Grid Down Perceptions of Reality

by Bruce Buckshot Hemming

  “There was an Indian artillery support unit a few miles away and the Major used their assets to direct firepower on the Pakistani position.”

  By now, the girls had come in and from the kitchen and sat down to listen to the story. Michael was spell bound and waited for every word.

  Joe continued the story. “At first light, infantry was ordered to attack. At the same time the tanks had positioned themselves on two sides of the outpost. Because of poor planning on the Commanders part, the tanks were ordered off the road. This was desert sand and a lot of the heavy tanks become bogged down and stuck in the sand.”

  Joe paused and took a drink of his coffee. Michael said, “Go on, tell us the rest.”

  He said, “Well, at first light the four jet fighters arrived. They were loaded with missiles and 30 mm cannons. They attacked freely because the Pakistani had no air cover. The aircraft rolled in and quickly started taking out tanks and troops. Twelve of the tanks had been taken out by the post defenders, and 22 tanks were taken out by the Air Force, plus many abandoned their armored vehicles. Nobody knows for sure how many men they lost, but 200 men is the best estimate.”

  “The Indian defenders were greatly outnumbered and sure to have been slaughtered to the last man, if you just look at the numbers, and with all of the tanks they were facing, incredibly they only lost two men.”

  Michael’s eyes were big as saucers. “Really? Only two men. Did they make that Major a General and put him in charge of all Indian troops?”

  “Not that I know of,” Joe continued, “but they did award the major the second-highest metal his country had to offer. For losing the battle, the Pakistani officer was dismissed from service. Nobody knows what happened to him afterwards.”

  “Think about that Michael.” Preston said, “Now that is an officer and a gentleman. So is it true that a 16 man force could turn around an army of 1000? I don’t know for sure, but I do know that throughout military history, incredible men have faced and defeated an enemy when all common sense said they didn’t stand a chance.”

  Joe continued, “And don’t forget the Alamo. Right here in America 189 men held off Santa Anna’s army of 1600 for, how many days? Thirteen days. Like the 300 Spartans, all 189 men perished, but they took out 600 of the enemy. Military history should never be ignored.”

  Michael hesitated and then said, “What about the people that come through and say it’s impossible for so few men to do that? They think they must have had more troops sniping them, and that’s why they killed so many.”

  Preston said, “We will never know for sure, unless we meet the men that were there, and remember he didn’t defeat them, he just stopped the forward advancement, and they retreated.”

  “And don’t forget tombstone. Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and three other deputies took on over 100 cowboys, not all at once, but over the course of their lifetime. Numbers are just that, numbers. It’s the general in charge and the spirit of the warriors that decides the outcome of the battle.”

  Joe said, “This is what we used to tell our units in the Army. We are the warrior class, a special breed that few can follow. We stand in front of the gates of hell, sworn to uphold our sacred honor that freedom is never free. It must be paid in blood, sweat, and tears. We ask for nothing but the chance to fight, to prove that yet still today we are the warriors willing to shed blood of our enemy. May they shake in fear before us.”

  A few days later, Scott and Fred returned and called together the men that they planned to put in charge of each ten man fighting unit. Scott, Joe, and Preston, would be in one unit. There were going to be the forward recon and harassment team.

  Fred did the briefing, pulled out a map, and shared what intelligence they had on the Green Bay Rainbow Warriors. He said, “They are trying to establish a supply route across the top of the state and hook up with the Minnesota Rainbow Warriors. Our job is to stop this from happening. The easiest way would be to blow out the bridges. The only problem with that is once we win, we won’t have that route opened for trade.”

  He continued, “They are trying the northern route, using Highway 8, which runs straight across the state and hooks up with Interstate 35, just above Minneapolis. Minneapolis is reported to be one of their strongholds.” Looking at Preston and Joe he said, “They can tell us what they have in the way of weapons and forces. Our job is to first gather intel and then break the supply route, even if we have to we take out one main bridge. Our area of operation is from the intersection of Highway 51 and Highway 8 to Highway 13, 30 miles to the west. We must find every back road, ATV dirt trail, snowmobile trail, and anything else going through the area.”

  Joe said, “All we can tell you about the Minnesota Rainbow Warriors is that they have a very skilled 105 mm cannon team. They are definitely battle proven. We should keep them out of the state at all cost.”

  Fred said, “We agree, but right now our priority is to stop them from establishing the supply route, and keep their forces divided. There are some bridges crossing the lakes down there, which we could easily take out. It would stop any forward advancement.”

  Preston asked, “You’re not telling us something. Why all of the sudden urgency? The way I understand it, this Green Bay Army was turned back the last time they tried to come through here. What do you know that’s causing us to go into action now?”

  “The Rainbow Warriors had a Lieutenant defect, and he filled us in on the plans. Green Bay has tons of extra food, I should say hundreds of tons, and they want to clear out all of the people within 10 miles on either side of Highway 8. This will be a no man’s zone. Then they can supply Minnesota with food, getting their cooperation and reinforcements before winter. Our job is to make sure neither gets any support from the other.”

  Joe interrupted, “Do we know what are they’re sending to clear out this area?”

  Fred said, “From what we’ve heard, it could be an army of 500, but they’re only taking one of the 105’s.”

  “What are the others of the Northern Alliance doing?” Preston asked.

  Fred responded, “We met the man that stopped them before. His name is Clint Bolan. He’s training an army and we’re sending him 80 men. Not counting recon teams, we have a little over 300 men, and if we can trap them out in the open, we should be able to win.”

  Joe inquired, “Do we know what their numbers are exactly?”

  Fred continued, “Our estimate of troop strength is 900. In Minnesota, there’s 2500 or more.”

  Preston asked, “When do we plan on moving out? How much time do we have?”

  “They’re moving in four days.” Scott said. “It’s going to take us a day to get down there, and we estimate they’ll be in our AO three days later. It doesn’t give us much time so we’re leaving first thing in the morning. We have homemade MRE’S, nothing fancy but it will get us through. Have your pack gear, rifles, ammo and everything you need to survive for seven days. We are bringing one wagon with us, and that will be left in the rear to resupply. Two men will stay with it to guard the supplies. That leaves eight of us on the front.” He looked at two guys, “Sam and Chris, make sure you bring your crossbows. Bring 500 rounds of ammunition and we’ll carry 180 rounds on us, and leave the rest in the supply wagon.”

  That night the tension was thick in the cabin. Amy pulled Preston into their bedroom, and started in on him. “We just got married and you volunteer to run off and get your dumb ass killed. You’re not going and that’s final, or I’m going with you.”

  Preston looked her square in the eye and said, “If you want to raise a family and have our own children, then we have to have an area that is safe, and the only way that can happen is to stop this here and now. You have already been assigned security detail for the field hospital. You may not like it, hell I don’t like it, but I’m going. We will only survive as a community if we fight together to keep it free.”

  She walked up to him and put her arms around his neck, “We just got married. We should still be on our ho
neymoon. It’s not fair. Somebody else can go. You don’t have to be on the recon team.”

  “You know I’m going. I have the experience and do you really want to send some kid that used to work at a sawmill and has no military experience, so he can die while I stay home and survive?”

  She hugged him close to her and said, “I know what you’re saying, and yes I agree, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it and if you get yourself killed Mr., I’ll hunt you down and kill you again.”

  Preston laughed, “I’ll make sure I don’t die. I would hate to be killed twice.” He scooped her up and took her to bed.

  Jane and Joe had been through this before, in the many years of his combat career and she didn’t like it, but she knew better than to interfere with Joe’s decision. The best thing they could do was spend the night together like it might be there last time ever.

  At daybreak, they took off. Michael of course wanted to go, but his job was to stay and guard the camp, plus get in the firewood.

  That first night, they made camp off the road about 10 miles north of the highway. Two men were assigned to guard the wagon. In the morning they’d send two scouts out to find the location of the army. In the meantime, the rest of them were to scout the entire area.

  The next morning they spent the day going down the highway, following all the roads and trails off of it. They needed to have escape routes figured out. Two other men went forward looking for a bridge they could take out, or something small that wouldn’t take too much gunpowder to destroy. Taking a bridge out isn’t as easy as it sounds. They are built on solid steel I-beams with reinforced concrete on top. The trick was to find a weak spot to break, and use the weight of the concrete to cause the bridge to fail.

  That night they returned to camp and the six of them compared notes. A map showing the different routes they could take, and places to set up ambush spots, was crudely drawn.

  About 20 miles down the highway, they found the bridge they were looking for. It was about 50 feet long and crossed a lake. There was no easy route for the enemy to bypass the bridge and go around, especially with the 105 and heavy supply wagons.

  Now they had to figure out how to collapse the bridge. They had 16-pounds of gunpowder, but they couldn’t just put it on the steel I-beams, because an explosion will take the path of least resistance, so it would just go outward and maybe crack the I-beam, but not taking it out. If they could bolt on some type a steel box, with the explosives in it, it just might work. The weakest spot was right in the middle of the bridge. It had 8 telephone pole size supports and if they had to, they could soak them in oil, and set them on fire. The problem was that it would take a long time to weaken them and would put up one heck of a lot of black smoke.

  It was decide that tomorrow they would continue scouting. The scouts should be back sometime in the afternoon and then they could find out how much time before the army would be there.

  The next day the scouts left before sunrise. They returned late at night and said that at the rate the army was going, they had at least four days before they would get there. They also ran into the other recon team and they would be joining them tomorrow. The scouts told them where to meet.

  Preston and Joe talked it over with Scott and decided that they would burn the bridge support pillars tomorrow, just to be safe. And if the bridge didn’t fall, they will have to look for something heavy to put in the middle and see if they could make it fail.

  Scott said, “Sounds good to me. I’ll meet the other team and you burn all of the support pillars.”

  The next day, they took two other men and spent the day collecting oil out of vehicles along the highway. They filled buckets they had found in neighboring houses. They then climbed out along the beams, and using rags they painted them with oil. Once all of the support pillars were painted, they mixed up some oil and gas and painted about 4 feet from the top of each beam. They then used one of the crossbows and shot flaming arrows into the support pillars.

  It didn’t work as well as they had hoped. The pillars burned and smoldered but it didn’t burn all of the way through. In fact, it only burned about 2 inches into the wood, of a 12-inch beam.

  They laughed, “It’s pretty bad when you’re a failure as an arsonist.” Preston said.

  Chris laughed, “I’ll get some gloves and we can collect and reuse all eight of the aluminum bolts. Look at the bright side, we’re not wasting crossbow bolts. The target tips should be fairly easy to pry out and the fire should’ve cleared most of the wood that the bolts stuck into.”

  Joe said, “Then while you guys are doing that, I’m going to find us a wood bit and brace. Hopefully, with a half-inch wood bit, or three-quarter inch, we can drill holes down at angles, all the way around the pillars from about 4 feet below the top, to 4 feet up from the water line. Four holes evenly spaced all the way around will help weaken the supports.”

  Ken said, “I think we should chip away what is already burned with our axes, that way we’re not wasting time trying to re-burn the same area.”

  The others agreed and they spent the rest of the day getting it done, returning to camp around 6 O’clock.

  They reported on the day’s activity, and Scott introduced them to John, the guy in charge of the other recon unit.

  John was a former recon Marine and was a no-nonsense kind of guy. He told them, “So gentlemen, this is what I want to do, once the bridge is out, we harass them all the way back to Green Bay, which means hit-and-run.”

  He asked Scott, “You still got the gunpowder and cannon fuses? We can use those in different homemade weapons.”

  Scott nodded and John continued, “I say we rob them of their sleep, and since we’ve got two teams, we will piggyback off each other, with one team hitting them each night and then sleeping during the day. The other team can jump past the next ambush, ready to harass them, and if we can keep it up, we can chase them right back home.”

  “I got a better idea,” Joe said, “Let’s get their 105. Why don’t we do a joint operation and capture the 105. Fire off a round and destroy as much in their camp as we can. Hook up horses to it and race off into the dark.”

  John looked at Joe and said, “I like how you’re thinking, but how will our horses hook up to it?”

  Joe didn’t even hesitate, saying, “Well, it’s my understanding that it’s already rigged to be pulled by horses. It may take quite a feat to do it, but I know we have some highly trained and skilled people among us. I’m sure we can adapt our harnesses so the cannon can be easily pulled.”

  He continued, “Let’s hit them as soon as they stop at the downed bridge. They will be confused and unorganized. We rush in and steal their gun. Take it to the high ground, and then pound the hell out of them.”

  John looked up at Scott. “What you know about engineering and bridge construction? What I’m thinking is to find a way we can use it as a trap? Nothing I would like better than give 100 of these assholes a nice cold bath.”

  Preston interrupted, “There’s one problem with that. If we can’t take it completely out, and the damn thing holds, then all this time has been wasted and they could get away.”

  John smiled at Preston and said, “One of the guys that used to work for me, had worked a former job blowing up rocks to clear the mountain passes in Montana. He told me how they would blow huge rocks and the mountainsides, closing the highways off. They had to clear large areas on the sides to prevent rockslides. They would mix ammonium nitrate fertilizer with diesel fuel. By itself it’s pretty useless, and you can even light it on fire and it won’t do anything, what you need is an explosion to set it off and for that, they used regular dynamite.”

  He continued, “The old-timers taught them how to use just black powder, of course it was much more dangerous, but they would actually pack the drilled holes with black powder. They’d use a brass non-sparking rod to tamp the powder tightly, and then plug the hole with a tapered piece of wood. The plug had a hole drilled through it to allow them to pu
sh a fuse through. Then they would light the fuse and run like hell.”

  Scott said, “Well that’s great, if we were in Montana and had mountains around the bridge. How is that going to help us here?”

  John gave a low chuckle and said, “Simple. You say the bridge is made of concrete, right.” They nodded their heads. “We just drill holes in it in an angle. I’m thinking a 1/2-inch hole on the bottom side, widening the top to 4-5 inches, even if we have to use a chipping hammer, but if we can find a concrete bit, that would work really well. We drill through at an angle, and make wooden plugs with a hole drilled through the center, then one person could light the fuses from underneath and escape. The top side we pack full of diesel soaked ammonium nitrate fertilizer and seal it in with quick dry cement loaded with gravel”

  “We would have to do the same on the pillars and then plan escape routes for the men lighting the fuses. You said you already have the holes drilled in the pillars, right. All we have to do is pack them full of gunpowder, diesel soaked ammonium nitrate fertilizer, and make plugs for them. We will have to work out the fuse timing, so they explode when we want them to.”

  The men listened to John’s idea and were thinking, when he said, “The guys under the bridge would blow their charges, causing the concrete to turn into pieces of small rocks like a grenade, at the same time the pillars blow, sending all of the troops trapped on the bridge into the water.”

  “I know we don’t have a lot of time, but I think we can do it. Who do we have that could figure out the fuse timing and how to connect the holes together?”

  Joe said, “The only problem I see is that the pilings are only in the middle of the bridge. If we have explosives on the pilings, the only part that will blowup is the middle. I have no idea exactly how that would affect the rest of the bridge. It may take out the center, but that may allow the troops to retreat and escape.