DBWI: What did you do in WW III after the Red Dawn?

[Matt Wiser]

(OOC: this is a spinoff of the Red Dawn Resistance Day thread)

With Resistance Day having come and gone, just what did all of you out there do during the war, for those of you who were around from 1985-89?

I was a brand-new USAF F-4E pilot, just happy to have made 1st Lt. Our squadron (335th TFS) had gone from Seymour-Johnson AFB in North Carolina to Nellis AFB for a Red Flag, and we hadn't been there more than two days when the balloon went up! We flew out of Nellis down to Williams AFB in Arizona, (east of Phoenix), and flew nonstop combat for the next six months, though I missed the last three, as I was shot down in Southern Colorado at the beginning of December '85, and spent five months on the ground with a few other downed pilots and aircrew who were being helped by a Resistance group. We had to go on some raids and ambushes with them, and the three Marines in the bunch had to help us AF and Navy types with the basics of infantry combat. When May came around, and the snow in the high country melted, the guerillas sent us across the Rockies with a few members as guides, until we got to Sallida, where the Army's 7th Infantry Division was HQ'd. One of the Marines stayed behind to advise the group, but the rest of us got back to our squadrons. Some refresher training at Nellis and I was soon back in the air-as a Captain. Did mostly air-to-ground stuff, but didn't mind lopping off the occasional MiG, Sukhoi, or helicopter that came my way (ended the war with 12 kills). When the war ended in 1989, I was a Major and in command of the squadron, still flying F-4s. Whenever I fly over that part of Colorado, I think of the folks, guerillas and civilians, who risked their lives to help us get back to friendly lines and then back in the air. Some of them made it to the end. Unfortunately, a lot of 'em didn't: either KIA, captured and murdered by the Soviets and their Cuban lackeys, or civilians, victims of those murderous reprisals Ivan's and Fidel's people were so fond of. And I found out that a farm family that had helped me and my backseater get to the resistance was executed for helping us. And people in France and Germany wonder why there's still a lot of bad blood postwar, even today?

[mmmeee0]

I remember my birthday one year into the war. I was stuck in the ruins of Vancouver, drinking a bit of salvaged rum from a store. I had barely wet my tongue when the soviets attacked the department store we were holding. As a Medic I dropped the bottle in my bag after closing it and ran to help some of my mates who were hit by a hand grenade. but the artillery had weakened the roof so much that it fell onto my helmet and knocked me out. There was so much blood on me I guess all the Soviets thought I was dead. I woke up to the Canadians retaking the building a day later.

[Blue Max]

(Would have been killed in the Soviet Nuclear Onslaught)

[Ward]

Well when the balloon went up I was in the 1St Cav Div Running a tank repear shop with in 2 mo's I was wearing Warrent 1 bars and By the end of the War I was wearing W-4 .

[Matt Wiser]

Just how nasty was Vancouver? I've read that when Ivan couldn't get into Montana and the Dakotas when they were stopped at the border, the Russians tried a push down into B.C. and ultimately planned to go down the West Coast. That was a meat grinder for both sides, I heard; a Stalingrad in the Pacific Northwest. A friend of mine flew F-15s out of McChord in those days; he said that there were days when you couldn't see anything of the city due to all the smoke from fires, air and artillery strikes, etc.

[Blue Max]

Map, from the Wiki Page:
Given the date of this attack (1984), I wouldn't have been killed, I'd have been prevented from ever being born.

[mmmeee0]

Originally Posted by Blue Max

(Would have been killed in the Soviet Nuclear Onslaught)

OOC: Who me? Never

Originally Posted by Matt Wiser

Just how nasty was Vancouver? I've read that when Ivan couldn't get into Montana and the Dakotas when they were stopped at the border, the Russians tried a push down into B.C. and ultimately planned to go down the West Coast. That was a meat grinder for both sides, I heard; a Stalingrad in the Pacific Northwest. A friend of mine flew F-15s out of McChord in those days; he said that there were days when you couldn't see anything of the city due to all the smoke from fires, air and artillery strikes, etc.

Well, if before Vancouver was called a Jewel of the West Coast, then afterwards it was the Broken Mirror of Canada. Everything we had worked so hard for in the past, our dedication to international peace keeping, gone. Vancouver wasn't the worst in the province though, the Russians secured the Naval Base at Esquimalt and killed all the Canadian Forces personnel they took prisoner.

[Dave]

Not much to say. My dad was KIA two months before I was born.

[The Red]

I was a member of the militant tendency protest movement to try and get Britain out of the War.Thatcher wanted us all shot as traitors but I managed to get political refuge in the Soviet Union after the war.

[Dave Howery]

I was caught in my home town in Montana at the time; there was a very deep fear of being stomped in the invasion, since my home town sat right on the Interstate. However, the Reds never made it into MT at all. In spite of the fact that I was at the prime age of 25 on the day of the invasion, I never was commandeered into the army. Basically, the army cleaned out the MT NG base of all vehicles and equipment, went on to the war, and never really came back. Guess my home town was just too small for either side to bother with...

[Kevin Renner]

spent most of the war years churning out military equipment 12 to 16 hours a day 7 days a week for months on end. I figure some of the MLRS rockets I helped build did their job of sending the Second Guards Shock Army to hell in the Battle of Taos

[oudi14]

For those of us baby boomers growing up in America during the Cold War years, you have no idea how unbelievable those summer days in 1984 seemed, when the invasion first happened. It was like a bad movie gone terribly wrong. I was born in 1955, a little too young for Vietnam. I knew a lot of guys a few years older than me who had been over there, and they mostly came back with serious drinking or drug problems. When the shit did hit the fan, I was luckier than some, because I grew up in a hunting/outdoor culture, and I was not prepared to just roll over and give up. I was able to grab weapons and vital supplies and head west, out of the small Kansas town where I had grown up, and retreat all the way into the mountains of Colorado, where, one day, I ran into a resistance group who called themselves the Wolverines. We didn't have anything more than small arms for defense [hell, in truth, in those early days, we had to rely mostly on shotguns and bows], but we were so incensed that anybody would DARE attack the good old US of A, that our righteous indignation kept us going when, by all rights, we should have given it up as a lost cause. We lost a lot of good people, women as well as men, but we stuck it out,and when the forces of good finally prevailed, the Wolverines were still in one piece.

[Bavarian Raven]

i was near vancouver when it happened. spent most of the war in the mtns to the north running a small resistance force... lost most of my friends during our revenge campaign. in the end only 3 out of the orrigonal twenty of us survived...

[hsthompson]

Originally Posted by The Red

I was a member of the militant tendency protest movement to try and get Britain out of the War.Thatcher wanted us all shot as traitors but I managed to get political refuge in the Soviet Union after the war.

It is a small world...

I was with the Friends of St. George volunteers from Spain. Getting to Britain was difficult enough: the government denied us permission to leave and cancelled our passports as we were officially neutral in that conflict. I never understood it: we were signing for mine, bomb and explosive disposal, on an unarmed capacity.

In the end, it didn't matter a bit that we had no permission and no documentation: the Border police in the Basque country let us through with a knowing smile when we said we were going on a fishing trip with our grandads.

The grandads were all retired teachers from the Police and Military academies who came with us to try and teach us as much about bomb disposal as they could while we crossed France.

And it took us a while to do it: we had to use our own bus and go through secondary roads to get to the docks to Britain. We were illegals and illegals with bombs, and with train stations being patrolled by the Army and Police... in the end it turned out most Gendarmes were not looking for us but out for us: every time we got stopped we got refuelled, a good meal and a set of new devices to set our wits against.

It was the best training for it ever: if you can defuse an explosive device on a bus on a second class road in France while being on your hundredth cup of espresso and two days being awake, you can do it anywhere, any time.

We managed to get into the last ferry to Holyhead from Cherbourg, where we were solemnly deported to Britain.

And then we all know: the second Battle for Britain, the raids in Sunderland and Hartlepool and the first aborted invasion in Great Yarmouth got many of us killed.

Out of five hundred volunteers, just 36 of us made it through, which was the start of the Anglers Society. We were granted Fort Roughs from the Navy, which we managed to expand and refurbish, and renamed Landsea. Unlike the previous occupants, who claimed to be a sovereign nation and were recognized by noone, we got quietly recognized by nearly everyone. Maybe it is because we do not seek to make money but instead to act as negotiators and mediators on behalf of peace and understanding.

Spain is the only country that hasn't recognized us as a sovereign country, but that's understandable, and no one there has ever impeded us in any way. We only have to show our passport and our fishing rod (the last parting gift from the Gendarmerie Francaise as we were seen off Cherbourg)

But I digress. Now to the reason why I said this is a small world...

After you were declared a traitor, your house was reposessed and it got eventually granted to us as living space for the staff of the school of International Relations we're funding in Hamilton.

So while being in charge of setting the school up, I've been your unpaying tenant... It won't be for long now, though. Your neighbours are trying to get the conviction overturned and the case is heard in two weeks.

So I might see you around in person soon. In which case I'll be moving to the pub down the road. I kind of like your town.

[Matt Wiser]

Oudi, did you see any F-4s come over your part of Colorado? Dark green ones with shark's mouths painted on the nose? If you did, that was my squadron. Small world and small war. I know you guys helped downed pilots, and thanks for getting two of my squadron mates across the Rockies and back to the squadron.

[mattep74]

Originally Posted by hsthompson

It is a small world...

I was with the Friends of St. George volunteers from Spain. Getting to Britain was difficult enough: the government denied us permission to leave and cancelled our passports as we were officially neutral in that conflict. I never understood it: we were signing for mine, bomb and explosive disposal, on an unarmed capacity.

oocid you watch the movie? There werent any fighting in Europe.

Ic: I was in school the entire time and we were afraid of russian attacks on Sweden at anytime

[trekchu]

OOC: We don't know what happened between the scene where they reach the edge of the plains and the last scene. For the sake of my countries honour, I will assume what is posted below.



IC: Well, I was too small of course, being born 1985 and all, but my older brothers were drafted when we re-joined NATO and invaded east Germany. One of them died during the liberation of West Berlin.

[hsthompson]

Originally Posted by mattep74

oocid you watch the movie? There werent any fighting in Europe.

Ic: I was in school the entire time and we were afraid of russian attacks on Sweden at anytime

ooc: Did you? Check the campfire scene (someone uploaded it to Google Video and it wasn't me) About minute 56-57:

- What about Europe?
- I guess they figured twice in one century was enough. They're sitting this one out. All except England. They won't last very long. Russians need to take us in one piece [...]

Which is why I kind of figured out Britain would actually last a while before getting a negotiated armistice of some kind. My guess is that the Russians in this scenario would not be willing to mount a full scale invasion of the UK, but that their strategy would be to try and contain them and foment dissent.

Without occupying West Germany or Denmark they cannot launch an effective invasion.

- all their troop carriers would go through the same choke point in the Skagerrak Straits which means a turkey shoot for the RAF and Navy (or what, past the Norwegian coast into Scotland? Now that would be a Sealion!)

- In order to be able to do more, they have to try to get relative air superiority (hence the second battle of Britain, which could end on stalemate at most, radar and rockets make it easier for the defender)

And in all, if the main objective is to get to the cornfields of Canada and the US -and to get some Chinese out of the way, less people, more food for your guys to find- most material would be tied there. Makes sense to limit yourself to military targets, scare people and get them to bail out if possible.

[stalkere]

Originally Posted by mattep74

oocid you watch the movie? There werent any fighting in Europe.

Ic: I was in school the entire time and we were afraid of russian attacks on Sweden at anytime

Did you pay attention to the movie? Check the info dump that the Colonel gives the Wolverines the night they find him.

Grin - semantic issue - no fighting in Europe. What is England? Europe, or an island in the Atlantic? The Brits were fighting, according to the Colonel, but getting ready to go down, just like 400 Million Chinese.

I gotta admit, I've seen the movie a bunch of times - I teach JROTC, and it's a good vehicle for teaching The Laws of War. Strictly speaking, the Wolverines violate the Hague Conventions all the time, especially in the beginning. The Pact Forces are actually not as bad as they might have been in real life.

The big thing is, your visceral reaction is that the Wolverines are the good guys, but the reality is that the Pact is, aside from the two reprisal massacres, pretty much the same as Coalition Forces in OTL.

And me - I say that as a guy who actually spent a lot of time over there, so you better show me your ribbon bar before you start sputtering. I was in Afghanistan in Nov 2001, I was in Baghdad in April 2003, so before you start telling me I don't know what I'm talking about, insurgent warfare is something I know from both sides of that line - as the insurgent trainer and the occupation force officer.

So, getting back to the original post, in the RD timeline, at the time I was flying on Medevac Missions out of Niagara Falls ARB, so if I didn't get hit in the initial attacks, I probably died in the first month. My career field had a 40% mortality in Viet Nam, I doubt if things would be any better in this TL.

[MarkWhittington]

I spent most of the war setting off car bombs and doing other things I still don't like to talk about in occupied Houston.