HECU

Hazardous Environment Combat Unit

Abbreviation:	HECU
Group Numbers:	Shut down
Leadership:	Logan Chester
Goals:	Shut down
Recruitment Policy:	Shut down
Contact:	Shut down

	Short-wave Radio Info
	This group or location has a dedicated radio frequency. Frequency: Shut down MHz Transmitter Coordinates: Shut down

Welcome to our page. It is regrettable but necessary to inform you that the HECU has now been officially disbanded once again since 08/21/09, but it is kept for the sake of historical archiving. All members of the unit are pronounced either dead, missing or both. But long live the spirit of the Unit; fortune will always favor the bold.

"Audaces Fortuna Iuvat" (Fortune Favors The Bold)

The Hazardous Environment Combat Unit, a.k.a. HECU, is a group of special operatives of all backgrounds deployed in Malton as a rapid-response support force for any suburb under attack and ensuring a human stronghold. Originally much of the recruitment quota was narrowed down to only combat veterans. However, the HECU Central Command viewed the apocalyptic situation in Malton as an "exceptional training environment" for potential recruits and have decided that the members of command on site will take the role of searching and indoctrinating a plethora of new members of a wide variety of backgrounds.

The core values of the HECU is Honor, Efficiency, Courage, and Unity.

The HECU named themselves after the fictional military group in the popular video game "Half-Life". The HECU in Half-Lifeis a military organization formed to deal with "unconventional enemies" that normal military and law enforcement units cannot effectively engage. The HECU is looking for new recruits, preferably with military or science backgrounds, or civilians who have adequate weapons training and bodybuilding skills.

History

The Hazardous Environment Combat Unit has a rich and rather unsung history of engaging unconventional warfare on unconventional targets. Although the HECU's first engagement was highly successful at first, it took heavy casualties due to the nightmare of excessive bureaucatic involvement and the incompetent leadership by the "High Brass." Many field officers had filed disband reports for both the Unit and its battalion level officers. The Government, not wanting to take any more chances with another risky blind "reconnaissance-in-force" had the Unit disbanded and its members reassigned after the last weary survivors of the Black Mesa Incident were medevaced back to headquarters base in Santiago. [[1]] For more details about the Incident.

DISCLAIMER: The following events is "non-canon," meaning, it is not consistent with the "Official Malton Storyline," whatever it is. This particular canon is just for kicks.

Any similarities to the "real events" of Malton is coincidental.

A timeline of the tragedy in Malton, since the Black Mesa Incident.

7 years later...

The city of Malton is affected by a mysterious disease of unknown origin, morphing docile, law-abiding citizens into unusually rabid, aggressive, flesh-eating cannibals.

16 days later...

The Government is slow to realize that already almost half of the denizens of Malton have become marked as "ZEDs" or "infected" and deployment of the armed forces is minimal at best-- due to the fact that the Army is preoccupied by overseas conflicts. Thus, the Government vainly responds with a motley detachment of police officers, firefighters and paramedics from every adjacent department towards the hellish pandemonium of the once thriving metropolis.

11 days later...

70% of law enforcement officers and firefighters lose contact outside of the city and are reported as "missing." The Government, dumbfounded by the failure of containing the "Zeds" due to underestimation of the disease's spread, hastily orders the deployment of an Army brigade for Malton. Their mission was seemingly simple: destroy the enemy and bring back all non-infected civilians outside of the city.

9 days later...

The Army's mission of even "destroying the enemy" proved to be a lofty goal at best. The "ZEDs" amass into innumerable numbers and falter the Army's advance from the center of the city, Ridleybank. Alarmed by the sudden halt of the brigade, the Government goes with "Plan B" and impulsively orders the construction of a massive blockade surrounding the entire city of Malton as a last resort effort to contain them.

6 days later...

Despite obviously superior weaponry and presumably superior "intelligence", the Army soaks up heavy casualties due to the "ZEDs'" relentless and unforgiving attacks and the infectious nature of the "ZED." The "ZEDs" prove to be a formidable opponent, and the strange, unconventional nature of their "ontology" becomes the trump card against the initial foray of the brigade. Cut off from the barricades, logistics slows to a halt. Many of the soldiers, run out of assault rifle ammunition-- thus, quickly losing their combat effectiveness. The controversial "Quarantine" order is handed down in the chain of command, ordering all soldiers to retreat back to the blockade line to supplement the quarantine effort. The soldiers at the blockade are given implicit orders to use lethal force on any denizen that dares to cross over outside of the quarantine line. However, such an order falls on deaf ears as most of the soldiers in the city are either reported "MIA" or have deliberately disobeyed the "Quarantine" order; instead deciding to stay and help their fellow survivors in Malton.

2 months later...

The blockade eventually succeeds to a certain extent and the "ZED" advance is halted around the entire city. But it is a Pyrric victory as millions of citizens, police personnel, firefighters, scientists and soldiers are still unaccounted for and left for dead in the now zombie-infested city of Malton.

5 months later...

Chaos continues to ensue in the city while the Government proposes a plan of attrition, continuing to reinforce the blockades to prevent entrance/escape and idly waiting until every last denizen and "ZED" either kill each other or starve to death. A strictly utilitarian plan at the cost of untold human suffering.

1 month later...

The field officers of the disbanded H.E.C.U. are distraught by the incompetence of the Government and "High Brass" to help the citizens of Malton. It was all too little, too late. The deja vu of the Black Mesa incident made all of them file proposals for immediate changes to military policy and the unit reestablishment and deployed. The Government, desperate from sunken poll ratings and unpopularity-- unanimiously albeit reluctantly, agrees with the new proposal.

15 days later...

The Hazardous Environment Combat Unit is deployed to Malton.

Philosophy

- Excerpts from the "New HECU" documents

Unlike its predecessors and peer groups, the Marine Expeditionary Unit [MEU] and Marine Force Recon [MFR], the Hazardous Environment Combat Unit [HECU] is a splicing of two distinct concepts of full-fledged ground assault to "direct action & reconnaissance." With the advent of new unconventional targets such as the "Zulu-Echo-Delta." The HECU Central Command have unanimiously decided that in order to complete candidacy all HECU Marines at the bare minimum, are to have advanced level medical training, along with advanced level firearms training and other various skills neccessary for an adaptable profile.

For assurance of the success of future missions, a new "rules of engagement" doctrine was implemented by the Joint Special Operations Command to the HECU Central Command.

~~1. In the case of a massive disaster that is imperative enough to threaten national security, all humans and indigenous lifeforms are to be spared from any form of harm.~~ The "massive disaster" has apparently already occurred

2. Since Malton is technically under military jurisdiction and martial law, if any person (non-ZED) is witnessed intentionally harming another; members of the HECU are to intervene with appropiate force.

3. The HECU will engage in military police protocol only if neccessary, and as long as it does not interfere with their uncompromising and innate objective: which is to protect all civilians, other military members and government employees by any means possible from infection and insurrection.

4. We follow a protocol similar to a EMT, immediate medical care is to be provided to all injured civilians, especially after a hostile close-encounter with a ZED.

5. Before enemy engagement, all firearms and melee weapons of any variety is to be readied and sharpened. Do not engage if short on ammunition and a proper melee weapon. They must be re-stocked frequently. Every second of preparation given can mean the difference between life and death.

6. The HECU is not a group of vigilante mobs or trenchcoaters. All objectives and tasks must be done in a respectful, impeccable, punctual, realistic humane and professional matter.

~~7. Maintain your secrecy for the sake of national security; the use of aliases during combat operations is mandatory.~~ Not a standard combat operation, aliases are counter-productive to the mission of saving Malton from complete ZED infestation.

8. Every Marine within the HECU are to know every primary and secondary objective of any given mission or else the mission will cease to commence.

- End of excerpt

Group Structure

From smallest to largest.

Squad

- 2 fireteams

- each fireteam is composed of 4 survivors and a sergeant. 1 medic per fire team.

- Each squad is commanded by a staff sergeant.

- 11 people overall/squad

Platoon

- 4 squads

- 1 squad is desinated a scout squad

- second lieutenant is CO of a platoon

- sergeant first class is 2nd in command of a platoon

- 46 people overall/platoon

Company

- 2 platoons

- Captain is Co

- First Sergeant is 2nd in command

- 92 people overall/company

We plan to Develop towards 4 companies, one for each corner of Malton. They will be built one at a time and then split up sections of Malton as new companies become aviable (I.E. 1st company will have all of malton, but once 2nd company is well under way then they will watch over half of malton)

1 Medical Company

- For those people who are more inclined to healing then fighting.

Command

- General is CO

- Lieutenant General is the 2nd in command

Policies

	Sacred Ground Policy Supporter
	This user or group supports the Sacred Ground Policy and acknowledges that all Cemeteries in the city of Malton are considered Revivification Points.

	Uniform Barricading Policy Supporter
	This User or Group supports the Uniform Barricading Policy by actively maintaining barricades according to local plan or UBP standard.