2024

by H. Berkeley Rourke

  Then one fine snowy day we saw a group of men, ten of them, dressed in white cloaks, wearing snow shoes, slogging through the forest toward dad's place. They were all armed with the newest of M-16 rifles. Our television viewing devices and infrared viewing devices that were set out quite a way from our house enabled us to see that they were traveling in good military order with a point man who was a quarter mile or so ahead of the main group. We could also see that each of them was equipped with sound powered microphones attached to epaulets on their shoulders and that each of them carried packs on their belts that indicated small radio devices for intercom between them.

  They were not carrying heavy packs. This was a strong indication that they were a reconnaissance force, not an attack force. But they were also of a size that if they engaged successfully they could call in reinforcements very quickly. Since we had not heard anything from any of our compadres in Frenchtown we had to assume that either Frenchtown had been occupied or that this group dropped into the forest from a helicopter or maybe even by parachute into an open area with maps telling them the direction they should proceed. Dad and I began to prepare to try and whittle them down silently. That would mean taking out the point man quickly and with complete surprise and silence so that he would not radio back to his buddies. It would also mean concealment of the body for a time. It was very evident these people were not here to do us any good deeds so we acted accordingly.

  The point man stayed separated far enough that we were able to appear behind him from a spider hole and shoot him in the back of the head with no sound at all. We dragged the body into the spider hole, cleaned up the snowy area several yards back away from the hole and I stepped off several paces away from it in a different direction with the snow shoes. But we had no illusions. Our attempts at concealment were rudimentary at best. In that area we had some claymores that were well concealed. We thought we might have to use them. We set a mined booby trap that would collapse the tunnel behind us and left that one behind with the point man. Soon we heard a large explosion and some dust filtered down the tunnel to us.

  We looked with our computerized system at the cameras and saw some confusion amongst the remaining four who were standing. We set off two claymores and eliminated them. After we had made sure they were all deceased we stacked them up on a sled and dragged them into a defile that was filled with snow which when they were dumped would cover their bodies.

  It was a stop gap measure at best but enabled us to clean up our killing zone and reset our defenses with no appearance left that anything untoward had happened. But it was close. By the time we got done a Blackhawk swooped over the area looking for us and those ten men. We had policed up their weapons as usual. They each were carrying fifteen clips of ammunition. That is four hundred fifty rounds each. It was another indicator of the fact that they meant us nothing but harm. They had no food on them, nor camping gear of any kind so we knew they came to kill us and then leave.

  The clean up of the spider hole, digging out, taking out the body and reopening the tunnel was a chore but had to be done to maintain the integrity of our defensive system. The system had become three deep by that time. The tunnels were disposable after being used for a killing ground but would need to be reopened each time that occurred. It was easy to camouflage them in winter but not so easy when the snow melted. We worked for the tunnel end and the outer end knowing or having no expectations that we would be attacked again that day. No one gave us any trouble.

  After it seemed clear to do so and when our work on our defensive system was completed I called Allan on the satellite phone that he had arranged to get for me and asked him to have some of his people check on Frenchtown, Arlee and Alberton. When he called me back he told me it appeared that Alberton, some ten miles away, had been occupied by someone that had come in a group of Blackhawks and a couple of attack helicopters as well. The State Police Officer who had gone up toward Alberton had heard some traffic on his scanner indicating occupation.

  He walked quite a ways to be able to do some surveillance and saw the helicopters and a smallish transport plane, something like a C-130 but not military, at the Alberton Airport. Frenchtown had not been occupied. There had been some air traffic over Missoula that day however and one of his patrol officers thought they had seen an Apache or Cobra attack helicopter circling to the west of town along the highway.

  We thought that perhaps the troops we had encountered might have come from the highway as a result of that report. We backtracked a ways in their tracks, walking backwards a lot, until we found their vehicle, a Humvee, with two more troops that we took out parked near Charley and Berneice's home.

  We took the Humvee, which was equipped with armor and a fifty caliber machine gun as well as a tow anti-tank missile launcher of the style used on light troop carrying tanks of the U.S. Army back into Missoula and left it with Allan who thought he had several guys that knew how to operate all that equipment.

  It was getting late when we got home and by the time we were able to make it to the most remote of our spider holes, one that was within a foot of the trail made by the militiamen, and use it to go on to the house. Nothing more had happened that day but we felt assured that the next morning or afternoon something was bound to happen again. We were right.

  Once again it was a recon patrol through our forest, looking for us. Once again it was a group of men, this time twelve of them, two acting as point men with the other ten following at about a half mile behind. The two point men were separated by about a hundred yards from north to south and about a quarter mile from east to west toward the house. The entire group was moving very carefully and slowly and there was lots of radio chatter going on between them. They were using the same radio net as the men we had killed the prior day but a different frequency. We caught it on our scanner and dialed the radios we had to listen. This time to get both the point men, dad and I would have to separate.

  Dad took off down one of the tunnels that would come up behind the point man nearest him and just in front of the body of ten other men. I went down a parallel tunnel that took me to a spot not ten feet from the second point man. I shot him and drug him into the spider hole, tried to clean up quickly and then heard a thud as the second point man went down.

  Dad was forced to close up his hole quickly because at least one of the other ten heard the thud of the body and came running forward to find out what had happened. I listened as the rest of them discussed what they should do and where they should go. They had no clue that I was holding steady on three of them with an MP-5 ready to loose several quick bursts to kill at least three more.

  Soon all of them were gathered round the area of the spider hole trying to figure out what the hell could have happened. Dad had gone to another parallel tunnel and called me. He asked quietly if I had a good angle to shoot. I said yes, he said on a count of three. We opened fire and at least six of them went down. I loosed two more claymores and all ten were in the kill zone. It was a slaughter. This time we took them down to Charley and Berneice's place to find another Humvee with another Tow Missile launcher and fifty caliber machine gun mounted on it. We loaded them into the Humvee and went to Missoula.

  Allan and I drove the two Humvees with one man on the machine gun and two men each working the Tow missiles. When we got close enough to Alberton Airport to fire the Tow missiles we did so and destroyed the attack helicopter as well as one of the Blackhawks. We got the transport plane as well. We destroyed the other Blackhawk with the two fifty caliber “Ma Deuce” Machine Guns. There was a lot of firing back at us but it was apparent that they had not brought in mortars or artillery on this what they thought would be a short scouting and conquest campaign. The small plane that had been flying around our property looking for anything tried to take off in all this shooting and never had a chance when one of our guys lit him up with the fifty cal. There were not many of them left in a short time.

  As their firing diminished we went closer and closer. They were insid
e two buildings by that point. We destroyed one of the buildings with the last of the six Tow missiles we had and began to cut the other to pieces systematically with the fifty caliber machine guns when a white flag was shown. We let the guy come out.

  He asked for the opportunity to get the hell out of there with his few remaining men. There were five of them left. We had them disarm themselves as they came out of the building they had been in. We let them take a derelict car from the parking lot of the airport to go home in. We didn't know if it had enough gas or not. We really didn't care one way or another.

  As they were getting into the car the leader said to us, “We will come back you know.”

  Allan said “It looks to me like you guys numbered about fifty when you came here. Five are going home and if we wanted you dead you would be dead. Does that sound like anything you want to go through again?”

  “You can kill fifty of us. And fifty more will come. Plus many more than fifty more will come next time and they will have armor, artillery and more helicopters most likely. I won't be here. My men won't be here. You don't have to kill me. I was dead when we failed. My boss will do it for you. But he will know that only four of you took this airport. And you will need one helluva lot more than four the next time, believe me when I tell you that.” With that the guy drove away.

  Attack the Enemy when he is unprepared.

  Appear where you are not expected.

  Sun Tzu, The Art of War

  Chapter 11

  War Resumes For Real

  At the start of World War II the Germans used their now infamous “blitzkrieg” tactics to overwhelm lesser forces or to outflank those that might be able to fight, surround them and whittle them down to defeat with bombing, massed artillery and ground forces backed up by many tanks.

  After the Germans had completed the conquest of Belgium, France, The Netherlands as well as annexed the Czech Republic, Romania and Hungary, and taken Greece from the British, there came a period of quiet. This period of months on end without attack by the Germans anywhere became known in the press as the “Sitzkrieg.” The press speculated the end of the war was at hand, said the Germans had accomplished all they wanted, then Germany moved again and attacked the Soviet Union.

  So it was with the militias of the New State of Idaho. The weather in our area, Missoula, throughout the mountains of Idaho, Montana, Washington and Oregon can be unpredictable to say the least. But in our spring, the first spring post nuclear war, we had a massive snow storm that lasted for about a week. After that came nothing for long enough for the forest to melt off, the creeks and rivers to run high and the ground to thaw, get mushy and then begin to firm up. Then they came. But this time we heard it was happening.

  In the weeks before it started we made a lot of preparations to meet these people. We distributed a lot of weapons and ammunition to a lot of guys with some military experience who were willing to fight for their right to be free if nothing else. Our “force mounted in size from around fifty to several hundred in that winter. And we trained, trained hard, ran, did all the work that would get ourselves and these new men and women in shape to be able to fight, move and fight again. We talked, we taught guerilla tactics, we taught them how to make IED's to attack tank or other forms of heavy and/or armored vehicles. And we”strategized" where those kinds of things could be best used.

  And we begged for help from other sources, like the army, or what remained of the army units that had been stationed in California and had not been sent to Florida to fight the Cubans. We asked for “Special Forces” fighters if any were available. We sent dad on a mission to Camp Pendleton where there were still a few marines left. He made contact there without much promised help but did find a group of six more Recon Marines who put together their kits and followed dad back to Missoula as they could, all arriving that winter at some point or another. And when they arrived they promised the arrival of a van which came about a week behind them filled with Tow Missiles and launchers.

  That was the one item we lacked so much until then, firepower, firepower strong enough to bring down a tank or a heavy armored vehicle like a Bradley fighting vehicle. And with these men came an abundance of Claymores which we could use in layered defenses to great advantage. We had no idea how many might try to attack us from this new group of militias, but we thought we had begun to prepare pretty well. From the marines we were also able to obtain some other significant weapons that we had not possessed in the past in sufficient numbers to withstand aerial attack. Those were shoulder mounted anti-aircraft missiles, fire and forget heat seekers that could bring down a spotter plane or a helicopter in one flash of explosive brilliance. With everything, and with planning that was pretty detailed about where and how to defend we began to be ready for whatever came. We started our first layer of defensive installations in Arlee and Alberton. Both these sites were somewhat mountainous and had curving or graded slopes that had to be traversed by any force using the highway. And armored forces could not use the forests. There were too many large or small canyons, too many natural blockages in the forests. But still those could be used by men on foot. So we put out some seismic and sonic devices to warn those of us who would in very small numbers stay in Arlee when we heard the militias were coming, if we got that information. We didn't have to worry about knowing they were on their way. They sent planes overhead with propaganda leaflets that were dropped telling us flee if we opposed them or stand with them and face their enemies if we did not oppose them. And they told us just about to the day when they would arrive.

  This battle promised to be much larger and more ferocious than those in which Dad and I had engaged the stupid criminals that called themselves militiamen the previous year. When we attacked the group at Alberton Airport we saw that they were dressed in military garb, carried themselves as though they were in good physical condition and acted with some precision that indicated training and leadership of some capability. Facing a large group of people like that which was armed with artillery, mortars, aircraft, armored vehicles, was a completely different kind of task.

  Since that was true we tried to get Ruthie and mom out of there, to send them somewhere safe! But where would that be in today's world. Our little enclave, with all its tunnels and spider fighting holes, all its sophisticated and unsophisticated defensive tools was as safe as our world would give us. They stayed with us. It was not a surprise that they did.

  Ruthie and mom had to learn how to use some of these tools and did so to their credit. The same was true for my sons. God what a travesty to have to train children to use weapons against their fellow men, people they didn't even know. It simply had to be done! I had no illusions that my sons would be able to shoot a man. I knew that to protect her family my wife would do whatever was necessary including killing someone.

  Dad and I were the early warning pair for Arlee. The NSI, we were calling them, came that way in force but not their largest force. They had one helicopter circling around their column. The column consisted of a lot of cars, some modified and armored, most not, a couple of armored vehicles that resembled Humvees but were much larger at that point and a total of maybe two to three hundred individual troops.

  The NSI came down the road in a column that was about a mile long with very little spacing between their vehicles. We had set some roadside IED's along that route as well as some in the center of the road and had one small bridge that wouldn't hinder them much ready to blow. It was behind them. We wanted them between us and a hard spot. That would make the attack we planned and executed much more devastating psychologically. When they had all passed over the bridge we blew it by a remote device from a cell phone. They stopped as we anticipated. We had several machine guns set up along the route that were also remotely operated a'la the Marine Corps' robotic devices.

  They had small canisters which would empty quickly but which would create havoc and maybe some casualties. The number of casualties might depend on how many of the NSI came out of their cars whe
n we blew the bridge. Almost all of them came out and pointed their weapons in various directions.

  When we started firing the remote machine guns it was such a shock to those people that they just stood still for a second. Probably thirty of them were killed or wounded in that first moment of chaos before they dropped to the ground and started firing in every direction. The helicopter also started firing into the forest, swinging in circles, firing machine guns and missiles toward whatever it was they were shooting at. And then it went quiet. And they began to assess their situation, remount their vehicles, look at the bridge behind them and move forward. The first of the IED's went off at that point and blew up several of their cars which were bunched together. Car parts went flying in every direction along with some body parts. I don't know how many were killed or wounded in that first IED attack but it was several, maybe as many as ten. Again they fired off rounds into the forest in every direction. They brought out mortars and started firing mortars toward the areas from which the machine guns had fired at them, or at least what they assumed was the direction in that regard. They missed completely. Again they reassessed the situation, remounted their vehicles and began to creep forward.

  The second set of bursts from the machine guns took some of them in their cars and some as they jumped out and started fighting again. This was all out chaos. That was what we wanted them to think. If they knew two guys sitting in the forest operating remote devices were causing all this hell they would have turned and run backwards as fast as they could. They must have thought there were hundreds of us because they expended literally hundreds of rounds of ammunition each.