Overthrown, The Death of America

Book Thirteen

By

Travis O. Dean

Chapter One

The overhead lights in the barracks flashed to life, followed by the grating voice of the Platoon Sergeant.

“ALL RIGHT LADIES! Roll out of those sacks. Gear up, saddle up, lock and load!”

Dean looked at his watch. It was two-thirty in the morning. His head was just starting to hurt from his celebrations of just a few hours ago. He had reached his twenty-second birthday yesterday and had partied well into the night. Why, oh why did the higher command always plan these raids for the dead of night? Couldn’t they just plan to grab those Christians at a more decent hour? That’s what he would do. Even soldiers needed their sleep. At least in the daylight they could see any of them that tried to escape and stop them. But no, command thought hitting them in the dark was the way to go. Even if some of them got away, they
would be captured later. In another dead of night raid, which he would be awakened for at another inconvenient time. These raids always came at a time when he really wanted to sleep.

“Hey Dean, come on, roll out and hit the street man. We don’t want the Sarge coming back here just for you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m moving.”

“Move a little faster. The Sarge doesn’t like to be kept waiting you know.”

“I know, I know. Give me a minute, will you? I’m still half in the bag.”

Dean managed to climb out of his bunk, even if somewhat unsteadily, and opened his wall locker to get his uniform. He noticed that, even in his condition, he wasn’t the last one out of bed. Willie, who slept in the next bunk over was just starting to rise. By the time Dean had pulled his pants on Willie had finally managed to become vertical and opened his wall locker. But instead of pulling out his uniform he reached for a gallon sized bottle of booze. He spun the cap off, with practiced ease, upended the bottle for three large gulps and returned it to the locker. He then went out of the sleeping bay, headed for the latrine. Dean continued to dress while his head began to pound and was just finishing tying his first boot by the time Willie returned. He stuffed his other foot into the second boot and was
tying it as Willie took three more hits from the bottle, put the cap back on and then began to dress himself.

Dean worried about Willie’s drinking. He wasn’t concerned about what it was doing to Willie that was his problem. He was more concerned with what might happen if Willie was really looped when they went on one of these raids. If he wasn’t in shape to do his duty, someone might get killed. Maybe HE would get killed. But it wasn’t his worry that belonged to the Sergeant. If the Sergeant said nothing about it, then he couldn’t. All he had to do was make sure Willie didn’t get him killed. Since, they didn’t serve in the same squad that wasn’t a problem for the most part. It would only be a problem if Willie’s squad was covering their flank. But even then, if Willie was too bombed to do his job there were others who would catch up the slack. Or at least he hoped they would. You never knew. Maybe Willie would stop a bullet with his back and it would be reported that he was killed in action. Which would be true, the report just wouldn’t say which side the bullet came from.

Dean pushed his concerns from his mind as he shrugged into his web-gear, buckled the belt around his waist, checked his canteen to insure it was full and headed for the arm’s room to get his weapon. Along the way he pulled a couple of aspirin from his pocket and washed them down with a sip from the canteen. He didn’t bother looking at the pack that was attached to the pistol belt. He already knew it contained at least two meals, two pairs of dry, clean socks and an assortment of things he might need, either in a fight or just to stay alive. And staying alive was THE most important thing on his mind. After getting his weapon, Dean drew the standard basic load of five hundred rounds of
ammunition for his rifle. He really didn’t want to take on the extra load. It was just more weight for him to carry. After all, most of these Christians never raised a hand against them. They just marched into the vans and busses waiting for them, all the time praying to Jesus to come and rescue them. It was his observation that Jesus never showed up. He just could not understand how anyone could put their faith in something or someone that never did anything for them, except ignore their pleas. He would never understand such blind faith in something that did no good for anyone.

Dean, in full kit with weapon, fell out into the street and got into formation. He stood in the dark, slightly chilled by the night air and waited for the Platoon Sergeant to show up. The coolness of the night actually helped ease his suffering. When he finally did, Dean was somewhat angry. The Sergeant was in a sharply creased uniform, his chin shaved clean, his demeanor the same as always and he was clearly bright eyed and bushy tailed. Because of his birthday celebrations, Dean felt only a little better than death slightly warmed over. Still, he snapped to attention when the order came and waited for the usual berating treatment from the Sergeant.

The Sergeant walked up and down the lines of men, inspecting them all by eye. Twice he climbed all over men for not having their boots polished to his satisfaction. Once he spent quite some time addressing the shortcomings of one man. Shortcomings which were physical, mental, genetic and ancestral because of a weapon that wasn’t clean enough for him.

“I suppose you’re going to not only kill yourself with a weapon this filthy, but the men on your right and left as well when it blows up. FALL OUT, clean that thing and get back into formation. You have three minutes.”

“But Sergeant, the arms room Sergeant said it was okay.”

“Do you see him here? I thought not. Fall out and clean that thing. You now have two minutes and forty-five seconds.”

The man did as he was told. He moved to the front steps of the barracks, sat down, broke out his cleaning kit and went to work. Dean was happy when his weapon passed the Sergeant’s critical eye. But the Sergeant leaned close and told him,

“You’re starting to look like a girl. When we get back I want your hair high and tight within an hour.”

“Yes Sergeant.” Was Dean’s only response, he knew his hair cut was well within regulations. But if the Sergeant wanted it shorter, it was best to please him. He would visit the post barber once they got back. The Sergeant finished his inspection of the men and moved to the front of the formation. He turned to face them and spoke of the mission ahead.

“All right, you ape’s. Listen up. This is a simple mission. You will be transported by truck to the disembarkation point. From there
you will be led to the place of operations. Once there, you will surround the building and capture everyone inside. You will go room to room in your search and miss no one and nothing. We know how many people are inside. If the count comes up short one or more of you will take their places. So don’t screw up. You aren’t worth what you are paid, but it costs the government a lot to get you trained to the barely acceptable level you have reached. If we have to train replacements, that is going to make the government upset. They will want me to explain why that happened. That will make me upset with you. Trust me you don’t want that to happen. Now, fall out and fall in on the trucks.”

The platoon turned as one man and began to move in an orderly fashion to the waiting trucks. This drill had been done countless times before and each man moved according to well practiced routine. Dean climbed aboard the truck waiting for him. As always he was the third man from the tailgate on the right hand side of the truck. He thought how he could so easily do this in his sleep he had done it so often. Still, he sat there and waited as the other trucks loaded up with men and weapons. In less than five minutes each truck was filled and they began their journey. Dean leaned back against the side of the truck, hoping that he might be able to get a few more winks of sleep, to ease his pounding head, before he had to go into action.

Action! That was a joke. There was never any real action. This wasn’t like it had been during the war. All they had to do was surround the building, order the Christians out, load them into the waiting vans and busses, or cattle cars as they were called and ship them off to the re-education camps. Okay, sometimes some of them would make a break for it and be shot down. But
that wasn’t like combat. It was more like target practice. Those sheep never fired back. They just ran like the cowards they were. He almost wished for some real action. The kind where you either won or it didn’t matter anymore. That kind of thing made a man feel alive. But that kind of action went away when the war had ended and the ‘space brothers’ had arrived.

While he rode along in the truck Dean’s mind began to question the entire situation. He wasn’t stupid, but some things were beyond him. One for example was, why did the ‘brothers’ seem to hate the Christians and Jews so much? True they had wanted to ban all forms of religion, but they really seemed to have a passion about wiping out the Christians and Jew completely. But at the same time they seemed to be the most harmless of them all. Whenever they raided one of their hideouts, the Christians or Jews would, for the most part, meekly submit and get on the busses. Some few would always try to run for it. Sometimes they actually managed to escape, but that number couldn’t be more than ten percent of the total. Maybe the ‘brothers’ didn’t like them because of their passiveness. That was possible he supposed.

A short time later the truck slowed and turned into a parking lot for them to disembark. Dean put his questions out of his mind to concentrate on the raid. After all, it was the old poem said, ‘Theirs was not to reason why, theirs was but to do or die.’ He was just happy that the ‘die’ part hadn’t yet to find him. Now as long as Willie didn’t do anything to change that, all would be good and maybe he could get back to bed by four A.M. before he had to get up again at five-thirty to start the regular duty day. He was grateful that the aspirin had started to kick in and the pounding
in his head was easing a bit. He hoped tonight was going to be an easy raid, but prepared himself for the worst.

Heather and Margret her sister, ‘Mags’ to her friends, stepped out of the safe house they had been sheltered in. It was getting close to three in the morning, yet neither of the young women could sleep. Speaking quietly so as to not wake anyone else, they agreed to step out into the night for some fresh air. It really wasn’t a house, it was a warehouse. It had the benefit of multiple rooms that could be used as sleeping bays by multiple people. Girls and women were placed together in some of them, men and boys in others. Occasionally there were families that would occupy rooms with other families. It was all quite crowded and hopefully only a short stop until a safe place could be found for them to hide on a more permanent basis.

“What is it, Mags?” Heather asked her sister. “Usually neither of us has trouble sleeping. But tonight, here we are wide awake and walking around outside.”

“I don’t know about you, but I have this feeling that something bad is about to happen. It doesn’t matter how much I pray or how hard I try, I just can’t find peace on the matter. It’s like The Lord wants us out of here. But where would we go?” Mags answered.

“I’m sorry to hear you say that. I have the same feeling. You’re right. I feel like everything is about to change, and not for the better.”


“That still leaves the questions. Where do we go and how do we get there?”

“I think we need to pray about it.”

“I have been.”

“Then one more won’t hurt. Come on, I’ll start.”

Before the sisters could even begin to pray, a large rock thumped into the ground near them and rolled towards their feet. Looking in the direction it had come from they saw a young man, halfway hidden by bushes signaling them to come to him.

“Aaron, what are you doing?” Heather demanded.

“Shh, come here, quietly and quickly.” He almost whispered.

“Why?” Mags wanted to know.

“Look.” Aaron pointed down the street. The girls looked and could plainly see a group of soldiers headed right for the warehouse. It
was obvious, their secret was out and the government was moving in on them.

The girls half ducked and ran as quickly as they could to Aaron. He pulled them into the brush and quietly herded them further away from the warehouse. They had moved about twenty yards into the brush when Aaron called a halt to their flight.

“Get down and be quiet. If we make any noise they are going to find us.”

“Then we should keep running.” Heather said.

“They’re too close. They’ll hear us. Just stay down, stay quiet and pray like you never have before.”

The girls followed his directions, and were soon glad they did. Several soldiers were spotted moving through the woods between them and the way they had been moving. If they had continued on, they would have been caught. The soldiers passed them and moved to the back of the warehouse. They took up positions just inside the line of brush and aimed their weapons at the building. Soon several vehicles pulled into the parking lot around the building and searchlights came on, turning the night into almost daytime brightness. A loud speaker sounded.

“You in the building, you are surrounded. Drop any weapons you have and come out with your hands up. Anyone surrendering will not be harmed. Anyone resisting will be shot on sight. Come out now, or we WILL come in and find you.”

Silence was the only answer at first. Then a man’s voice came out of the building.

“Give us time. We have some old folks in here. They don’t move to fast and a couple of them have to be carried. We have children too.”

“Then carry the old ones out here right now, or we will come in and make sure there is no resistance.”

“For the love of God, you wouldn’t shoot unarmed civilians.”

“You stupid Christians, I’ve done it before. What makes you special? Now get out here RIGHT NOW, or we will fire.”

“We’re coming, we’re coming. Hold your fire.”

The door to the warehouse slowly swung open. A white flag on a pole was the first thing to appear. It was followed by a middle aged man holding it.


“Don’t shoot. We surrender.”

“Get your sorry butts out here where we can see you.”

The man waved at the group behind him and slowly they began to emerge from the door.

“Put anyone over fifty-five on the left. The rest of you, move to the right.” Was the command given.

Soon the division was completed and a head count begun. The Sergeant was expecting to find thirty seven people. He wasn’t pleased when the count found only thirty two.

“It looks like we have a few resistors inside, men. Go find them and bring their bodies here.”

The order was clear. Anyone found inside the building now was a target, not a prisoner. Dean moved in with his squad. Methodically they went from room to room, checking each one as well as the floors for trap doors and the walls for hidden compartments. They were almost halfway done when Dean and Willis entered a room to find an old man on a bed. He looked at them and said,

“Have mercy. I can’t walk. I will do what you ask, but I need help.”

“Don’t worry about it old man.” Willie responded. “You don’t have to move no more.”

With that, Willie shot him twice in the head. He grinned at Dean.

“Shoot man, taking out these resistors is getting easier and easier.”

He then moved to the next room. Dean moved to the body of the old man. Cradled in his hands was a Bible. For some reason he picked it up and opened it to the presentation page. The writing there read;

‘To Mags, on your conformation day. May The Lord always watch over you and keep you from harm.’

Dean looked again at the old man. He hadn’t been afraid. He only wanted a chance to comply, given his infirmity. What was it in this stupid book that made people act like that?

“Time to go.” Aaron whispered.

The girls started to follow when Mags spoke up.

“I can’t believe it.”

“What?” Heather asked.

“I lost my Bible.”

“Then let’s hope whoever finds it needs it more than you do. Let’s go.”