Posted on 03/02/2003 8:33:51 AM PST by Jeff Head
June 23, 2008, that same time
Urkut Residence
Nome, Alaska
Unknown to Lt. General Stokes and the other 11th Air Force officers struggling to rebuild communications in Anchorage, a very complete and compelling report of what was happening in western Alaska had already been viewed by hundreds of thousands of Americans in the lower forty eight states, and it had been viewed in real time. It would ultimately be viewed by millions and it would have the very effective that Stokes was hoping to create on the political and military leadership of the United States, and upon the people.
Stacey Urkut was a fifty-seven year old widow living outside of Nome on social security and on the savings she and her late husband had been able to stash away from twenty-five years of married life and his career in fishing. It wasn't much, but it allowed her to live comfortably here in her native homeland in a cabin located high on a mountainside on the Seward peninsula near Nome.
At a little after midnight, Stacey had been jolted awake by a terrible rattling of her entire house. At first she had thought that there had been an earthquake and she had immediately gotten out of bed and frantically thrown on some clothing to escape outside. While she was in the process of doing that, there was a tremendous explosion outside in the distance, followed in quick succession by three more.
"What on earth?" she had asked herself as she went to the window and pulled up the shades and looked outside. What greeted her eyes was a cloudy, very early morning in the land of the midnight sun. The cloud ceiling was fairly low, but looking towards the coast she could see a tremendous fire and pillar of black smoke rising into those clouds from the petroleum storage facilities on the outskirts of Nome. As she watched, she saw a brief streak of light in the clouds and a trail of smoke plummeting out of the clouds at blinding speed. The smoke trail pointed like an arrow into the center of town in the vicinity of town hall. It hit with a bright flash and she first saw … and then heard and felt the resulting explosion as its concussion was transferred to her through the air, and through the ground.
While she continued watching in horror, other streaks flashed in the clouds and trails of smoke rained down on and around Nome, each resulting in a similar bright flash and explosion. Soon the sound was like continuous claps of thunder, building to a rolling wave of rumblings, punctuated by the tremendous crashes and rattling of hits closer to her home. Stacey wasted no more time. She had a feeling she knew exactly what was happening. She went and got her digital camera and began to take pictures through her window of what she was witnessing. While she did so, she turned her personal computer on and waited for it to boot up. When it did, she quickly went through the practiced motions of dialing up to the internet and then logging on to her favorite site on the web, the Independent Republic.
On Independent Republic, which was a conservative news and discussion forum site, Stacey was known as Orka107. She had been a member of the web site for over seven years and had followed every major news story that had been reported on it. The discussions, or "threads" as they were known, allowed users of the forum to look at, analyze and discuss breaking news and the events of the day from every conceivable angle, posting their thoughts and comments individually to each thread. With over 200,000 registered users on the Independent Republic by 2008, all of whom were eager to read and analyze the breaking news of the day, the site had developed into a literal information treasure drove where users kept a window to Independent Republic active on their computer at their homes, in their offices and on their laptops virtually all day long.
As a result of so many registered users and the even greater numbers of unregistered users (called "lurkers" on Independent Republic) all being online at any one time, a good number of the breaking news stories on the forum were in essence eyewitness, live accounts of events as they occurred. Many of these eyewitness reports were often posted before the major news services were even aware of their existence.
Stacey remembered several threads that she had personally been involved with where Independent Republic users had been on hand when very notable events had occurred, reporting on them as they happened. She remembered how caught up she and tens of thousands of others had been when reading about the Klamath Basin Water Crisis throughout the summer of 2001, or the horrific eyewitness accounts of the horrible attacks on the morning of September, 11th of 2001, or the many eyewitness accounts of the attacks on America in March of 2006 and the terror attacks within America that had occurred since. All of these, and many more, had been reported as they happened by users of Independent Republic. Stacey had never imagined that she would one day be making such a report herself, but today was the day and she was being thrust into that role by events beyond her control and she knew from those other experiences exactly what she needed to do.
JT Sampson, the respected conservative editor and owner of the online SierraLines news service, also knew what he had to do as he read the initial accounts being posted by the user named Orka107. He had good relations with many of the users of Independent Republic, and had used their eyewitness reports on many occasions to develop his own breaking news. The courtesy extended both ways as many of JT's subscribers, who were also registered users of Independent Republic, or "IR" as it was known by its users, would post JT's editorials and breaking stories back on Independent Republic for analysis and discussion. Upon reading Orka107's first thread, he called for all of his workers to hold the presses (so to speak) and began reformatting the main page to his SierraLines site.
As that happened, Stacey Urkut continued to do exactly what she had seen done in the past. She continued making the eyewitness accounts that JT and so many others were already reading. They were vivid and emotional on-scene reports, complete with color pictures that she was uploading from her digital camera, of what she saw … and those reports continued to flow from her keyboard as the early morning hours progressed.
Her reports would ultimately do more to arouse the American populace against the Chinese invasion than any other effort the American government of press would make. For over three hours, as the land line she was using miraculously held, her threads were picked up in the Breaking News section of the Independent Republic and viewed by thousands. Those thousands became first tens of thousands and then hundreds of thousands as the vivid JPEG images and riveting written accounts that accompanied them were emailed to the entire address books of everyone who was seeing them. Ultimately the number of viewers climbed into the millions and would be recorded as the single most watched event in the history of American internet media, so quickly did word of it travel by email and by phone that summer morning.
Stacey recorded the massive missile barrage directed at Nome and its infrastructure, the hundreds of missile impacts and the resulting damage and fierce fires. From her vantage point well up on one of the mountain overlooking Nome, she also recorded the follow-on, high performance attack aircraft as they swooped in unopposed at low altitude to bomb and strafe Nome's small airport, the police station and many other facilities. The obvious carnage and destruction was appalling, but it was also engrossing and compelling and few of those watching could turn it off.
Users of Independent Republic discussed the lack of air cover over the Bering Strait and how this could have occurred. Immediately, many theories sprung up in the ad-hoc think tank that the Independent Republic had become over the years. These theories were always wide ranging … and in this case they ranged from a world-wide plot involving the American government to allow the United States to be over-run, to reports of perceived ineptitude of the current administration supposedly witnessed by the continuing string of military set backs, to the actual truth that a normally sufficient combat air patrol had been overcome by the overwhelming numbers of the massive Chinese surprise attack which had been masked by the lack of satellite coverage and the weather.
Whatever the reasons, more and more Americans were turning off the initial reports of the attack that were appearing on network TV and the radio, and turning on their computers as the emails and phone calls raced around the nation. There, on their computer screens, they watched in real time the horrific, world-shattering events unfold on the internet as Orka107 reported it on the Independent Republic web site the fateful morning of June 23rd … America was being invaded, everything had changed again!
The owner of Independent Republic, Rob Jamison, himself having seen the initial reports on his forum … and himself a veteran … recognized immediately the significance of the reports and spent the morning valiantly working to ensure that the site could keep up with the tremendous growth in volume without crashing. Ultimately only one set of threads was allowed to run on Independent Republic that morning. All other stories, all other threads, all other services were put on hold and all traffic and resources were routed entirely to the several threads that Orka107 posted. It allowed the site to weather the bandwidth storm and it ultimately allowed literally millions of Americans to watch the destruction and then the invasion of Nome, Alaska by the Chinese as it happened.
JT Sampson, having completely revamped his main page within the first fifteen minutes, mirrored all of the reports onto his news service site as the exclusive front page story, crediting Orka107 and the Independent Republic. Hundreds of thousands of more viewers saw the story there and they too passed it on to their friends and relatives who in turn passed it on to their friends and relatives in a cyber chain that spanned the continent … and ultimately the free world.
Finally, towards 3 AM in Nome, the final comments from Orka107 were posted that morning. The last pictures she uploaded showed hundreds and hundreds of parachutes dropping out of the clouds into and around Nome … some of them landing uncomfortably close to Stacey's cabin. Seeing this, many individuals posting on IR frantically told her to hurry and make her escape.
Those last images also showed dozens and dozens of transport helicopters hovering over and landing in the town and many attack helicopters, some of them strafing groups of individuals who were firing rifles at them, others launching massive multiple rocket attacks on unseen targets. As these last images of actual fighting between American citizens and Chinese invaders appeared in the final thread that she posted that morning, Orka107's last comments accompanied them.
"Well my fellow cybIR friends, this will be my last thread and last post. There's no time for more and as you can see, I have to be going.
"It's really happened. As you can see from all of my pictures and comments this morning, and against all odds, the United States of America has been invaded. Tears are streaming down my cheeks as I write this. There are no words to adequately describe how this feels.
"Just for the record, let me say this so my friends here on IR can all know who I really am. At times likes these, psuedo-names aren’t important anymore. My real name is Stacey Urkut. I am a native American woman who is 57 years old. The area around Nome has been home to me and my family for my entire life and for generations before me.
"I may be older … I may be a woman … but I was taught by my father a long time ago about freedom and about faith … the same freedom so many have taken for granted for so long … the same faith that so many have lost. Perhaps I took those teachings for granted myself … I don't really know and there's no sense fretting over it now.
"You see, the time for talking is past. The time for senseless squabbling and worrying over meaningless issues like which mindless sitcom is the best or whose fashion reflects the best "look" of the current day … all of that is past. For us here in Alaska, all that is left is to fight … for our lives, for our homes and for our liberty.
"You know, there was something else I was taught by my father and uncles … and that was how to shoot. Several of you have known me here on IR for years. You have heard my talk in the past on the 2nd amendment threads of the old Winchester 44-70 that my father left me and my dear husband, Tony, some time ago when my father died. Well, Tony is gone now too and I guess it's time to get that old 44-70 down from its place over the fireplace … get the shells Tony stored in the closet and step outside and try to make my way over to my nephew's trapping cabin. Please pray for me and don’t hold it against me if along the way I use my Winchester to engage in very brief, very animated and very direct conversations with some of these Chinese visitors who have so recently come to our country here.
"Farewell my friends, remember us all in your thoughts and prayers!"
... and then there is this one that is one of my favorities ...
Do it!
... and its corollary
Do it Now!
Best Fregards.
Best Fregards.
What did you think of the banner?
Also, if you have a mind, please consider a short review on Amazon for Volume II HERE
Volume III is complete and in final proof/edit. Should be avaialble as an eBook (Adobe Reader) by the end of the month on Amazon, and in print early in April.
Just a real quick note but I don't think this is a real calibre. 45-70 Government is the closest thing that comes to mind and I'd hate to see you make an elementary error in what is otherwise fantastic writing.
In the transcript, I changed it to a Winchester 44-40, Model 1892 about ten days ago.
Here's the thread I spoke of.
Bumping for reference.
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