Gunny Matthews was too smart to throw the problem on the table and hope somebody had a solution. The old Russian technique, “Let's negotiate from my draft,” was more likely to result in action. So after outlining the overall scheme, the Gunny made a simple request: would at least one off-duty cop accompany each swarm that went after a scumbag? Off-duty cops were expected, by regulation, to be armed and to intervene when citizens were in danger, so no politician could go after them for that. But at the same time, no political sleaze-bag could order them not to be there, since they'd be on their own time. Lots of businesses hired off-duty cops as security guards; the only difference here is that we had no money to pay them.
“That's not a problem,” said officer Kevin McBreen. “What you're offering us is a chance to do the job we signed up to do, but usually can't because city hall and the effing lawyers and judges won't let us. We're all willing to put some time into this.”
“Will it work?” I asked the question, even though the basic plan had come out of my brain housing group. These guys knew the local situation better than I did, and if the plan didn't fit the situation, it was better to scrap it now than to see it fail later.
The cops were quiet. One state trooper finally spoke up, a former commo staff sergeant named Kelly (sometimes I thought half the Marine Corps was named Kelly). I found out later he'd been into Tactical Decision Games big-time, so he knew how to think situations through.
“As far as it goes, I think it has a reasonable chance,” he said. “In war, that is all any plan can promise. We're looking for a breakthrough here, in that we're trying to defeat not only the scum but their friends and protectors, the lawyers, judges and pols. The rule in war is, small risk, small gain; big gain, big risk. The potential gain here is worth the risk.”
“My problem with the whole proposal is that it doesn't go far enough,” he continued. “Down at 2nd Marine Division I sat in on a briefing Colonel Boyd gave. He said strategy is the art of connecting yourself to as many other power centers as possible, while separating your enemy from as many power centers as possible. It was the only definition of strategy I ever heard that meant anything.”
“We need some more friendly connections here. We need connections with the press. How this gets covered in the Globe and on TV affects the outcome. We shouldn't leave that to chance. The same goes with the legislature. We should have friends there all set to go so the debate tilts our way. In other words, we need some strategy, not just good tactics.”
Trooper Kelly was on to something. When I was stationed at Quantico, I'd gotten to know a staffer on Capitol Hill. He explained to me that when the senator he worked for wanted to make a major move, he had a meeting that included other senators' staffers, newspaper columnists, representatives from outside special interest groups, anyone who was in a position to affect the issue. Before the public saw anything, each of these insiders had his assignment: write a column, give a speech, organize a letter-writing campaign, whatever. Then, when the senator acted, all these other things happened as if they were spontaneous. But they weren't. They were all arranged—“greased” was the term my friend used—beforehand.
“Great idea,” said one city cop. “But we're just street cops. I don't know how we make this happen. I can't get through to a newspaper editor or a politician. Can you?”
“I can, and so can you,” Kelly replied. “We can do it the same way we've come together here: through the Marine connection. A bunch of members of the legislature are former Marines. So's an editor at the Globe. I know him, and I know one former Marine in the State House. He can put us on to others. There's even a regular breakfast where former Marines now in politics get together. Most of these guys think like we do. They'll help.”
At this point I got one of those brain farts where a whole lot of pieces from a bunch of different puzzles come together to make something new. Boyd called it synthesis.
“Maybe what we need is a new Marine Corps,” I said.
“What do you mean?,” Matthews said.
“I'm not sure. Let me think out loud here. The Marine Corps we all served in is supposed to fight our country's battles. Yet all the Corps is doing now is fighting ragheads. Those aren't our country's battles. They are just games the politicians and State Department types in Washington like to play to feel important and justify their salaries.”
“This battle, for this lousy housing project, is a battle for our country. It's a battle in the real war, the one being fought on our own soil between the people who live according to the old rules and the people who want to break all the rules, and usually do. We need a Marine Corps for the real war.”
“I think we're seeing that new Marine Corps in action right here,” I continued. “The battle we're planning is just one of what will be many battles, many campaigns, in the war to save our culture. We need a force that doesn't dissolve when this battle is over, that sees the war right through to the end.”
The cops were quiet. So was I. I knew what I'd just proposed was scary. I hadn't thought it through; it just came to me. I didn't know where it might lead.
The transit cop spoke first. “Would this be like one of these militias we hear about?”
“No,” I replied. “We've all run around in the boonies in cammies enough for that to be old. And we don't want violence. Violence will almost always work against us at the moral level of war. Think of it instead as a general staff for whoever wants to take our country back, wherever we could make a difference. Like we're doing here.”
Again, there was silence, a long silence this time. Trooper Kelly spoke again. “I think you've hit on the answer to what's been bothering a lot of us for a long time. We work for a government that doesn't work. No matter how many arrests we make, it doesn't make any difference.”
“The whole system is rotten,” Kelly continued. “The big boys, the politicians, the lawyers, the judges, the media types, they all live well off the decay. They are scavengers, parasites. But for real people, it just keeps getting worse and worse – crime, lousy schools, rising prices that make our pay and pensions worthless, it's all part of the same picture.”
“I hate to say so, but I think this country is finished. It's beyond fixing. We need something new. What you are proposing, skipper, is a start,” he concluded.
“In 1775, the United States Marine Corps was founded in another tavern, in Philadelphia,” I said. “I think it's time to do it again, here in Tune Tavern. Who knows, maybe we're making history once more.”
The transit cop spoke up again. “A new Marine Corps I can see. Nobody's fighting the battles that need to be fought. But what Marine Corps? Nobody has written a new Declaration of Independence that I've heard of. What kind of Marines are we?”
“Christian Marines.” The voice was Gunny Matthews's. “That's what we are, most of us. That doesn't mean we're fighting to spread a religion. But our faith is where our first loyalty must be, because it is the thing we believe in most deeply.”
“In 1775, a man could be both a Christian and a United States Marine. Now we have to choose. The reason the government we have doesn't work is that it has thrown our whole Christian culture overboard. I don't care whether someone goes to church or not. But unless people follow the rules laid down in the Ten Commandments, everything falls apart. It seems to me what we're fighting for here, in this housing project, is to make the Ten Commandments the rules again. And that is what this new Marine Corps should fight for, wherever it fights.”
“Sign me up,” said the transit cop, Meyer. “By the way, I'm Jewish. You may remember we had the Ten Commandments before you did. But we're all in this together. It's the whole culture we have to fight for, our Western, Judeo-Christian culture. I'll still go to synagogue, but I'm happy to be a Christian Marine. After all, Christ was a Jew, and so were his disciples.”
And so it began, the Christian Marine Corps, the general staff for our side in the second civil war. I still have the piece of paper that went around the barroom table th
at day. It has twenty-two names on it. Seventeen of those men gave their lives in the war that was to come. I'm the only one left, now.
But those who died did so knowing they'd made a difference.
Chapter Seven
The Battle of the Housing Project began on the last Friday in February, 2017. It proved to be Blitzkrieg, but into Russia.
Friday night usually meant big business for the hookers, pimps, drug dealers, and the rest of the informal economy that dominated the inner cities back then. Boston was enjoying a break in the winter weather, which should have drawn a big crowd out. It did, but not the kind they were expecting. The Panzers were in laager by 3 PM, 243 strong: the Church Ladies. Project residents were the infantry; they would make sure the tanks reached their objectives. The artillery was the press. The Marine connection worked, and we had reporters from the Boston Globe plus camera crews from several local TV stations. We also had twenty-five off-duty cops—in uniform and armed—and a couple video cams of our own; I wanted to have our own video tape, edited and ready to hand out ASAP.
Darkness comes early in Boston in February, and as it fell the bipedal roaches started crawling out of their cracks to sell their crack and whatever else. They didn't need any of their own stuff for excitement that night. We had twenty-five swarms just looking for targets, and as soon as one of the scum made an appearance anywhere near the project, he was surrounded. Singing “Onward Christian Soldiers,” the Church Ladies and their allies made sure no business was done. One dealer was dumb enough to reach for his piece; before one of our cops could react, a swift umbrella brought him low.
But we faced no stupid enemy. The trash knew how the game usually went. Their friends in high places had already won the first round for them. So they retreated. They backed off, moved on, or went to ground and waited. Monday would see Judge Frylass in his chambers and the Legal Services lawyers before his bench, demanding and undoubtedly getting an injunction.
This time, we were ready for that. We picked a Friday to launch our attack because people would be home over the weekend to read the papers and turn on the TV. The next day, we dominated the news.
To keep the initiative, Saturday morning the leaders from the project and the ministers from the local churches held a news conference. They announced part two of the plan, an appeal to the white churches. Those congregations were prepared when our black Church Ladies arrived on Sunday and invited them to visit the project and see for themselves why we were fighting. We had the logistics carefully planned, with buses lined up, guarded parking lots available near the project and lists where we asked people to commit themselves to come for a tour on a certain date. Anticipating Judge Frylass's action, we had the tours of the project begin on Monday evening.
Frylass did not disappoint us (in war, a predictable opponent is a great asset). With a ringing denunciation of “mob rule,” on Monday morning he issued an injunction against any “tactics of intimidation” directed against “the victims of racism and an oppressive economic structure,” i.e., the scum.
Monday evening, the scum were back. So were we, again with the black Church Ladies in the lead, but now with white Christians, including some priests and ministers, alongside. At Frylass's order, state cops were present to enforce his injunction. That was just what we wanted. Tuesday's news was filled with photos of Church Ladies and their allies, black and white, being handcuffed and hauled off in paddy wagons while the drug dealers grinned.
The public was enraged, and the politicians started to get scared. In the state legislature, former Marines got the state cops pulled off the case.
Tuesday afternoon, our ministers and Church Ladies, now joined by the Cardinal of Boston, the Mayor, and the Speaker of the Massachusetts House, held another news conference. They announced part three: the raffle to buy the house next to Frylass's and give him a dose of his own medicine.
The public went wild. It was a chance to give one of these Lord High Panjandrums a kick in the butt. The demand for lottery tickets was so great they were bid for on the street at ten times their price.
At this point, our battle went national. Every network ran it as their lead story on the Wednesday evening news, using the video we had prepared. A Senate Resolution condemning Frylass went through by voice vote. Colleagues on the Federal bench began talking publicly about impeachment.
But as is often the case in war, an unpredicted event was decisive. Tuesday and Wednesday evenings had seen repeats of Monday, only bigger. We swarmed the scum, wherever we could find them. Federal Marshals, brought in by Frylass, made their arrests. Now, the televisions were full of businessmen in three-piece suits, white housewives, people from every class and race being hauled off. Wednesday the Cardinal himself was arrested, arm in arm with two Baptist Church Ladies, all singing “We Shall Overcome.”
Thursday the crowd started gathering early, around 2 PM. It was huge, it was angry, and it was largely middle-class. Somewhere, somehow, the cry was started, “Let's go see the judge.” Everyone took it up. The mob started to move toward the Federal Courthouse. It was a couple miles, and as the march continued the crowd grew. Along the way they found a road crew working and took their tar truck. The crowd took up the chant, “Pillows! Pillows!”, and from every window along the route pillows came flying down. Enough had feathers in them to do the job.
They found Judge Frylass in his chambers, having tea. He made a fine sight, tarred and feathered, riding on a streetcar rail for a short journey down to Boston harbor, where he went for a swim. The harbor police fished him out, somewhat the worse for wear.
Friday, it was clear it was over. Every news broadcast and newspaper in the country called it “The Second Boston Tea Party.” The President, a man who knew the secret of political leadership was to find a crowd and follow it, announced the Attorney General was personally going to the Supreme Court to ask them to overturn Judge Frylass's injunction. The Court, which had been more a political than a judicial body since Earl Warren, duly complied.
That was the triumph of our Blitzkrieg. It took less than a week.
We then learned why Blitzkrieg didn't work in Russia. The enemy's position had too much depth.
The key to our victory was our starting point, the takeover of the housing project by its tenants. That happened as part of an experimental program sponsored by the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD. Of course, like the rest of the Federal government, HUD was solidly enemy territory. The bureaucrats were leftists to a man (or, back then, woman), and what had happened in Boston horrified them. How dare ordinary people stand up to the government–and win!
So, once the furor had died down and the attention of the press had wandered on to newer things, they quietly changed the rules. There would be no more housing projects with tenant management. Federal bureaucrats would stay in charge, they would not evict the scum, so the scum would rule. And they did.
The lesson for our side was that we could win battles, but not the war. The war had to be fought on the enemy's ground, the vast, incomprehensible network of government rules, regulations, and bureaucracies. That was our Russia, and it was just too big to conquer.
We had to let it fall of its own weight.
Chapter Eight
After the battle, I figured I'd done what I could in Boston and got ready to head back to Maine. I still faced this problem of finding work. But before I left, Gunny Matthews wanted to get the Christian Marines together again for a “hot wash” critique and to figure where we went from here.
We gathered once more at Tune Tavern. Trooper Kelly led off the critique. “The reason we won here is simple,” he said. “We prepared carefully, but did not try to exercise too much control once things began to move. The decisive action, the march on Judge Frylass, was something we did not foresee. But we were smart enough to let it happen anyway. By the middle of the week, everyone knew what we were trying to achieve–cutting the scum off from their supporters in the Establishment. So people could take th
e initiative, yet all their actions worked in harmony.”
“This is what the Germans called mission type orders,” I added. “In the German army, an order didn't tell you what to do, it told you what result was needed. You were free to do whatever you thought necessary to get that result. That's why the Germans were able to win so many battles, usually against superior numbers. Mission orders turn everyone's initiative and imagination loose, which is very powerful–far more powerful than an army of automatons with everyone doing only what they are told.”
“I was an MP in the Corps,” a Boston city cop said. “For most of my time, we were told exactly what to do and how to do it. Then, just before I retired, we got a new CO who understood this stuff, what the Corps called maneuver warfare. He told us, ‘I want you to cut speeding on base by at least fifty percent. How you do it is up to you.’ And we were much more effective, because each of us did it differently.”
Gunny Matthews jumped in at this point. “There are a lot of folks all over the country who want to fight for what is right,” he said. “The last time we met here, we did more than plan one battle. We decided to make a difference in the outcome of the whole war. The understanding of war that we share—mission orders, Third Generation war, maneuver warfare, call it what you will—is what the folks out there who believe as we do need in order to win. The question is, how are we going to provide it to them?”
Kelly had an answer. “Captain Rumford had it right when he said we Christian Marines should be the general staff. Remember, German general staff officers weren't commanders, they were advisors. We can't and shouldn't try to muscle in on what other people are already doing to take back control of their own communities. They would resent that, and rightly so. But many of them would be glad to get advice from people who understood war. Because this is war, let's not kid ourselves. And people out there are beginning to realize that.”