From Texas to New York

by Stephen Brandon

Chapter 2 The motor pool

  When I got back outside to the sarge he took one look at me and started laughing.

  When I asked why, he replied, “I haven't seen a mule since a few years after Vietnam. The first one I saw was loaded with ammo at NTC. I was told those little four wheeled platforms were used at forward post to move supplies to heavy to carry. In case these guys don't know, they can ride using the controls on the front or dismount them and crawl alongside and use the mule and cargo for cover from small arms fire. After we get up the road, we'll find out if these guys know how to use them and teach everyone else. By the way, one of the guys from the motor pool mentioned that your First Sergeant gave you some instructions before he died.”

  “Yup, he said move up east range road and find a range that we could defend and stay at until everything shakes out. There were forty three soldiers to begin with in the motor pool. Five of those were infiltrators and dealt with by the corporal's men. We also now have three more women. Two were personnel clerks and the other was a nurse. I think it best to divide everyone into three platoons and move out within the hour.”

  The first night I put my original personnel out on perimeter to guard and had all the motor pool soldiers gather in. I put the corporal in charge of one platoon and my SP5 mechanic in charge of the third. The third platoon consisted of all the mechanic's and women. Then I informed them all of the disciplinary action that I'd had to enforce on our way back from Belton. I also added the warning that until we had a secure location and somewhere to secure prisoners we would be taking no prisoners.

  The sarge then stood up and confirmed my statements and stated that he would pull the trigger on anyone that didn't obey. He also offered to let anyone that wanted to leave have a days rations and five magazines of ammo. They could leave in the morning and would not be allowed to return.

  The next morning no one wanted to leave. It took us two days to reach the bridge. The stream was low so I had the corporal divide his platoon in half. I told him to take one have east and cross then come back to the ridge overlooking the road and set up a fighting position. He picked another corporal and I told him to take the rest of the platoon west and do the same. We'd wait until they were in position and then we'd cross the bridge with the supplies and rest of the personnel. If they found anyone out there, disarm them first and then verify that they were soldiers. Also keep them under guard until we can verify that they are soldiers and read them the rules. Also if they were fired upon they should try one time to make contact with the persons firing on them. If they aren't friendly, kill them and confiscate their weapons and ammo along with any ID's, maps, or other paperwork they have on them. Our radio operators back here will be one of the clerks. If you run into any problems you can't handle with your squad, call back and we'll send reinforcements. OK corporal's, if you ain't got any questions, brief your squads and move out after you've fed your men.

  Six hours later we crossed the bridge divided up in groups of four. Most of the groups had a mule and they continued up the road until reaching the top of the ridge and moved off to the right side and set up a perimeter. That evening we made a cold camp. We had the high ground and good visibility. We also had four prisoners. Three were soldiers and one was a civilian.

  She was the only one armed and it was a small pistol with only three rounds left. She claimed that she was going to meet her husband to go camping when attacked on the highway. After turning down a side road she ended up crashing her car into a fence. She claimed she grabbed the camping gear they'd packed and ran for five days. She was terrified because she'd seen several people dead and she thought there was someone following her until she ran into the soldiers.

  The three soldiers stated that they were on their way back to main post when they were ambushed. They crashed after being shot at, escaped, and ran. They claimed that no one followed them and last night they'd heard someone crying. They found her in a dry creek bed hung up in some brush unable to get free.

  After asking her if they'd acted in any manner that was inappropriate she answered that they'd been polite except that they'd taken all the food she had left and eaten it.

  I laughed and then informed all four of them the situation that we'd found in Belton, our trip back to Ft. Hood, and gave them the option of following our rules or taking off on their own.

  They all said they wanted to stay. I put them under guard and told them I wanted their final decision in the morning.

  In the morning I pointed out the directions they could go to get to main post, off post toward Temple, and finally north toward Gatesville. None wanted to leave so I told the corporal to get them gear and arm them. I took the civilian woman back to sarge's platoon. The SP5 mechanic in charge assigned her to one of the clerks and assigned her duties.

  Two days later we found a range that we considered defensible with an intact tower off the road. We found three burned cars in the employee parking lot and when we found the bodies we buried them. I picked the mover bunker furthest from the road and had it set up as our headquarters. Our makeshift commo section managed to rewire some things so we had field phone contact between all the bunkers and the tower. Even with the backhoe we located it took over a week to set everything up to our satisfaction. We had the tower just inside our perimeter, and three trench systems with foxhole outpost.

  Then we started sending out patrols to scrounge equipment and supplies from the ranges further north. We only found one more soldier and he was wounded. When the first patrol got to north FH they found plenty of bodies and one intact mess hall. They hot-wired two pickups and brought back all the rations they could carry.

  The sarge wanted to organize an expedition to the north FH motor pool and attempt to get some fighting vehicles plus a few trucks.

  My only objection was that we'd need to take most of our personnel just to do a proper job and have a group for security. I then asked him where we could get ammunition for the fighting vehicles. Also what would we do if we found a lot of dependents and civilians?

  He commented if we had the vehicles, then we could make a raid on the ammunition dump on main post. Dependents and civilians we'd deal with if we find them alive.

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