you should find and join the yahoogroups email list then, if you aren't on there already. There are a few guys from your lovely little island on there already.
I'm still debating how to present the story I wish to write about 5 Battalion of the British army which finds itself on exercise in Suffield/BATUS. presumably training for eastern Europe or a replay of Iraq. Whichever way, the Maj Gen had a creepy premonition about being prepared for that spring and so took the Batt on exercise. Lucky for all of them. Starting in a place with as many military personnel as what ended up on Wight without a VIP to protect, locals that are within the normal chain of command they are used to, and in the middle of endless farmland.
I'm thinking of linking that story with a dropped comment about "If any word has been heard from the couriers we sent out?" Travel especially in the early snowy days while dangerous enough due to the weather would not have gone completely lawless due to the culture, food availability and lack of pop density.
Congratulation on your decision BTW I eagerly await to read it.
<alright next bit.>
A subaltern wearing a corrections uniform searched through the file cabinets to find a series of folders which she brought to the three seated at the desk. After briefly looking through the files to confirm the identity of the man facing them, and to quickly read the crimes for which he had been convicted. the Lieutenant Colonel spoke quietly with the other two glancing from time to time at the prisoner. Finally after several minutes and neatly laying out several key sheets of paper in front of himself the Lieutenant Colonel looked up at John.
“I read here that you are currently in prison for aggravated sexual assault, battery, unlawful confinement, five counts each of those, and theft over. I also read here that you are currently 45 years old, yet you have been incarcerated on 9 different occasions for all but 22 of those years. You have graduated from petty theft crimes as a teenager to more serious theft, drug related, and violent crimes as an adult to finally now serving time for being a serial rapist. My colleagues here do not believe that you are a reformable subject, I however do not believe that you have been given sufficient incentive to reform and am willing to give you one last chance to provide some worth to society at large. Do you have anything to say for your self?”
“It’s not my fault, I’m the youngest eight kids of my dad beat me, and my mother, an/.”
“Interesting. This page, my colleague the Warden just handed me shows your upbringing to have been somewhat upper middle class, your parents both academics at the university of Waterloo in their, lets see here, 47th year of marriage. It also says that you are the second born of three children and needless to say are a pathological and habitual liar.” The Lieutenant Col. placed the pages back down on the desk, and laid his fingertips against one another bringing them to his lips as he looked out under his brows at Mr. Wildermann. “Now against my own better judgment, and you should bear in mind that this really is your last chance before you are released from this mortal coil to instead spend the rest of your days feeding worms. Which I think you can count as a step up from the fate of several of your former prison mates, who by all the accounts we received, have instead begun to feed the likes of Clifford Olson. What can you tell us about the goings on inside the penitentiary over the past 3 days? And I do want specifics, eh.”
Later that night Col. Ian Hope convened his local staff meeting in the command tent on the parking lot of the prison. Before beginning the planning session of his own staff meeting, a courier had arrived from Staff HQ at Garrison Edmonton, with details about what the other units had been up to over the past 6 days and how things seemed to be shaping up.
Introducing himself as Major Russell Patterson he began the briefing.
“Intel for the over all effects of “the event”, which was all they still were calling it, was unanimously grim. No weapon had yet been surmised which could have caused this. The internal combustion engines still would not run and no electricity would flow in any way shape or form except those necessary for life, and possibly lightening and electric eels. The last two were speculative since there hadn’t yet been any thunder storms and no eels lived here. On a side note regarding eels by way of a segue-way it seems someone has gone to the Valley Zoo with a set of bolt cutters and released all the animals there, the culprits have not yet been found however some evidence has been gathered and an investigation has been initiated. The civilian and military leadership had also determined that while the civilian population that had been conscripted was still fairly orderly, this situation was tenuous at best. This event had effectively crippled all of modern society, and while they had placed everyone under martial law and conscripted everyone as a fait accompli including the premier, Lieutenant Governor, and all their members of the legislative assembly, and local levels of government, not everyone had yet come on board. None had yet claimed publicly that what they had done was actually illegal, which it was. Most were still in too much shock and denial about the enormity of what had happened.” The administration Major continued his briefing.
“As one example alone among many was the water supply, 1CER had two dozen world class water filters which were in use just last month in Ontario to provide clean water to the public and the CF each one of which could process 10,000 liters an hour. Yet none of them are of any use at all to us in this instance because they rely on a diesel engine to make them work. Maybe in a few weeks we can figure out another way to turn the crank shaft on them with enough torque but that won’t help us immediately. Already the fire hydrant cisterns are getting low even with rationing and people are eating snow. For the past several days we’ve been preparing to cast mechanical hand pump parts at the two foundries in the city, while crews have been reopening old public wells and digging new ones by hand using city engineer and archived surveyor maps as a guide. To date seventeen hand pump ready wells have been dug and can be in use as soon as the parts are fitted. Another 40 wells are under way and we expect them to reach water in the next couple of days. More wells will be initiated as needed after these first community ones are drink ready. Many of the fires have gone out and with the new fire watch patrols, fewer wild fires are getting away on us. In the past six days over 400,000 homes, public properties, or businesses have been damaged or burnt to the ground. Both those people attempting to fight the fires as well as those who fell victim to them through their own error we estimate over 300,000 casualties, only 60,000 of those are expected to pull through because they merely suffered from smoke inhalation or minor burns.” Pausing after this the Major took a handkerchief from his pocket to blow his nose and wipe his eyes. With emotion thick in his voice he continued, “The fires have greatly complicated things for the remaining survivors, many people, now brand new recruits, were homeless and utterly destitute, many indeed frozen to death either on the streets or in insufficiently heated or insulated buildings. No clear number on those casualties had yet been determined but the numbers were expected to be high and continue to rise between now and the end of April.”
“Concerning the remaining survivors while the 100% conscription policy would guarantee them all a job until the emergency was over. there was effectively no economy whatsoever to speak of, money literally was worthless, physical resources whatever they may be, are the only things of actual value any more. We are effectively brought back to at least the 1850’s here, and even farther back militarily.” The intelligence officer finished his briefing from his superiors at HQ Edmonton, stepped aside from the paper easel that had been set up and sat back down in one of the folding chairs in the cramped quarters of the campaign tent.
As he finished, Colonel Hope glanced around the tent at the leaders whose job it was to try to hold things together for the survivors and ultimately for themselves. It was clear that everyone was dramatically affected, not one face in the room was tear free, more dead in these six days in this one city our home than our whole country had lost in three wars, who can count the cost? Many with the panicked and shifting eyes that suggested they’d really like to go look after their own families at the base or in their neighborhoods. Faces were strained and expressions were long, as a group they looked beaten. Deciding on what it was he needed to do, he stood up walked to stand beside the easel, which was his favourite leadership communication tool, and spoke. “Look, we’ve got a lot of responsibility as leaders both you officers and former civilians, and here is how we are going to meet it. First, we’re going to look after those survivors as we are able to help. Our top priority is water first and foremost, it appears that this task is beginning to be well under way, so it appears the combat engineers and the associated units have got that under control. Second and just as important is reliable warmth that isn’t an immediate danger, we’ll have to discuss later just how that is going to be accomplished. Third is going to be food, many of the businesses that warehoused food were made of cinder-blocks or brick so were not burned but so many of people’s homes and smaller businesses were burned we can have no reliable numbers on what food remains. We’ll have to finish what we are doing here quickly so we can help with determining those numbers before the snow melts so that the engineers and conscript units can have the time to determine what best can be done to ensure food for next year.
Folks. This tragedy has hit all of us very hard and once we have secured the faint possibility of a future for our survivors we will look after those who’ve died in this event, we are going to make sure that all of their bodies are recovered, returned to their loved ones, when they can be found, treated with dignity, and given all the honour they have earned. Second, we’re going to look after the survivors, who are all wounded, both physically and mentally, ensuring that they will all have the leadership, care and support they are going to need. Third we are going to look after the families, not one person any where in the world is unaffected by this tragedy, all have suffered terrible losses, in order to endure they will need our support just as much as we will need theirs. We will wrap our arms around them both literally and figuratively supporting them through what is far and away the single worst natural disaster in humanity’s history. There is no qualifier on that support, in terms of amount, time or type. As well, from the perspective of the group in this tent, we are all going to that in the next thirty seconds or so. If we don’t and leave this room looking the way we do now, beaten, with a loss of faith and confidence in who and what we are. In two hours everyone at this camp will look that way, and in forty eight hours that will be everyone in the greater Edmonton metro area. We will have failed to provide them with the leadership they needed when they most needed it. We must give them the confidence that in spite of our terrible losses, our greatest hope for survival is in working together as a community, and that our commitment to that is unwavering. Failing in this is not an option, these people are looking up to us for that leadership, and we cannot afford to fail in delivering it.”
Looking out into the crowd of those gathered in his tent Ian Hope, felt a chill of, dared he to say it, hope run up his own spine as those men and women he’d just moments before saw as beaten and fatigued, begin to sit straighter and more relaxed with interested and inquisitive faces where before there had only been gloom. Relieved at the success of his introduction, he continued the planning and strategy session, in the manner he and many of the rest of the senior officers had adopted over the past couple of years. On the bright side of this whole fiasco of a natural disaster, no one from NDHQ would be interfering with his or anybody else’s operation by trying to armchair quarterback their decisions through a ten thousand km. long drinking straw. God, it feels good, to be free to make the right decision at the right time, without some bureaucratic professional second guesser, constantly jostling your elbow.
“Now each of you give me a brief of what your reconnaissance has been for the past several days so we can resolve this prison situation quickly and then we can get back to helping people who actually deserve it. I want to spend ninety five percent of my time dealing with those I can help and who are interested in getting my help and only five percent with those who don’t, so lets get going.”
Pointing with the sharpie marker that was his constant companion in these briefings, Col Hope directed the remainder of the leadership strategy session in an animated and energized manner, before a group of similarly well stoked career officers, warrants, and corrections personnel.
