Chapter 7

Suddenly, we had an embarrassment of riches. Every one of the Marines who had landed as invaders asked to join us and be a part of the new New Ochnee Army (NOA). It did grate on them a little bit to be known as an Army instead of Marines, but they saw the rationale when we explained to them that we had no navy, thus no ships, so they were no longer Marines. It was a hard pill to swallow, but they managed, especially when Jimmy promised that they could be Marines again as soon as we got some ships to justify it.

Now we had every kind of armament that we could imagine wanting, except aircraft. We had no helicopters, but that was just as well right now. Military helicopters are such a high maintenance item that we could not keep one in the air if we had one. General Williams said for us not to worry, we would probably have helicopters pretty damned soon.

Well, he was right, many of the new troops had internet buddies back aboard the ships, and they gave their friends a glowing report on what we were trying to do and invited them to join us. Two days later a CH-46 Sea Knight ("Phrog") landed in the parade ground with the entire complement of maintenance men and their portable tools from the helicopter carrier lying offshore. Now, all we needed were spare parts, but the word was that we should relax, that would be taken care of shortly.

It was almost funny, the next day, two AH-1W Super Cobras landed, fully armed and ready to go. Shit, not only were we quickly becoming the most powerful Army in Florida, we were close to being the most powerful air arm. Anybody would have to think twice about messing with us once we could get all of the spare parts and ammunition that these fierce brutes demanded. Again, I was told to relax, that would be taken care of shortly. What, me worry? Yeah!

Meanwhile, now that we had the full military muscle to back us up, we were ready to march in and "nationalize" the orange juice processing plant. Once that was up and running, we would do the same for the orange groves. Pretty soon, we would have the money we needed to finance all of our adventures.

Jimmy and I consulted with General Williams and came up with a plan to seize the plant. Right now, it was standing idle with only a few of the managers and some thugs, otherwise known as "enforcers," still in the plant. The plant was still in reasonably good shape, since the union expected to take it over as soon as we gave in. Well, we had a surprise for them.

It was tempting to use our new helicopters to transport troops to the plant and fly air cover while they were there, but that was foolish overkill. Instead, we planned to move in with one APC for firepower and six trucks loaded with 72 officers and men. We went with that many because we figured that overwhelming force would cow the union people and get us in without actually having to kill anybody.

We were right! We let word of our plans "leak" to the plant and everybody had run away by the time we got there. Except for some rats and one snake, we had the place to ourselves. Several of the workers were well qualified to supervise the operation of the plant, so one was appointed plant manager and the rest of the supervisors were appointed from the workers.

It turned out that we didn't need 200 people per shift, now that they were working reasonable hours, and the total of 400 workers that had gone on strike were easily able to operate the plant under the new schedule of 8-hour shifts. The workers set about getting the plant back into production while we turned our attention to the orange groves.

The groves were no problem, since the union people there scattered to the four winds as soon as they heard that we were coming for them. The workers there had the same problems with overwork that the processing plant did, and, as soon as we cut them back to a reasonable work schedule, they were able to cope with the work load without additional people.

Soon, oranges were again moving to the processing plant, and we were ready to resume shipping product to customers. Our new sales department contacted them and offered to resume shipping the same quantity of cans, but at a 10% lower price. It turned out that the union had been grossly overcharging its customers, and we were able to cut the price to induce the customers to return to us without making enough of a dent in the profit to harm us. Everybody was happy, and we were soon ready to start shipping.

We did have a problem, though. We got the word that the Navy was going to stop us from shipping. They would sink ships carrying our product, if necessary. That threat was squelched when we shipped our first load in a Cuban vessel escorted by a destroyer from Mexico. We never heard any more about sinking ships.

Fortunately, things calmed down by the time our wedding came up. Mary and I were married in the largest church in New Ochnee in front of everybody who could squeeze in. Those who didn't squeeze in listened to the service via a PA system set up outside the church. I swear, I think the entire population of New Ochnee showed up to wish us well. We were both deeply touched by the affection showed to us by everybody in the vicinity.

A honeymoon was impossible under the circumstances, but we really didn't need one. We had been sleeping together for months, so there was nothing new along that line for either of us to learn. We just enjoyed the fact that we were married and Mary said that she was going to stop taking her birth control pills. I wasn't sure how I felt about that, but I didn't argue with her.

Now that we had a real military, we seriously considered expanding New Ochnee to include the neighboring fiefdoms. It was no longer possible that the bosses in New York didn't know about us and our activities, so Jimmy thought that it would be a good idea for us to act now before we were put on the defensive. After all, it was common for a strong boss to move in on his weaker neighbors.

We planned to expand, anyway. None of the other bosses acted in the best interest of their citizens, and that was what we tried to do all the time, so it seemed to us that we were justified in chasing them out. General Williams and his officers agreed with that attitude, so we made preparations to do so.

At the moment, General Williams counseled against attacking more than one fiefdom at a time. He said that it was just poor strategy to fight a war on more than one front at a time if it could be avoided. Jimmy agreed, and it rang a bell with me, so we left it to him and his staff to pick where to strike first. I did propose that we aim toward Miami so that we could cut the enemy territory in two. General Williams agreed that the idea had merit, so that was what he planned to do.

Things went so well that we reached Miami before the end of the year. Virtually the only shots fired had been at alligators and snakes—most of the bad guys ran away rather than face our overwhelming fire power. One fly over by a Cobra helicopter often was all we needed to force a surrender without a shot being fired.

Oh, yes, we had received our replacement parts and supplies, as more Marines and sailors defected to us. They usually came in with a truck load of something that they thought we might need. Pretty soon, we had supply depots and caches scattered all over the countryside. We had six Cobras and two Sea Knights, more than the Navy now had in the South Florida region. All we lacked were tanks, but the APCs were a pretty good substitute.

The situation changed when we reached the outskirts of the Miami/Dade County metropolitan area. There was an Army detachment there, and their commanding officer, a brigadier general, was not inclined to surrender. We found out later that he was receiving a generous stipend from the local bosses beyond his normal Army pay.

We pulled up short and went into conference. Were we going to ask our Marines to shoot at US Army soldiers? It was going to happen eventually, but we were in no hurry. We decided to mount a strong psychological and propaganda attack before we committed to shooting. PA systems were set up to blast music and slogans at the troops within hearing. We also printed all kinds of leaflets that we dropped from the helicopters. Some of the leaflets contrasted the way our people lived with the people that the Army was "defending." Other leaflets were for "safe passage" through the lines for anybody who wanted to change sides.