Chapter Six - part two

   James spent the few days he had before Christmas with the kids and Sarah. Those few short days were wonderful, but far too short. Christmas arrived to sweep James and Sarah up into the family events and the family politics as well. Newly elected Governor Davis made a point of showing off his daughter and his son-in-law at several political functions. James didn't mind being there too much, but he would have preferred to just be with his family. Sarah was as much to blame as her father though. She made a point of introducing James to several people with a lot of connections. These were people who might share their concerns with James about the state of the nation. A lot of those folks were well connected not only politically, but also in the business world as well. Some knew more about things in Texas and some were more familiar with the situations nationwide. A lot of these people were connected with major corporations. Texas was one of the few places where the major corporations were still expanding.

   James spent a lot of late nights after the rest of the family was in bed talking with friends he had made who were scattered around the nation and the world. It would have been much harder to make some of those connections if he wasn't staying with the future Governor. James had talked with him on his first night home after the kids were in bed. It had actually been a family discussion, but this wasn't a typical family. His in-laws were very much aware of the state of the nation. One brother had been a very powerful Senator and was now the next Governor of Texas. The other brother had ended his distinguished career in the Air Force as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Both men had been directly involved in both the defense and governing of the nation. That night James learned that he wasn't alone in his concerns. Both men were quick to agree with his concerns and both shared their own concerns. James knew that they had been concerned for a long time, but he was still surprised by the intensity of their concern for the sudden calm that had come over the nation. Both men seemed to feel it might literally be the calm before the storm too. Neither of them knew what kind of storm was building though.

  Those long distance chats with his friends weren't much help in identifying what the building problem might be either. They did make it more certain in his mind that a major problem was building. They all agreed that it would be tied either directly or indirectly to the world economy, but none of them knew exactly what to expect. Overseas it seemed to be more likely that the military would be where things started. It might be a conflict between nations or it might be more coup attempts. It was even possible it could be the military putting done a revolt for the ruling government. The main idea was that the military would be where the problems were. They expected those problems to rapidly involve the public, but the military would be at the center of everything overseas. It wasn't that clear cut inside the United States though. The feelings about something building up were almost universal though, but ideas of what it might be were varied.

    James spent hours trying to sort out what he was hearing from the people he contacted. In the end he couldn't pin any one thing down. It seemed like there were many problems that were all working together to build up pressure. In the United States one of the biggest issues for the moment was fuel, both for vehicles and heating. It seemed like supplies were getting more limited as the winter had progressed. It hadn't been a terribly bad winter so far, but it had started early and seemed like it was going to remain colder than normal too. The other issue was jobs. There were a huge number of people already out of work and things seemed to be slowing down even more than normal this year. It was always slower in the winter months, but a lot of people said this was different and worse this time. Holiday sales had been the worst in over a decade. That was now translating into cutbacks and layoffs, both in manufacturing plants and in retail stores. To James it seemed like things in the big cities had started to follow the trend that had started in the smaller cities and towns years before. Businesses were closing and life was grinding to a near halt. What had been easily available was hard to find and the normal, easy way of life was no longer normal, or easy. It didn't look like things would improve anytime soon either. A lot of people seemed to be watching and waiting for something to happen. The only question left to be answered was what that something would be. Nobody seemed to know what was going to happen and few people even wanted to think about it, much less to talk about it.

   James had returned to base at the start of the second week in January. It was near the middle of the week before he had a chance to meet in private with Brigadier General Holt and discuss what they had learned. She had come to see him in his office this time. James was even more concerned about the situation within the nation now than he had been before. A lot of people he knew were stationed along both coasts or overseas. The majority of the military was still deployed around the world, but it had made little difference where they were. Everyone he had talked with had been concerned. It wasn't just the United States that had suddenly gone quiet. It seemed like the entire world was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen. The problem was that nobody knew what that something was. James had told Susan everything that he had learned. In the United States the major concern was the way the economy just seemed to be stalled out. Nobody was spending any money, but that was because very few people were making any money to spend. Overseas it was worse. The major concern there was staying warm and having food to eat. There were still protests almost daily, but the people didn't seem to have the drive to do much... not yet.

   Susan had heard much the same sort of thing, but with a few added concerns. A lot of her time had been spent at parties and formal dinners with various generals in all of the various military branches. One of the big items on the agenda for the politicians in Washington was cutting wasted spending in the military. They wanted to allocate those funds to something more useful, such as housing and subsidies for those who weren't able to support themselves. The military had been cutting spending everywhere they could for years. The only place left to cut was in personnel. They had stopped virtually all of the weapons development programs and scaled back a lot of the planned purchases during the last budget battle. Most of those cuts wouldn't actually take place for several more years, but they had been cut. The only thing left was a force reduction. The problem was that at the moment they didn't have enough manpower to handle all of the current deployments. They were running short of men and supplies everywhere. And now they were being asked to cut even more!

   James listened as Susan explained the major concerns of all of the ranking military officers she had spoken with. They felt that instead of making more cuts the military should be expanded and dramatically. The rest of the world militaries were doing exactly that. Most of them were building up huge stores of weapons, munitions, and manpower as if preparing for major conflicts. The largest expansions seemed to be going on in the nations with the worst economic problems. That was also where military force was being used the most often to control the people. It was happening everywhere, but it was worse in some places than in others. It was even happening in the United States, though in very limited amounts. The brass seemed to believe that if Washington, D.C. made the cuts they were talking about making it would effectively render the United States military almost useless. They simple wouldn't have the manpower or the equipment and support needed to maintain any kind of large scale actions. In fact they would be hard pressed to even handle the most minor conflicts, unless they took place very close to an active base. They felt it would be disastrous to make those cuts and almost as bad if they didn't actually start to expand due to the expansions in the rest of the world militaries.

   The top brass had all been eager to talk, off the record, about possible problems and what would need to be done. Susan wasn't certain that anyone had a good handle on what was really going on or even a workable idea of how to deal with what they thought was wrong. They all seemed to be trying to put the blame and responsibility for finding solutions on other people. The one thing that Susan had been stunned to hear was that all of the military brass was seeing more danger of the real problems being with the people rather than from other world governments. They all seemed to be convinced that the next major problem they would face was going to come from inside America, not outside. They had spent a long time talking and debating about what could be done about that. Their conclusion had been that no matter how much they hated it; there was little the military could do to change the immediate future. Their only hope was to try and be ready to deal with whatever did happen. The question was how to do that when faced with the spending cuts and further limitations which they had to deal with. They had no good answers, but Susan did tell James that a large group of the highest ranking officers had agreed to stay in touch with each other. They had also made a very limited commitment to work together in a coordinated effort to keep control of any major conflicts happening inside America out of the hands of the politicians. They had all agreed that if things became bad enough to require military force it would be far better if that force was controlled by them rather than by politicians.

   James and Susan weren't comfortable with what they had discovered, since it seemed to validate their own concerns. However they were both glad they had decided to ask questions. It seemed that a lot of people in the military, hopefully the right people, were doing just that. James had spent a couple of hours talking with Susan about things, but they couldn't decide on a course of action until something at least started to develop. Until then they would simply have to do what everyone else seemed to be doing... wait! They would be doing something besides just waiting though. They intended to make a real effort to stay connected with the people they had spoken with. Maybe if they all stayed in touch and alert somebody would see something to indicate what was to come. Then they could use that to form a plan of action. There were a lot of ifs and maybe's, but it was all they had at the moment. James did make one other suggestion to Susan. It was the same one he had made to everyone he had talked with. That was a simple suggestion that they do a lot of praying while they were watching and waiting. That was about the only thing they could do for the moment. James figured it was probably the best thing they could do too.