Quest: Battlefield promotions

At midnight a blizzard of calls came across the radio net. Battles had broken out across the Buffer zone.

Several sectors were out of radio-contact.

Quinn, for once, had not gone walk-about that night. Consulting Sammie, the seismic sensors east of the Red Cedar River showed no vehicle movement.

Quinn wondered if he had been wrong in discounting commando strikes by the Washtenaw and Livingston County forces.

The night was chaos.

A temporary bridge was thrown across Doan Creek and half of the forces that were deployed along 1-96 were dispatched to backstop the sectors that had gone off-line. Rushing into an active gunfight when communications are down is a recipe for blue-on-blue casualties. By inserting between the buffer-zone and Capiche, Quinn hoped to slow down any invasion that might have slipped through the seismic sensors

Quinn disliked being so dependent on the sensors. Technology is suppose to aid decision-making, not replace it or complicate it.

He prayed to God that the net had not been hacked or the sensor-net spoofed.

He called Chernovsky and Gimp. Capiche went on Red Alert.

Chernovsky and Gimp called Benicio and Delta Township and the parts of Lansing under his control went on Red Alert.

It was mid-morning before it was mostly sorted out.

One of the LT-s called Spackle. “I need you at the corner of Howell Road and Risch Road. I have something you need to see.”

Howell Road was the center of the chaos. Quinn had screwed up.

The Armory for the Howell Road section had been housed near the corner of Howell and Risch. In retrospect, it was a poorly chosen location. For one thing, it was too close to the eastern border.

There were bodies scattered in front of the armory. Clearly, a battle had occurred.

“The Armory is secure, sir” the lieutenant informed Quinn. Quinn could not remember the Louie’s name for love nor money.

“Thanks” Quinn said.

Looking at the wounds, it was clear that the bullets had been complete pass-throughs. The exit wounds were ghastly.

“Have they been identified?” Quinn asked.

“Not yet, sir” the Louie said.

“Roll this one over” Quinn said. The body was notable for the fact that he was wearing a new coat. It's brown unfaded. The fabric hard and crisp.

Something about the man seemed familiar but was hard to tell based on half a face...one that had distorted due to fluids puddling in the portions in contact with the frozen ground.

“We were trying to maintain the crime scene, sir” the Louie said.

“You can roll him back after I look at him” Quinn said.

The lieutenant had one of his privates roll the body over. Quinn looked at the man. His parka was partially unzipped. He was wearing body-armor, for all the good it had done him.

It was Smitty, one of the squad leaders who had been banished from the buffer zone.

It was a cold, bleak, windy winter day.

“How many people in the Howell Road sector deserted?” Quinn asked. There should have been time to do a quick nose count.

“All of them sir. Every soul” the Louie said.

Quinn looked at the snow. The Louie had done a respectable job in maintaining the scene. By not focusing on the details, Quinn was able to pick up the narrow, fan-shaped patterns of lung and brain tissue the tumbling rounds had sprayed on the snowy ground. The stringy boogers of tissue were drying. The dark red showed up clearly on the white ground. Whatever had hit these men had significantly more energy than a .22 LR.

Looking up-range, Quinn saw a stand of trees...presumably a rock pile...nearly a quarter mile away.

“No, Lieutenant. Not all of them” Quinn said.

Then Quinn started walking across the field toward the rock pile.

“Wait, sir. I cannot guarantee that this sector has been pacified” the Louie said.

“You can’t. But the guy sitting on that rock pile is all the guarantee I need” Quinn said.

*

Quinn found Wolhfert posted up with a full mag and the bolt locked-back.

“Whatchya got?” Quinn asked.

“I kept them out of the weapons but I am pretty sure they jerked the fuses from the IEDs before they left.” Wohlfert said.

“I look into it” Quinn said.

Quinn paused a second than asked “Have you ever considered becoming an officer?”

“Never happen” Wohlfert said.

“Why?” Quinn asked.

Wohlfert’s eyes narrowed a bit. He was clearly weighing how honest he could be with Quinn.

Then, after a second Wohlfert said “Mostly because I never met a Squad Leader who was worth a shit.”

“Actually, I was thinking you should be a Lieutenant” Quinn said. "You would be working for me."

“I ain’t qualified” Wohlfert said. “I barely made it out of high school.”

Quinn looked back at the Armory and the Louie who was wringing his hands.

“There are ten men down there who gave me the best recommendation you can possibly have” Quinn said.

“There are only four people standing down there” Wohlfert said.

Quinn said “I wasn’t talking about the ones who are standing. I was talking about the traitors you killed.”

“The other advantage you have is that I can remember your name” Quinn said. “That lieutenant down there...not so much.”

"But most of all, because I can trust you" Quinn said.

A sense of who Quinn was began to jell in Mark’s mind. The Quinn he met in the tower had morphed from a pleasant officer who had not been a stickler for chicken-shit details to an officer who demanded perfection on the critical jobs to a person who valued loyalty and action far more than pretty words.

In other words, a man who was much like Mark Wohlfert, himself.

“I will give it my best shot on one condition” Wohlfert said.

“What is that?” Quinn asked. He was not to keen on bargaining. In his mind it was an all-in or all-out proposition.

“Nobody calls me 'Donut'.” Mark Wohlfert said.

“Done.”

*

Gimp had been wrong.

Nearly three-hundred fighters had deserted, almost all on a squad-by-squad basis. The band around Howell Road had seen the greatest attrition. Quinn also lost two Lieutenants, Greene and the one on Denis Road, one mile north of Howell Road.

Management by Objective

20th Century Fox is rumored to have purchased the rights to the Gretchen Whitmer biopic

Belladonna was distressed. Governor Whitmer extended the "emergency" and Bella really misses being able to go to the gym.

That stimulated a discussion about what Governor Whitmer SHOULD be doing.

Objective based management is not a new principle. Peter Drucker wrote a book by that title in 1954 but successful enterprises used the idea for centuries before that.

A typical "plan" would involve multiple objectives (or "hurdles" or "gates") that had to be achieved before the organization was allowed to move on "to the next thing". It was a way of ensuring the concrete had hardened before the framing carpenters started erecting the stud-walls.

Sometimes various hurdles can be traded. To make this concrete and a little bit funny, suppose I determined that I needed 100 pounds of lentils and 300 pounds of rice for each person in the ERJ manor before buying everybody a set of nunchukus for personal defense.

But what if I had 170 pounds of lentils and 250 pounds of rice and 20 liters of vegetable oil? Is the fact that I am 50 pounds shy of rice a show stopper if I have excesses of other, needed items? Maybe yes. Maybe no.

If I can be a wee-bit critical of Governor Whitmer
If Governor Whitmer's organization could take the time and formulate the hurdles for exiting the shut-down, then the various counties or "Regions" could free-flow toward normalcy.

The fact that her organization hasn't embraced "Management by Objectives" suggests that either:

• They aren't smart enough

-and/or-

• Are too lazy and undisciplined to think-through a rational set of objectives or perhaps they are too proud to delegate to experts who can create rational sets of objectives

-and/or-

• Don't trust the tax-donkeys who fund their paycheck

-and/or- 

• Have an extreme aversion to responsibility

-and/or-

• Have other, shady reasons for not wanting normalcy

Incidentally, the title of the biopic is tentatively set as "Night at a Wax Museum". A little bit of John Wilder humor

A new knob and dead-bolt

I was at Mom's today.

I was mystified when Honey, the little dog, was able to pass through the locked exterior door like a ghost.

It turns out that there were two things wrong with the door. The latch bolt was stuck in the carrier and did not want to engage the striker plate.

Somebody in the past week noticed that fact and fixed it...sort of. They lubricated it and reinstalled it but they installed it backwards so it pushed open from the outside.

Oh, and the latch bolt still stuck in the carrier.

Mrs ERJ sent me forth to Yee Olde Big Boxe Store.

I admit to admiring Schlage locks. $44 bought a combination exterior door handle and dead-bolt combination. Another $33 for an additional 11 keys for all of the people who care for mom.

I made doubly sure to ensure that the latch bolt was not installed backwards.

Quest: Trial

Quinn placed a levy on the squads that were more than two miles from Howell Road. He required them to detail one Squad Leader and one fighter to HQ for an undetermined amount of time. Both were to be chosen by lot.

Two days later Quinn sent for Greene and his three homies.

Chernovsky, Gimp, ‘Pepperoni’, Donni and a few other battle-tested Capiche soldiers were in attendance. They were conspicuous by the fact that they were armed.

Quinn tried the four men as a block.

Timmy Scapazzo acted as prosecutor. He had been a divorce attorney pre-Ebola and was well versed in the theater of the courtroom. Timmy presented the evidence. He held it in sealed envelops.

Greene demanded to see the evidence.

Scapazzo demurred. “These are signed statements. If you are not convicted then the witness will be in an awkward position.”

“These statements declare that you deserted your assigned post on multiple nights and crossed over into enemy territory” Scapazzo said.

Thinking quickly, Greene said “We were scouting out enemy territory”

Scopazzo asked Greene “Can you produce any reports of your scouting expedition? None was filed. Did you bring it with you?”

Greene shook his head angrily. “Hell no. It ain’t like I have a computer to write it on.”

“So you admit that you crossed over into enemy territory at a time when you were supposed to be available to your troops. You admit that you had no intention of writing a report and therefore have no evidence that it was a…what did you call it...a scouting expedition” Scopazzo hammered him.

“In a court of law, when you make a claim that flies in the face of logic and you refuse to produce evidence to support it, we have at technical term for that. We call it a lie” Scopazzo said.

“There is no need to draw this out.” Scopazzo said.

“They admit they were not where they were supposed to be. They admit that they were out of contact with both their superiors and their direct reports. They admit they were in enemy territory when our mission is defensive. Every bit of evidence points to their lying under oath.” Scopazzo said.

Scopazzo sat down.

Quinn looked over at the “jury”. “Your job is to weigh the evidence and determine if...”

Greene stood up and interrupted. “What kind of fucked up kangaroo court is this. Don’t we get to present a defense?”

This is where Scopazzo and Gimp held their breath. It could swing either way.

Quinn looked at the notes he had been doodling.

“You admitted that you were east of the river for a period in excess of eight hours at least once. None of the other defendants denied the charges or claimed they were not with you” Quinn said. “You are my direct report and I had no information, either before-hand or afterward, about your leaving your area-of-responsibility. The sealed documents with sworn statements of your underlings claim that they had no way to contact you. Will your defense change any of those facts?”

“Well, no.” Greene said. “But...”

“Nothing else is not pertinent to the charges” Quinn said. “Sit down.”

Turning back to the jury. “Your job is to determine with at least 75% certainty: Do you believe that David Greene and three of his Squad Leaders were not available to do their jobs for a period of more than two hours? Do you believe that they did so willingly and of their own free-will?”

One of the jury asked “I don’t understand ‘75% certain’. Shouldn’t it be something about ‘reasonable doubt’?”

Quinn said “Good question.”

“This is not civil law. This is military law. We are in a war zone. We cannot afford pre-Ebola, civilian standards” Quinn said.

“Fifty percent certainty means that there is a flip-of-the-coin chance it happened the way that Lieutenant Scoppazo presented and an equal chance that it was just a random alignment of chance that made it look that way. A seventy-five percent chance means there is exactly twice as much likelihood that it happened the way Lt. Scopazzo presented.” Quinn said.

“That doesn’t seem very certain.” the juror said.

“By itself, it isn’t. But if all of you arrive at that determination independently then it is very certain.” Quinn said.

Two jurors abstained. The rest were more than 75% sure that Greene and company had knowingly deserted their post.

“In times of war, desertion is punishable by death” Quinn said.

A collective gasp escaped the jury and the defendants.

Gimp, Chernovsky already had their hands on the grips of their weapons in case things got kinetic.

“Not only did you fail me; you failed the civilians you swore an oath to protect but your biggest failure is that you failed your men. You need to know that in times of war I speak for this unit from my office down to the lowliest swinging-dick mucking out outhouses. ” Quinn said.

Greene looked stricken.

“However, I am not going to have you executed. That is not something I would force my men to do...to pollute their weapons by killing scum such as you.” Quinn said, each word a whip.

"General Chernovsky, please present yourself to the front of my court-room" Quinn said.

Chernovsky had been a starting linebacker at a Division II university. He was a big, scary man.

"Please remove their uniforms" Quinn said.

Chernovsky favored the old-school, Kabar knife with the seven inch blade. Chernovsky pinched their patches and pulled them away from their bodies before removing the patch and a generous hunk of fabric. Frankly, he would not have cared if he had removed a hunk of flesh.

The four former-officers were pinned to their chairs by Chernovsky's glare and the fact that he could almost cut them in half with his knife.

“You have twenty minutes to leave MY buffer-zone. If you are sighted in this zone you will be apprehended and I will shoot you with my own weapon” Quinn said.

“Have I made myself clear?” Quinn said.

Greene and company nodded.

“You have twenty minutes before we put out the radio transmission indicating that you are persona non grata. Don’t waste it.”

(Note from the author: An extra installment is scheduled for Saturday)

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The tomatoes went into the garden today

Planting tomatoes on 3' by 5' centers gobbles up a lot of garden space in a hurry. I plan to support them with feed-lot panels.

I thought I was done planting tomatoes, but I was wrong.

Bella's palette for this year is hot yellows, oranges and reds. The Coleus are going to Mom's. She does not have as much sun as we have here.

I took Belladonna to the greenhouse. She will be spending the summer with us and is in nesting mode.

She has a "color palette" for landscaping and did not trust me to pick out plants.

While we were at the greenhouse one of the workers said "Joe, we have some plants for you in the back corner.

Yup. Another flat of tomatoes and a flat of Nicotiana sylvestris.

The irony is that I told Bella that if she sent me to pick flowers I would pick ones with inconspicuous flowers...like the Nicotiana.

The grape breeding program

This is what V. riparia looked like at 150 GDD. The shoots are about 2" long and the baby grape clusters are clearly visible. A couple of my latest varieties, Steuben and Swenson Red still have tight primary buds.

The plan was for me to keep some Vitus riparia vines covered until we passed 150 GDD, b-50.

V. riparia is our common river-bank grape. I have a low-acid selection from Minnesota. V. riparia rarely has perfect flowers. They are either male or female.

That makes them easy to hybridize. Grapes with perfect flowers need to be emasculated, and covered with gauze and then pollinated with pollen from the selected male plant. Flowers that are purely female simply need to be protected from the males you don't want.

Those ghostly white things hanging on the canes are buds that pushed even though I had them covered and weighted to hold them close to the ground.

Since V. riparia is a very, very early flowering grape all I have to do to guarantee than V. riparia is not the male parent is to slow down the intended female canes. By delaying them, they will not be receptive until after all of the local V. riparia males are finished. I judged the appropriate amount of delay to be about 150 GDD.

My hope is that the male parent will be one of the grapes with larger clusters. The V. riparia has clusters that average about 20 grams, a bit less than an ounce. I have a couple of selections that have half-pound clusters. It is a lot faster to pick when the clusters are larger.

Why bother hybridizing grapes? Well, for one thing, it is easy. For another, professional grape breeders tend to focus on what works and inadvertently fall into the trap of in-breeding depression.

V. riparia is extremely cold-hardy and might offer a source of downy mildew resistance if the male parent should happen to be a grape like Swenson Red.

Nerd Humor

The Bible tells us that love of money is the root of all evil. (1-Timothy 6:10)

What does math tell us is the root of evil?

Sqrt(e-V-i-L)

"e" is approximately 2.718282

"V" is the Roman numeral for "5"

"i" is the square-root of -1

"L" is the Roman numeral for "50"

I cheated and used an on-line calculator to find the square root of -52.28171817-i

That suggests that you can avoid the square root of evil if you avoid the neighborhood around 0.069147-7.23094i

Sadly, the answer is neither simple nor rational.

An approximation for the third root of evil

Quest: Give them a fair trial. Then hang them

Quinn was flummoxed. He had no idea where Greene and his inner circle of squad leaders were spending the nights.

This was the fifth night Quinn had spent in Greene’s sector and he had yet to run into him.

Quinn had started closest to the eastern frontier and all he found were the squads that should have been installing IEDs screwing-the-pooch.

Then he checked out the next two squads to the west. That is where Quinn expected to find him as that would be centrally located.

Then he tried the two squads that were farthest west. No cigar.

Thinking that Greene might be rotating camps to keep his finger on the pulse, Quinn picked the two center squads and spent two more nights monitoring them. Quinn was SURE Greene would pop in on one of the camps. Again, no cigar.

It wasn’t as if Quinn had all night to “catch” Greene. Sammie waited until dark before he left. Then Quinn waited an extra half-hour before he left. It took time to motor there. It took much longer to walk in since he parked a goodly distance away.

Then, by midnight, even the night-owls were hitting the rack and there wasn’t much point in waiting for somebody to show up.

His bafflement grew. Where the hell was Greene?

The other oddity was that Greene’s closest circle also seemed to be absent. Curiouser and curiouser.

Quinn had just bagged it for the fifth night. He started to drift north, away from camp and toward his motorbike when a shadow detached itself from a tree and stiff-armed him. “Who are you?” the voice asked.

It was not a voice that intended to raise alarm. It was also a voice Quinn recognized. “Mark. Is that you?” Quinn asked.

Quinn could sense a second of hesitation.

“I am the officer who observed your unit's maneuvers last week” Quinn informed him.

“And you are the officer who yanked my Squad Leader through a knot-hole” Mark Wohlfert said as the pictures clicked into place. “We were up all night installing those damned I.E.D.s. You never heard such cussing.”

“You wouldn’t have been if they had done their jobs to start with” Quinn observed.

“Well, there is that” Wohlfert agreed.

“What are you doing out here?” Wohlfert asked.

“Frankly, I am trying to figure out where your Lieutenant is.” Quinn said.

“He is across the river” Wolhfert told him.

“Across the river?” Quinn repeated, not sure he had heard correctly.

“Yeah. I think he and some of the squad leaders have girlfriends over there. That is where they spend the nights now that the river froze over.” Wohlfert informed Quinn matter-of-factly.

“You mean Doan Creek?” Quinn asked pointing west toward Capiche.

“No. The Red Cedar” Wohlfert said, pointing east into enemy held territory.

“When do you expect them back?” Quinn asked.

“Well, if it is like every other day they will come stumbling back just before chow-time” Wohlfert said.

Quinn did some quick thinking. It would be light when Greene came back and Quinn wanted to deal with this issue as quickly as possible.

“Would I be able to see them from the tower?” Quinn asked.

“There are too many trees. You would be better off watching from Hill 47” Wohlfert said.

“How do I get there?” Quinn asked.

*

It was a very cold night and Quinn was under-dressed for the weather. He shivered his ass off.

The four men coming across the river early the next morning did not exercise any noise discipline. It was clear from the speed they traveled that it was a route they had traveled many times before. It also showed a lot more confidence in the thickness of the ice over the West Branch of the Red Cedar than Quinn would have felt.

Quinn did not have a camera but he did have an excellent set of binos. There was no doubt who the four men were.

Quinn slipped away. He would consult with Gimp and Chernovsky before he acted but he had a pretty good idea what he was going to do.

*

“NO!” Gimp said. “You cannot summarily execute them.”

Quinn ticked off on his fingers “Four cases of Dereliction-of-Duty. Fraternizing-with-the-enemy. Testimony that it happens every night. Providing a trail into our defenses that nobody monitors because they don’t want to piss-off their leaders. How many more crimes do you need before you think they deserve a bullet in their heads?”

“I agree that they deserve a bullet in their heads but this is not about them.” Gimp said.

“Then what is it about?” Quinn said.

Chernvosky was silent. He wanted to see where Gimp was going with this line of argument.

Gimp decided that the indirect approach would work best. Quinn was now his peer and Gimp couldn’t just order him around. Quinn could, and would argue if he didn’t see the reasons for something.

“How many men in five squads?” Gimp asked.

“Fifty. Everybody knows that” Quinn said.

“How many of them are warriors, the kind you point them toward the enemy and he cuts a path through them?” Gimp asked.

“One, if you are lucky” Quinn said.

“How many look at it as a job and just get it done? No excuses.” Gimp asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe two per squad….that would be ten” Quinn said, not quite knowing where this was going.

“On the other end of the spectrum. How many are slugs, the kind you have to put your boot in their ass to get them moving?” Gimp asked.

“About the same, two-per-squad” Quinn said.

“So what does that leave us in the middle? Thirty give or take a few.” Gimp asked.

Quinn nodded.

“If you summarily execute Greene and his bozo-buddies, what is going to happen to each group?” Gimp asked. “I will help you out, the eleven warriors or almost warriors will still do their job.”

“Well, I imagine the slugs will get religion and start doing their jobs” Quinn said.

“And that is where you are wrong. They will desert” Gimp said. From his body language it was clear that Quinn did not believe him.

“What about the thirty in the middle?” Gimp asked.

“I give up. What will they do?” Quinn said.

“They will be paralyzed. They won’t do a thing out of fear that they will end up with a bullet in the back of their head” Gimp said. "They will have absolutely zero initiative."

"Executing Greene might be satisfying but it will cost you a big chunk of your effective force" Gimp said.

“So what would you have me do?” Quinn said.

“You should bend over backwards to give them due-process. Give them a fair trail and then sentence them to death. Then offer them a deal. Kick their ass out of our military and give them a half hour to clear the property” Gimp said. "If they are still around 30 minutes later, then you can shoot them in their heads.

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