The Republic of Texas

by on May 29, 2020 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Dyess Air Force Base’s C-130 Hercules transport aircraft were some of the oldest airframes in the Air Force inventory when the Second Great Depression hit. Most historians dismiss the idea that any of them were truly a century old, surmising instead that most of the craft were the Super Hercules subclass that was half that age. There is some question as to whether or not they were refits or new construction, but whatever the case, they were ancient by the standards of the day. There is no question at all that many of the crews and support personnel descended from men who had worked aboard various versions of the Hercules as far back as the Vietnam War. They were generational craft and crews, and the Air Force had long since embraced the concept of keeping men united with their family craft. Many of them had been stationed at Dyess AFB for five, ten, fifteen, or even twenty years or more, working to keep their grand old craft flying as one planned replacement after another worked its way through the development pipeline and kept on failing to match the performance of their birds. When Dyess AFB stopped listening to the new President and aligned itself with Texas, most of the crews smiled and went back to work keeping their birds flying.

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The Republic of Texas

by on May 28, 2020 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Dyess Air Force Base’s B-21 Raiders did not fare well during the Second Great Depression. The hi-tech bombers could not maintain flight potential without constant maintenance by the very best technicians on the planet. They depleted their spare parts inventories within weeks, and could obtain none to replenish them, leaving Dyess AFB without its primary global strike ability. Fortunately for both Texas and America, one of their bomber squadrons had never been upgraded to the expensive Raider. They still operated the ancient but more dependable B-1B Lancer that had seen service in every major conflict of the Twenty First Century, and most of their crews remained. They were generational crews, working in their parents’ or grandparents’ craft, and they would never leave their plane to anybody else. When Texas looked for a first strike option for use against the drug cartels, Dyess AFB sent the Lancers in to clear a path for the ground forces. To say they were devastating would be to underutilize a perfectly good adjective.

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The Republic of Texas

by on May 27, 2020 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Dyess Air Force Base suffered from the same desertions that most other federal military bases did when the federal government began to fracture around the new President. His final budget slashed the funding Dyess AFB received, and without pay many of the personnel chose to simply go home and take what they could with them. That did not include large assets like aircraft, but many small arms and supplies disappeared before Dyess AFB managed to secure itself from internal dissent. Their commanding officer chose to side with Texas, and that caused more people who did not wish to betray their country to leave. A majority of the pilots remained on base, as did nearly all of the local support structure, but many of their highly-qualified technicians chose to go home for good and never come back. That would greatly reduce the number of aircraft Dyess AFB could maintain in flying condition, no matter how much money Texas sent them to recoup the lost federal funding.

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The Republic of Texas

by on May 26, 2020 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Dyess Air Force Base was a pure Air Force Base when the Second Great Depression came upon us all. It had not been transferred to the Space Force as some bases had, and though some of its aircraft certainly did brush the edges of atmosphere at times, their mission was purely terrestrial, and as such it was still an Air Force Base at the time. Its primary duties were twofold. The first was airlifting cargo and troops all around the world with the century-old C-130 Hercules aircraft that still performed the job better than every attempted replacement. The second was bombing America’s enemies into the stone age all over the world with the newest and most expensive B-21 Raider stealth bombers. Though the half-century old B-1B Lancers had outlasted all estimates of their service life and continued to serve at Dyess AFB. Both of those ancient airframes would prove to be an important and decisive advantage for America in the months and years of the Second Great Depression and the other difficulties that surrounded it.

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The Show Must Go On

by on May 25, 2020 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

We’ve built the greatest show on Earth.

Now we’ve had our two weeks of staying at home to blunt the curve of this virus and keep our hospitals from being overloaded.

We’ve had a couple more months of rather draconian lock down orders from some of the State governors that have crippled large parts of our show. The price of meat has nearly doubled because the packers can’t get what they have to market, while the farmers are taking a loss selling their cows to the packers. Dairy farmers are dumping milk and eggs because they can’t sell them to the dairies, but milk and eggs are rationed at the store because the distribution chain is reeling. Hospitals are laying off their staff because nobody is coming for life-saving treatments.

We’ve built the greatest show on Earth, and we’ve fed billions of people on this planet with it. And right now, certain elements in the government seem determined to shut it down, while others are only worried about what they can loot out of it while they have the chance.

I get it. We have a virus flying around right now that will kill you given the right situation. The elderly. Those with other life-threatening conditions. We’ve got some anti-viral drugs that seem to help based on what doctors say, but certain people say we shouldn’t use them. Now here’s the thing. Whether or not we use those anti-virals against this virus or not, the key is to protect those who are most vulnerable to this virus. Keep it away from them. We shouldn’t be sending patients with it to hang out at old folks homes where they can pass it off to others and kill tens of thousands of our most vulnerable.

And people wonder why I don’t trust the government.

Now we’ve been harried by this virus for six months, give or take a month or two depending on which timeline you look at. We’ve learned a LOT about it since the Chinese and WHO misinformation campaign got well and truly ignored by everybody with a brain. We know what kills it. We know how to keep others from getting it. We’ll learn more as time goes on, but I trust the majority of my fellow citizens to know what to do to minimize the chances of further transfer.

Winter is coming, and if we don’t get our harvest well and truly harvested, if we don’t get our meat and our poultry and our dairy flowing again, people will starve. If we don’t get our hospitals working again, people will die of utterly preventable diseases.

We’ve built the greatest show on Earth.

Now the show must go on.

Or millions will live, or perhaps die, to regret it in the months to come.

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