EDITED 31 Jan: I completely forgot to mention that this post is from NRPax. My apologies for the oversight.
A couple of weeks ago, our own Ty in Tx posted a video that asked: “Could the US Citizens fight off the US military?” I have heard several variations of that question and it was usually followed by a tolerant liberal condescendingly sneering how we “rednecks with our AR-15s couldn’t fight tanks.” There seem to be a lot of people who genuinely want the military to go after folks like us because they think it will bring paradise on Earth when we undesirables are gone. As for the video, it concluded that it would basically be at a stalemate because the military would protect the borders to keep weapons from coming in and they would be stuck trying to get more money for their own budget.
After I stopped laughing, I got to work.
My background: I served in the Marine Corps Reserves from 98-04. I was a 1345 (Engineer Equipment Operator). Drove bulldozers most of the time and had some fun doing it. I was never any form of Spec Ops nor did I serve in a combat zone. My only exotic deployment was 29 Palms and I’m still not sure what I did to deserve that.
What you are about to read is an updated version of an essay I put together a while back on another site in answer to the condescending remark I mentioned up above. It took me all of about five minutes to think things out. Imagine how much worse things would be if I was a Green Beret who actually plans things like this.
Now a point of clarification: I do not want any of this to come to pass, for reasons that will be made clear later. I’d much rather this be hypothetical, but I acknowledge that it could happen.
First, there is the matter of the military. A lot of folks who have never served dismiss the average serviceman as a brain-dead baby killer who would go after their fellow citizens without a thought. Now there are some folks who think along those lines; look at the retired Generals who felt safe penning an op-ed in the Washington Post about how we’d need a military coup if Trump got the nod for President in 2024. The fact that these people felt safe saying that hints at a great deal of rot that needs to be cleaned out.
Thankfully they are still in the minority. Most folks in the military would be horrified to receive orders to start fighting other Americans. You can expect a lot of desertions along with the people who would go along with it to meet “training accidents.” There is even the possibility that whole commands would reply “Go to Hell. No reply follows.” But for the sake of argument, let’s assume that enough folks in the military got on board with this and went after us.
Yes, in a straight up fight, the average citizen is going to lose and lose badly. The foolish assumption that we would consent to a straight up fight would be the first delusion to die. First off, the servicemen are probably not going to get a warm welcome from the town. Restaurants might not be willing to allow them in, apartments don’t have vacancies, etc. On a more violent note, you can expect IEDs to become fashionable, hunting rifles to get broken out and examples to be made of the military folks who are trying to crack down on the citizens.
Oh, air attacks? Drones? Cool thought. Look up “Camp Bastion attack, 2012.” 15 Taliban took out 9 planes. And that’s a FOB in the middle of BF Nowhere. Get an airbase near civilians and it could get worse. Also, you get the risk of a crew of pissed off Airmen deciding that sabotaging the aircraft would be the best approach.
The argument could be made that bases are secure facilities. True enough. But they are limited in space. If you think moving all of the military personnel into a base is a good idea, you’ll have to think about where they are going to live, how they are going to get running water, electricity and food. Speaking of food, let’s talk about supplying these places. Are you completely sure that the guy driving the food truck didn’t poison his products? Are you sure that the guy coming in to maintain the generators isn’t going to ram his truck into them? You could fly people in that you trust but you’re putting faith that the plane lands and you are spending valuable fuel.
In the video that Ty linked, people in the comments said that the military personnel could be relocated out of their home states. Sure, they can. But you see, there is this magical thing called The Internet that means names and locations can be sent.
Yes, this means terrorist attacks. Folks are going to figure out how to work in cells and they will know that their conversations will be monitored. Which means that code phrases will be employed and unless someone betrays them, they will be effective.
So, the military is going to be surrounded on all sides by a bunch of angry people that used to be their countrymen. How willing are they going to be to press an attack when pictures of their loved ones are mailed to them with such innocent sayings taped to them like “Hey, isn’t this your son at soccer practice?”
Now there is a chance that such things will simply harden the resolve of the military higher ups to punish everyone until we’re compliant. But that’s when things will get very nasty.
With that being said, there are two reasons I don’t want any of this to come to pass.
First and most important, a lot of civilians will become targets. Yes, in my scenario above, I am talking about the targeted killings of the spouses and children of servicemen. If that is the only way to stop things, then odds are good that it will happen. But it’s not going to be clean. There could be incidents where a lot of innocents get killed to take out a few high value targets.
Secondly, the fallout from this will be horrible. The military will no longer be viewed as a trustworthy institution for several generations if not permanently. The high ranking will probably be put down like rabid animals and the politicians who cheered this on had best hope that a country without an extradition treaty can take them. So, it’s best to keep this hypothetical and not hope for reality.
