January 19, 2099 -- General Update ***Unclassified***
Before I discuss anything else a word of thanks is in order to the dedicated volunteers of the Rain Platoon. The Rain Platoon was on guard two nights ago when the base was attacked by a five ton flightless bird. None of you can be blamed for thinking that it was a Tyranosaurus Rex, but those were found mostly in Montana and went extinct 65 million years ago. It seems that it was actually a Alioramus. Normally Alioramus is an Asian dinosaur, also normally they are also extinct. In any event the Rain Platoon reacted with a level of skill and professionalism that belies the fact that they were at best recreational hunters 2 weeks ago and brought it down with neither casualty nor damage, harrying it and distracting it while the on-duty Guardsmen from Platoon A-2 and Bull Dog from D Troop could take it down. Bok's tower has reported many dinosaur contacts but this is our first.
Our first truly long distance contact came in the form of Dove 18 flight. The Dove 18 flight was a single Lightning III from Monthan AFB. Initially intending to reach to Eglin AFB it was looking for any base with field facilities suitable to military jets. From Dove 18 we learned:
- Long distance rotary-wing aircraft or even fixed wing aircraft at low speeds is total unsafe. Monthan lost multiple crews to either creatures or atmospheric conditions.
- High speed, high altitude flights are possible, but navigation is not. The Dove flights are being planned as one-way trips and Monthan is recommending that messages be relayed on a best efforts basis.
We will continue our base policy of gathering and transmitting messages of a personal nature as military necessity allows. As a reminder.
- Simple messages of survival or demise are not necessary, we are collecting those and sending them separately.
- We will only accept messages to people who you are relatively sure of the last location of.
- Messages must be actionable, no "I'm sorry and I love you" messages. There simply isn't room.
- For normal broadcasts priority will be based on #2 and #3. For Dove flights we'll consider #3 and then select randomly.
In a more local contact, we have also been in regular contact with Raven Rock Army research center. It is likely that Raven Rock will be helping to supplement our combat strength especially in infantry and commando roles.
Suzanne Wood
Lt. Colonel
Cm Battalion 45
Commanding