An American Nightmare

Journal Entry, October 8th, 2007

The task seemed simple enough. All I thought I had to do was go down to the local National Registry Office located at Town Hall. There I would be photographed and fingerprinted for my new national ID card. After all, it had been five years since my first national ID card was issued back in 2002.

As I drove through town I came upon the American Scouts, formerly known as the Boys Scouts and Girl Scouts of America. They were performing their usual after-school drill & ceremony on the town common. After so many years I still found the sight of nine to fifteen year olds practicing with real rifles unsettling. They should be playing baseball or just being kids, I thought. Ah, but that was long ago. A lifetime it seemed. And I’m just an old man who no one listens to.

So I go to pull into the town hall parking lot. I suppose I could have walked or taken my bicycle from home but my car needed the exercise more than I did. My gas ration card allots me 10 gallons a month. Hell, I have to find excuses just to drive it nowadays. But since Uncle Sam tells everyone that if they don’t use their allotment on a monthly basis they forfeit the remainder, which goes back to the war effort – “use it or lose it”, as they say. Well, maybe when that new oil field in Alaska is operational next year we’ll get an increase in our rations. I ain’t counting on it though. Besides, driving is a hassle these days with all the roadblocks and spot checks along the interstates. That’s mostly why I stopped driving so much. Also, spare parts are hard to come by because of the war.

So people were registering for their new IDs based on the last digit of their social security numbers: Monday everyone with an 0 or a 1 is supposed to register. Mine’s a 1, and so the trip to Town Hall. On Tuesday everyone with a 2 or 3 as a last number registers, and so on. I don’t know why they’re doing this all at once. They should stagger the registrations throughout the year. So basically you got twenty-percent of the town showing up on each of the five National Identification Registration Days. So I’m waiting to pull into the town lot, which is packed. It’s a good thing someone from the Homeland Defenders League was there to direct traffic. Most of the Homeland Defenders are guys like me, veterans of one war or another, too old to be of much use in the military, but we acquired that ingrained knowledge of, if not respect for, the ‘chain of command’.

The cops stopped working road construction details and directing traffic four years ago. They were considered ‘essential personnel’ to the National Police, an offshoot of the federalized National Guard. Too busy rounding up suspected terrorists, collaborators, sympathizers, draft-dodgers, ‘free-thinkers’ and troublemakers to be wasting time on traffic details. Well, the Homeland Defenders do a pretty good job considering their volunteer status. Some of them are way too gung-ho for my liking, like the ‘wannabe veterans’, who ‘missed’ Vietnam or the Gulf War. I don’t appreciate the powers of arrest that were granted to them back in ’03. And I don’t like having to show one of them my national ID card every other time I go to the convenience store. Their 9mm Glock pistols are the side arm of choice, though they hardly ever have to unholster them. Every time they ask me, “where’s your American Flag patch?”, I tell ‘em, “hey, I’m a Vietnam veteran. I did my time for my country. I don’t have to prove anything to anyone”. It’s a good thing most of the Homeland Defenders are military veterans. At least they respect me as a fellow veteran. They just look at my card, grunt disapprovingly, give it back to me and let me go on about my business.

So I get up to the Defender directing traffic and I recognize him. It’s Tommie Ross from the American Legion. “Hey Tommie!, I yell. He looks at me, “Joe! How you doing!” We got a minute because he can’t let another car into the town lot until another one leaves. Tommie says to me, “hey Joe, we’ve been missing you at the weekly meetings. Where you been?” I knew this was comin’, see. I just knew I’d be called on this.

I used to make the monthly meetings to help with the Legion’s efforts to raise money for military widows and orphans and support our boys and girls in uniform – hell, once a veteran, always a veteran. But last year the American Legion began pushing that Loyalty Oath legislation through Congress. Well, me and some others fought that as best we could. Our argument was we’ve got national ID cards that show whether we’re citizens, registered aliens, and/or convicted felons. White cards for citizens, green cards for registered aliens and red cards for felons. What the hell do we need a loyalty oath for? Well, neither the national, state or town chapters would back off from this push for a loyalty oath. It made me sick. The Legion had always pushed their ‘Americanism’ mission. It was in their charter. I ignored all that stuff anyway. I was just a member so I could help other veterans and military people. Oh, and the drinks are cheap.

Around about then the monthly meetings became twice a week. And more recently I’d heard that they were once a week and mandatory for all members. I didn’t exactly quit the Legion. I just sort of stopped going. To the meetings that is. I’d still hit the bar once a week or when they’d have a meat raffle. There were a few of us that had had enough and kind of faded away. So here’s Tommie, the local Legion’s designated ‘Historian’ asking me where I’ve been.

"Hey, I’ve been kind of busy. Been trying to make ends meet with odd jobs and such. Tell you what though, why don’t you and Paula come over for dinner some night? We’ll break out some of that steak I won at the meat raffle. Hell, you can’t pass that up. I mean, how often do you even see steak these days? So what do you say, I’ll tell Ruth we’re having company. She likes Paula. She and Paula get along great."

Tommie says, "hey, that’s sounds like a plan. I’ll ask Paula when’s a good time, then I’ll give you a call". "Alright, good!", I say. Just then another car pulled out of the lot so I jokingly flashed him the peace sign and moved into the lot. He gave me a dismissive wave but cracked a smile despite our somewhat opposing political views. He knows I do this all the time. The peace sign. So whenever someone gets in my face I just tell ‘em, "hey, it means ‘V’ for victory". Ya, right, ‘victory’. I’d sure like to see some light at the end of this fuckin’ tunnel. When we do see the light it’s going to be the headlight of a train coming right at us.

So I’m waiting an hour in line outside the town hall front door. Everyone’s getting a little peeved. How long does it take to have a photo ID made? This was worse than the Registry of Motor Vehicles back in the old days. People were going in, but no one was coming out, so none of us in line could figure out what the hold up was.

Just then someone who had been in the town hall for the same purpose came around to the front from the rear entrance where those who had already gotten their new IDs were exiting. It was Mike, another ‘Nam vet, who ran a small mechanics garage out of the old tool and die factory adjacent to the downtown area. He looked bullshit! He gets red-faced, which is usually more of an indication of his Irish heritage and a fondness for beer, but he was ready to bust an artery.

"Hey, Mike! What’s up?" He yells, "what’s up?!". He found my face in the crowded line. "I’ll tell you what’s up!" He looked up and down at everyone in line. "When you go in there to get your new National Identity cards, they’re requiring everyone to take a loyalty oath first. If you refuse to take the oath you will be issued a card with a yellow stripe on it. I refuse to take any damn loyalty oath! No one’s gonna brand me yellow either. So I just walked away".

This caused a lot of commotion among the crowd, as you can imagine. We knew that loyalty oath legislation was pending, but there was considerable opposition to it. Apparently Congress decided on a quick voice vote, the opposition caved, and they passed the United States Loyalty Oath Act of 2007 to coincide with National Identification Registration Days.

"Mike, what are you going to do without a National Identity Card? Without the card you can’t cash a check, get a permit from Town Hall, pass through a roadblock..." "I know, I know", he says. "So what are you gonna do, Joe? I know your views about this damn war. Are you gonna go in there and take a loyalty oath? And if not, are you gonna let them issue you a new card with damn yellow stripe on it?"

"This is so fucked up, man. I don’t know, Mike. I don’t know either." Someone in the crowd who’s been listening says to Mike and me, "so what’s the big deal with taking a loyalty oath? You’re both Americans aren’t you? Don’t you support the war? Don’t you want us to win it and get it over with?" Mike walks up to him and yells, "it’s been six fucking years since the war started! My twenty-nine year old daughter’s was drafted. Now she’s over in Algeria in a combat zone. Don’t give me no shit about being an American!"

I walk up to him, grab his arm and say, "hey, Mike, it’s okay. We’ll figure something out. There’s no sense in me going in there because I feel the same way you do. What’s happened to this country? What’s happened to this country, everyone?", I ask the crowd. "It used to be the ‘home of the brave and the land of the free’, so what’s so brave or free about this? This is bullshit, folks!" The crowd murmured, dropped their eyes, shuffled their feet, but they all stayed in line, like cattle to the slaughter. Well, it figured. People were now so used to being told what to do, where to go, when to go because of ‘national security’ they just kind of let their freedoms erode away. Oh, all for a ‘good cause’. All these draconian measures are ‘temporary’ we are told. When the military draft returned in 2003 they were only taking eighteen to twenty-four year olds. This time there were no deferments for students, for women, for gays, for Senators sons. The Vietnam vets, including me, made sure of that. But each year, as the body counts grew, as the territory being attacked, taken and defended grew, there was a greater need for more military personnel. Junior ROTC was a mandatory graduation requirement in the high schools. The age range went up in 2004 to twenty-seven years old. In 2006 it jumped to twenty-nine years old. This despite growing voluntary enlistments of military veterans by the thousands. Not all of the war was being waged on foreign soil so the Homeland Defenders League was created along with the federalization of the National Guard units that were formally state militias under the control of the state governors. And of course the National Police was created, mostly to identify, round up and interrogate any and all persons who were a threat to national security. They still performed their duties as law enforcement officers, but there was no longer the friendly ‘town cop’ that everyone knew. Now the National Police would transfer and be moved around like the military, with no roots in the community. ‘Community Policing’ was extinct. The National Police weren’t created to ‘be friendly’.

I looked up at the roofline of the Town Hall. Sure enough, three cameras were panning the crowd. I wondered where they had placed the listening devices. It used to be you’d only see cameras in banks, stores and gas stations. Now they were so ubiquitous that virtually every street, intersection, building, bus, and park was festooned with cameras.

I pointed the cameras out to Mike. "C’mon Mike, let’s get out of here" "Where to Joe?" "I’ve got my car, let’s burn some gas, go for a ride".

Maybe someday soon, but I can’t yet risk writing what happened next in this journal. But there are those of us, many more than I had imagined, who, because of the Loyalty Oath and the stricter National Identification Registration system, became fed-up with the loss of our rights. And by God, we swore it was our right and duty to begin the second American Revolution. It’s now underway and long overdue.

.

-by Mark S. Foley

..............................Mark's Page........Synergy Fiction........Synergy Home