facility occupancy, FIRE PROTECTION WATER CANNOT BE USED TO MEET THIS REQUIREMENT
-- portable radiological detection equipment equivalent to CA-NBC-2231 or greater, with a minimum of two dosimeters and one counter
-- mass casualty first aid supplies to treat the entire facility occupancy for shock-trauma and significant percentage burns - infirmary or battalion aid station supplies cannot be used to meet this requirement
-- for facilities over 100 occupancy, an emergency surgical chest
-- firefighting hand tools sufficient to equip 20% of the facility occupancy
-- structural firefighting equipment including turnouts and SCBA sufficient to equip a minimum of two trained personnel, with an additional one per fifty occupancy
-- documentation of station bill and training to respond to natural and deliberate disasters
-- documented and tested nuclear attack evacuation plan, rehearsed as schedued by this office
...
###
So, just where the fuck are we supposed to get this shit?
###
Then the supplies started arriving.
First came what South Ops called a 'cache trailer.' A 40' towable semi trailer containing pre-packaged disaster response in a box. I read the manifest carefully, as I was personally responsbile for all $300,000 odd of its contents.
Then it got worse. That was just the one we were supposed to _host_ - to provide free parking for, and never touch, as it belonged to South Ops and not to us plebes.
I had to take two soldiers off the line and assign them to full time admin just to keep up with the equipment orders and requests. Some of which were 'pushed' - i.e. we never ordered the shit, it just showed up, and God help all of us if any of it went missing.
We started getting visitors. A RADIAC training team, to teach us all how to use the dosimeters and counters. A weather team, to calibrate our weather equipment and teach us how to use portable equipment, some of it both ancient and fragile. A wet bulb thermometer? Really?
Then came the real kicker.
Seven thousand feet of 18' steel culvert, in 40' lengths.
We had no idea where to put the shit, and said so.
Then I got the E-mail.
###
To: Echo 18, Commander, Campos Sector
From: CA MilDepCorpsEngineers
Re: Project Archangel
Please identify an appropriate site for a blast shelter. See Attachment A for siting considerations. Note in particular that shelter may not be located within 2 miles of any existing facility or mapped roadway...
###
I paged through the attached file. Hundreds of pages.
An underground base near a base, to be installed and left empty - except for maintenance crews and a security detail.
I wanted to laugh at the stupidity. The Americans had satellite recon, and so did a lot of other countries. The Cartel could buy better imaging than I could, if they cared to spend the money.
So when the engineer colonel showed up, I showed her my sketches and shared my misgivings.
She set me straight.
"I've personally signed off seventeen of these. Every hospital, every school, every police station, every fire station is getting one to adopt. The goal is to have them scattered all over the state so that no one is ever more than fifteen minutes from a blast shelter."
My jaw dropped.
This much effort could literally solve our state housing crisis. As it was, we still had schools operating in tents and hospitals storing supplies in the open air.
"The idea is to make nuking California so expensive that the Americans give up on the idea. And if they don't, the survivors will have someplace to survive in."
I'd noticed something else in the bunker plans. The underground loading docks on either side of the tunnel complex. Suitable for parking long, long trucks, with some protection from a nearby miss.
The colonel was likely a member of the Strategic Defense Force, given her role and what she had to know to plan and build these bases. So she would know exactly what would be parking, and probably the launch commands.
So was I. But we had no way to exchange recognition codes, by design and by policy.
As war goes, building big shelter complexes and leaving them empty is less wasteful than tanks with 500 miles on the odometer, tons of bombs and artillery shells that go nowhere and do nothing, people who are fed and paid to sit around for bad shit to happen...
I hoped that the shelters would never be used. Because if they were used, it would mean more nuked cities, more fallout, more nightmare.
But if we were all very lucky, the shelters would deter the Americans from even trying it. Civil defense. Also known as target saturation, giving the enemy so many targets to nuke that he gives up the idea.
I poured us both a stiff drink, found myself politely declining an offer of horizontal gymnastics, and poured the colonel into a bed (alone) before slinking off to my own.
I stared at the ceiling.
No one spends that kind of money on a hypothetical.
And we needed that money desperately spent on our own population.
I remembered a snippet from a children's show, many years ago.
"My toothbrush!"
"Leave it! Would you rather have your teeth fall out, or your head blown off?"
These were the choices we were making, and leaving to today's children.
Not very civil, was it?
As the days turned to weeks, and the weeks turned to months, we developed a routine in our operations. This was as expected, of course, and I would have been dismissed for cause if we had not.
Our primary base facility at Camp McNasty, and our satellite bases at Campo, what everyone including us now called Homeland Station, and the semi-permanent checkpoint on CA-8, dramatically improved. This also was as expected. However, many of the things we did to achieve this were ... unconventional.
Part of the joys of going to El Cajon for R&R was coming back with some good salvage. Greater San Diego was still ruined, and some of the ruins had little value or interest for the locals but a lot of value to us.
First priority had been to establish basic amenities at McNasty. At first only the infirmary had been under an actual roof, and everyone shat in field latrines. We'd found the old camp blueprints in a dusty collapsed attic, and we'd mapped out the existing underground pipes and cables. This allowed our re-construction for new purposes to be much more rapid than it would hae been.
Campo and Homeland Station were firebases. No bones about it. You could see Mexico from there, and our very first installations were trenches and bunkers, dug by hand, the old fashioned way, and roofed with whatever beams and metal we could scrape up. Then came towers, both the tall spindly comm and camera towers as well as the short, squat personnel lookouts. These latter were not nearly as armored as I preferred, and the duty of hanging ones ass out as sniper bait in one rotated every thirty minutes.
The vehicle checkpoint on CA-8 was a whole different matter, involving as it did six other state agencies - Highway Patrol, CalTrans, Immigration Services, Department of General Services, Department of the Controller and last but not least, the Franchise Tax Board. This was in addition to us - the California Military Department.
For one thing, it was 100% stop in both directions, 24/7/365, and staffed by a mixture of armed contract security, armed CHP civilians, heavily armed CHP Troopers and armed California Immigration Officers.
When they dialed 911, which happened depressingly often, it was my people who came to their rescue.
Finally I skipped the small stuff. We established mortar pits high up on either side of the pass, with nearby sniper overlooks. The mortars were thoughtfully preregistered on several points - the failure to stop line, the emergency center divider split, and the diversion lanes. We could and would drop 81 millimeters of joy on any vehicle that attempted to violate SOP. As the signs said, "Traffic control devices and officers will be obeyed. DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED."
They had better chow than we did. And - importantly - they were assigned 24/7 Freeway Service Patrols, heavy wreckers, and CalFire armored bulldozers and ambulances. That last was important. CA-8 was a vital corridor, a military highway, and we would open it under all conditions. Even if someone had to climb down the ravine to go get the driver whose car had been pushed into that same ravine by a bulldozer blade.
We also had emergency contingency plans at all four bases for what would happen if we suddenly had to dine and doss a hundred - or a thousand - detainees. The former happened several times; the latter happened only once, but if we hadn't planned for it, it would have been very bad.
McNasty was the one place we had room to spread out. This meant patrols, both on foot and with light vehicles. Another trick I'd borrowed from site - a pickup truck goes out with six troops and four bicycles in the back. They drive up the hill. The bicycles roll down and the pickup truck, with appropriate attention to safety and the brakes wired accordingly, rolls as well. Saves a bit of gas and more importantly is silent when done properly.
McNasty had our garages, our main fuel depot, our helibase, our TDC ("Transit Detention Center"), the pit loading dock that finally became our main warehouse, and as horrible as it sounds, our administrative offices. I tried to spend as little time as possible in my own office, but my replacement would want one. It also gave us a place to stick VIPs on ice until we had time to deal with them.
Campo was tight. It had been a small town. Now it was a crossroads controlled by us, amid the ruins of foundations.
Homeland Station had a commanding position overlooking a network of unauthorized roads and trails, both east-west and north-south. I'd stolen another trick and constantly fucked with those using both logs and abati - the latter being logs with huge steel spikes that made a vehicle suffer for running into them, and would occasionally pop tires.
Before the War, there'd been off-road enthusiasts all over these hills and low mountains. Now no one had the time or the money for such entertainments, and if you wanted to off-road, you could join the California Military Department and we would find you a driver slot.
Both sites hosted reaction forces. That was their purpose - a safe place to wait, drink water, take a shit and/or change a tire while waiting for something bad to happen somewhere along the Border.
Which it always, always did.
407th Combat Engineers found an excuse to visit Campos sector monthly. Only part of this was the high speed, low drag whorehouse in Campos Nation.
And I had a long, long list of projects for them to do.
One set of projects, however, was not my idea.
###
To: All California Military Department Facilities
From: Office of the Adjutant General
Re: Civil Defense Preparations
Every fixed facility of the California Military Department shall be equipped with the following provisions for civil defense operations.
-- a weather monitoring station with datalink
-- a radiological monitoring station with datalink
-- sufficient canned, bottled or otherwise potably stored drinking water for 21 days of occupancy by ten times rated facility occupancy, FIRE PROTECTION WATER CANNOT BE USED TO MEET THIS REQUIREMENT
-- portable radiological detection equipment equivalent to CA-NBC-2231 or greater, with a minimum of two dosimeters and one counter
-- mass casualty first aid supplies to treat the entire facility occupancy for shock-trauma and significant percentage burns - infirmary or battalion aid station supplies cannot be used to meet this requirement
-- for facilities over 100 occupancy, an emergency surgical chest
-- firefighting hand tools sufficient to equip 20% of the facility occupancy
-- structural firefighting equipment including turnouts and SCBA sufficient to equip a minimum of two trained personnel, with an additional one per fifty occupancy
-- documentation of station bill and training to respond to natural and deliberate disasters
-- documented and tested nuclear attack evacuation plan, rehearsed as schedued by this office
...
###
So, just where the fuck are we supposed to get this shit?
###
Then the supplies started arriving.
First came what South Ops called a 'cache trailer.' A 40' towable semi trailer containing pre-packaged disaster response in a box. I read the manifest carefully, as I was personally responsbile for all $300,000 odd of its contents.
Then it got worse. That was just the one we were supposed to _host_ - to provide free parking for, and never touch, as it belonged to South Ops and not to us plebes.
I had to take two soldiers off the line and assign them to full time admin just to keep up with the equipment orders and requests. Some of which were 'pushed' - i.e. we never ordered the shit, it just showed up, and God help all of us if any of it went missing.
We started getting visitors. A RADIAC training team, to teach us all how to use the dosimeters and counters. A weather team, to calibrate our weather equipment and teach us how to use portable equipment, some of it both ancient and fragile. A wet bulb thermometer? Really?
Then came the real kicker.
Seven thousand feet of 18' steel culvert, in 40' lengths.
We had no idea where to put the shit, and said so.
Then I got the E-mail.
###
To: Echo 18, Commander, Campos Sector
From: CA MilDepCorpsEngineers
Re: Project Archangel
Please identify an appropriate site for a blast shelter. See Attachment A for siting considerations. Note in particular that shelter may not be located within 2 miles of any existing facility or mapped roadway...
###
I paged through the attached file. Hundreds of pages.
An underground base near a base, to be installed and left empty - except for maintenance crews and a security detail.
I wanted to laugh at the stupidity. The Americans had satellite recon, and so did a lot of other countries. The Cartel could buy better imaging than I could, if they cared to spend the money.
So when the engineer colonel showed up, I showed her my sketches and shared my misgivings.
She set me straight.
"I've personally signed off seventeen of these. Every hospital, every school, every police station, every fire station is getting one to adopt. The goal is to have them scattered all over the state so that no one is ever more than fifteen minutes from a blast shelter."
My jaw dropped.
This much effort could literally solve our state housing crisis. As it was, we still had schools operating in tents and hospitals storing supplies in the open air.
"The idea is to make nuking California so expensive that the Americans give up on the idea. And if they don't, the survivors will have someplace to survive in."
I'd noticed something else in the bunker plans. The underground loading docks on either side of the tunnel complex. Suitable for parking long, long trucks, with some protection from a nearby miss.
The colonel was likely a member of the Strategic Defense Force, given her role and what she had to know to plan and build these bases. So she would know exactly what would be parking, and probably the launch commands.
So was I. But we had no way to exchange recognition codes, by design and by policy.
As war goes, building big shelter complexes and leaving them empty is less wasteful than tanks with 500 miles on the odometer, tons of bombs and artillery shells that go nowhere and do nothing, people who are fed and paid to sit around for bad shit to happen...
I hoped that the shelters would never be used. Because if they were used, it would mean more nuked cities, more fallout, more nightmare.
But if we were all very lucky, the shelters would deter the Americans from even trying it. Civil defense. Also known as target saturation, giving the enemy so many targets to nuke that he gives up the idea.
I poured us both a stiff drink, found myself politely declining an offer of horizontal gymnastics, and poured the colonel into a bed (alone) before slinking off to my own.
I stared at the ceiling.
No one spends that kind of money on a hypothetical.
And we needed that money desperately spent on our own population.
I remembered a snippet from a children's show, many years ago.
"My toothbrush!"
"Leave it! Would you rather have your teeth fall out, or your head blown off?"
These were the choices we were making, and leaving to today's children.
Not very civil, was it?
