[He chuckles.]
I’m sorry, I’ve gotta learn to be more sensitive, but for cryin’ out loud, you really think the supreme creator of the infinite multiverse is going to have his plans unraveled by a few Arizona National Guardsmen?
[He waves the thought away.]
They got a lot more press than they should have, all because that nut-bird tried to kill the president. In reality, they were much more a danger to themselves, all those mass suicides, the “mercy” child killings in Medford…terrible business, same with the “Greenies,” the leftie version of the Fundies. They believed that since the living dead only consumed animals, but not plants, it was the will of the “Divine Goddess” to favor flora over fauna. They made a little trouble, dumping herbicide in a town’s water supply, booby-trapping trees so loggers couldn’t use them for war production. That kind of ecoterrorism eats up headlines but didn’t really threaten our national security. The Rebs, on the other hand: armed, organized political secessionists. That was easily our most tangible danger. It was also the only time I ever saw the president worried. He wouldn’t let on, not with that dignified, diplomatic veneer. In public, he treated it as just another “issue,” like food rationing or road repair. He’d say in private…“They must be eliminated swiftly, decisively, and by any means necessary.” Of course, he was only talking about those within the western safe zone. These diehard renegades either had some beef with the government’s wartime policy or had already planned to secede years before and were just using the crisis as their excuse. These were the “enemies of our country,” the domestic ones anyone swearing to defend our country mentions in his or her oath. We didn’t have to think twice about an appropriate response to them. But the secessionists east of the Rockies, in some of the besieged, isolated zones…that’s when it got “complicated.”
Why is that?
Because, as the saying went, “We didn’t leave America. America left us.” There’s a lot of truth to that. We deserted those people. Yes, we left some Special Forces volunteers, tried to supply them by sea and air, but from a purely moral standing, these people were truly abandoned. I couldn’t blame them for wanting to go their own way, nobody could. That’s why when we began to reclaim lost territory, we allowed every secessionist enclave a chance for peaceful reintegration.
But there was violence.
I still have nightmares, places like Bolivar, and the Black Hills. I never see the actual images, not the violence, or the aftermath. I always see my boss, this towering, powerful, vital man getting sicker and weaker each time. He’d survived so much, shouldered such a crushing burden. You know, he never tried to find out what had happened to his relatives in Jamaica? Never even asked. He was so fiercely focused on the fate of our nation, so determined to preserve the dream that created it. I don’t know if great times make great men, but I know they can kill them.
WENATCHEE, WASHINGTON
[Joe Muhammad’s smile is as broad as his shoulders. While his day job is as the owner of the town’s bicycle repair shop, his spare time is spent sculpting molten metal into exquisite works of art. He is, no doubt, most famous for the bronze statue on the mall in Washington, D.C., the Neighborhood Security Memorial of two standing citizens, and one seated in a wheelchair.]
The recruiter was clearly nervous. She tried to talk me out of it. Had I spoken to the NRA representative first? Did I know about all the other essential war work? I didn’t understand at first; I already had a job at the recycling plant. That was the point of Neighborhood Security Teams, right? It was a part-time, volunteer service for when you were home from work. I tried explaining this to her. Maybe there was something I wasn’t getting. As she tried some other half-hearted, half-assed excuses, I saw her eyes flick to my chair.
[Joe is disabled.]
Can you believe that? Here we were with mass extinction knocking on the door, and she’s trying to be politically correct? I laughed. I laughed right in her face. What, did she think I just showed up without knowing what was expected of me? Didn’t this dumb bitch read her own security manual? Well, I’d read it. The whole point of the NST program was to patrol your own neighborhood, walking, or, in my case, rolling down the sidewalk, stopping to check each house. If, for some reason, you had to go inside, at least two members were always supposed to wait out in the street. [Motions to himself.] Hell-o! And what did she think we were facing anyway? It’s not like we had to chase them over fences and across backyards. They came to us. And if and when they did so, let’s just say, for the sake of argument, there was more than we could handle? Shit, if I couldn’t roll myself faster than a walking zombie, how could I have lasted this long? I stated my case very clearly and calmly, and I even challenged her to present a scenario in which my physical state could be an impediment. She couldn’t. There was some mumbling about having to check with her CO, maybe I could come back tomorrow. I refused, told her she could call her CO, and his CO and everyone right up to the Bear 1 himself, but I wasn’t moving until I got my orange vest. I yelled so loud everyone in the room could hear. All eyes turned to me, then to her. That did it. I got my vest and was out of there faster than anyone else that day.