Caleb Martin
December 2, 2012
Period 4
Chapter 3
The Governor pulled into town on a sunny afternoon, I believe it was Tuesday but my calendar burnt when I tried my hand at cooking and I've felt too embarrassed to ask since. Nevertheless the mayor had a solemn look on his face as he strolled out of scorched, unreliable, bullet-ridden 1969 Lincoln Continental. He walked into the Longview State Capitol Building and practically disappeared. State senators and congressmen soon followed and an eerie feeling gripped the building as no one knew what was going on inside. The President of the Texas Union felt that folks ought to be educated on the "happenings" of his states, so the State of Longview got federal "funding" for a state newspaper. It was a rather rudimentary setup. The government had procured and model of a medieval-style printing press from an "antiques" (junk) dealer who raided a science museum in Dallas. Well when I woke up the next day a sharp thud hit my door and to my delight I had received Longview's first state newspaper. The paper was odd for it was that kind of Revolutionary War type parchment and the letters were styled in medieval fonts so it was odd compared to my pre-war papers I was used to. It was only one double sided page but I applauded their efforts. I shot my eyes down to the one and only headline: War Grips the Nation! I was shocked to see that even after the apocalypse people would still go to war as if surviving wasn't hard enough. I read the proceeding article: "Dear people of the mighty fine Texas Union, Our fine nation has come under the attack of an enemy unlike that of any of which we have ever encountered. Led on the belief that slavery and discrimination is once again acceptable. They attempted to lure our people into their seditious acts with petty gifts and we will have no part in it. This 'Confederate States of America' must be no more and so we will kill their people just as they have killed ours. Sincerely Your President, Richard Pierce. Several more articles followed providing a more in-depth look at this atrocity. Apparently a Confederate delegation, similar to the one that corrupted Sanks here, also stopped in the coastal city of Houston. They had way more supplies than the group that stopped and hence this group used six ships stolen from some naval base near Jacksonville, Florida. Houstonians were quite confused as the 6 naval frigates docked at the port. The gentlemen in Houston must have had some sense of morality because when heard the Confederates speak about their view on slavery he yelled at dem' southern boys to "get their asses a runnin'" and that no one dared insult the laws of the great Texas Union. The Governor of the State of Houston, Sam Brown, ordered a military strike on the CSA ships as they fled and killed many people on both sides. The President saw the situation as unacceptable and had all governors, senators and congressmen convene in Dallas to plan further action. They chose war. It was a two-part plan a huge naval-based offensive on the coastal CSA cities amassing in Houston and a humungous land assault to capture interior Southern cities and eventually their capital, Atlanta. I was disappointed with the decision of war as conscription was now in effect. The next part had me worried. The first part of the land assault was to take all Southern border cities starting with the crucial CSA garrison border city of Shreveport. Forces were to set up a fort along Interstate 20 behind us in nearby Tyler, Texas. We were screwed as the only protection we would get would be the occasional regiment passing through town not to mention that Sanks and the ranchers and the businessmen had been secretly been dealing with the Confederates for slaves. Every male 16 and older was forced to go to the conscription meeting in the Capitol Building to protect the fatherland. I was quite nervous as I really did not want to be picked to go I felt I was better suited remaining as one of the town's few remaining doctors. There were only about 40,000 males living in Longview and they were only taking about 5,000. The economic boom in town had attracted not only survivors from Texas but also Southern defectors, Oklahomans and Mexicans so Longview had become the 4th biggest city in the Texas Union after Dallas, Houston, and El Paso. We had plenty of people to conscript making us one of the first to be sent into battle. They were simply pulling names out of a hat and there was a one in nine chance of getting picked and I was scared. It was pretty upsetting that possibly my neighbors and friends would be returning without limbs, horrific wounds and even worse, they might not return at all. The drawings began and some laughed excited to be picked to serve while others cried for having to leave their families. The drawings went on for hours and were brutal. Just as I had thought they were over the announcer spoke something about a Home Guard and a new set of names were drawn. Then everything changed as a name was called that sounded all too familiar. It was mine.