T. Reeder - The Free Republic of Texas 2015 AD

It was decided that the patrols would move in such a manner that none would be more then an hour or so from help, they would be moving in a wave so to speak, clearing a pate across a wide front, making contact with other survivors, gathering intel about groups of bad guys, who would be dealt with but as many teams as needed.

We also had to address the issue of collateral damage which was a chicken shit way of saying that when stomping a nest of vipers there would be some folks killed or wounded who were innocent, none of us liked this thought but we agreed we could not risk the lives of trained fighters to save a person mixed in with the enemy, sad but a fact of life.

We had kind of operated in a hap hazard manner all along as to patrols and had been very lucky, now there was a plan of action that would in the long run clean out all but the major cities which would be left to whomever was in them as long as they didn’t become a problem to the security forces moving thru the area.

The overall plan was to take back as much of Texas as was possible, then we would move out into other states around Texas, where we would offer help in getting back on their feet, all would be told of the Free republic being built and given the chance to join us, if they did we would give all the aid we could, if not then we would leave them to their own devices.

The idea of freedom is that people are just that “Free” to live in any manner they wished as long as it wasn’t interfering with other folks. It was kind of like the old saying, you can take a horse to water but you can’t make him drink, well some folks just can not wrap their mind around true freedom, the freedom to work, grow, live. Some folks just want to be handed everything. Life was going to get even harder for them.

This task would not be finished in our life times but it would get done eventually. We also decided that in the future that Jody and I would not go out with the patrols but would be building up our new “Heavy Regimental Combat Team” a term Jody said was an old military unit of organization that usually had every this needed to wage war on a smaller scale, from Jeeps to real Artillery and air assets.

This would be the hammer when a heavy patrol hit something they couldn’t handle, by clearing airports as they went there would be places to land the C-130 we had and the ones we were finding.

An air mobile RCT… who would have thought back when we were talking about welding steel plates on trucks and calling them tanks?

The job was going to be huge and would take years but what the hell we had nothing better to do!

And so the new plan was put into action, the work started, and with luck in 6 months time the real battle to rebuild the nation would start, one small town at a time, one farm at a time.

And all because a stranger walked into an old country café with a plan.

It’s now been 2 years since the day we met to reorganize the plan, we did continue on and we did save a lot of folks and killed a few, for the most part the good folks had risen to the top like cream and the outlaws were killed off about as fast as they stuck their heads up.

Using the resources of the ranch and the treasure trove of information that Song had gathered we were able to locate and use the stuff hidden away for that reason.

The free Republic of Texas is growing as word spreads, good people are drifting in, and the bad seeds weed themselves out pretty fast usually without a trial.

Jade is now pregnant with our second child, I have a beautiful daughter who in a few years will follow her mothers foot steps in getting her tattoos, I’m not sure how that’s gonna work but then nobody asked me, I did submit to getting tats like Jody’s.

Ellen gave birth to a Son who is the spitting image of Jody with Ellen’s

Eyes.The Clan keeps growing, seems the word went out to a lot of them who had simply went into the forests of East Texas when the troubles started and in the ways of their people seemed to know where to find others.

The old state lines of Texas have disappeared and now the Free Republic of Texas is spreading all across the neighboring former states, the thought seems to be that borders are a bad concept and freedom is a living breathing entity… I expect one day it will come to be called the Free Republic of America.

We have a long way to go as does the rest of the world, but the air is clear and clean, no smog anyplace, and mother earth seems to be slowly reclaiming her rightful place in a very short time…

What the future brings we don’t know, we just know that here in the wonderful little gathering of old buildings called Dog Trot Texas, it’s a wonderful day and the pie in Miss Ellie’s is still the best damn thing for a hundred miles around. As it always was, the screen door still squeaks and as I sit here with my coffee and pie I can hear the sound of a Jeep being driven in a nice quiet manner with my lovely wife and daughter, coming to steal daddy’s pie…

Life is good in Dog trot… Free republic of Texas.