Glen Tate - 299 Days - The 17th Irregulars

They were now in the lights of the outbuildings and farmhouse. Grant was stunned at how large, and perfect, the place was. He was tired and it was dark, so he wasn’t fully taking in all the sights of the facility.

Grant did notice that there was a lot of activity at the farm for the middle of the night. Then again, people in this business probably worked a lot at night, like Grant was tonight.

They got to the farmhouse and went in the front door. Don, the Air Force RED HORSE guy, was in command in Ted’s absence. Ted said to Don, “Get everyone together, we have an announcement and,” he said pointing to Jim Q., “an introduction.” Don rounded everyone up. In the meantime, Grant and the others who had been in Boston Harbor had something to eat; cornbread from that night’s dinner, to be exact. Don brought everyone into the kitchen where Grant and the others were eating. There were about ten of them, including civilians Stan and Carl, Tom in his Air Force fatigues, and Travis in his Navy fatigues. There were a couple more Air Force and Navy guys helping Don put the facility together. The rest were a couple of infantrymen, all in their fatigues with the “U.S. Army” name tape taken off. This core group was a good sample of what the full unit would be: civilians, support troops from the Air Force and Navy, and infantrymen.

“All here, boss, except the guards.” Don said to Ted. Ted nodded.

“Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have an announcement,” Ted said. “I would like to introduce you to Lt. Grant Matson, the commanding officer of our unit, the 17th Irregulars of the Free Washington State Guard.” Ted started applauding and the rest of the group quickly followed.

When the applause died down, Don said, “So we’re the 17th Irregulars, huh?” He thought about it and said, “Cool. What’s our mission?” Ted explained the mission—the short version—to Don and the others. They would train a mixture of FUSA military and civilians to be guerillas and to occupy an objective after the regular Patriot forces had taken it. Ted didn’t go into the details about Grant and the Team doing their civil affairs mission. They didn’t need to know all the details just yet.

Grant was embarrassed to admit that no one asked about him. The attention was on the unit and what it would be doing. That made sense when he thought about it, but Grant expected to be grilled by the troops on whether he had any military experience and whether he could be a battlefield commander. Instead, the troops just seemed to accept that he was the lieutenant and go on with their jobs.

Ted realized that Grant needed a little attention with the big announcement about him being in command. “And the guy you knew as Grant,” Ted said, “was commissioned by Lt. Col. Hammond of the Special Operations Command as our lieutenant.” Everyone applauded.

“Lt. Matson,” Ted said, “do you care to say something to your troops?” This was Grant’s chance to describe his philosophy of command and set the tone for the unit. This was a chance he would only get once, and he knew he had to make it good.

“Thanks, Sgt. Malloy,” Grant said. “Here’s the deal folks. I was a civilian my whole life. I will rely heavily on Sgt. Malloy here. I am not pretending to be something I’m not. Never have. I found that life goes much more smoothly when you’re not trying to be something you’re not. So, while I know quite a bit about tactical things and I know how to organize people pretty damned well, I have no military background to speak of, so I compensate for that by listening to Ted, or,” Grant caught himself, “as I now call him, Sgt. Malloy.”

Grant looked at each person in the kitchen for a moment and said, “But I am in command. I am responsible for each of you. I am working with HQ on some stuff that I am pretty good at,” he said, keeping the civil affairs thing vague. “Bottom line: Special Operations Command put me in charge. So I am. Gladly. This is how I have been called on to serve in taking this country back. It’s what I’m supposed to do, and I’m damned glad to be doing it.”

“Battlefield rules out here, obviously,” Grant said, trying to show his troops that he had some military knowledge. “No saluting, no attention when I walk in, none of that stuff. I would have you call me Grant like you have been, but I need to show the people who aren’t out here yet that I’m the CO, so I’ll ask you to call me ‘Lieutenant’ around the others. But when this core group is alone, I’m fine with Grant. All I want to do is win and bring each and every one of you back home to wherever home is for you. The rest of it—titles, saluting, that kind of ego shit—I could do without.”

“Here is one thing I insist on in this unit,” Grant said in his command voice. “Every single person is a warrior. Every single one. No matter what your job here, you are a warrior first and a dishwasher, or whatever, second. This isn’t like the military units some of you came from where things were so specialized that you only worked on one particular piece of equipment for four years and someone else took care of the ‘gun part’ of the mission. Not here. You will all be trained as fighters and you will get some rifle time. It might be guard duty, or it might be infantry duty, or it might be some high-speed commando shit in a raid, but you will all be rifle-toting fighters. If anyone isn’t OK with that, you’ll need to go. So, is everyone OK with that?”

A thunderous, “Yes, sir!” broke out in unison. Grant smiled. That’s the spirit he wanted to see. “Another thing,” he said, “that will be new to you military people is that, when the unit is up to full strength, it will have lots of civilians. I need the military people and civilians to work together seamlessly. This is a military unit, albeit it an irregular one. You military guys will know more than the civilians and will need to train them. But, we’re all Americans, we’re all Patriots, and we’re all risking our lives to make things right again. I want each of you military guys to take a civilian or two under your wing. Can you do that for me?”

Another thunderous, “Yes, sir!” The conversation was going better than Grant had expected.

“Another thing,” Grant continued. “Let your chain of command know if you need things or have suggestions on how to make this work better.” Grant wanted to get all the good ideas he could out of these people. “Hey, let’s be honest: We’re making this up as we go. None of us have ever been in an irregular unit. The U.S. hasn’t had irregular units for over two hundred years, but ask the British, and I’m sure they’ll say that irregulars can mess you up.” That got some cheers. Grant wanted to make the connection with the troops that the 17th was like the militias during the Revolutionary War. He hoped for the same outcome as in that war.

Grant continued, “We’re out here at a farm. None of you have ever set up a base at a farm. None of you have ever operated without the full logistical support of the United States military. Sergeants Malloy and Sappenfield have set up indigenous units, but with local tribes in far off places, so that’s a little different for them too, but the idea is just the same. This means we’ll look to them on a lot of matters, but I want each of you to tell us what’s working, what’s not working, and what would work better.”

“I mentioned chain of command,” Grant said, “so I better add that we’ll come up with squad leaders in a while.” Grant hadn’t talked to Ted about squad leaders, but just assumed that would be done. “When we have a couple squads worth of people out here, we’ll do that. I’m not rigid on many things, but the chain of command is important, especially because I won’t be out here full time. Unfortunately, I have to be back in Pierce Point during the days most of the time. I have a cover to maintain and some work back there that directly benefits the unit.” Grant was being vague and painting a slightly rosier picture than reality, but was referring to recruiting Pierce Point guards and walk-ons from the gate. Plus, Grant had to make sure Pierce Point ran smoothly. It wouldn’t do the 17th any good if all the residents in the vicinity of the Marion Farm were starving and killing each other. “It sucks that I’m not here 24/7. But,” Grant said pointing to the crowd in the kitchen, “we’re in good hands. You guys can handle anything.” They were nodding. “Sgt. Malloy will solve most of the problems,” Grant continued, “but he can get a hold of me whenever, so I’m always available by radio.” Sap told Grant he would give him one of the secure military radios they used to communicate with Scotty earlier and would show him how to use it. Grant would have the military radio with him at all times, and Scotty would keep the radio he had and would be back up for contacting Grant.