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| From the Log Books of Joseph Utsler
| | '''Joseph Utsler[Reclaimers][♣](2096656)''' |
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| I had spent the last twelve years prior to the outbreak working for the Burden Road Fire Dept in Osmondville.
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| In that time I had moved steadily up the ranks to the post of Battalion Chief, overseeing the training of CTs.
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| Command Technicians are trained in communications and organizational skills. This is a person who must
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| be able to take in information and organize it, as well as, present it to command in a way that makes sense.
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| Think of the old war movies. Is the officer making the decisions, the actual person who is carrying, and talking
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| on, the radio? Is the commander the one getting information about units and drawing on a board? No.
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| The radio operator, even in a small unit like a platoon, relays information to, or from, the officer.
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| The fire service works much the same way, but now I'm letting slip a hint of my personal obsession with
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| WWII era communications technology.
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| At age 18, frustrated with being stuck in a small town squandering (as i saw it) my potential, I began an
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| attempt to build an exact replica of the German Enigma encryption machine.
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| While this endeavor was doomed to eventual failure, the project incited in me a love of the the complex
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| simplicity of shortwave and long range communication.
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| I had a family in the F.D. I had friends and students, we were Volunteer Heroes, and we rejoiced in the
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| damp, sooty aftermath as a band of brothers after victorious battle.
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| And then the board lit up... Initially it was traffic accidents, a rash of them spreading from the SW corner
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| of the Axtence Bldg, to the north. Then structure fire alerts at both factories and warehouses to the south.
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| System glitch was the general consensus as we pulled out of the station, but before we made scene at
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| the first alarm we were traffic jammed by a mob of people abandoning their cars and fleeing to the East.
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| By that time the channels were flooded with backup requests and reassignment BCs, police requested
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| on scene at Axtence Bldg for apparent "Riot" control.
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| We were the type of men who were used to running into the danger that others fled, so we grabbed what
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| gear we could carry, axes, prybars and oxygen tanks and proceeded West on foot.
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| The next few hours are a horrific blur, one that there is no need to describe to you, if your alive to read
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| this then you have survived the same nightmare.
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| I lost many friends that day and in the ones to follow, learning the rules of this new war we wage is a
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| difficult burden to carry.
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| Suffice to say, that even though the F.D. Turn-Out Gear is made of Nomex and Kevlar I found nightfall
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| in an abandoned cinema with an extremely injured last surviving team member, near dawn he turned,
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| and I gave him the only peace left to those with that awful taint.
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| Staggered by the scene at sunrise I immediately began the trek first back to the station for our radio
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| transmitter and then to my home, which was in shambles.
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| I scavenged some radio repair parts and log books and turned my back on a home that I now regretted
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| ever resenting.
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| Many days I scouted ruined buildings, hastily barricading and sleeping facing the cades with my axe at
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| hand, many nights they came, bastards must have smelled me, so I scrambled out fire escapes and across
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| the eves of derelict businesses.
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| Then I met Sheldon Cooper PhD, self proclaimed, I've seen the books he carries, Human anatomy 101,
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| General Practitioners Handbook and a Pharmaceutical Reference Dictionary. I don't raz him though because
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| its obvious to me he has all but memorized them in the weeks since Z-Day.
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| Finally together we scavenge enough fuel to power a battered generator and hook up our Transmitter,
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| oh those days of static drive us to the brink, my obsessively repetitive broadcasts of
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| "Maintaining Radio Resistance" and "You Are Not Alone" about drove our poor doctor to the brink, but then,
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| "The static hisses to a clear silence".
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| Glorious clarity! Scrambled transmissions, but I make out "Brockliss Grove", and "Reclaimers".
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| Knowing that Sheldon had not yet regained enough strength for a rooftop clamber that far, I left him
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| well caded and stocked with Faks to guard the radio transmitter and recover from his wounds.
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| Upon arrival, I met a couple of rough looking but quite alive survivors by the names Norbert Nighthawk
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| and Snorfish actively working to restore a simulacrum of normality, Brockliss pd and Remigius hosp were
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| back online.
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| I immediately alerted Sheldon of the situation by radio, he then made his way to Remigius and instituted
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| himself as Chief of Surgery. (by far the most qualified medical personnel left in this hell hole) and we were
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| soon joined by an elite group of folks just like ourselves.
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| We cower no more.
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| We no longer fear the sounds in the night.
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| Now we strike back at the tide of nightmare that dares to wear the faces of our fallen friends and family.
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| We are the Reclaimers, and you are not alone!
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| Maintaining Radio Resistance -Utsler @ Overwatch
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