We must have been fairly successful as far as communities go to warrant government attention again. There were not a whole lot of Special Forces guys willing to jump back in and get cut off to help a group of people develop and stay safe until the military could make its way all the way back east.
The Green Berets trained us to better defend ourselves, they helped us build better infrastructure, dig wells, that sort of thing. The best part was they were able to call in airdrops, it wasn’t like ordering stuff off of Amazon, we couldn’t get anything we wanted, but if there was something that would help us become more self sufficient, a new water pump, ammunition, seeds, the SF guys would get it dropped in for us.
Those of us who were young and strong had the easy job, everyone else worked the fields, cooked and dug in. we just had to pull perimeter security, go on raids. You know the fun stuff. That was mostly me and my cousins, Ethan, William, my brother, and a few others, plus some younger people we had picked up along the way.
We really became good once the SF guys taught us irregular warfare techniques. They trained us as best as they could and were able to equip us a little better. I memorized the Zombie Survival Handbook and FM 999-3&4. I thought it was to help us stay self sufficient, but really it was so we could participate in the operations being planned in the Mid-Atlantic region. Not necessarily reclaiming land at this point, but a lot of infrastructure and heritage had been abandoned that part of the country.
The thing that stuck with me the most from their training, it wasn’t a technique or an exercise or a strategy. One of them told us at the beginning that he would train us, but in order to survive we would have to have “The Right Stuff”. This wasn’t something he could teach, we had to have it.
I asked him what that was and he said, “It’s sort of an unshakeable belief in your own infallibility. That’s what the right stuff is. That you’re immortal, that you can do anything that is thrown at you.”
I really took that to heart. It was difficult at first; the best I could do was emulate John Wayne. He once said, “I’m the stuff MEN are made of.” That worked for me and soon I started pushing myself harder and soon I was stronger, tougher, and smarter than I ever thought possible before.
That’s when I started loving myself, and hating everyone else, well almost everyone. No one could keep up with me anymore except my cousins Ethan and William. They were the only two who had taken the “right stuff” ideology to heart. Everyone else just existed while we were truly living. One of my female relatives started sleeping with one the SF guys; she was bored and young, and he was an alpha male, but still it was hard to stomach. Some gave up on life and are still buried there, that hurt too. The rest were just waiting to be rescued. I hated them all.
I didn’t get completely disillusioned until the army finally came back East. When Mid-Atlantic Command was formed they sent a company to secure our area. They gave us the choice of either staying put, with their support, or being resettled back West, where it was safer. Everyone in the community, my family, the community I had helped build, that I had defended since day one, chose to leave the home that had kept us alive and go west. I let them, to hell with them. Ethan, William, and I stayed with the SF guys.
We were all transported to their new forward operating base, still under construction at this point. The civilians were put on a flight west. The three of us who chose to stay were put to work building the base until we could be assimilated into the army somehow. It was on a broad hill somewhere in Northern Virginia or Central Maryland, it was called FOB Ripken. The runway and some defenses were already in place. We helped clear shrubbery out 100 yards, dig a perimeter trench, and used the dirt to fill sandbags and Hesco Bastions. We filled the open ground with booby traps, and barriers until it looked like Omaha Beach. This would be our base of operations.
That’s where we learned about the Irregular Scouts. Captain Anderson was there talking with new recruits like us trying to put a team together. We joined right there on the spot. That’s when we became members of JSOC (Z) IST 5, the Warthogs, one of the teams attached to Task Force Raven, Mid Atlantic Command. The team was comprised of former Mid Atlantic residents because we knew our way around the areas we would be scouting. I’m glad nobody still cared about that old rule that relatives couldn’t serve in the same unit, because I would have died a long time ago without my cousins.
For our working up period we ran patrols out of FOB Ripken, mostly on foot, but sometimes we got Humvees. We did collect items and scout areas but the main reason we were out there was to cull zombies and anti-American forces out of an increasing safe zone around the FOB. During daylight hours we would complete objectives, and hunt zombies. We had a few nighttime operations too; those were mostly ambushes to take out Reavers.
Once a reasonable safe zone was established we started doing longer, more dangerous missions. That of course culminated with the debacle at Fort Dietrich. After that we had to rebuild the team, with Ethan, William, and I as the only founding members left. More simple missions, building up for something big we all knew must come soon.
Chapter 4
Now I was in charge of the team, not because I was a natural leader or anything like that, but because nobody else wanted the job, and if I didn’t take it the Army would saddle us with another Anderson, or worse. I have a lot of respect for a lot of the military personnel I’ve met, but too high of a percentage can’t handle the pressure of combat and our job was too dangerous for us to survive another leader like that.
We were all crammed into a Seahawk helicopter, with all of our gear, which wasn’t that impressive. We were flying towards the USS Sterett, a Navy destroyer which would be our base of operations for the Baltimore scout mission. All we knew at this point was we would finally be going back, not as part of an invasion force, not yet, but on a scouting mission for something.
Ethan had pulled up a picture of Sterett on his Smartphone before we left FOB Ripken. Her Wikipedia page gave us an idea of what to expect. Her picture gave the impression of a big, sleek, grey, clean ship, with very few visible weapons. Guided Missile Destroyer was her classification, DDG 104. I was concerned, her missiles, lone antiaircraft Gatling gun, and anti submarine torpedoes would do us no good. She only actually had one gun that could provide us with fire support and I don’t think BB rounds come in sizes smaller than 155mm.
I was surprised when I finally saw her. She was nothing like her old wiki pic. As we circled the ship, which was sailing north up the Chesapeake Bay, just past a collapsed span of the Bay Bridge. I looked at her modifications with a certain degree of relief that she could actually help with my mission.
Her hull was painted a camouflage scheme, but rust and scorch marks and even battle damage showed through the old faded coat of paint. The most notable modifications were the sandbag emplacements all over the main deck. They protected new machinegun, mortar, and grenade launcher positions, as well as the battery of 155mm artillery. Four guns, one on each side at the bow just behind the ships lone five inch mount, and one on either side at the stern next to the vertical launch tubes for the missiles. Judging from the uniforms as we lowered it looked like they were manned by marines.
We touched down on the landing deck aft and quickly jumped off the helicopter, happy to be able to stretch our legs again. We were greeted by three men in uniform. The one with the most gold on his shoulder boards and grey in his hair stepped up and asked “Which one of you is Zehmanski?”