The Last Full Measure Read online

  This book is dedicated to the memory and honor of Paul Reedy (1935–2013), a Korean War veteran and my beloved grandfather.

  CONTENTS

  HALF TITLE

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  EPIGRAPHS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  EPILOGUE (THREE WEEKS LATER)

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

  President Abraham Lincoln

  Gettysburg Address

  November 19, 1863

  “In time of war, and by a two-thirds majority vote of both houses of the Legislative Assembly, a state of martial law may be imposed, during which time the rights of the people, enumerated in the first twenty-two sections of Article I may be suspended at the discretion of the President of the Republic of Idaho. Martial law shall continue until the President or a simple majority vote of both houses of the Legislative Assembly chooses to restore the rights granted to the people in the first twenty-two sections of Article I.”

  Constitution of the Republic of Idaho

  Article I, Section 23

  —• You’re listening to the Cliffhanger, broadcasting pirate radio to a nation on the edge of the abyss, to a people holding on with bleeding, white-knuckled fingers to keep from falling to their deaths in a useless war. I’m on the move, coming to you over the Internet, shortwave, CB, AM, and sometimes the FM band, wherever I can find a transmitter, and the power to boost my signal and bring you the truth. It’s a truth that cannot be silenced. Maybe the warmonger Governor Montaine will try to take me out for having the guts to say that his little crusade to be free isn’t worth the high cost. Maybe President Griffith will try to arrest me for violating the Unity Act.

  They’ll never find me because I’m everywhere and nowhere. The Cliffhanger is your friend in the dark of the night, the voice we all cling to so we can feel safe in our homes while we sleep. The Cliffhanger is the unstoppable voice for peace. Go tell your friends, and keep me tuned in. If you think the warriors have shut me down, think again. I’m out there, up and down the dial. Come find me. Find the truth. I am the Cliffhanger. •—

  “Okay, Danny, we’re ready to go live in thirty seconds.”

  The voice made me jump. I looked through the double window on my left into the control room, where Paul the producer leaned over the mixer board. He pressed a button and smiled at me. “Just relax, be natural, and have a good time.”

  I nodded, my headphones heavy on my ears, the sound of my nervous breathing filling the soundproof booth. From the control room, JoBell offered a little wave, but then she went back to watching the dozen or so feeds that brought the news on a full-wall screen. Major Leonard, my old National Guard company commander, stood next to Paul, wearing his plain, old-fashioned olive-drab Idaho Army uniform with his arms folded. We all thought Leonard had died during the Fed invasion, but he’d spent the occupation locked in a US Army prison cell at Federal Idaho Reconstruction Authority headquarters in Coeur d’Alene. After Idaho forces had rescued him and he’d had time to recover, he’d taken over as the commander of the military security escort that had been following me and JoBell around for the last month.

  Through a different window right in front of me, Buzz Ellison slid into his own chair in the main studio. He pulled his mike in front of himself and flashed a smile at me. “Paul,” Buzz said over the mike, “are we ready to go?”

  “Everything’s go, Buzz,” Paul answered. “Buzz will take it from here, Danny.” The bass rhythm and jangling electric guitar of the show’s intro music filled my headphones. “Just follow his lead. Don’t worry. He’s an old pro at this. And in five, four, three.”

  Buzz winked at me and launched into the show that my friend Schmidty had listened to for years. Before the war had killed him.

  “Greetings! Greetings, fellow patriots! A new record number of you all listening in a new record number of independent countries. Sixteen million people listening to the Buzz Ellison Show, according to the most recent figures. And that’s because, in these difficult times, more people than ever are turning toward those values that I, Buzz Ellison, have been talking about for years. From the very beginning, this show has been about a certain ethic, a philosophy of hard work, dedication, and independence. The idea that the individual can succeed without the help of the government, if the government will stop interfering and let him do what he needs to do.

  “And that is just what is happening in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Texas, and Oklahoma. People are waking up, fellow patriots. This is the conservative revolution we’ve been waiting for! I’ve been saying this for months — years! For over half a century, a certain segment of the United States population has made the mistake of believing the US federal government’s lies. They’ve been told, ‘Put your trust in your government. Give your money to your government. Your government will take care of everything.’ Ever since President Johnson’s ‘Great Society’ bullshit, the US government has pledged to wipe out poverty, disease, laziness. More specifically, they said, ‘Vote Democrat, or vote for traitorous big government Republicans, and your problems will be taken care of.’ But people are finally, finally, after all these years saying, ‘Wait a minute! Nothing’s getting better. In fact, it’s getting a whole hell of a lot worse! And so maybe we don’t need this giant, bloated US federal government anymore.’

  “This is our conservative revolution, fellow patriots. And who is spearheading that revolution?

  “Today … You know, in the history of the Buzz Ellison Show, I’ve had very few guests on the program. I’m serious. Maybe five or six guests. I usually don’t need them. People tune in to listen to my magnificence. But today, I’m humbled — and it takes a lot to humble someone of my caliber — but I really am humbled and proud to have on the show someone who truly embodies that patriotic conservative spirit. In the studio today we have Private First Class Daniel Wright of Freedom Lake, Idaho! Private Wright, welcome.”

  Buzz popped a cigar in his mouth, flipped open a Zippo, and lit up, puffing his cigar to bring it to life. Now I was on. With millions listening. In the middle of a war.

  I hated doing this propaganda shit.

  Buzz looked up at me as he flicked the Zippo closed and blew out smoke. “PFC Wright, can you hear me?”

  I shook myself to get in the game. “Yes. Yes, I can hear you. Thank you. It’s great to be on the show, Mr. Ellison. Longtime listener. First-time … um … guest.”

  “I think someone’s a little nervous.” He laughed. “But call me Buzz. May I c
all you Daniel?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Or Danny’s fine.” I was a little nervous, but that wasn’t my problem.

  “Thanks for being on the show today, Danny. How are you enjoying your stay here in Boise?”

  He should have said Fortress Boise, since the place had transformed into basically a big Army base. But that’s not what Buzz or President Montaine wanted to hear. My job was to motivate people in their fight against the United States. I tried to wedge little truths in with all my lies. “It’s been pretty great. Me and my fiancée JoBell are staying in a nice hotel with steady hot water. I haven’t eaten so good in a long time.” Buzz frowned. “I mean, we’re eating a lot better up in northern Idaho now that the Fed, er, I mean, the United States military has been kicked out.” My face felt hot. I sounded like an idiot. “Just a real good chef at the hotel here, I think. Had some hash browns just this morning. The United States only wishes it could get its hands on potatoes that good.”

  Buzz laughed again. “So you like the food?” He had always been a pretty big guy. I would have thought that, like the rest of us, he would have slimmed down a little during the occupation. Instead he was the same old Buzz. “Things are also getting better in other parts of the Republic of Idaho, aren’t they?”

  How was I supposed to know what was going on in other parts of Idaho? Our screen and comm feeds were still out half the time. Same thing with electricity. “Oh yeah. Lots better,” I said. “Way better than under US occupation.”

  “I understand that President Montaine has had you on a sort of tour, that you’ve been traveling from country to country, helping to motivate the troops for the cause. Where have you been? What have you seen?”

  I’d been all over the new independent countries in the past month. Where should I begin? “Me and JoBell made it to the Republic of Texas. We took this series of short plane rides and secret ground transports all the way to Austin.”

  “Yes! You must have arrived just after President Rod Percy and the Republic of Texas Army had come out of Houston and retaken the capitol. Amazing!”

  “Um, yeah,” I said. When I got there, the old stone capitol building and a lot of the structures around it were mostly in ruins. Anti-aircraft guns and small missile batteries were set up all over the city. “Part of the Texas capitol building is underground. Some sections have collapsed, but President Percy and his team are hanging in there. It must have been a hell of a fight to take back Austin,” I continued. “The soldiers looked pretty tired. Worn out.”

  “But you helped them keep going, didn’t you,” Buzz said.

  “I guess.” I’d wanted to puke when I gave them the rebellion sign I’d accidentally invented, raising my left fist and yelling, “Rise up!” But almost all of those Texas soldiers had answered back the same way. “Then we made it to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Half the city was under US control. Oklahoma forces were clear down in the southern suburbs in this area called Jenks.”

  “But the fight is going a lot better in Tulsa now,” Buzz cut in. He pointed at me with his cigar. “Oklahoma has taken most of the city back.”

  “That’s true,” I said. About a week after JoBell and me were flown back north, I heard that most of Tulsa had been saved, if “saved” was the right word for it. From what we’d seen, homes, schools, businesses, parks, and even an old drive-in movie theater had been completely destroyed or were so shot up that nobody could really use them.

  “I understand that lately you’ve been back up north, where our freedom fighters have really been sticking it to the United States. How has that been?”

  “Almost unbelievable, Buzz,” I said. “We were on a flight that was supposed to land in Cheyenne, Wyoming, last week, but coming in through the dark, instead of seeing streetlights and house lights and stuff, we saw only fires. There was nothing left of Cheyenne. The US had destroyed it. Our pilot diverted to Laramie, but it had fallen to the US too. We were so low on fuel that the pilot had to put us down on a highway. We got out of there fast before the US —” I stopped myself. This wasn’t the kind of story I was supposed to be sharing. “There’s just fighting everywhere.”

  “The fight for our freedom is on! What’s been the best part of the trip so far?”

  “It’s hard to say, Buzz.” I’d hated so much of it, encouraging all those soldiers to charge back into the fight. Throwing gas on a fire that moved good people to die in a war I wanted to be done with. I could see Buzz getting frustrated, though, so I needed to do like JoBell said and be the best actor I could be. “Montana was great. Bozeman, Butte, and Missoula were like resort towns. Idaho, Wyoming, and Canada have kind of shielded them from a lot of the ground war. Lot of cows, goats, and other animals even, grazing in people’s yards.”

  “Yes, Montana has become a great food supplier for Idaho and Wyoming.”

  “But I’ve loved it here in Boise,” I said. “One of my best friends was burned up pretty bad in the fight to end the occupation. He’s getting help in a good hospital. People here have been great. People in all the new independent countries have been great.”

  Buzz blew out a plume of smoke on his side of the glass. “You’ve mentioned your role in the battle to force the US military out of the Republic of Idaho. You broadcast the signal for a number of new countries to take action to break away from the United States. I know I was inspired by your words. How did it feel, after being in hiding and on the run from the US military for so long, to finally be on the offensive, to finally be able to take the fight to them and send them back where they came from?”

  “Good,” I said. And if it hadn’t felt exactly good, it was at least necessary. “I knew that we had to kick out the occupying army if we were ever going to have peace. I figured there was a better chance of that if I helped launch a precision attack, because then less people would get hurt.” I slipped into my standard lines. “You know, the United States needs to realize Idaho ain’t going back to just being a state again. They need to end the war and let us go.”

  In the control room, Major Leonard nodded. JoBell offered a thumbs-up and a shrug. Like me, she hated all of this, but we agreed I had to do it. This tour had been the only way to get Sweeney the surgeries he’d needed. Now he was at the Boise VA hospital, nearing the end of his treatment.

  Buzz smiled. “It’s been a difficult war. Before the show today, I watched the press conference with US Secretary of Defense Haden. What did he say?” He swiped his finger down his comm screen, searching. “Ah, here it is. He said, and I quote, ‘Collateral damage is an unfortunate but acceptable statistical inevitability in modern warfare.’ Normally I’d agree with him, but not when he’s talking about innocent American civilians! Some US drone operator in Arizona or who knows where chased after freedom fighters who crossed from Wyoming into Nebraska. The drone fired missiles that hit a school in this tiny town of Morrill, Nebraska. Nine kids who were practicing their spring play after school are dead. Two others are in critical condition. Now you watch, Danny. They’ll probably blame the kid operating the drone. I’m sure you’ll agree that the United States is real good at ordering its soldiers on missions and then turning on them when the mission develops complications. And while they’re neck deep in deliberations about that, how many more innocent civilians will the US military murder? I’m honestly surprised that more states don’t declare independence.”

  He paused and puffed his cigar. Did he want me to answer? Should I say something? I’d been a soldier whose actions had led to collateral damage. I sparked the Battle of Boise that ignited this whole war. I bit my lip to keep control of myself. Would those school kids still be alive if I hadn’t started all this?

  “Now, Danny …” Buzz’s voice took on that cold, quiet, serious tone that people reserved for hospitals or for funerals. “You and your friends and your families have been through a lot. How are you all holding up?”

  All I had left in my life were my friends, and this shit was rough on all of us. Sweeney had been burned so bad that we weren’t sure if
he was going to make it for a while. Becca had been doing all she could to help the local medics take care of him. JoBell was impatient to get home. And Cal? Shit. The Brotherhood of the White Eagle had made him one of them.

  Both Major Leonard and Buzz were looking worried, so I hurried to answer. “We’re … great, you know. We’re all safe. And happy to be free. That’s why … It’s a real honor to be part of the Idaho Army, you know? Growing up, we always read about George Washington and all those guys who fought for our freedom —”

  Buzz leaned forward in his chair and pointed at me with his thick cigar. “Exactly what I’ve been saying here on the show! George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and the other heroes of the American Revolution founded a great nation based on freedom and conservative principles, but that vision has been corrupted by liberalism in the last half century. Now we have a new George Washington in the form of President James Montaine. So you and your fellow soldiers and all of us are like the new George Washington’s soldiers, wouldn’t you say?”

  I didn’t give a shit about any of that liberal versus conservative stuff. I never had, and I damn sure didn’t now. But this interview wasn’t really a discussion. “That’s exactly what I’d say, Buzz.”

  JoBell smiled at me from the control room. She’s why I was doing this. Montaine had promised that if I played ball and got everybody riled up and ready to fight the United States, he would put me on extended leave, and I could take off with JoBell and our friends if they wanted to come. We’d find someplace safe and leave the war behind.

  “Danny?”

  Oh shit. I’d missed his question. “I’m sorry, Buzz?”

  “Well, I can understand how this is difficult for you to talk about, but I mentioned your mother. Now, the United States murdered your mother simply because she wanted to return to her home and her son in Idaho.”

  I rubbed the scar in my aching left hand. This was the plan? To drag out the worst day of my life to put on a good show?