Memories fade as time passes, but as Real Americans we are compelled to pause every so often and reflect upon the many events – good and bad – which form milestones in our country’s collective history. The story of America is one of challenge and triumph, victory and tragedy, uncertainty and accomplishment.
Then there are the days you just look around and ask random passersby, “What the actual fuck?”
Today, we recall just such an occasion, as it was precisely five years ago on this day which will live in incredulity that the United States launched an unprecedented invasion upon its own soil. Driven by unseen influencers operating in the shadows of the New World Order, military forces descended upon the hapless state of Texas, U.S. by God A., with the intention of…well, the full truth may never really be known.
JADE HELM 15 – WHAT THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW
It was a dark day for freedom, fellow patriots. Those we had entrusted with the safety and security of our great nation were called into action against the very citizenry they were pledged to defend. Oh, sure, the “official cover story” was the military was conducting a joint service exercise of the sort they carry out with great frequency as one component of their ongoing training, but we the free thinkers knew better, didn’t we? Of course we did. There was no way – none – the mighty arm of the American military was going to pull the flannel over our eyes. Nope. Nuh uh. Take that shit back to your momma, troop.
From the opening moments of the invasion, brave journalists and other rightfully concerned citizens were on hand to record the events for posterity:
First reports begin filtering in from the front lines in Texas. #JadeHelm15 pic.twitter.com/sJlUJrlN9G
— Dayton Ward (@daytonward) July 15, 2015
It didn’t take long for black helicopters and other nefarious individuals to begin clamping down on the free press and other courageous patriots just trying to defend their homeland. Despite efforts to block communications to the outside world, some reports still made it beyond the perimeter:
On the ground in Texas. Shit’s getting real, now. #JadeHelm15 pic.twitter.com/Uyc1aCStAR
— Dayton Ward (@daytonward) July 15, 2015
Of course, the efforts by resistance fighters to repel the invasion were being officially classified as acts of civil disobedience and insurrection:
They won’t go quietly. #JadeHelm15 pic.twitter.com/L0VQhA5Qge
— Dayton Ward (@daytonward) July 15, 2015
Many residents stood ready to defend their homes to the death, while others were steadfast in their desire to avoid direct confrontation:
Some locals are trying to keep things civil. #JadeHelm15 pic.twitter.com/7E2QtMWFOt
— Dayton Ward (@daytonward) July 15, 2015
Despite these and other grassroots efforts to maintain peace, the situation began to spiral out of control:
Not looking good in Texas. Can anyone confirm this? #JadeHelm15 pic.twitter.com/7QedSTOeQ3
— Dayton Ward (@daytonward) July 15, 2015
Naturally, everyone has a breaking point before they start to push back.
Uh-oh. The home team has a ringer! #JadeHelm15 pic.twitter.com/zS21JQl9T4
— Dayton Ward (@daytonward) July 15, 2015
In the midst of all this chaos, those apathetic to the entire situation instead saw opportunities of their own:
Ultimately, any chance for an easy conquest the Deep State and their minions may have had began to unravel here on this first day, when valuable information was obtained by the burgeoning resistance movement:
Somebody found the battle plan. It’s on, now. #JadeHelm15 pic.twitter.com/e2Qtg7CrDO
— Dayton Ward (@daytonward) July 15, 2015
Faced with these and so many obstacles, military forces on the ground in Texas soon pulled back from the front lines, establishing base camps and other operating areas well away from the areas of initial contact. From these positions, they carried on with their cover story of conducting “a training exercise” which continued largely without incident until the invasion force finally signaled an end to the operation on September 15th. With the invasion seemingly thwarted, Texans were left to begin the arduous rebuilding process, all the while shaken and wary of future attempts to seize their homeland.
I’d like to tell anyone who was paying attention to this idiocy back in 2015 that July 15th ended up being one of my very favorite days on social media ever. To be fair, I was having fun with this insanity months beforehand, particularly on Facebook. For me it started in April when the first conspiracy theories began floating around various corners of the webosphere. In the beginning they were nothing more than that – bullshit rumors and deliberate pot stirring by the usual suspects who see everything as a plot by space lizards or some unidentified, nebulous global shadow government hellbent on subjugating us and forcing us to subsist on survival food packs and The Bachelorette reruns, or whatever.
This was fine – and amusing – as far as it went, but then Texas governor Greg Abbott upped the ante when he ordered National Guard units to “monitor federal military exercises in Texas after some citizens have lit up the Internet saying the maneuvers are actually the prelude to martial law.”
Yep, he really did that. For realz.
As I said at the time, the idea of elected officials giving any legitimacy to unfounded and just plain whackjob conspiracy theories just to score cheap political points with the more extremist elements of their base demographic is fucking insane, but there we were. Ted Cruz got into it. Louie Gohmert got into it, so you just know it was going to be fun after that. Hell, even Chuck Norris signed on. By the time we were a week out from the start of the Jade Helm exercise, people were full on losing their shit.
Then, it started and….well, social media had a ball. I was but one smartass throwing out stuff of the sort I posted above, ALL DAMN DAY. Some of my tweets even got picked up by websites reporting on the exercise, but done so in a manner that only added to the hilarity. For example, there was this piece from the Huffington Post, where the writer prefaces my Starship Troopers-inspired tweet up above with this:
“In the 2014 paper “Conspiracy Theories and the Paranoid Style(s) of American Politics,” researchers Eric Oliver and Thomas Wood argue that people often turn to conspiracies to cope with the difficult emotions uncertainty begets.”
HAH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
People on Twitter were sharing that same post of mine, secure in the knowledge that I must be deliberately trying to sow disinformation, or that I somehow believed a screencap from a movie depicting hordes of giant alien insects might actually be a picture from a real battle happening that very moment in Texas.
MISSION. ACCOMPLISHED.
After the furor of that first day, things tapered off rather quickly as the military did… exactly what it said it was going to do. It conducted its training exercise for two months, packed up its shit, and went home. Aside from a couple of idiots who just couldn’t pass an IQ test if the only requirement was to lick a piece of paper, the entire thing went off without a hitch or incident worth reporting.
Quaint things like this took a back seat to other concerns as 2015 turned into 2016 and the U.S. presidential election campaigns ramped up to speed. So, it took a couple of years before the truth about the uproar in the days and weeks leading up to the exercise started to come out. To the surprise of almost no one at that that point, it was reported in August 2018 that a good deal of the alarmist messaging was indeed a Russian disinformation campaign, because OF COURSE IT WAS.
Yep, they were able to deploy a wave of conspiracy theories to various news outlets and social media platforms to sow doubt and discord, riling up the locals and prompting the actions of those like Governor Abbott to “monitor” the military. The Texas National Guard reported that – hey! – the military was doing precisely what it reported it would be doing and showing just how fucking gullible way too many people could be in the face of something like this.
“Gee, Dayton,” I can hear someone saying. “What if they turned that sort of media disinformation campaign on something else? Say, influencing a U.S. presidential election?”
Nah. Never happen, right? That’s just silly.
And so the story of Jade Helm is now a part of our history. Yes, it’s easy to mock and point fingers at those who were so sucked in by all of this idiocy, but the larger takeaway here should be just how easy it can be to influence people through social media. This little chapter of collective insanity should serve as a warning and a reminder to folks to watch, hear, and read anything of this sort with an eye toward verifying and corroboration, particularly when a story emerges from the fringes on either end of the political, religious, or other ideological spectrum.
Information and knowledge is power, and way too many of us are all too happy to cede that power to “others.” We need to do our homework. We need to do our own thinking. We need to be smart, and we need to remain vigilant…not about bullshit conspiracies with no basis in fact or common sense, but against those who would use such distractions to push actual, harmful agendas.
Keep watching the skies, and all that.
The Fog of Ward. 