The sane answer to this was that they were simply making preparations for potential hard times ahead. They were loyal citizens and bore no ill intent towards their country; in fact it was just the opposite. But the lunacy appeared to be spreading, and there was no other way but to ignore and resist the madness.
The Berengers lived in a relatively well to do middle class area, some twenty five miles south of the DC beltway. The sub-division consisted of a maze of residential back roads situated in a forested area. It was actually very beautiful, surrounded by lakes and woods and giving no hint of the nearby urban sprawl. However, the malls and shopping centers were only a short drive away, and the I-95 was only five miles to the east.
Their house was a two story four bedroom colonial from the 1980s, with basement, on a half-acre wooded plot, similar to most of the other surrounding properties. They were situated on the north west corner of a residential four way junction, with the house itself set back about thirty to forty meters from the road, oriented towards the junction to the south east, with the wooded yard to the rear and extending along the two roads to the left and right of the property.
The house was on a slight rise and looked down towards the junction, which was a four way stop where the kids congregated in the mornings to wait for the school bus.
The slope down to the two roads was grassed with a couple of wooded islands that gave some cover from view from the road, but otherwise there was just a drainage ditch and grass between the house and the two roads. The driveway was on the right side as you looked towards the road and sloped up over about thirty meters towards a double garage on the right side of the house.
The neighborhood was a mix of professional and retired types, some families with kids and others living in empty nests. One of the big problems the Berengers had encountered, when they got into prepping following the purchase of the house, was the local Homeowners Association.
The HOA, although ostensibly well meaning, was in fact a microcosm of the problems in the country. It appeared to attract to its employ those petty authority types who enjoyed wielding power over others in the small tyrannies.
Go against the HOA at your peril, because they had the money to afford the attorneys, which funnily enough came from the dues that those same homeowners paid for the HOA to serve their best interests. Sounds familiar? It was almost laughable if it were not so tragic.
The presence of the HOA was another reason that they had to keep their prepping low key. Operational security, or OPSEC, was always a factor in prepping anyway. But if they had lived in the country they could have aspired to a vegetable garden, goats or cows for milk, and chickens. Instead, the prepping was confined to the purchasing, and storing in the basement, of food and equipment.
The Berengers had discussed this problem at length but they were not financially positioned to sell up and move to a rural retreat, they were too tied to the golden handcuffs of the beltway rat-race, with the kids in school and all the rest.
They always said that if the slide began, it would get to a point that the HOA would not matter anymore, and they would get chickens and goats then. They had heirloom seeds ready to start a garden. But in the end it had all happened so fast there was no chance to buy any animals. Luckily, they had about a years’ worth of food stored in cans and buckets in the basement.
As part of their prepping, Jack had worked diligently on the tactical side: defense of his family. He had two 5.56mm Colt M4 rifles, two Remington 870 pump action shotguns and three Glock 23 handguns, chambered for .40 caliber rounds. He had amassed a sizeable quantity of ammunition for all the firearms, plus an ACOG x4 magnification combat optic for his M4.
He had acquired a set of body armor plates and he had used them recreate his old rig from his Ranger days, creating a tactical plate carrier vest in ranger green. He had ammunition pouches attached across the front of the vest, allowing him to carry eight magazines, along with some other utility pouches for various items.
As well as the plate carrier rig, he had created a battle belt using a tactical belt, a padded hip pad, and several types of pouches. On the battle belt he had his handgun and spare magazines, three double rifle ammunition pouches allowing carriage of six thirty round magazines, and a dump pouch for used magazines, plus several other utility items in their own pouches. He could wear the battle belt on its own or with the tactical vest, allowing him to rig himself according to the situation.
Basically, Jack stuck to what he knew and felt comfortable with. For him, weapons and equipment had always been tools that he had been ‘issued’, so he stuck to familiarity and he was by no means an expert on all the various firearms, optics and equipment on the market.
Jack had also collected various amounts of web gear and other tactical supplies that he fitted to Caitlin and Andrew for when the time came. They both had battle belts; Andrew’s rigged up just like his, while Caitlin’s was specialized for her handgun and also shotgun ammunition carriage. Andrew also had a chest rig for carriage of additional ammunition for his rifle.
Jack worried about having only one set of ballistic plates but whenever they discussed, or more rarely ran through a tactical situation, they practiced for Caitlin to act as protection to the young kids, while Andrew moved to cover and a fire support position with one of the M4s. Jack would always do the maneuver and thus it seemed right that he wore the set of armor.
Whenever they went and did paintball games it always worked out that Andrew liked to stay back and snipe from cover while Jack would always run about doing bounding over-watch like he had been trained to do in his soldiering days, which inevitably got him killed in paintball, usually by a twelve year old hiding in a bush.
Jack was terrified of any harm coming to the kids. He worked on close protection drills with Caitlin as much as he could, and although they both understood the need to prep, it was never easy with inter-marital politics to actually train together. Wives and teenagers did not make ideal training buddies, and it was all too easy for him to put his foot in it and unintentionally cause offense.
He was also very mindful that Andrew was a teenager, his son, with no combat experience and he wanted to keep him safe as much as possible. He always had him in a fire support role working from cover.
Andrew was actually a very good shot. He wasn’t an experienced combat shooter like Jack, but he had the basics and had been on the air rifle team with the ROTC before Jack had introduced him to range shooting with the M4.
One of the aspects of preparing his family that Jack gave a lot of thought to was their mental preparation. Although he did not want to discuss specific aspects of his combat experiences with them, he felt a strong need to try and make them understand what it may be like, and what could be at stake, should violence come to them.
He talked to them and had them visualize combat situations, attackers coming at them bent on their destruction. He explained that in the absence of law and order, and facing armed marauders, it was a simple ‘them or us’ situation. On the range, he had them fire at photographic and realistic targets, and when simulating combat through training such as paintball, he had Andrew actually aim and fire his ‘weapon’ at the ‘enemy’.
Jack explained that if or when it came, the violence would likely be sudden and unexpected, and they would probably not be ready for it. They needed to visualize their reactions in advance, train muscle memory, and be ready to ‘turn it on’ in an instant should the need arise.
In the three month period between the terrorist attack and the Chinese attack on the power grid the Berengers had found themselves out of work. Jack worked as a consultant for a corporation and as such he was one of the first to be let go, before the full time employees.