The person who had
come out had been a nurse's aide. She had stayed at the facility with a few
others and tried to care for the people. Over the length of the chaos she had
slowly run out of help, out of supplies, and finally out of hope. When they
arrived on the scene the troops found a scene from a nightmare. There were
dozens of people who had died. Most of them had died from lack of proper
medications. Some had died from lack of sufficient care and others from thirst
or lack of proper nutrition. While most were elderly and not in good health, it
was still shocking to see so many people who had died simply because they had
been forgotten. It was almost as bad to look into the terrified faces of those
who had survived. James had immediately ordered the so called 'fast response'
troops that Hodges had on standby to rush in if something went wrong as the
troops advanced be sent to these type of facilities. That fast response had
virtually halted the rest of the operations to restore the cities for two full
days. The number of dead and dying that were found was shocking and
demoralizing to everyone. The one good thing that came out of it was the change
in the way the troops looked at James. Word spread among the troops about how
quickly he had responded and how he had acted when he was there. James had been
shaken, but he had stayed on duty and in the field. James stayed until every
facility was checked and cleared. The troops saw a man that truly cared. They
saw a leader.
After that James stayed
out in the field most of the time. He moved from city to city and he worked
very hard to convince the troops that they were going to succeed, that America
was going to be alright. A lot of the troops had been terribly shaken when they
had seen all those helpless people left behind. They had never left anyone
behind in the military. James spent a lot of time and effort trying to restore
the confidence and the focus of the troops. That had been the first big shock,
but it wasn't the last one by far. They found a lot more people dead as they
moved back into the inner cities than anyone had wanted to believe. Most had
died violent deaths, but a lot of the inner cities had major epidemics that
were normally only seen in the poorest parts of the world. There were also a
lot of people who were just wandering or sitting around in various states of
shock too. The number of lost and abandoned children was almost unbelievable
too. Some of them looked as if they hadn't eaten since this mess had started.
James had expected a lot of these problems, but not in the numbers he was
facing. Nobody had been prepared for anything like what this had turned out to
be. Every day seemed to bring a new set of issues and a new shock to the
system. But each day also brought progress. The problem was that the days were
passing very swiftly and the progress seemed to be coming very slowly. A lot of
the politicians were screaming about the need for faster action, but so far the
President had remained firmly behind James. Sometimes the slow progress caused
a reaction from the people themselves. When that did happen things often got
very ugly for everyone involved.
James had been
forced to return to staying in headquarters more due to those sudden ugly
situations popping up. He still went out in the field on a regular basis, but
he was tied to headquarters more often than he liked. General Hodges was now in
the headquarters most of the time too. The basic plan had gone pretty much as
they had hoped, but there were some spots that were still completely separated
from everything outside. The only way to regain control in those areas was
going to be by going directly in with brute force and taking it. That had been
labeled Phase Three. Phase One was moving in and starting the process where there
was little to no resistance. Phase Two was transferring most of the control
back over to the civilian sector in those areas, while maintaining a military
contingent to handle any flare ups of problems. Phase Two also involved a
waiting period. They kept those unyielding spots isolated while they waited for
the lack of supplies and support to weaken them in hope that perhaps it might
make them yield without the use of major force. Phase Three came when they
finally were forced to move with major force against the spots that simply
refused to yield regardless of what else they had tried.
That was where James
had to make the final decisions about the use of major force. Once he made the
decision, James left the operational portion of it to Hodges. General Hodges
had proven himself to be very good at handling those operations over the years.
This time he was doing it inside his own nation, against his own people, but he
was still very good at what had to be done. His troops didn't always like what
they had to do, but they trusted him completely and did what had to be done. It
was often very bloody work. Most often they were fighting against young people,
just kids sometimes, who had for the first time tasted real power and real
freedom. They weren't going to give those up easily and most of the time they
had large numbers and were heavily armed too. Once Hodges started running those
operations James had stepped forward to take over the ugly little flare ups in
other places. That had been another tough assignment that James simply hadn't
been willing to leave to somebody else.
You never knew where they might happen or what might start them, but
they had to be handled quickly and firmly or they could easily get out of hand.
There were usually some warning signs and the 'fast response' troops were still
on alert to rush in. There were times though when even they had trouble
handling things. James still kept jets in the air over a lot of the nation. He
didn't like using them, but normally they would make the people scatter and
diffuse the problem when all else failed... normally they would.
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