Retribution (Soldier Up - Book Five 5) Read Online Free PDF Page B

realize the worst was yet to come.

Chapter Five
     
    Life in and around Oceana NAS was bad, not horrible, like it had been earlier. Now over a year later it had gone from horrible to bad, which was a step up.  They had electricity every other day for four hours at night, because there was a real fuel crunch.  The Navy had been slow to react when the event hit and didn’t secure the gas stations and was only now starting to look at gaining control over the gang infested refineries—not that there were many. Since they were slow to react many saw what was happening, recognized it for what it was and found a way to pump the fuel out of their underground storage.  Once out the fuel went onto the black-market and sold quickly over the first few months of the event. 
    People burned through what fuel they had most still not making the long-term connection and how it was going to affect them.  When all of the fuel on the black market ran out the civilians demanded the Navy turn over what they had.  The Navy wasn’t having any of it and had recently secured many of the gas stations that hadn’t been hit by the black-marketers.   There were several fuel riots around Oceana, which were brutally put down. In oncoming months, there would be more food and water riots.
      The military was largely unpopular for hoarding what fuel there was. The average civilian that had been in the camps from the start didn’t see any immediate threat to them or the Navy.  The Navy on the other hand was far more concerned with any long-term unforeseen threats as their job was to protect and defend the nation as a whole, not only Virginia Beach and its surrounding communities.  Again, the Navy became even more unpopular for hoarding food and water; people were slow to recognize what was going on regardless how many times the Navy did their best to explain what was happening.  It was difficult for people to grasp a situation when they saw their family members dying from lack of medicines, food and water.  Sometimes the simplest infections were the worst and people died from them. There was nothing they could do but watch.  They in turn blamed the Navy for not helping. Even though the Navy explained they didn’t have the means themselves to treat everything that was out there, people didn’t believe it.
    The Navy did their best to bring some sort of shelter to the camps; their first attempts were to set up GP small, medium and large tents and assign two individuals to a GP small, two small families to a GP medium and up to four families to a GP large tent.  It looked good on paper, but there was a lot of fighting on who was getting a tent and who wasn’t. The Navy decided the tents went to families with babies and toddlers first then worked their way up.  Of course the Navy was criticized for that. Then there was an absolute lack of security in the three camps that had literally popped up overnight around Oceana.  With the security problems there were also huge sanitary problems throughout the area. People could be truly disgusting when it came to their own personal hygiene and how they lived.  This was a very real issue with families living in close quarters in the tents.  Some families were plain dirty and stank. If they were living with another family that was organized and clean real problems arose.  There were fist fights and even killings over the sanitary conditions in the camps.  Finally the Navy tired of all of the complaints and ordered all dwellings within the camp to be inspected by Navy personnel.  Each living area had to meet specific criteria set forth by the Navy for personal and living quarter cleanliness.  If anyone was found to be in violation there were given two written chances to clean up.  If they failed, then they were moved out and asked to leave the camp.
    Some people welcomed the Navy stepping in and others resented it and fought it tooth and nail.  Within the first month a dozen individuals and seven