Jack of Harts

The vaunted American military, famous for following the chain of command no matter what, did not survive the federal leadership crisis that accompanied the Second Great Depression intact. Many American military units dispersed and their soldiers drove off to their various homes with as many supplies or weapons as they could carry. Some units continued to follow federal orders, including many infamous “Black Helicopter” teams that have long been a hallmark of the more interesting conspiracy stories. And much of what they did in those days added to the chaos all around the nation and beyond. But when States like Texas made patriotic calls to those members of the American military who held to the true ideals of America, many military units answered. As did many individual soldiers who felt those States were the best chance for the future. Every State was unique of course, and many had wildly different ideas of what America’s strengths and ideals were. These States took wildly divergent paths. Some prospered. Others did not.

The reasons for the final collapse of the American federal government were many. China’s formal announcement that they would collect the foreign debt America owed them. America renouncing the debt in its entirety, after adjusting the cost of dealing with various Chinese pandemics against those loans. The swift fall of the American dollar. The refusal of others to loan more money to the federal government. The wildly erratic orders from the civilian government as the economic crisis spread out of their control. The temporary Impeachment of the President. The dismissal of entire military chains of command in political witch hunts. Packing the Supreme Court. The violations of civil liberties. Entire textbooks have been painstakingly written detailing the Constitutional violations performed by the federal government in those days. The old federal government fell for a reason. But in the end, it might have been able to survive all of those violations in some reflection or manner if it had not failed to perform one final act. It had taken upon itself the responsibility to guarantee to the States and the people of America a certain level of funding and security. And in the end, it failed to give them both that money and that security.

Fort Bliss had an important part to play in stabilizing the old Mexican-American border in the decades before the Second Great Depression. A joint task force based there fought the drug cartels and terrorists seeking to the cross the border, and so those very same groups worked to infiltrate the base with their own operatives. When both the American and Mexican federal governments collapsed under the weight of their own economic debt, money stopped flowing to it, and official orders were to shelter in place and keep the fort operating with duct tape if necessary. Civilian directives to deal or not deal with the growing crisis countermanded each other on a daily basis, and the fort commander was more of an administrator than a popular leader of men. And to add fuel to the fire, the gangs and drug cartels were committing crimes with weapons reported lost or destroyed during range testing or other incidents. It was not a good time for Fort Bliss.