The President nodded towards the Secretary of Treasury. “Joyce, it’s good to see you again. Jeff was just bringing us up to speed on a number of items. It appears we are going to have another good economic quarter.”
“Yes Mr. President, it does,” Joyce said while skimming through some notes. “Mr. President, I would like to speak with you about the new war bonds. As you know, we are financing some of the war through the war tax, the confiscation of assets from the Axis powers, and war bonds. I would like to propose we kick off a new war bond initiative by bringing in celebrities from across the country, along with some personal visits from you and the Vice President.”
“Right to the point, I always liked that about you Joyce. I agree, let’s see who we can get from Hollywood to help run the war bond drive and I will, of course, make myself available as well. I believe the Vice President has fully recovered from his injuries, so we’ll get him involved as well. How many bonds do we anticipate needing to sell each month, rough estimate?” asked the President.
“As many as we can, but in reality, the war is burning through $4.31 billion a day. With the national debt paid off, we could run a new deficit, but I would rather not do that. Thanks to the war tax that Congress passed a couple of months ago, I think we can avoid that. I know you caught some flak for it, but that $3 % sales tax is essentially covering the increased spending at the moment.”
“The fact that Alaska is being invaded by the Chinese has really started to hit home with most folks. Foreign troops are on American soil and beating our own soldiers has sent a chill down their collective backs… and they should be scared,” said Jeff Rogers.
“The situation will change once some of our newer weapon systems start to show up on the battlefield,” Monty countered, trying to keep the mood of the meeting positive.
A Problem with Math
Colonel Joshua Richter had been General Gardner’s aide decamp since the start of the war in the Middle East; he had served with the general on and off throughout his career as an infantry officer and was being groomed to one day become a division commander. Richter caught his boss’ attention to give him an update. “General Gardner, the Secretary of Defense’s aircraft just landed, he’ll be here in about 30 minutes,” Richter said.
The Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs were on their way to Tel Aviv, along with the SACEUR. The goal of this meeting was to discuss the occupation and the next strategy for defeating the Russians. Third Army now had 560,000 extremely battle-hardened soldiers, desperately needed in Europe. The Israeli Defense Force had also grown significantly, reaching 800,000 soldiers. The question now was where to redeploy the Third Army-how many soldiers from the IDF could they get to help assist in Europe or Asia?
“Excellent. Let’s go join General Wade in the conference room while we wait,” Gardner said, leading the way. Colonel Richter went with the general wherever he went, ready to take notes and issue orders for the general.
As the two officers walked in to the conference room, they saw General Wade in a heated discussion with one of his officers. “Sorry gentlemen… would you like us to come back?” asked General Gardner as he slowly came into the room.
They immediately stopped talking, and there was a moment of awkward silence. “No that’s ok. We were just talking about strategy and what to do in Europe to stop the Russians,” said General Wade.
“What’s the issue? Perhaps we can help you out before the VIPs show up,” said Gardner.
“I’m sure you’ve seen our read-ahead. The issue we are facing is one of numbers. The Russians have such a huge advantage in armor, light drone tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. I’m not even sure your additional armor is going to make much of a dent in it.” General Wade looked like he had been beaten down by the war in Europe.
General Gardner walked over to the center of the table and activated the holographic map. He pulled up the pre-brief slides from SACEUR and began to study the map and the enemy unit strengths. He squinted a little as he concentrated, looking for weaknesses in their lines. Just then, the Secretary of Defense, Eric Clarke, and General Branson, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, arrived and walked into the room with their aides and staff in tow.
General Branson walked towards the other two generals and held out his hand to shake theirs, saying, “Generals, it’s sincerely good to see you both. I am so happy we were able to arrange a meeting where we could have our primary battlefield commanders discuss strategy directly with us as opposed to through these holographic images.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more,” General Gardner replied, shaking the Joint Chief’s hand. The two Generals had worked together a number of times in the past, and though they were both infantry officers, General Gardner had pursued a career that led him to spend more time as a field commander and less time as a politician.
Eric Clarke, the SecDef, walked over and joined in the conversation, “It’s good to see you both as well. I’m glad to see that you all have made it. I know it’s been a rough war, and you all are busy and exhausted.”
“That it has been. Speaking of making it, I don’t know if you heard that we did officially determine that it was poison that killed my predecessor days before the invasion,” General Wade responded as he moved to his seat at the table.
Eric didn’t look surprised. “We thought so. In any case, I’m glad you have been able to take over smoothly. You have done a marvelous job trying to herd all of the cats and dogs that make up NATO and still manage to keep the Russians from gobbling all of Europe up,” the SecDef said with genuine gratitude. Clarke was liked by a lot of people in the military. Though he had never served himself, he really listened to his military commanders and deferred to them when it came down to significant military strategy, weapons, personnel and the needs required to win the war. He was not a micromanager like a lot of the previous SecDefs had been.
After some coffee, tea and other refreshments were brought in, the group of military leaders sat down at the conference table and began to get down to business.
The SecDef opened the conversation by saying, “Generals, the President is incredibly pleased with everyone and the results we have achieved thus far. That said, the war is far from over… we may be entering a more dangerous period than what we just left. The Islamic Republic has surrendered, and for that, we are eternally gratefully for your efforts in driving home this victory, General Gardner. I know the President and I have not always agreed with your methods, but we cannot dispute the results you have achieved.”
“As we look to transition, there are several things that need to take place. Right now, I need you to reassign 250,000 of your men for occupation duty. They do not all need to be combat troops, but they need to be able to perform the full range of occupation duties as needed and ensure we do not have a problem later on. I’ll leave you to figure out the composition of those forces. Next, I’ll need you to also leave behind an additional 35,000 soldiers here in Israel. They will essentially be your Quick Reaction Force (QRF) for the occupation and help secure Israel and assist with the reconstruction efforts that I am sure are already underway now that the war is officially over.”
Clarke looked at the rest of the generals in the room and then at General Gardner before he continued. “You had your meeting with the IDF a few hours ago; I won’t get a chance to meet with them until later today. How did your meeting go?” The SecDef was curious to know what he might be walking in to.