The Other Shoe – Chapter 1

I could see he was bleeding; badly if I were any judge. Blood was pooling around his
shoulder, neck and down his side.

BLAM.

Now he would stop bleeding.

“You can’t do that!”

“I most surely can, I just did it.”

“I meant you shouldn’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“He was bleeding to death.”

“So? Turn him over and check his right hand.”

“What’s this?”

“I think it’s a Glock 30; a compact .45ACP.”

“Did you see the gun?”

“No I didn’t. I did see him move his hand to the small of his back. Awful strange place
for a first aid kit, wouldn’t you say?”

“Hank, I’m out of here. From now on, you’re on your own.”

Randy turned on his heel and walked down the lane. I figured I’d never see him again.
That was fine with me; it would extend the supplies I had cached.

Let’s see if I can explain how we got to where we are. I should probably start off by tell-
ing we didn’t have WW III, yet, although it was close. None of the calderas blew up that
I know of. Most of it started in the good old US of A and then inexorably spread. Re-
member the housing meltdown back in 2007 and 2008? It resulted in chaos in the mar-
kets with investment banks falling like flies. Even that big insurance company, AIG,
needed an $85 billion bailout.

Bush had a plan, or claimed his Secretary of Treasury, Paulson, did. Pundits early on
suggested that the plan could run one TRILLION dollars. Do you know what 1 trillion

1
dollars look like? $1,000,000,000,000. A dozen zeros and despite the book about the
Gilbreth family, they aren’t cheaper by the dozen. The day the plan was announced, the
DJIA recovered almost 400 points, although it was down for the week. A friend wrote
and asked why everyone was happy with the market well below its all-time high. I wrote
back (email) that the market had been over priced and shouldn’t be more than $12,500-
$13,000 at its high. When I was younger, I remember dad talking about the DJIA being
$914 and everyone was happy. The same day, Congress said just buying up the bad
mortgages would run $700 billion, initially.

World markets all responded to the announcement. One headline said,

(Reuters) – European shares surged on Friday to their biggest one-day percentage gain
on record, as battered banks and insurers gained thanks to temporary bans on short
sales of financial stocks and the US government's moves to end the credit crisis. The
problem with the plan was someone had to pay for it. To paraphrase Everett Dickson:
“A trillion here, a trillion there; pretty soon you talking about real money.” I’ll bet he was
rolling over in his grave.

The announcement of the plan was the beginning. For a while, everything seemed to be
working. Both the US and foreign economies improved, crude oil rose to around $110-
$115 and stayed there. The hike is gas prices attributed to Ike went away as the refiner-
ies reopened. With Congress approving offshore drilling, our available gas and oil would
eventually force the Middle Eastern counties to charge a reasonable price. Venezuela
cut us off completely when Russia stationed four TU-160 White Swans there.

The election ultimately turned on the Vice-Presidential candidates and Sarah was beat-
en by Joe. I don’t know why we bother with elections anymore; just let the SCOTUS de-
cide them. I worked as a warehouseman for Costco, driving a forklift and moving pallets
of goods here and there. I made a decent living and, being single, had managed to put
a little away every payday since I’d been hired a few years back. It was my version of a
retirement plan and after reading some PAW fiction, I bought gold coins at the rate of
one per month or longer if it was a larger denomination coin or a roll of junk silver.

Petraeus had overall control of the war on terror as the Commander of CENTCOM. The
War on Terror remained very unpopular at home. However, Osama Obama supported it
and agreed with Petraeus’s overall assessment to wait until mid-2009 before beginning
a major drawdown from Iraq. More troops were sent to Afghanistan to try and get a
handle on that conflict. If the Russians couldn’t defeat Afghanistan, what made anyone
think that we could?

That’s when I began to realize that we had a major problem. We were paying for the
War on Terror and trying to bail out all the dummies on Wall Street. I had the cheapest
apartment available in our city and it wasn’t in a very good neighborhood. There was
food stacked to the ceiling in my bedroom and living room, mostly bought from Costco. I
had double and sometimes triple bought as long as I’d worked there. It got to the point

2
where I calculated I had a two year supply and just purchased to replace what I used
up.

That started around 2004, I think, maybe early 2005. My next task was putting together
an armory so I could protect the food I had and my person. I had it in mind to buy a
Springfield Armory M1A, either a Loaded or a Super Match. I also looked at the PTR
91F and some of their other models. Being an American, I found the M1A more to my
liking because it looked more like an American rifle. I started to save for the rifle, a shot-
gun and a pistol. I’d already decided on the Mossberg 590A1 shotgun and a Taurus
PT1911 pistol. I’m only 32 and in pretty good condition so having a rifle heavier than the
Mattel toy gun wouldn’t be a problem.

I saved $20 per week and in early 2008, I had the money for the Super Match, the
Mossberg 590A1 and the PT1911. Although I didn’t have any firearms before, it hadn’t
kept me from buying ammo, a little at a time. By the time I bought my guns, I had 4,000
rounds of 168gr Match BTHP and 1,000 rounds 165gr BTSP Black Hills ammo. A per-
son wouldn’t want to shoot surplus ammo in a $2,800 rifle.

I also had 1,000 rounds of Lawman .45ACP FMJ and 500 rounds of Gold Dot .45ACP
HP for the pistol and an assortment of shotgun ammo. The shotgun ammo included a
case of Brenneke slugs and a case of 00 8-pellet reduced recoil Buckshot. I had five of
the Chinese T-57 mags for the rifle and 4 spare 8 round magazines for the pistol. I
heard of a source where I could get USGI 20 round M14 magazines and was saving my
money for those.

I suppose I, like everyone who owns firearms, believe you can never own too many and
the ones you have could always stand improvement. What I had in mind was to put a
good variable power scope on the rifle using A.R.M.S. mounts. Costco started to cut
back the number of employees in each store. Since I was nowhere near the highest
paid, I wasn’t too worried, at first.

No story is complete, from what I’ve read, without discussing your Bug Out Vehicle. I
had an older Chevy pickup that had the motor replaced before I’d bought it. It was an
ordinary looking ¾ ton Chevy pickup with a couple of additions. First, the original engine
had thrown a rod and had been replaced by a diesel, back before they used electronics
on diesel engines. Second, the previous owner had added a second underbody fuel
tank plus a 98 gallon cross bed tank. I never tested how far I could go on one load of
fuel, but it had to be a long ways with the 170 available gallons. The only thing I did be-
sides changing the oil and getting the truck lubed was to add a topper and buy a used
trailer I could pull with the pickup.

I’ve mentioned reading PAW fiction because I like those websites and had 3 I visited
regularly. I didn’t consider myself to be a prepper or survivalist. However, the more I
read, the more I realized that it was a good description of the attitude I had. Between

3
when I bought my guns and when the government saved the economy, I’d completed
my magazine purchases, had the scope installed, purchased LBE and had my food
packed in totes ready to load into the truck and trailer. I worried less about the economy
than I did about North Korean and Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Russia’s invasion of Geor-
gia than that Chavez down in Venezuela. We didn’t need to import problems; we had
enough at home plus those Mexican drug cartels who didn’t care who they shot.

Anyway, once I had my preps in order and had my food supply topped off, I started sav-
ing money again, just in case. Someone I once knew, I can’t remember who, said that
you should have savings equal to a minimum of three months wages. He called it his
kiss my butt money. At that point, I was torn between putting the savings in gold or just
accumulating cash. I decided on the latter, in a PAW, gold wouldn’t be traded initially
and it would be cash only for a time.

I had the tiniest bit of a gut and cut back on what I ate for two reasons. First, to lose the
gut and second to save the extra money I’d been spending on food. There were also
other things I began to believe I needed to have, like a grain mill, a good water filter plus
a cast iron frying pan and pot and maybe a grill to lay over a fire pit. Maybe I’d better get
a single bit axe and a bow saw to cut up firewood. Now, if I had a place to bug out to, I’d
be thinking differently, like getting a chainsaw, etc. Axes scared me, but not as much as
chainsaws. I didn’t plan on doing much digging and my WW II surplus entrenching tool
would work just fine. It was an Entrenching Tool, M1943 with cover.

We made it to July just fine and Petraeus and Osama Obama began a drawdown of
troops in Iraq, holding the number in Afghanistan. It had been decided to withdraw 20%
of the troops per quarter meaning that the drawdown would be complete by the end of
the third quarter of 2010. Only then would consideration be given to withdrawing our
troops from Afghanistan. The Democrats controlled Congress, but lacked 60 seats.

SYDNEY (AFP) – The world is on the brink of an avalanche in the spread of devastating
weaponry, a new global non-proliferation group warned Tuesday, saying that a nuclear
incident would dwarf the September 11 attacks.

The Middle East, particularly Iran, is a potential tipping point, according to Gareth Ev-
ans, co-chair of the newly formed International Commission on Nuclear Non-
proliferation and Disarmament.

Evans, a former Australia foreign minister, said the world had been “sleepwalking” on
the issue of atomic weapons for a decade.

“The devastation that could be wreaked by one major nuclear weapons incident alone
puts 9/11 and almost everything else (in) to the category of the insignificant,” he said,
referring to the attacks inflicted on the United States in 2001.

4
Evans was speaking as the commission, which was first proposed by Australian Prime
Minister Kevin Rudd after a visit to the Japanese city of Hiroshima in June, entered the
second and final day of its inaugural meeting in Sydney.

The group, chaired by Evans and Japan's former top diplomat Yoriko Kawaguchi, is
tasked with reinvigorating the global debate on the spread of nuclear weapons and dis-
armament.

Evans told reporters there were between 13,000 and 16,000 nuclear warheads actively
deployed around the world and that it was “really a bit of a miracle” that a nuclear catas-
trophe had not occurred during the Cold War or afterwards.

“But unless we energize ourselves, unless we re-invigorate a high level political debate
which is then accompanied by effective action, we potentially have very alarming con-
sequences staring us in the face,” he said.

“We are on the brink of... an avalanche or a cascade of proliferation unless we are very,
very careful indeed and find ways collectively to hold the line.”

Evans, Australia's foreign minister from 1988 to 1996, said the world had failed to ad-
dress the rise of nuclear-armed India and Pakistan and the assumption that Israel also
possesses such weapons.

But he pointed to the Middle East as a key area of concern.

“If there is a breakout by Iran, or a perceived breakout by Iran, the Middle East alone is
the cockpit in which we can anticipate such a cascade of proliferation by a number of
other countries,” he said.

A change in leadership in the US, however, may provide a breakthrough in international

talks, before comparing possible changes under Republican candidate John McCain
and Democratic candidate Barack Obama.

“An Obama administration would, on the face of it... be one that's likely to be more sub-
stantially focused on this but even with a McCain administration, it would be an im-
provement,” said Evans. “There’s not much to beat frankly.”

He said if the US were to sign up to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty the implica-
tions would be "quite profound" and could lead to China finding itself under "irresistible
pressure" to do likewise.

“That in turn would, I think, have ripple effects right throughout the international commu-
nity,” he added.

The commission, whose members include former US secretary of defense William Perry
and Norway's former prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, is working towards building

5
consensus ahead of a 2010 conference on the 40-year-old Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT).

China had so many profits from nearly every country in the world that it decided to call
in some of the debt. They made the announcement on Labor Day, 2009. Some markets
reacted and others didn’t. Ours didn’t because they were closed for the day. European
markets fell, but not dramatically. When Wall Street opened on Tuesday, the DJIA fell
$507. Automatic controls suspended trading when the market reached -$500 down but
there were a slew of unprocessed transactions.

We were busy all day as everyone who belonged hurried in to top off their food sup-
plies. I worked well past the time I usually got off just to move pallets down to fill the
holes. We sold out of coffee, sugar, flour, tea and all kinds of canned goods. We also
sold out on beans and rice. It would take a day, possibly two to restock the shelves. The
one non-food category that sold out was Charmin and the house brand of bathroom tis-
sue.

The next day (Wednesday) we opened to a hostile group of people who were disap-
pointed with our remaining stock. The manager gave up and posted a sign that said A
shipment is on the way. Every store has a storage area that the trucks are unloaded
into. It’s not open to the public, including members. That didn’t stop them from forcing
their way into the area, only to see a lot of empty floor space. I think that that may have
made them angrier. The store was closed at 3pm because of the rowdy crowds. The
truck was delayed and we didn’t open on Thursday.

It came in around 4pm on Thursday afternoon and I stayed late restocking shelves. The
driver told the manager that a second truck was being dispatched to each of the stores
with more of the things we’d run out of. They knew what it was because of the comput-
erized cash registers.

Friday wasn’t quite the mad rush Tuesday had been and we got low on some things, but
didn’t run out. I took time after work to buy the things I needed to fill in my supplies. I
even bought a few things I didn’t usually get like 100# of flour, 25# of sugar, Crisco, 50#
of rice, 50# of pintos, a bag of salt, cans of Kirkland beef and chicken, Spam, tuna, pas-
ta, sauces, green beans, corn, diced tomatoes, two boxes of tea bags and 12 57oz cans
of coffee.

It was my Saturday to work and the second truck came in early so I helped unload it and
we stocked shelves until the store opened. I spent my break time buying ground beef,
bacon, butter and other perishable goods and put them in the cooler in my pickup with a
bag of ice. At lunchtime, I ran home and put the stuff in the refrigerator. We worked late
again because while we opened later on Sundays, since we always had the after church
crowd.

I didn’t work Sunday and went over my preps. I did an inventory and I was full up, ex-
cept… I lived in an apartment and we’d had three power outages this summer and I now

6
had quite a bit of meat to protect. I checked the Honda website and learned, “If you
want a generator for home standby, for example, if you want to run your refrigerator,
you’ll need at least 2,500 watts or more. And if you want to use a transfer switch so that
power can go directly into your home, you’ll want a generator with at least 3000 watts.
You’ll also need to consider the maximum and rated power of the generator. This is im-
portant depending on what items you want to run off of your generator. Items such as
toaster, lamps, and coffee makers are resistive, or constant loads and their total load
can be calculated at amps × 1. Items such as saws and drills are reactive loads and
while the running load may be small, the starting load should be calculated at running
amps × 3. Remember, after the initial start less power is required for actual operation.”

The Honda was about the quietest generator I knew of and they were available locally. I
selected the Honda EU2000iA Camo which was very quiet, had enough power for my
refrigerator and ran up to 15 hours on 1 gallon of fuel. At full power, it only used ¼ gal-
lon per hour. A couple of gas cans and I’d be set. When I got off work on Monday I
bought the generator and 2 5-gallon metal gas cans. I’d have to store those in my truck,
plus I also filled the tank on the generator. If I needed to use it, I planned to set it on the
balcony of my apartment and close the door. The generator really ate into my kiss my
butt money, but that was what it was for.

According to the website, a refrigerator needed 600 watts or about ⅓ of the power the
generator put out. I was hoping I could get about 12 hours of run time if I needed to use
it. The next day on the way home, I bought a smaller 2 gallon gas can so nobody would
see me bringing in the big can and I could hide it in a paper bag if necessary. How loud
is 59db? The closest I could come was Normal conversation: 60 dB(A). I figured it being
on the balcony would cut the sound down to the point where it wouldn’t disturb anyone’s
sleep.

I found the cast iron I wanted at a garage sale and the pot (a dutch oven) and pan were
both well-seasoned. The grate I needed came from an old charcoal grill. One day at
work one of the guys who I knew was hard up asked me if I’d be interest in buying a ri-
fle. I asked what kind and learned it was a nearly pristine Winchester model 62A, a
pump action. He wanted $150 cash for the rifle. He brought the rifle in the next day and
I determined that it was a pre-war model 62 in excellent condition. I asked if he was
sure of the price and he said yes. I peeled off 7 twenties and a ten. Now I had more
ammo to buy, a few bricks of .22 LR solid and hollow point, I bought 5 bricks of each
from Wally World as a starter.

Some things occasionally popped as a bargain and others commanded full price. With-
out a wife and kids to worry about or try to convince, I was pretty much a free agent so
long as I had some cash. One Sunday when I had nothing else to do, I stacked the totes
in the living room and measured. Everything I had would fit into the pickup and trailer,
including my camping gear with a little room left over. With that in mind, I bought more
of the metal gas cans, filled them and stabilized the diesel with PRI-D. West Marine was
the only local source for PRI-G/D and they really gouged, charging over $20 a pint. I
started shopping the net and found a source in Oregon that had it for $85 a gallon, ap-

7
proximately $10 a pint. I order two gallons, One of PRI-G and one of PRI-D so I had all
my bases covered.

Thinking I had most of my basis covered, I began considering where I might bug out to if
push came to shove. I considered my first choice a national or state park but realized
that was just too obvious, everyone else might have the same thought. Then, a story I
read led me in a different direction. It was by Jerry D Young and titled The Hermit. A
cave in the Ozarks? I was close to the Ozarks already. I went back and reread the story.
The main difference between the guy in the story and me was that he had money, lots
of money.

On-the-other-hand my preps were essentially completed. I’d need some LTS food, a
good source of water and a cave. There were caves in just about every limestone out-
cropping in the Ozarks and the first thing I’d need to do was find a cave with an availa-
ble source of water. The apartment was furnished and I had little of my own beside the
pickup, trailer and preps. My old black and white TV was on its last legs and I might just
leave it for the next tenant. I had an old Hallicrafters ham receiver but not the license or
a transceiver. I could run a dipole antenna for the radio once I found a place.

I started checking newspaper ads hoping someone had a small place, meeting my re-
quirements, for sale cheap. That continued until the following fall when the last troops
were returning from Iraq. I finally gave in and contacted a realtor. He was surprised
when I told him what I wanted, 5 acres or less with available water and cave. When I
mention a cave he gave me a rather strange look and muttered something under his
breath.

“We’ve been getting a lot of requests for property with caves, but never for one so small.
Are you sure 5 acres will be enough?”

“There is just me and I sort of want to get back to basics.”

“I know one place that’s been on the market for 3 years. Most didn’t like it because the
property was too small and a couple didn’t like it because the cave was too small.”

“Can we look at it?’’

“Got a flashlight?”

“Sure do.”

We drove to the site. It was well off the beaten path and the road was in serious need of
maintenance.

8
“This is just a fire road and they make one pass about every three years. Turn in that
driveway up there on your right.”

“Gottcha.”

“This is the beginning of the property. It extends up to that limestone cliff at the back. It’s
nearly square and surveyed out to a shade over 6 acres.”

“Why is it on the market?”

“Some prepper bought it for a bug out place, but he died before he did anything to im-
prove the property. His wife and kids didn’t see eye to eye with him and they’re anxious
to sell it.”

“Asking price?”

“They’re down to $3,600, just what he paid for it.”

“Can you show me the cave?”

“I’ll show you but I won’t go in, there could be snakes.”

“What kinds of snakes?”

“Rattlesnakes, cottonmouth and copperhead.”

“Ok, I’ll keep my eyes open.”

The was a slab of limestone leaning against the cliff and behind it, a narrow passage
maybe 3’ wide that led to the cave’s entrance. I turned on my 6 cell Maglite and moved
in slowly, checking everywhere for snakes. Just inside the entrance the cave opened up
to a medium sized room with a passage at the rear that opened, about 5’ later, into to a
large room with 15’ ceiling, walls about 20’ wide and it was 10 paces long, about 25’.
There was nothing to indicate a snake had ever been there, no shed skins or anything.

“Ok, where the water?”

“It’s down the slope on the right side of the property. The stream indicates the property
line on this side. There is an old rusted fence on the other side.”

“Think they’d consider a counter offer?”

“I doubt it, they’ve had several. They just want their investment back.”

“What about a well?”

9
“There is no well, but the property on the other side of the stream has one so there’s
probably water down there somewhere.”

“Ok, this might just work. I’m not wealthy and $3,600 would be my limit if I defer the well
and the septic.”

“There is a new septic system. The tank and the drain field were installed but he died
before he could dig a well or set up a home.”

“Where’s the intake?”

“See that stake over there? That’s the end of the line from the planned house to the
septic.”

“You doing this pro bono”

“In a matter of speaking yes, I’m related to the family trying to unload this white ele-
phant.”

“Fill out the papers and I’ll sign. If they accept I’ll mail a cashier’s check and you can
push it through escrow.”

Would have been better if he got the well drilled before he died, but he didn’t so I’d have
to live without one for now.

The papers came in Monday’s mail and appeared to have the proper endorsements. I
went to the bank and cleaned out my last $3,600 paying the fee for the cashier’s check
out of pocket. I mailed it in the return envelope he thoughtfully provided. A week later, I
received the recorded deed and I was now the proud owner of 6+ acres in the Ozarks.

Things settled for a while, the markets stopped their wild swings and began a slow, but
steady, growth. We were better off than many countries around the world, big players,
not the third world countries. The price of gas settled in around $3.75 a gallon locally
and diesel was around $4.30. On weekends, I’d drive down to my property and work to
improve the cave. Whatever had cut the limestone to form the cave had dried up or
changed directions. It remained dry as a bone even during a heavy rainstorm.

I decided to move all my LTS and half of my other food down there and store it in the
second, larger, chamber. I also posted the property. The Costco where I worked was
just northwest of St. Louis in St. Peters and it was a 3-4 hour drive down to my property.
I didn’t go every weekend because I was working on replacing my kiss my butt money.
One weekend I practiced and I could load everything I wanted to take in 2 hours. That
was way too long so I went through the stuff again and loaded the trailer permanently,
cutting the load time to 45 minutes.

10
 The Other Shoe – Chapter 2

About mid-September 2009, we lost power for two days and I ran the Honda on the bal-
cony with no one the wiser. I was using a heavy duty extension cord, 10 gauge I think. I
used 4 gallons of gas plus one gallon to refill the tank when I shut it down. I refilled the
gas can with 9.25ml of PRI-G and 5 gallons of 87 octane.

Around that time we had another run on groceries, worse than the last time. I didn’t see
anything in the news that would account for the panic buying. I missed an article on
Bloomberg about a looming problem for the markets. I rarely read Bloomberg because I
didn’t like the man. It wasn’t until early October when the other MSM outlets began to
carry related stories.

The liquidity crisis in the markets was close to being solved and had hit the 1 trillion
mark when Congress said enough. There was talk about mortgaging our children’s and
grandchildren’s futures and a bill was passed by the House and Senate freezing the
bailout at 1 trillion. There were enough votes, and then some, to override a Presidential
veto. October 20, 2009 will forever be remembered as the second Black Tuesday. The
DJIA fell the limit and trading was suspended. The same thing happened Wednesday,
Thursday and Friday. The market lost 2,700 points, give or take, in just 4 days.

We received a truck every day beginning Wednesday and still couldn’t keep the shelves
stocked. When the manager tried limiting; people would buy the limit, take it to their car
and come back for more going through a different checkout lane. The computers
weren’t set up to prevent it from happening. A portion of the Saturday delivery was held
back without explanation. There was to be an employee meeting after work on Satur-
day.

“Corporate says they can no longer supply this store and we will be shutting down for an
unspecified period. At ease. We held back a portion of the latest shipment and I’m in-
structed to sell it to you at cost. At ease. In addition to your regular pay, you will receive
two weeks’ severance. The checks will be available Monday. At ease. That’s it for now;
see everyone Monday morning at 8am.” (I figured he must have seen the movie Stalag
17 one too many times.)

My apartment was month to month and no notice was required to move out. I spent
Sunday loading the Chevy with a plan in mind. Between my kiss my butt money and
three paychecks, I hoped I could afford that well, Ozarks, here I come. The only thing I
bought on Monday at Costco was Charmin, six bundles. I had the lights and gas turned
off and left a mailing address in care of general delivery, Edgar Springs, Missouri not
realizing that Edgar Springs didn’t have a post office. It went to Licking.

I listened to the radio on the way down I-44. Trading was suspended by 10:30 EDT. The
London markets didn’t open and the two Russian markets had closed halfway through

11
the trading day. The Tokyo Stock Exchange announced they wouldn’t open the follow-
ing day. My 6 acre parcel wasn’t in the Mark Twain National Forest, but it was so close,
it was the same as being in there. Let me remind you of my gold and silver saving pro-
gram. It was suspended now but I had that to fall back on.

“Won’t be more than 50’ deep and I guarantee good water with a rate of flow of at least
15 gallons per minute. Gonna need a well pump and solar power to run it. I got the stuff
and can let you have it cheap.”

“How long?”

“Day, day and a half.”

“How much?”

He gave me a figure that didn’t include the pump and solar.

“How much for the pump and solar panel?”

The combined price was less than my severance pay so I told him to go ahead. I
planned to run a water line to the cave and extend the septic line so I had water and
sewer. Grid power wasn’t available nor was phone, cable or internet. If I wanted TV, I’d
need a dish and dish internet was also available for an unreasonable price. I didn’t have
a cell phone. Light was a different question and I needed a used refrigerator/freezer for
my meat. The refrigerator cost $100 and I could keep it cold running the Honda a few
times per day. I bought a used recliner and a used twin bed with mattress. I also bought
a card table and two used folding chairs. I could put my Coleman stove on the table to
cook. A week later, my additions were done including installing a toilet on a platform and
a solar heated shower. Good thing too because I was down to my last $200 of cash.

I listened to my windup radio to get the news. I had gotten out of West St. Louis just in
time. The market continued to fall the limit three days straight before they closed the
NYSE, NASDAQ and the Pacific Exchange. The St. Peters store, where I worked, and
the other 3 Costco stores in Missouri hadn’t reopened. There had been no announce-
ment about it but a reporter tried to get a story. He got a ‘no comment’.

Although I wanted the simple life depending on lamps for light and an ice house to store
my frozen goods, you can’t have that when you start living in a cave in late October. I
could shop garage sales and find oil lamps, buy new wicks and bottled kerosene, but
the ice house would have to wait until it was cold enough. I could freeze ice in a rectan-
gular pan and store it in an ice house insulated with sawdust that I got from cutting fire-
wood but not until it was cold enough. If it got cold enough, that is.

I thought about building an ice house from logs and decided I didn’t have the necessary
skills. I decided to build it 4’ wide by 8’ foot long and 8’ high using construction grade
plywood and 2×4s. I’d put a sheet of plywood on for a roof and seal it with tarpaper and

12
tar. All of the material I needed easily fit in my Chevy. I gathered up the sawdust into a
pile and covered it with plastic. Now I had to wait for cold weather. I had just started
construction when deer season opened and I caught two hunters on my posted 6 acres.
I was carrying my rifle slung and moved it to low ready.

“This land is posted. I’m going to ask you to leave real nice like.”

“We didn’t see any signs.”

“Where’s your white cane? You’d have to be blind not to see the signs. Move on fellas,
no hunting here today.”

“We’ve been hunting this piece for years, nobody ever complained before.”

“I bought it a while back and I assure you it’s posted, that’s one of the first things I did.”

They had a quiet conversation between themselves.

“Ok, we’re leaving, but we’ll check out your claim that you own this place. What’s your
name?”

“Henry ‘Hank’ Brown. The deed is recorded.”

They left and I went back to the ice house I was constructing. I realized that I hadn’t
thought about insulation. Without some kind of insulation, the ice would melt as fast as I
added it. I went back for another 8 sheets of plywood and rolls of R-19 insulation. The
plan was to make the inside of the ice house 3’×7’ and cover the inside of the outer wall
with the R-19. I had only a handsaw and a hammer for tools plus a box of hinges to
build a door.

I assembled it in layers with the plywood running lengthwise rather than vertical. The
size was chosen to limit the amount of sawing. It took 3 days and a badly bruised thumb
to construct, before I had it done. I dug out about 4’ of dirt with my entrenching tool be-
fore I started and piled that out of the way until I finished. I’m sure glad I didn’t have to
dig a fox hole with one back in the day. I wore gloves and still had a blister.

Might not have been the best idea I’d ever had, but it got it done, building a plywood
door. I went to town and picked up several blocks of ice because I’d taken some time off
and gotten a deer about 50 yards from my front door. The ice house chilled right down
and I froze half of the cut up deer and jerked the other half seasoning it with pepper and
salt.

While the meat was drying, I threw together a smoke house after yet another trip to the
lumberyard. I was down to my last $50 cash and the fuel in my tanks. I’d do this batch
with hickory charcoal. I found a library and checked my favorite websites on the net.
One had a post:

13
Thursday, March 13, 2009

LAST NIGHTS SESSION WAS ONLY THE FOURTH TIME IN 176 YEARS THAT
CONGRESS CLOSED ITS DOORS TO THE PUBLIC

Word has begun leaking from last night’s special, closed-door session of the United
States House of Representatives.

Not only did members discuss new surveillance provisions as was the publicly stated
reason for the closed door session, they also discussed:

●The imminent collapse of the US Economy that occurred on September 2008,

●The imminent collapse of US federal government finances by February 2009,
●The possibility of Civil War inside the USA as a result of the collapse,
●Advance round-ups of insurgent US Citizens likely to move against the government,
●The detention of those rounded-up at “REX 84” camps constructed throughout the
USA,
●The possibility of retaliation against members of Congress for the collapses,
●The location of safe facilities for members of Congress and their families to reside dur-
ing expected massive civil unrest
●The necessary and unavoidable merger of the United States with Canada (for its natu-
ral resources) and with Mexico (for its cheap labor pool),
●The issuance of a new currency - THE AMERO - for all three nations as the proposed
solution to the coming economic Armageddon.
●Members of Congress were forbidden to reveal what was discussed. Several are so
furious and concerned about the future of the country, they have begun leaking info an-
yway. More details coming later today and over the weekend. Spread the Word!!!

That explained a lot of what had happened in late 2008. However, it did not explain
what was going on now. Perhaps by way of extension, it did. I hadn’t heard anything
about roundups or people being put in camps.

Surely that didn’t include me. I done my time in the Corps and reserve and was as much
of a patriot as the next Marine. I’ve always kept a low profile and shouldn’t be on any
database. I didn’t even apply for unemployment, maybe I should. I thought that over and
drove back to St. Peters where I filed the application. I indicated that I had no phone,
just in case. The post office would forward my check to general delivery Licking, Mis-
souri. That gave me 26 weeks of income and I’d fake looking for a job. They hadn’t
raised the benefit over the 2008 benefit; it was still $320 per week. Times 26 weeks
made me rich, $8,320.

I waited the mandatory week and then two more for the first benefit check. It was 4 days
in the forwarding process, but I had $640 in my jeans. I would continue to get $640 eve-
ry other week until my benefits ran out. I checked on the local low temperatures and

14
would have to make all of my ice in December and January, presuming it got cold
enough.

Since I’d need a lot of sawdust for the ice house, I felled a pair of dead standing trees
and set about cutting them up for firewood. I didn’t take me long to figure out I’d need a
chainsaw, like it or not. I’d also need something more than 2 5-gallon gas cans to store
gasoline. I could store the lube oil and chain oil in the cave. I also needed a more per-
manent solution to my electrical needs. I decided on 3 PV panels, a charge controller,
inverter and one or two good batteries.

My purchases went in spurts; I’d fill the tanks and buy one thing every time the unem-
ployment came in or save it until I had enough to buy one item. I had my CCW and
mostly carried the PT1911 in a Bianchi Interceptor belt holster. My rifle and shotgun
were behind the seat, cased and unloaded.

It didn’t get cold enough to really make enough ice so I bought several more of the large
blocks to keep the ball rolling. I did get the PV panels installed and concealed at the top
of the bluff, running a heavy gauge wire to the charge controller. I bought a used 300-
gallon farm tank and repainted it in a camouflage pattern and began adding 10-gallons
every time I went to town. When I realized that I wouldn’t have it filled before the unem-
ployment ran out, I bought two more Blitz cans and added 20-gallons per trip. I also
added a Coleman oven so I could bake bread. I had to laugh at myself; it was mostly an
extended camping trip.

I got a library card in Licking and began to read for something to do. It must have been
tough for old Abe to study by lamp light; it’s awful trying to read. I checked and could
use diesel fuel in the oil lamps, but I can’t recommend it. So, I added a 2-gallon can of
kerosene every check. Things went in fits and starts; I usually ended up getting some-
thing for my preps only when I demonstrated a need. That’s how I got the advanced first
aid kit, cutting firewood. I didn’t cut myself but it was oh so close. Went to a local doc
and complained about a fever and diarrhea and got a ten-day course of antibiotics. Also
mentioned those bad headaches I got and got number 40 Tylenol #3.

I got everything needing done before the unemployment ran out and socked the remain-
ing money away for a rainy day. Fuel wise, I had 13 2-gallon cans of kerosene, full and
stabilized fuel tanks on the Chevy and 320 gallons of stabilized gas. I had 2 25-gallons
bottles of propane for the Coleman stove. I planted a guerilla garden around the 6+
acres. Guerilla gardening isn’t what it first seems to be, I looked it up at the library. Nev-
ertheless, I followed the story examples of guerilla gardening and had all kinds of heir-
loom plants growing here and there. Sure was nice to have fresh vegetables and I’d
probably have berries next year. The dwarf and semi-dwarf fruit and nut trees would
probably take a few years before they produced.

15
It’s official; a Congress critter finally uttered that dreaded D word, Depression. I don’t
think he was talking about his mood. I spent a lot of time on the library computer that
day, checking sources and websites. What it boiled down to was that everyone was
blaming us for their problems, what’s new? Nobody was threatening war except Iran, so
that was nothing new. They announced that they’d succeeded in mating the nuclear
weapons they weren’t building to the Shahab-3 missiles they didn’t have. Range:
1,300km. Gotta keep an eye on the Israelis now.

I was making the rounds gathering vegetables when Randy showed up.

“Hello the camp.”

What camp? He must mean the ice house or the smoke house.

“I’m over here.”

“My name is Randy Oats. Heard there was a hermit living on this small acreage. I
thought you might need a hand.”

“By definition, a hermit is a loner, where did you get that idea?”

“Look, I’m out of work and there aren’t any jobs available.”

“Apply for unemployment, I did.”

“You’re not from around here?”

“St. Peters, up by St. Louis, but I live here full time now.”

“Awful small for a house.”

“That’s the ice house and the other is the smoke house. I’m camping out.”

“I see.”

“No I don’t think you do.”

“What, no hot blond babe in a cave?”

“No, no blond babe. What’s that rifle you have?”

“German Karabiner 98K Mauser. Fires the 7.92×57mm IS cartridge. You don’t have a
rifle?”

“I have a rifle, but I’m not carrying it.”

16
“What do you have?”

“Springfield Armory M1A.”

I didn’t mention it was a Super Match; there was just something about this guy I didn’t
like. I had paid $2,800 for the rifle, far less than the MSRP of $3,400. I wasn’t about to
mention the cave. My sleeping bag was right behind the rock covering the cave’s en-
trance as was my grate and cast iron frying pan and pot. I could take meat from the ice
house for supper to preserve my secret.

“Where is your cave?”

“What cave?”

“Don’t hermits live in caves?”

“This one doesn’t. Anything else you want to know? If not, I need to get back to what I
was doing.”

“What were you doing?”

“Gathering supper. I’m mostly a meat and vegetable kind of man.”

“I see you have enough for two, mind if I join you?”

I figured that if I fed him, he might leave so I took a chance.

“Venison jerky and vegetables. I’m going to make a stew.”

“Sounds good.”

“Is there somewhere I can drop you after supper?”

“Edgar Springs?”

“Fine.”

He kept rattling like a snake and I stayed tight lipped. He didn’t appear to be getting the
message. When supper was finished, I fired up the Chevy and dropped him off on the
edge of Edgar Springs. When I got back, I rearranged things to support my camping as-
sertion, just in case. Two weeks later he was back and still on foot.

“Did you apply for unemployment?”

“I didn’t qualify because I haven’t really worked steady. I was hoping you’d thought
about my offer.”

17
“I have and I don’t need any help, thank you.”

“Are you going to gather vegetables?”

“Don’t have any ready, going to have to eat my last MRE Entrée.”

“Is that your M1A?”

“Yes, like it?”

“Nice rifle, wouldn’t mind having one myself.”

“I know what you mean; I scrimped and saved for 4 years to buy my weapons collec-
tion.”

“What else do you have besides the pistol and rifle?”

“A Mossberg 590A1 shotgun and a .22 rifle.”

“First class guns.”

“When your life depends on them, don’t go second class.”

“Is that a fighting knife or a bayonet?”

“Yes. Both. It’s the Marine Corps fighting knife bayonet for the M16 that works on the
shotgun. I’ve had training on knife fighting.”

“You were a Marine?”

“I am a Marine. Once a Marine, always a Marine. But I’m out now.”

“I take it you’re a good shot?”

“It’s easy enough; I put a scope on the rifle.”

“I guess I’d better be going.”

“See you soon,” I said crossing my fingers.

I need a way to tell him he wasn’t welcome on my acreage but he always had the Mau-
ser handy. During October, I had company again, the hunters I’d run off the previous
year.

18
“We checked and you do own the property Mr. Henry Brown. We’ve hunted this place
for over twenty years and we don’t intend to stop now.”

“Why risk it, the Mark Twain National Forest is less than a mile away.”

“We’ve talked it over with our lawyer and we can hunt here. Easements may be created
in a number of ways. In most of the United States, using someone else's property, for
example, for ingress and egress over a certain number of years, regularly and without
the consent of the property owner, can give the user the right to continue using the
property for the same purpose for as long as the user wishes. This method of acquiring
an easement is called a prescriptive easement or easement by prescription.”

“So, what you’re saying is that if you trespass long enough, it’s no longer trespassing?”

“That’s what our lawyer said.”

“I’ll go find a lawyer today. Meanwhile get off my property.”

I found a lawyer who was willing to take my case. He got a temporary injunction block-
ing their access until a court hearing could be held. I checked at the library and they
seemed to have a point, there was something called a prescriptive easement. They
were served by a Deputy Sheriff and didn’t get to hunt my land this season.

STATE LAW ON HOSTILE CLAIMS MUST INTEND TO TAKE THE LAND Arkansas
Maine Michigan Missouri Montana Nevada South Carolina Texas Virginia Vermont Wy-
oming MUST BELIEVE LAND IS OWN Georgia Iowa Louisiana – Possession alone has
shown hostility in all other states. Note: These requirements are defined in court opin-
ions by judges. They can change overnight with a new court decision. If you are affect-
ed by an adverse possession situation, see a local lawyer to rely on the most recent
court cases.

My lawyer said they’d lose their easement and if they did, I was set. Otherwise, there
was nothing I could do to stop them. They had advice of counsel, but hired another law-
yer when I sued. The lawyer they hired was new and inexperienced and had gone to
law school in Iowa. Iowa had a different law and was the only state in the nation with
one like it. The hearing lasted one day and neither man claimed to own the land. The
judge made the injunction permanent and I made two more enemies. He also awarded
costs so they were stuck with the legal fees.

One of the two men came out to my place a few days later and was carrying. When he
pointed the rifle at me, I shot him in self-defense. Randy was there and said, “You can’t
do that!” So now you know the rest of the story. I left the body lay right where it was
other than turning it back over and went for the Sheriff. The Deputy asked what hap-
pened and I told him, I’d only used deadly force because the man was going to shoot
me. They seized my pistol, cuffed me and returned to the acreage. When they discov-
ered his loaded rifle with the safety off and the Glock model 30 in his hand behind his

19
back, they took off the cuffs and we waited while an ambulance came out to pick up the
body.

“We have your statement and will refer it and our reports to the County Attorney. It will
be up to him whether we charge you or not.”

“What about my PT1911?”

“If you aren’t prosecuted, it will be returned.”

“How long before I know?”

“As long as it takes for the County Attorney to make a decision.”

“What do I do for a handgun in the meantime?”

“Buy another. So far, you haven’t been charged, let alone convicted. You can buy one
but I’d suggest you don’t use your CCW until this is sorted out.”

I found a very used but serviceable .45ACP made in Argentina that I could afford and
bought it to temporarily replace my PT1911 and as a backup once I got my PT1911
back. Then, I stopped by the attorney I’d used on the easement issue and filled him in.
He said that he doubted they’d prosecute.

It was a very long 3 weeks until a Deputy returned my PT1911 and told me that no
charges would be filed but that didn’t mean the family wouldn’t bring a wrongful death
lawsuit. Relieved, I treated myself to another piece of survival equipment, 2 ham radios,
an Icom IC-7000 mobile that I could use in the cave or in the pickup plus an Icom IC-
9100H base station. I added an MFJ 1798 10-band vertical mounted on top of the bluff
next to the 3 solar panels mounted on pipe mast. The MFJ equipment was about as
cheap of an antenna and mast setup available and the Icom base station the top of the
line.

While I’m not a Glock fan, I wouldn’t have mind having the Glock 30 or his Austrian
STG58 Para rifle. I assumed he’d gotten the rifle from DSA and the Glocks are popular
pistols. I got to thinking about Randy and the dilemma he posed since there were no
signs of habitation on the acreage. I walked the land looking for pine trees I could fell
and use to build a log cabin. I had some but not enough. There were more than enough
in the National Forest, but would I dare?

20
 The Other Shoe – Chapter 3

It was worth a trip to the library to find out. I looked up the forest and determined that it
required a special use permit to harvest firewood. It referred me to the nearest Ranger
station. Hat in hand, I went to the only station I knew of and inquired. Yes, it required a
special use permit. Yes permits were still available. Harvesting was limited to marked
trees. I was expected to clean up all debris from cutting down a tree. I persuaded the
Ranger to show me what was available locally. A few of the trees were smaller trees
that succumbed to disease and would be perfect. I applied for and was issued a special
use, firewood permit.

The Lodge pole pine, which was mostly a west coast tree, had been planted in the
1930s to rebuild the pine forest that loggers had decimated. They were susceptible to
some beetle and the dead trees had to be removed to make way for new plantings. The
lodge pole pine would be perfect to build a log cabin and dead trees were dry trees,
ready to use. Over the period of two months, I cut and hauled nearly enough whole logs
to construct a small log cabin. I also hauled the debris, as required; because some of it
could be used for firewood although pine wasn’t my favorite.

The first few rows of logs were semi easy to get into place. Then, I built an A Frame to
get the higher levels in place. I left open spaces for a fireplace, one window and a door.
I could make the door. I gathered rock from the creek bottom that was round to build the
fireplace. I worked from dawn to dusk and the cabin slowly began to take shape. I in-
stalled two layers of Lexan for a window and sawed logs in half for the door. I took some
of my precious cash and bought a firebox and chimney pipe and began to lay rock
around it to create a rustic looking fireplace.

I was getting into the spirit and built a bed using hemp rope as the foundation and con-
structed a table, crude cabinets and a counter with a sink. I put in a standard hot/cold
water faucet but only hooked up the cold water side. Since I had septic, I got a toilet and
built a small enclosure for a toilet, sink and shower. I took an idea from Lights Out and
bought 2 drums which I painted flat black and plumbed in as my sole source of hot wa-
ter for the cabin and connected the hot water side.

Finally, I stocked the cabin with a minimal amount of food including a partial can of cof-
fee, and small amounts of the foods one would typically expect to find in a cabin. I
checked the fireplace and it burnt a good fire and put off enough heat to keep the cabin
toasty warm even on the coldest of days. Speaking of which, I finally got back to the li-
brary and checked the Farmer’s Almanac. It forecast a very cold winter. I also checked
the forums and the current news.

The troops and their equipment were all home from Iraq. A decision was pending on Af-
ghanistan. The markets had leveled off in the $8,000s. The price of oil was stable in the
$110-$115 range because the US was developing offshore and North Slope resources.
The TransCanada pipeline was over half completed. Gas and diesel prices had stabi-

21
lized in the $3.00/$3.50 range respectively. The Costco website showed a list of closed
stores, including all four in Missouri.

Edgar Springs was a tiny town with a population of 200 or less. It had no claim to fame
except that it was the mean center of US population in the 2000 census.

The library I refer to was the Licking Branch of the Texas County Library. The County
seat, where the main library is, is the city of Houston with a population of about 2,000.
The largest city in Texas County was Cabool, population 2,200. Texas County is just
south of Phelps County where my acreage is. You wouldn’t expect to find a library in a
town as small as Edgar Springs.

Many people like to characterize the Great Depression by referring to the movie The
Grapes of Wrath, based on a novel of the same name by John Steinbeck. However, the
movie was more about the great dust bowl than the depression. I once knew a fella
whose father worked in Chicago as an accountant during the Depression. He ate one
meal a day, the Blue Plate Special, which cost 6 bits in those days. Everyone wasn’t out
of work, despite claims to the contrary. It peaked at 33% in 1933, but by1937, it was on-
ly 14%. It briefly increased in 1938 to 19% but then a military buildup for WW II began.
So far, most authorities were classifying our economic situation as a recession, not a
depression.

Don’t let them kid you; this was a Depression, not a Recession. My grandfather was a
farmer during the Depression and they ate, but didn’t get much money for their crops,
forcing them to tread water for about 8-9 years. There weren’t any jobs available in the
local area, counting all the Counties surrounding Phelps County. Gold was way up and I
suppose I could have cashed in an ounce or two, but then what? I only had so much
and when that was gone I’d be up to my butt in alligators.

Then I realized I had the use permit to harvest firewood. A cord of firewood went for
about $150. I didn’t have many expenses, $50 a month would keep me in food and fuel.
If I reached a saturation point and couldn’t sell any more firewood, I could keep it and
use it myself. Firewood down in this area was sold by word of mouth and they’d call and
place an order. I guess I needed a cell phone after all. I also needed a gimmick, lots of
people sold firewood. They delivered it by the pickup load which was more like ¾ of a
cord, called it a cord and charged full cord prices.

My gimmick would be to give value for value, a full cord of firewood for the full cord
price. Plus, I could cut the firewood to order, 12”, 14” or 16” long pieces. It might mean a
little extra work but I could save the saw dust for the ice house. I didn’t want to advertise
in the papers or yellow pages so I made up cards to post at super market bulletin
boards.

22
Stop and think about what I did. I started small scale preps before Y2K and perhaps in
anticipation to that scare. Unlike a lot of other people who had money to plow into
preps, I just continued what I was doing. When I had food covered and some water, I
moved into arms and ammunition. Next I got only as big of a generator as I needed and
because of a comment on Frugal’s got the quietest one I could find. It was only later that
I extended my preps to a higher level, food wise.

I found a small property with a cave in the Ozarks owned by a family who was desper-
ate to sell it. Everything went fine until I had a dispute with a hunter who refused to be-
lieve the judge. If you don’t like the verdict, you can appeal. It’s inadvisable to take the
law into your own hands, you may run into a Marine who remembers his training and
has a hair trigger.

I wondered where the firewood idea came from for a while. Then, I remembered a story
that TOM had written and posted on Frugal’s, A Family Alone. Whether that was my in-
spiration or not, I was now in the firewood business, had a cell phone and hopefully
would have customers. It wouldn’t be pure profit because of the gas the chainsaw used.
Other than that, I would be paid for my labor and it wouldn’t be much.

It was three weeks before I got my first order and they wanted a cord of hardwood cut to
16”. I dropped an old oak tree in the forest, cut it into barely manageable pieces and
hauled the logs home. Then, I cut it down to 16” pieces, getting 6 pieces per 8’ log. I
had a terrible time splitting it and stacked as I went. When I had a pile 3 layers deep, 8’
long and 4’ high, I piled it in the back of the pickup and some in the trailer. The guy was
shocked when I went to the trailer and began unloading more after emptying the Chevy.

“I only ordered a cord.”

“I’m only delivering a cord; a full cord, not a pickup load which is about 80 cubic feet. A
full cord it 4’ deep by 4’ high by 8’ long.”

“I’ll be damned. Here you go $150. Any chance I could get another load like that?”

“I’ll have to split it, do you want it the same length?”

“Yes. I’ll take all the dry oak like that you can provide up to 4 cords.”

“Do you want me to deliver it one cord at a time or split all three cords and deliver them
in one fell swoop?

“I have enough to hold me, split it all first. Are you using a splitter?”

“I don’t have one.”

“For the price you’re charging you should. Want to borrow mine? I used to pull permits
and harvest my own, but stopped when I had the heart attack.”

23
“How much rent are you going to charge?”

“As long as you’re delivering full cords, I’m money ahead. That’s more than enough
rent.”

It was a large oak tree, very large, and I filled the order from that one tree with some left
over. I delivered the firewood when it was cut and even stacked it being the guy had a
bad heart.

“That wood you delivered is about 5 pickup loads. Five pickup loads at $150 are $750
dollars. I’ll make you a deal. You keep the splitter and the spare parts I have and we’ll
call it even.”

“I’d like that, but this is my only source of income, I’m afraid I’ll have to pass.”

“I’ll let you keep the splitter and pay you $150.”

“Word of mouth is the best advertising there is. If you tell your friends how well you were
treated and that they get a full measure of firewood, you have a deal.”

The splitter was a Timberwolf model TW-6 with optional log lifter. It was their most pow-
erful log splitter and featured a twin-cylinder 18 HP OHV Honda GX engine, electric or
pull start, which easily powered the 22 GPM 2-stage pump. The TW-6 produced 28 tons
of force and had an 8-second cycle time. It was too good of a deal to turn down. For all I
knew the guy only paid $400 for the splitter, but it would sure help my business. The
thing was my permit only allowed me to gather firewood for personal use.

I went looking for another oak tree and decided I’d just split it at the 16” length which
worked well for fireplaces. This wood would be split and stacked, ready for delivery
when I hopefully got another order. The way I looked at it was that although some
stoves could take 18” and 20” wood, it was a whole lot easier measuring a full cord if I
cut it 16” long because a full cord was 3 face cords.

I cut down a second dead standing red oak and after that, a Shagbark Hickory. I wanted
the hickory for my smoke house but would sell it off, a little at a time, for one heck of a
lot more money. Typically, I got orders for 3-4 cords per month right up until winter set
in. Then, my market dried up. I kept going and harvested 4 more red oaks before my
permit expired. I had something to keep me busy, splitting and stacking the red oak
firewood. White oak was the most expensive firewood because it had a higher BTU rat-
ing, but I couldn’t find any dead standing white oak.

The small amount of money I’d earned with the firewood allowed me to fill in a few cor-
ners of my preps, refill my gasoline containers and buy another 500 rounds of Lawman

24
and Gold Dot. I’d been practicing with the PT1911 because I hadn’t been that good of a
shot, in the beginning. I’d gone through 500 rounds of the Lawman just getting to be a
reasonable shot. The Lawman was practice ammo while the Gold Dot was pure-D de-
fensive ammo.

Since the Hickory gave off the most heat per piece of firewood, I burned it in my cave,
keeping it comfortable. I hadn’t done a good job chinking the log cabin and until I could
solve that problem I’d live in the cave. It was colder than normal this winter and I pulled
the battery from the Chevy and stored it in the cave. I put a cover over the truck, just in
case we got snow. I got out during deer hunting season and took a buck and a doe.

I butchered both and froze about half of the meat after cutting it up and wrapping in
butcher paper. I sliced the rest thin like and made jerky out of it. What do people live in
caves live on? In my case, it was mostly beans, rice and venison with coffee or tea to
drink. I made sure to eat vegetables on a regular basis to get the vitamins they might
contain. I like most vegetables, like corn, green beans, beets, and tomatoes.

My entertainment for the winter came from the Hallicrafters receiver. Some of what I
heard was normal ham chatter one usually hears listening to the ham bands. On one
channel I sometimes listened to, conspiracy theorists were having a heyday. They
talked about the Kennedy assassination, Richard Nixon’s resignation, Watergate, The
Iran-Contra scandal and seemed to be worried that terrorists would attack the country
again, any day. Needless to say, I didn’t listen to that frequency often because they only
changed subjects once in a while.

I also listened to the broadcasts that Steve Quayle made. I have some good news in
that regard, he’s still a crackpot. That said, I must say that had everyone listened to him,
we might not be in the financial mess we’re in. I connected my regular radio to the an-
tenna to get the local news which also included a bit of state news and a small amount
of national news.

The unemployment rate in Missouri was as high as the national rate, about 10%. The
government bailout hadn’t worked and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve freely ad-
mitted that we were in a Depression. He maintained, however, it wouldn’t be as bad as
the Great Depression because of the lessons we’d learned. Maybe someone had
learned them, but it seemed to me that the Federal Reserve hadn’t. Ben Bernanke
agreed that the Fed had made the Great Depression worse, saying in a 2002 speech:
“I would like to say to Milton [Friedman] and Anna [J. Schwartz]: Regarding the Great
Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it
again."

Want to bet? I’m giving odds. I’m a gambler; want to bet whether Randy was really out
of here? I figure him for a mooch who is smart enough to leave before he totally wears
out his welcome. I’d tested him and found him wanting when I said I was down to my
last MRE Entrée. If he figured out that I had a two year plus supply of food, I half ex-
pected to be looking down the barrel of the K98. I also had the impression that if I of-

25
fered him work cutting firewood, he’d either decline because of a bad back or agree only
to let me do most of the work.

On the national level Russia had announced they intended to take back their port on the
Black Sea, located in Sebastopol. I should point out that the Ukraine and that portion of
Georgia not under the control of Russia were now members to NATO. Nah, Russia
wouldn’t dare. They were forced to withdraw their fleet from the Mediterranean. Russia
dredged the port of Tartus and had built a dock in the Syrian port of Latakia. That mon-
ey went down the drain and the Syrians were unhappy because they’d lose the rubles
the crews spent. The Russians had taken long term leases on the port facilities, so As-
sad didn’t really care.

Much as it had the last time, the US sank further into Depression, dragging most of the
world with it. Although it happened slowly, over a period of time, the world returned to
the modern equivalent of the 1930’s economy. One example of the extent of the fall was
the military programs. Most military building efforts are strung out over a multiyear peri-
od so we could pay for them. The feds no longer had the money and work was cut back
on building the final F-22s, F-35s and the USS Gerald R. Ford. Other proposed pur-
chases were put on hold. That move threatened to increase unemployment. It was a vi-
cious, downward spiral.

I got an order for firewood mid-winter. The guy sounded desperate and wanted two
cords. Full cords, he said, not those 80 cubic feet pickup loads. I got the address and
told him it would take me a couple of days because I had to get the pickup running and
load the wood. I shouldn’t have worried about the pickup; the diesel was laced with PRI-
D and anti-gel. The warm battery in the cave fired the pickup right up I let it idle for a
while, while I loaded two cords of wood. Not wanting to waste fuel, I shut the Chevy
down and continued to load the first cord. With that done, I returned to the cave and had
supper, showered and crawled into bed. Man do I hate lukewarm showers.

I finished loading the trailer the following morning with split logs from the second cord
pile and took off to deliver it. When I got there, I unloaded and he piled and stacked the
firewood. He had one cord stacked and was well into the second cord when I called a
halt.

“I’ll go back for the rest of the second cord, but I could sure use the cash for the first.”

“That was $125 per, right?”

“It is $150 per and you know it.”

“Well, I helped stack it.”

“You volunteered, I didn’t ask for help. I’ll take the $125, but you’ll have to pay me for
both, right now.”

26
I estimated that he got about 160-170ft³. I didn’t load up the rest of the second cord and
return. He called back.

“Where’s the rest of my wood?”

“Where’s the rest of my money? A man’s word is his bond and you broke you word. The
going price in the middle of winter for a pickup load of firewood is around $125, get over
it.”

“All this over $50?”

“I’ll bring the remainder of the second cord. I won’t unload it until I have my cash in
hand.”

“Oh, all right, bring it and I’ll pay you up front.”

The first time someone screws me, shame on them. The second time someone screws
me, shame on me. I made sure my PT1911 was clearly visible in the holster on a belt
over my coat. I kept the Mossberg close at hand. I climbed in the back of the pickup on
top of the wood, thumb strap released on the holster and shotgun at low ready. He set
down his shotgun and brought me my $50. I hurriedly unload the rest of the second cord
and beat feet to the acreage.

You owe me, when I got back; there stood Randy, shivering due to the cold. His Mauser
was slung and he was dancing around trying to keep warm.

“I see you got a cabin in. Why’s it padlocked?”

“To keep uninvited guests out.”

“Can you unlock it, I’m freezing.”

“It will be cold inside; I let the fire go out.”

In fact, it was very cold, hovering around ambient temperature. I started a fire using
hickory and it warmed up pretty good. However, due to my poor chinking job, the winds
whistled through.

“Man you have a draft, how do you live here?”

“I just get by. I’ll figure a better way to caulk the cabin next summer.”

“There’s nothing wrong with your chinking, the logs shrunk. Replace the mortar next
year and you should be fine.”

“You know about log cabins?”

27
“Worked on a few, that how I messed up my back.”

“Let me put on a pot of coffee and you can tell me more.”

“Got anything to eat?”

“Macaroni and cheese okay?”

“Yeah, but fix two boxes. No fresh vegetables I suppose?”

“I have some canned.”

I turned away and started the vegetables heating and boiling the macaroni and cheese.
I opened a can of butter and made a quart of instant milk. I had bread, in the cave, but
told him I’d run out and hadn’t baked. Over dinner we talked about building log cabins
and I learned there were several types of construction, some that didn’t have gaps be-
tween the logs. Modern log cabins were as tightly sealed as any other modern construc-
tion.

“I’ll give you a ride back to town.”

“I was hoping you’d let me stay.”

“Sorry, only one bed.”

“How did you ever come out on that shooting?”

“Self-defense.”

“You murdered that guy.”

“The County Attorney felt otherwise. Ready to go?”

“I’ll get my coat. You’re not very hospitable.”

“I like being alone Randy. For the first time since I’ve known you, you finally paid for a
meal with the knowledge you shared. Call it even and please don’t come back, I don’t
welcome the company.”

I do seem to have a flare for creating enemies, don’t I? Nobody in the tiny community of
Edgar Springs seemed to know Randy or anything about him. I wondered where he
slept in a town so small it had few hiding places. It wasn’t my problem and I’d officially
put him on notice that he wasn’t welcome. I locked the cabin back up after taking the
butter and milk to the cave.

28
With two of my cords of wood gone, I harvested one more tree despite the fact that my
permit was expired. There were several people in the forest harvesting and I was but
one of many. I hauled 8’ logs back to the acreage and cut them down to 16” pieces and
then split them. The A frame was getting quite a workout. Well, how else would you load
a log 24” thick and 8’ long? The weight put the box of the Chevy right down on the
frame. The splitter worked both horizontally and vertically, so I didn’t have to lift the cut
pieces up. The tree I cut down was one of the marked trees because it was already dry.
The volume of the main log was about 100ft³ and there was another trunk section plus
plenty of large branches. I guess this red oak tree went 3 cords plus some kindling.

My property was nearly square, like I mentioned before. It ran about 515’ on a side and
was listed as 6.089 acres on the County records. I had 5’ of property on top of the bluff
and the cave opened on my property and extended under the land of whoever my
neighbor was. It was 100% dry except for condensation of moisture from my breath and
cooking. I went to Licking and bought a 5-gallon can of that white sealer paint they use
to seal basement walls and a 6” brush. I got the front section of the cave painted and
about half of the second before I ran out of paint. I went back to Licking for another 5-
gallon pail and went to the library to check on the state of the state, the nation and the
world.

In one word, it was worse. Check that, that’s an understatement. Unemployment was at
15%. The government had resorted to buying up and distributing beans and rice. They
were soup lines in every major city ala the Great Depression. Apparently nobody had
jumped off skyscrapers, if that’s any consolation. The finger pointing going on was all
pointed to the US. We’d stopped importing oil except from the North Sea, leaving the
Middle East scrambling to find other buyers. There was only one, China. This resulted in
an oil glut and falling prices; China was paying for the oil with US dollars and only offer-
ing $60 per barrel.

The benchmark for oil prices is Brent light sweet crude. West Texas Intermediate trades
for about $1 more per barrel and OPEC trades for about $1 less per barrel. Currently,
Brent was priced at $72 a barrel, meaning OPEC would have to discount the oil by $1
per barrel. They declined to go that low. They would go $71.50, but that was the limit.
China was planning on sending delegates to OPEC. Some pundits suggested that they
would give the Arabs an ultimatum.

I checked my funds and ordered the package plus a CD V-717 from Radmeters4U. I
needed to sell more firewood and rebuild my cash reserves because there was no way I
was going to touch my gold and silver. You knew about that, right?

In 1928, the US Treasury decided to reduce the size of its currency in order to speed up
transactions, and also to cut costs. By this time, the Federal Reserve had taken over
much of the currency market, and the prices of gold and silver had risen greatly. For Se-
ries 1928, only $1 Silver Certificates were produced. Fives and tens of this time were
mainly Federal Reserve Notes, which were backed by and redeemable in gold. All this
would change, however, with the beginning of the Great Depression in October 1929.

29
The United States was plunged into an economic disaster of profound proportions.
Many citizens blamed the fluctuating price of gold, which directly affected the US dollar
because it was pegged to the value of gold.

President-elect Franklin Roosevelt felt the same way. He persuaded Congress to recall
all gold coins, gold bullion, and gold certificates, which circulated alongside Silver Certif-
icates. This prompted Congress to quietly place the US on the silver standard. On May
12, 1933, the Agricultural Adjustment Act was passed, which included a clause allowing
for the pumping of silver into the market to replace the gold. A new Series 1933 $10 Sil-
ver Certificate was printed and released, but not many were released into circulation.

In 1934, a law was passed in Congress that changed the obligation on Silver Certifi-
cates so as to denote the current location of the silver. This law also allowed the gov-
ernment to exchange silver bullion for the certificates, not just silver dollars. The 1933,
along with its sister, the 1933A, $10 silvers, as well as the 1928 $1 silvers were phased
out and replaced with certificates of Series 1934. The small-size $5 Silver Certificate
was introduced with this series, as well.

The rise in demand for gold for conversion payments that followed the similar European
resumptions from 1925 to 1928 meant a further rise in demand for gold relative to goods
and therefore the need for a lower price of goods because of the fixed rate of conver-
sion from money to goods. Because of these price declines and predictable depres-
sionary effects, the British government finally abandoned the standard September 20,
1931. Sweden abandoned the gold standard in October 1931; and other European na-
tions soon followed. Even the US government, which possessed most of the world's
gold, moved to cushion the effects of the Great Depression by raising the official price of
gold (from about $20 to $35 per ounce) and thereby substantially raising the equilibrium
price level in 1933-4. However, under the fiscal strain of the Vietnam War, President
Richard Nixon eliminated the fixed gold price in 1971, causing the system to break
down.

However, Congress was now mandating a recall of all gold and silver in public hands.
They would pay $200 per ounce for the gold and $4 an ounce for the silver. The recall
included numismatic coins. There was a hue and cry raised and on the ham bands peo-
ple were talking about a Second Revolutionary War. However, the gold recall had one
shortcoming; people who paid cash for their gold and silver were all named Cash. He
died, didn’t he? Seems like it was back in 2003.

Only people foolish enough to use their credit cards to buy gold and silver left traces.
The seller dutifully recorded name, address and other information the credit card com-
pany required. Plus Congress saw fit to include legislation that allowed Treasury em-
ployees to access credit card records. The new BATFEPM (PM for precious metals),
had the authority to round up the gold and silver. This was getting interesting and after I
finished painting the cave, I went back to Licking and logged on. After a few BATFEPM
agents had been killed, Congress went one step further, ordering the seizure of all fire-
arms.

30
 The Other Shoe – Chapter 4

I immediately bought an IWB holster for the PT1911 and turned in my CCW to the local
Sheriff. I carried two spare clips in my left hand rear pocket and my wallet in my right
hand rear pocket. I had purchased the guns when I lived in St. Peters and now lived in a
cabin on 6 acres near Edgar Springs, they’d never find me.

“You’re Henry Brown?”

“I am. There must be a lot of people named Henry Brown.”

“Quite a few actually. However, you lived in St. Peters, right?”

“You’ve got me there. I used to for a fact.”

“And, when you lived there you purchased 3 firearms, a Springfield Armory M1A rifle, a
Mossberg 590A1 shotgun and a PT1911 pistol.”

“You’ve got good records.”

“Please bring us those firearms. There’s a new law…”

“I would if I could.”

“I suppose you had all three in a boat on a lake and your boat overturned.”

“No, the other one, I sold them to get money to live on. Between the price of fuel and
food, it was selling them or starving to death.”

“Did you sell them to one person or several?”

“Several, and no I didn’t get names because they never offered. You can’t imagine how
hard it is to sell a $3,400 rifle that’s been upgraded with a good scope.”

“How much did you get for it?”

“$3,000, I was desperate.”

“The shotgun and pistol?”

“Same story. Had to sell them at a big discount. I have bills of sales though. Can’t really
make out the signatures and I used cash as a name.”

I’m right handed. I filled out the bills of sale right handed. I signed them left handed.
First time in my life I ever tried writing left handed and the signatures were illegible.
They searched the cabin, the ice house and the smoke house. They ran metal detectors

31
over a portion of the acreage; anywhere where the ground appeared to be disturbed.
They never found the cave because I had added a bit of camouflage. Not much just a
little; all done with Randy in mind.

Speaking of him again, I haven’t seen him since I fed him the macaroni and cheese and
told him he wasn’t welcome. He had good ideas though and I used a sand and cement
mortar mix to seal the gaps in the logs. It appears that I’ll be able to live in the cabin
from now on. I checked with the Forest Service about a permit for next year.

They told me I was too early; they hadn’t finished marking trees so they didn’t know how
many permits they would issue. They put me on a waiting list.

My favorite patriot fiction writer is Jerry D Young and Tired Old Man is a close second.
Between the two of them, they’ve covered just about every survival scenario one could
think of. They wrote a lot about GTW (Global Thermonuclear War) and TOM had his
Rule of Threes. He claimed that bad things happened in threes. So, here I sat, waiting
for the other shoe to drop. TOM also developed a spreadsheet that allows you to calcu-
late your shelter stay time after the peak radiation level. I wrote him and he sent one.
Simple reply with spreadsheet attached, probably got a lot of requests. It was posted on
the net. I think that Frugal should have posted it too; I know TOM would have granted
permission, were it required. The upside was he probably got a lot of Squirrels email
addresses. Jerry must have been a local boy, he sure knows a lot about Missouri.

The BATFEPM? They looked until they were blue in the face and never came up with a
single firearm, not even when they patted me down. Oh, I didn’t always carry when I
was at home on the acreage. I know, I know, bad plan. Worked out well in this case,
maybe I just got lucky. They also looked for gold and silver while they were at it alt-
hough I denied owning any.

“If I had gold and silver, would I’ve have been foolish enough to sell off my firearms?”

They looked for a while longer, no doubt expecting to find the 933 ounce gold ingot from
the Central America in one of my cabinets. They did find a bunch of scrap metal out-
side, but it isn’t enough to sell. Meanwhile, the NRA found some sucker to appeal his
guns being seized. It went to Federal District Court, held for the plaintiff, res judicata.
The US appealed to the 9th Circuit. District Court upheld, res judicata. The 9th Circuit
upheld? Be still my heart. SCOTUS denied cert., same reason. It seemed that Heller
meant something after all. Res Judicata is the doctrine that says, the thing (res) had al-
ready been decided (judicata).

Then, the plaintiff had to sue again to get his firearms returned. It was more like DC
than anyone imagined. In a snit over being overturned, Congress tried to re-
implement the Assault Weapons Ban a second time and couldn’t pull it off; they were
one vote short in the Senate and 10 votes short in the House. They didn’t know it at the
time, but that failure kept Red Dawn from becoming anything more than a Patrick
Swayze movie. I said we hadn’t had WW III, yet, and the calderas were peaceful.

32
I started taking firewood orders for delivery in the fall. It wasn’t something I intended to
make my life’s vocation. I was already a skilled fork lift operator. I also got requests for
pickup loads of Hickory. They didn’t bat an eye when I said $125. I checked with the
Forest Service and they issued my special use permit, reminding me that the wood was
for personal use. That was my intent but personal use can include anything including
harvesting it for a friend. The wood was free, I charged for my labor. As soon as I could,
I located and cut three Hickory trees and 3 red oaks. My customers from the previous
year all wanted firewood. I told them that due to inflation, my price was $175 for a full
cord. When the guy who tried to rip me off called, I told him I’d changed occupations. He
pressed, I relented for $175 per full cord paid up front and not stacked. He said he
wanted Hickory. I said, fine, $200 for a full cord unloaded but not stacked, same terms,
cash up front.

In no time at all, I had sold all of the prior year’s firewood and what I harvested this year.
I needed a Hickory so I’d have firewood for myself. I cut two more and 3 more red oaks.
I found that I could squeeze two face cords (~85ft³) in the pickup if I was careful stack-
ing it and by charging $125 for a pickup load, I made a bit extra. The orders began to
peter out, probably because someone had taken my signs off the bulletin boards. I
made new ones reflecting the higher prices. I also got back to the library for the first
time in a while and got caught up on what the MSM was saying. If they were right, I
needed more ammo.

I had just reread Keys to the Kingdom wherein the best advice had been, Beef, Beans,
Bullets, Bullion, Bunker. Not necessarily in that order. No way could I buy bullion but
beans and now bullets were legal and available although expensive. I could buy beef
roasts and ground beef at the market plus I had a nicely furnished shelter (bunker). I’d
sold 16 cords at $175 per including a few of the double face cords and took in a shade
over $2,800. Plus I heard around that someone in Licking wanted a fork lift operator. I
got the job based on my previous experience. It seemed that good things came to those
with patience. Fortunately, it was only a 15 mile compute, one way, about 1 gallon of
diesel.

On my new job, I worked from 8am to 4:30pm with a half hour for lunch. I held onto the
firewood money in case something I really needed became available. By the way, after
the mortar set, the cabin no longer leaked air and I moved in the cabin, permanently. I
did my clothes at a Laundromat, got a shave and a haircut. Boy, did that barber earn his
money. At $15 it had been a bargain. When the paychecks started coming, I started
keeping the Chevy topped off and buying a few things at the market, I was getting aw-
fully tired of venison.

I also bought sliced bread and bologna for lunchmeat sandwiches. Over one weekend, I
did an inventory of my preparations and ordered more from Emergency Essentials. I
preferred Walton Feed, but they’re slow and the freight is excessive. For the moment,
there didn’t seem to be waiting lines for LTS foods. My first purchase was the one year
supply of grains and legumes in super pails and I added one super pail of white sugar.

33
I bought hot cocoa mix from the grocery store, I prefer Hersey’s. The grocer said Her-
sey’s stopped making it. To improve my social life, I made sure to buy Oscar Mayer bo-
logna. Or, is that their hot dogs?

Since my special use permit hadn’t expired, I continued to harvest logs on weekends. I
usually started Friday night after work and dropped the tree. I trimmed the branches and
cut the logs on Saturday and hauled the big logs home. I’d return on Sunday and clean
up the trash and haul it back to the acreage. Then, every night after work, I split and
stacked firewood until the sun gave out. I hadn’t been in such good shape since boot
camp. When my special use permit expired, I had several cords of wood stacked, for my
own use and just in case.

I heard around that the guy who sold firearms locally was mad as a wet hen. It seems
that some customer ordered a full 500-round case of Black Hills 165gr BTSP and re-
fused to take it when he learned the price. I bought it and got a small discount in the
process. Up to this point in time, I’d only fired 3-4 rounds of the hunting ammo. It was
that big of a bargain, $400 plus tax out the door. But hey, when you’re busting your butt
cutting firewood, $50 seems like a lot of money.

I made it to work every day come hell or high water. I quickly learned the features of the
Hyster forklift and was moved to a different position using a larger lift, which included a
nominal pay raise. I didn’t get a big head, I thought I had it made at Costco until they
closed their doors.

Remember what I told you about China and the Arabs? I was doing my level best to
stay current with the news. Neither China nor the Arabs would budge and they were $10
a barrel apart on the price of oil. Back in the good old US of A, we had wells coming in
on the North Slope and off the East Coast. California had balked at oil production off
their coast and had been sued over the issue. The environmental lobby flatly stated that
they could keep the issue tied up in the courts for years. They were wrong.

The US Attorney sued California in Federal District Court. The Court held for the feds.
California appealed and the 9th Circuit upheld the lower Court. Cert. denied. Captain,
there be oil in our future. A new refinery began construction near the coast, not far from
Santa Barbara. The environmentalists sued. Same outcome, the refinery was nowhere
near where anyone lived, the oil coming to the refinery in a pipeline. They also tried to
block construction of the pipeline. No soap. The TransCanada pipeline was complete
and pumping, lowering prices.

By this time, the US imports of foreign crude had dropped somewhere between 5% and
10%. US oilfields that had been capped because they weren’t economical to operate
reopened and most of the oil was West Texas Intermediate (WTI). Our sole source of
imported crude continued to be from the North Sea, a primary provider before things
went to hell. Why do they call it Brent crude? Shell names their oilfields after birds and
the North Sea fields were named after the Brent Goose; one more useless fact.

34
I was making a good wage, a bit more than Costco paid, and saving nearly every pen-
ny. The EE order cost around $750 delivered but, it was a year supply of grains and
legumes. Since it included a pail of popcorn, I even had something to eat as a treat.
Cast iron is good cookware, but it’s not really the best for popping corn so I bought a
small set of pots and pans for the cabin and some of those blue granite cups, saucers
and plates. I already had a service of 4 in flatware in the cave but added a second for
the cabin. My reasoning was, what if Randy shows up again?

I hunted deer but failed to get one so I bought a half of a beef, some boneless pork
loins, bacon, half a dozen hams and one small Butterball turkey. I added a used refrig-
erator to the cabin and installed another PV setup to power the refrigerator and a few
12v lights. I rebuilt the sun heated water setup and finally got enough hot water to really
enjoy my showers. I thought I got a real deal on the refrigerator. I asked if it ran and the
guy plugged it in and the compressor ran just fine. I didn’t wait to see if it actually got
colder. It had a pinhole leak in a Freon line or whatever they use these days. It was still
cheaper than a new one, if I didn’t count my time.

It was cold enough to freeze large blocks of ice and I refilled the ice house. I’m begin-
ning to believe Al Gore got it all wrong, but hey, he invented the internet. The internet
and the World Wide Web isn’t the same thing. A fella named Licklider and his associ-
ates at MIT invented the internet. A fellow named Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the
World Wide Web while working for CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. Al Gore’s claim: And
the funding for Mosaic itself came from the High-Performance Computing and Commu-
nications Initiative, a federal research and development program I helped pass into law
while I was a Senator. Apparently no one else voted for or against the bill. Another
thing; if he makes his house any greener they’ll have to open a separate power plant for
him.

There was a story about George W. Bush. He was seen getting on a plane headed to
Asunción, Paraguay. Didn’t he buy some land down there?

Buenos Aires, Oct 13 (Prensa Latina) An Argentine official regarded the intention of the
George W. Bush family to settle on the Acuifero Guarani (Paraguay) as surprising, be-
sides being a bad signal for the governments of the region.

Luis D Elia, undersecretary for the Social Habitat in the Argentine Federal Planning Min-
istry, issued a memo partially reproduced by digital INFOBAE.com, in which he spoke of
the purchase by Bush of a 98,842-acre farm in northern Paraguay, between Brazil and
Bolivia.

The news circulated Thursday in non-official sources in Asuncion, Paraguay. D Elia

considered this Bush step counterproductive for the regional power expressed by Presi-
dents Nestor Kirchner, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Evo Morales, Hugo Chavez and Fidel
Castro.

35
He said that "it is a bad signal that the Bush family is doing business with natural re-
sources linked to the future of Mercosur."

The official pointed out that this situation could cause a hypothetical conflict of all the
armies in the region, and called attention to the Bush family habit of associating busi-
ness and politics.

The ranch apparently sits over a gas field and a huge amount of water. However, it can’t
be all bad if he’s going up against Castro and Chavez. Does he still get Secret Service
protection down in Paraguay? Simple question, right?

In 1965, Congress authorized the Secret Service (Public Law 89-186) to protect a for-
mer president and his or her spouse during their lifetime, unless they decline protection.
In 1997, Congress enacted legislation that limits Secret Service protection for former
presidents to ten years after leaving office. Under this new law, individuals who were in
office before January 1, 1997 will continue to receive Secret Service protection for their
lifetime. Individuals entering office after that time will receive protection for ten years af-
ter leaving office. Therefore, former President Bill Clinton will be the last president to re-
ceive lifetime protection, and President George W. Bush will be the first to receive pro-
tection for only ten years.

The only way for Dubya to get lifetime protection was to move in with his Dad and hope
his Dad or Mom out lived him. Why Paraguay? Smaller target, perhaps? Out of the
range of Russian and Chinese missiles? He’d left one heck of a mess when he’d left of-
fice, but when did that mess really begin? I don’t have a clue, I was just curious.

Unemployment slid another 0.6 points to 15.6% this past month. Home heating oil rose
6¢ a gallon, on average while gasoline and diesel both rose slightly, under 10¢ a gallon.
Prices were expected to fall when the new refineries came on line. I stored the super
pails in the cave and pulled out a canister of popcorn along with a can of Crisco. I spe-
cifically told them when they cut up the meat to cut the roasts to regular thickness and
then cut them in half. They forgot or something and I had to get a hacksaw to cut them
down before they thawed. They did the same thing with the round steaks, but I used a
cleaver on them.

I checked my guerilla garden and it looked good to go so I didn’t bother planting any-
thing else. Working fulltime, I didn’t really have time to do any canning but I got pre-
pared, just in case; I bought an All American canner, two cases of lids, 6 cases of quarts
and 12 cases of pints. They had various pickle mixes and other things available by the
case so I loaded up. Since I had strawberry and blackberries, I got some pectin and 4
cases of jelly jars. I found a good recipe online and copied it. I learned that the differ-
ence between strawberry jam and blackberry jam was the lemon that went into straw-
berry jam. I didn’t take very long to prepare jams, either. I used a camping toaster be-
cause of my electrical situation, but had always liked toast with jam or jelly. I put up all
I’d need for the immediate future.

36
°

Although my wages were higher than they were in St. Peters, I was actually making less
money in terms of purchasing power. The property taxes were very low on the acreage
even after I built the cabin. That made the difference and my frugal ways didn’t hurt.
Every chance I had to lay in more super pails or store bought food, I did. I noticed that
the weather was changing, the amount of ice in the arctic was increasing and it was get-
ting colder, even here in southern Missouri. I was forced to add more PV panels and in-
stall a tank heater in the Chevy lest the engine not start. More PV panels meant more
batteries and a larger inverter. Fortunately my charge controller was large enough.

While I’m not what one might call a social animal, it’s pretty hard not to interact with
people you work with. I couldn’t do much of that when I was on the forklift. Lunchtime
was a different matter altogether. It was mostly run of the mill questions like do you live
near Licking; no, I have a small acreage near Edgar Springs. Good hunting up there;
didn’t even see a deer this past season. Married; managed to stay single, I’m a bit of a
loner. Big house; home built log cabin; no kidding. Wood stove, the whole 9 yards; I’m
off grid and use solar panels for what little electricity I need. No TV, just radio. Chit chat,
getting to know one another, the usual I suppose.

There was one fella who didn’t say much, Harry. He had the look of someone who knew
the score, probably another prepper. Of course that’s not something you just bring up,
especially if anyone else is around.

“Don’t suppose you use any of the forums, do you?”

“Might”

“I’m on Frugal’s, Mad Dog 2525.”

“Sheephound 007.”

“I think I may have seen some of your posts. Don’t post much do you? Sort of like me,
I’m mostly a lurker.”

“Mostly read the fiction and check out Homesteading and Self Sufficiency, Homestead
Food Production, Emergency and Disaster Preparedness, General Patriot Discussion
and Firearms.”

“That’s about what I review, Harry. My problem is that I don’t have internet and have to
use the Library computer here in Licking.”

“Been at this a while?”

37
“My last regular job was in St. Peters before I moved down here. I was a forklift opera-
tor/stock clerk for Costco.”

“Get started when you worked there?”

“I did; it was before that Y2K thing. I started off double and triple buying. I also started
putting up money for an armory and the usual LTS food and various supplies. Did what I
could and eventually decided to look for a bug out place. Got the 6 acres next to the Na-
tional Forest, reasonable price, had septic but no well.”

“What do you think of this Government seizure of precious metals and guns?”

“To quote Thomas Jefferson, I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against
any form of tyranny over the minds and lives of men. To preserve our independence, we
must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must take our choice between
economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts, we must be
taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labors and in
our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the peo-
ple under the pretense of caring for them, they [the people] will be happy. That pretty
much covers the economy and Congress apparently can’t understand what the SCO-
TUS decided in Heller.”

“Can you believe that crap? Man it’s worse than Nazi Germany when Hitler took power.”

“I’ve been blessed with a visit by the BATFEPM.”

“How’d you make out, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Don’t have any firearms. I was able to produce bills of sale for all those I purchased on
4473s.”

“They buy that?”

“Not at first.”

“Mind if I ask what you had before you sold them?”

“A Super Match, a 590A1 and a PT1911.”

“Good stuff; it’s a shame you had to sell them.”

“Based on that visit, I learned that the most common explanation people use is that their
boat overturned.”

“But how did you get Bills of Sale?”

38
“Hypothetically? A person could fill out a Bill of Sale to somebody named Cash, list the
serial number, etc. and sign it left handed. Or if he or she were married, have the
spouse sign it as purchaser.”

“What brand of ammo would a guy shoot in a Super Match?”

“Match grade. I preferred Black Hills and had both the match hollow point and the soft
point boat tail.”

“Gold Dot for the PT1911?”

“That and Lawman for practice. A good assortment for the shotgun including Remington
8-pellet reduced recoil 00 and Brenneke slugs, full power.”

“I favored HydraShok when I had firearms.”

“Sell them?”

“I must have if they didn’t fall into the lake or get stolen.”

“Probably wouldn’t buy the stolen excuse without a police report.”

“Good point. Have somewhere secure in case of fallout?”

“I didn’t have the money to build a shelter.”

“Check around, there are lots of caves.”

“I might just do that, thanks Harry.”

A person has to hold their cards close to their vest and even if the guy you’re talking to
is of a like mind, it may not pay to show your hole card, right away. A good rule of thumb
is that anything you’re not willing to reveal about yourself shouldn’t be asked of the oth-
er guy. Another good rule of thumb is to avoid lying. Like the shelter question. The an-
swer was correct, as far as it went. I’d found the cave when I found the property. Maybe
Harry would like to go deer hunting next fall.

If you’d followed the financial meltdown, one thing you heard was that history was re-
peating itself and we were essentially entering the Second Great Depression. Those
who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. It was a lesson that I’m sure
wasn’t lost on anybody. Which brings us to the point of what it took to end the Great
Depression; that, in and of itself, is depressing. It took WW II, not FDR. His greatest
claim to fame other than serving 3 plus terms was converting us to socialism. Most of us
have become so accustomed to the idea of Social Security we depend on it. Unfortu-
nately, they give away more than they take in. Plus what they take in is loaned to the
government mostly through bond purchases. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, perhaps?

39
Where do I stand politically? If you have to ask… you wouldn’t understand the answer.
Backing Ron Paul is about like backing Ralph Nader (the guy who hates cars) or
Lyndon Larouche (a one time member of SDS). Paul has many good ideas, but he can’t
get elected as President. Better to vote for the Republican or Democrat so you have a
real say in the election. Me? I’m a Jeffersonian. Mostly.

Jeffersonians, so named after Thomas Jefferson, support a federal government with

greatly constrained powers, and are strong advocates and followers of a strict interpre-
tation of the US Constitution. Jefferson himself followed and exhibited these principles.
Jeffersonian philosophy also called for state and local governments to safeguard the
rights and property of citizens. Jeffersonians recognized both private and common
property. During his early public career, Jefferson hoped that each State and County
would be smaller examples of the national American Republic. He believed that republi-
can governments established and governing at these levels would best keep the federal
government in check.

The Jeffersonian philosophy held that all men had the right to be informed, and thus, to
have a say in the government. The protection and expansion of human liberty was one
of the chief goals of the Jeffersonians. They also reformed their respective state sys-
tems of education. They believed that their citizens had the right and should be educat-
ed no matter their circumstance or status in life.

Internationally, Thomas Jefferson and the Jeffersonians believed that America was the
world's best hope. They believed that the United States would be an example to the rest
of the world in establishing their own sovereign constitutional republics. When the
French Revolution broke out, American supporters and allies of France had hopes that
the monarchy would fall and the people would form a government of themselves. Do-
mestically, original Jeffersonian thought also had agrarian elements, and believed that
the farmer should be the backbone of any nation, supplying it with a strong work ethic
and virtue.

I also believe that things are going to get much worse before they get better. It may take
a worldwide disaster or even a war before we all get our act together. Many people can’t
accept the idea that the Cold War never ended, it just changed character. And now, with
Russia awash in oil and gas money they’re doing their level best to make up for lost
time. Worse, they’re getting there. Project 955, the new Borei class submarine, is
equipped with the new Bulava (SS-NX-30) SLBM derivative of the Topol-M (SS-27)
ICBM. They had commissioned 3 subs so far with 3 more under construction and a total
of 8 planned. Each submarine could carry 16 missiles.

40
 The Other Shoe – Chapter 5

We needed Winston Churchill; instead, we got Neville Chamberlain. The SS-NX-30 is a

derivative of the SS-27, except for a slight decrease in range due to conversion of the
design for submarine launch. The SS-27 has is 21.9 meters long, far too large to fit in a
typical submarine. The largest previously deployed Russian SLBM was the R-39 / SS-
N-20 STURGEON, which was 16 meters long. Russian sources report that the Bulava
SS-N-30 ballistic missile can carry ten warheads to a range of 8,000km. Other sources
suggest that the Bulava might have a range of 10,000 km, and is reportedly features a
550kT yield nuclear warhead. Apparently up to six MIRVs can be placed at the cost of
offloading warhead shielding and decoys.

Is it 6 or is it 10? Three subs, each carrying 16 missiles with 10 warheads per missile
are 480 warheads. When the other three subs are commissioned it will jump to 1,080
and when the final two are commissioned, it will jump to 1,480. Some of their test
launches succeeded and some failed. Should one assume that it a war breaks out they
launch them all? If they all fail, no big deal; but if most succeed, it would be a very big
deal. Whereas, using the lower number of 6 warheads, yields 888 when all 8 subs are in
commission. And, what’s this about increasing the number of missiles to 20?

The largest oil exporter to us from the Middle East had been the Saudis. Saudi Arabia
had the highest OPEC export quota, the highest production capacity and exported more
oil than any other OPEC member. They attended the OPEC meetings, agreed with eve-
rything discussed and then did what they wanted to do, regardless of OPEC. If I under-
stand what I read, the problem OPEC had was valuing their oil in dollars. When the dol-
lar was sound, that was great, but, then came the Euro. They had all since changed to
the Euro.

Frankly, I don’t like the way things have been going; the economy in the toilet, unem-
ployment at the highest levels since the Great Depression and Russia using their oil and
gas money to rebuild their military. You’d better keep an eye on the window and watch
for Cuban parachutes.

I had groomed some vines to act as camouflage for the cave, but I guess I mentioned
that. The camouflage, I mean, not what I used. They hung from the top of the limestone
bluff, I planted fake thorny blackberry plants at the base and while the thorns were
sharp, the leaves were plastic. You’d need a magnifying glass to tell, though. The
branches were real and about 12’ tall, reaching the vines. The blackberry tends to be
red during its unripe ("green") phase, leading to an old expression that "blackberries are
red when they're green".

I caught that gal who works in the office, Lynn, giving me the twice over the other day.
So, when she wasn’t looking, I gave her the twice over. Pretty face, nice bod but nothing
special other than she seems fit and trim. I asked around and learned she was 29 and
single. Some of the guys called her the Ice Queen. Near as I could figure, some of them

41
asked her for a date and the look she gave them in response would freeze water in hell.
They said her reply was gracious, No thank you, but thanks for asking.

I also learned that she lived in Licking. For someone who none of them had dated, they
had a virtual catalog of information about the lady. She liked outdoors activities includ-
ing hunting and fishing. She rode horses and had her own. She had an AA degree and
was working on her BA attending night school. One guy said he’d seen her riding one
day and she had a lever action rifle in a scabbard and a revolver on her hip.

I hadn’t set a horse in years and didn’t have one. Neither did I have cowboy guns. Not
that I wouldn’t mind having some, but only if I could buy them reasonably. Maybe with
things up in the air with Congress and SCOTUS fighting over the 2nd Amendment,
someone would get nervous and unload their guns.

“Excuse me, may I ask you a question?”

“It’s Hank, right?”

“Yes, Lynn, Hank Brown. I heard that you have a lever action rifle in the scabbard of the
horse you ride and a revolver strapped on your waist. What I wanted to ask was wheth-
er the rifle was a Winchester or a Marlin and what caliber.”

“I don’t want to broadcast the answer, I’m due for a break, want to get a cup of coffee?”

“Sure.”

We went into the employee coffee lounge and each got a cup of coffee, one of the few
benefits the company provided.

“Okay. The rifle is a Marlin 1895 cowboy in .45-70 and my revolver was from my grand-
father. It’s a 1993 Ruger Vaquero in .45 Colt. I wear what some people call a John
Wayne rig, separate cartridge belt with an open holster. Do you have firearms?”

“No cowboy guns, but I have a M1A Super Match, a Mossberg 590A1, a PT1911 and a
Winchester model 62A pump rifle. That’s unofficial; officially, I never owned the model
62 and sold off the other three.”

“BATFEPM?”

“They visited my cabin, yes.”

By this time we were speaking in hushed tones, almost whispering. She asked a couple
of questions about my background, marital status and if it were true that I was a hermit
who lived in a cabin in the woods. I admitted that I lived in a home-built cabin in the
woods, pointed out that I’d never been married and that I’d been a forklift operator for

42
Costco before they shut down their operation in St. Peters. Our break time ended all too
soon and we both had to get back to work. I vowed to get a Marlin and a SAA knockoff.

Sometimes we’d be on break at the same times and she always said hello and smiled.
On one or two more occasions, we visited for a few minutes about this and that, usually
some story on the news. As much as I would have liked to ask her out to dinner, I never
did. One time I mentioned that I was thinking of inviting Harry out to hunt deer. She got
a gleam in her eye and asked if the hunting party could handle one more. I said that I
thought it could and would ask Harry if he minded a 3 member hunting party.

When I brought it up with Harry, he said he was already committed to go with another
group and would have to pass. He mentioned that he’d heard from someone that Lynn
was a dead shot with a rifle. The next time I saw her, I told her that it wouldn’t be a prob-
lem because Harry had a prior commitment. I inquired what she’d be using to hunt with
and she told me she’d use her Marlin.

We got busy for a while and I had to forego my breaks to get the work finished. It wasn’t
just me; nearly everyone gave up their breaks for a while. The rumor mill said that the
company was experiencing difficulties. With everyone working a few extra minutes each
day, it added up and the company got past the bad spot. With the company over the
hump, vacations would be approved for the deer and turkey hunting seasons.

“What are you going to use?”

“My M1A with a 5-round magazine loaded with BTSP.”

“Did you get both deer and turkey permits?”

“Sure did.”

“Good, I did too. I’d suggest you take that pistol you have just in case we run into any
feral hogs. The booklet says to shoot them on sight.”

The hunting seasons were divided up into sections including archery and firearm and
the firearm season further divided into various sub sections like youth, black powder,
and antlerless. Season opened on a Saturday and by Sunday evening we’d both taken
a 4 point buck. Lynn hauled hers to town to get it butchered while I took Monday off to
butcher my deer. Later, we went turkey hunting and both got two turkeys and one hog.

“Nice cabin, you say you built it?”

“Yes, I harvested the Lodge pole pines and put it together. The logs shrank a little and I
ended up re-chinking.”

“You have everything, a bathroom, a kitchen, a living area and a bedroom. You even
have hot water.”

43
“Only enough for a quick shower or two.”

“I suppose I’d better be going. See you at work Monday?”

“Sure. Say, would you like to go out to eat some evening?”

“Are you asking for a date?”

“Yes I am.”

“And that’s despite knowing my reputation?”

“That Ice Queen thing? I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t ask; you’re one heck of a lady.”

“Why thank you kind sir. Most of the guys who asked me out were married. There were
some singles too, but I didn’t find them to have qualities I admire in a man. Sure, I’ll go
out with you, just pick a date and time.”

“Would the Willow Tree be okay with you?”

“The Willow Tree? Sure, that will be fine.”

“Next Saturday, say around 5pm.”

“Let me write down my address and directions.”

I took the hog and it to the butcher to get it cut, processed and wrapped. Although I in-
tended to butcher my deer myself, I decided to treat myself and have him cut and wrap
it too. He had a good meat case and I bought several slabs of bacon, taking the one full
slab he had on hand and going back later for the slabs he had to order. He was cutting
up chickens the day I picked up the ordered bacon and I bought 12 to add to the ice
house.

That Saturday night, we had a nice quiet dinner, both selecting steak, and visited at
length about our backgrounds, the state of the state, nation and the world. I learned she
had two horses, not one, a stallion and a mare, both 6-year-olds. She only had 2 more
courses to finish and she’d have her BA. Her auburn hair fairly gleamed in the soft light-
ing of the restaurant. She wore little makeup, a dab of lipstick, perhaps some powder
and nothing on her eyes. I learned that she’d lost her father as a teen when he’d simply
taken off. Two years previously, her mother had died of cancer, although she wasn’t
specific of what type of cancer. Her mother and she had lived in her grandparent’s
home and it had been willed to her mother and then her.

44
With the home came all of the contents including her grandfather’s revolver and her fa-
ther’s Marlin. She said that there were other firearms and none of them were on the
books. Her grandfather had a M1911A1, a Garand rifle and an M-1 carbine. Her father
had a Ruger Standard pistol. She had a large garden and spent several evenings and
weekends canning. Her days were very full with her various activities and going to
school and she rarely dated. In fact, her previous date had been to celebrate her 21st
birthday. She and her date had gone out for drinks and the date ended abruptly when
he tried to take liberties.

“Do you think I’m pretty?”

“No, you’re not. You’re more like drop dead gorgeous. You have a charming personality,
work very hard and you didn’t find it necessary to paint your face like a brazen hussy.”

“Thank you. Could we have an Irish coffee instead of dessert?”

“That would be nice; I haven’t had a drink in quite some time.”

“You have a problem with alcohol?”

“Only with the price. I was unemployed for quite a while before I got this job.”

“How did you make ends meet?”

“I harvested firewood. It wasn’t a lot of money but my needs were few.”

“So, you’re fairly self-sufficient?”

“Actually, I’m very self-sufficient. I probably shouldn’t say anything, but do you know
what a prepper is?”

“Is it a survivalist who doesn’t plan on overthrowing the government?”

“That’s as good of a definition as any, I suppose. You can put me in that category.”

The waitress brought our drinks and we continued the discussion about prepping over
two drinks. I implied, but never said, I was well prepped for most eventualities.

“Do you have a ventilation system for your cave?”

“What cave?”

“The one you hid behind the blackberries and vines.”

“Hmm, the camouflage wasn’t good enough?”

45
“For most people probably, but I was looking for it and knew what I was doing. Now, an-
swer my question, do you have an air filtration system for your cave?”

“No and I don’t have a blast door either. It’s fairly nice; it was dry so I used basement
paint and sealed the walls. It’s well stocked with food and the antennas for the commu-
nications equipment are at the top of the bluff.”

“I saw them. They’re well hidden.”

“Apparently they’re not hidden well enough.”

“That slab of rock should block most of the radiation, were there to be radiation, but you
really should look into installing a ventilation system and some kind of door to seal the
cave off. How is the cave equipped?”

“There’s running water from the well and it’s connected to the septic, so there is a bath-
room of sorts, with solar heated shower. I don’t have much of a kitchen, just a Coleman
stove on the card table. There is one twin bed.”

“Is there room for a larger bed?”

“Yes, but being alone, I only needed a single.”

“Do you plan to be alone forever?”

“Well, I suppose if the right woman came along, I’d have to buy a bigger bed, ventilation
system and a blast door.”

“Start saving.”

I had been saving, ever since I took this job. As I told her, my needs were few. I had
most of the money set aside to buy the 50psi blast door ($3,295) and the air filtration
system ($3,600) from American Safe Rooms. I had no idea how much it would cost to
ship the things from Oregon. I called them up and got a complete price. I had more than
enough to get them and asked for the information I needed to wire them the money.
They indicated that they could deliver within a week, via motor freight.

Two weeks later, the equipment had arrived and I’d managed to install it. I put the venti-
lation system in the cave before I mounted the door. Mounting the door proved to be
one of the hardest things I’d done in my life, it was heavy and awkward. Once I had the
project done, I asked Lynn for a second date and told her I wanted to show her my
home improvements. She said sure with a twinkle in her eye.

“Oh my, a blast door.”

46
“Be careful when you open it, it only clears the slab by about 2 inches.”

“Is that the air duct?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Still using the Coleman stove and only have a single bed?”

“I’m working on it. Give me a chance, would you?”

“I have a spare queen sized bed if you want it.”

“That would be easier than buying a new one, are you sure?”

“I’m sure. You have those 25-gallon propane bottles, why didn’t you get a propane
stove?”

“At the time, I didn’t have the money and the Coleman stove met my needs. Still does.”

“I bake a mean loaf of bread in a regular oven.”

“Would you like to go out to eat tonight?”

“Let’s do pizza. Then we can go back to my place and watch TV.”

We got the medium deluxe pizza and a small pitcher of Budweiser. When we finished I
followed her back to her place. Lynn turned on the TV and handed me the remote. She
left to go make a pot of coffee. I started surfing the channels, looking for a news chan-
nel. I found MSNBC, CNN and Fox. I left it on Fox until she came back. As far as I was
concerned both MSNBC and CNN were so biased, it gave me a bellyache to watch
them. I discovered they hadn’t changed in the years since I’d last watched TV.

“We don’t need any bad news tonight to ruin the evening, give me the remote and we’ll
pick a movie.”

Strangely, we ended up watching Red Dawn on AMC; the 1984 original, not the 2010
remake. It was a real shame about Patrick Swayze wasn’t it? The two forms of cancers
that were evading a cure were brain cancer and pancreatic cancer. The surgical proce-
dure for pancreatic cancer was called the Whipple Procedure and they removed your
pancreas, a foot of intestine, part of your stomach and crossed their fingers while they
gave you further treatment. Finally, they buried you.

“Why don’t you come back tomorrow after church and pick up the bed?”

“I’m not much of one to go to church, Lynn, but I could be here at 1pm.”

47
“I don’t go every Sunday either, how about we make it earlier? I’ll fix Sunday dinner so
you’ll know I really can cook.”

“You don’t have to go out of you way on my account.”

“It’s nothing special, just a venison roast, potatoes, onions and carrots. Come on, give
me a chance, you obviously paid attention when I gave you suggestions about fixing up
the cave.”

I arrived around 10am and she had the roast cooking on the stove. She’d apparently
washed the bed linen and boxed it up. Before we loaded the box springs and mattress,
she led me to the basement.

“This was the old propane stove we used before we bought the one we use now. As far
as I know, it works perfectly. You’d need to clean it up, but that would give you a stove
for the cave. You might be able to get Red Top Gas to put in a 1,100 gallon tank with a
wet leg so you can refill the bottles. How many do you have?”

“Four. I never had a situation where 100-gallons of propane weren’t enough.”

“What do you think?”

“I guess I can fit it in. Gonna be a struggle to get into the cave. We’ll have a better stove
in the cave than I have in my cabin.”

“We’ll?”

“Well, yes, do you have somewhere else to shelter if the need arose?”

“I was teasing, Hank. If I had been serious, I sure wouldn’t offer you a bed and a pro-
pane stove.”

“So, you’re saying that you like me?”

“What’s not to like? You seem like a decent, hardworking man who was taught courtesy
and you haven’t made a single pass. Although I’ll admit, if you had made a pass last
night after we got back from pizza, I may have taken you up on it.”

Lynn then proceeded to plant a light kiss on my lips. I kissed her back. We disengaged
and got back to loading the stove into the Chevy followed by the box springs and mat-
tress. The box of linens went in the front seat of the pickup. Over dinner, she asked if I
needed any help getting the stove and bed into the cave. I told her it might make it easi-

48
er, but she wasn’t obligated. I had an old appliance cart that would get the stove right up
to the blast door, but getting through the door might be a struggle.

After dinner we washed up the dishes and she followed me back to the acreage. We
moved the bed first because it had been loaded last and was the easier task to com-
plete. The stove was simply an awful experience but we got it in and leveled. I’d need a
flex line and some pipe to run to the tank. We didn’t bother making up the bed since we
could do it if we ever needed to use the shelter. I called Red Top Gas and inquired
about a tank. He told me that they normally only put in a 550 for residential, but seeing
as he didn’t have one at the moment and I lived a ways out, they’d install a 1,100. He
wanted to know when I could be there to show them where to set it.

“How about I just stake it out for you? I want it back near the bluff. Would an initial pur-
chase of 300 gallons be enough until I can get more cash put together?”

“Yeah, but we’d expect you to fill it before winter.”

“No problem. What’s propane running?”

“Three bucks, but it will probably go up.”

“Okay, I’ll get more later.”

“Don’t wait long, it’s getting hard to get and I’m on allocation.”

I had coffee with Lynn on Tuesday and told her what the propane dealer had said. She
said she’d top off her home tank and asked if I had enough money to fill my tank.

“I need 700-gallons to do that and it’s three bucks a gallon. I can put my whole
paycheck in it, but that will take a while.”

“I should pay for some of it since I’m going to have a place in the shelter. I can pay for
another 250 gallons.”

“Can you afford to do that?”

“I wouldn’t offer if it were a problem.”

“I’ll have to think about it Lynn, what would people say if they knew?”

“They already know you’re my beau. I don’t care what they say. They should learn to
mind their own business.”

“Am I?”

“Are you what?”

49
“Am I your beau?”

“You would be my fiancé if you just ask.”

“Are you serious? If you are, will you marry me?”

“I’ll call my minister and see how fast he can arrange it. Is a small wedding okay?”

“How small?”

“Just whatever witnesses we need.”

“We can go after a license tomorrow.”

It was relatively simple, fill out the application, pay them $50 cash and wait 3 days to get
married. Since we needed a witness to get the license, I talked Harry into being my best
man. The license was good for 30 days and if Lynn’s minister wouldn’t do it, we’d find a
judge. Lynn got one of her co-workers as her Matron of Honor and we were married
Saturday morning.

She suggested that I move into the house and that we keep the acreage as our bug-out
location. I agreed with the suggestion and we went out to the cabin to get my clothes,
CD V-717, CD V-742s, the charger and my firearms. With our combined income, we
quickly had the tank for the cave filled and I plumbed it in with a gas pipe and flexible
hoses on each end. Then, I got a call from a guy looking for firewood.

“I’m sort out of the business; I will sell you what I have cut.”

“I need four cords of the red oak, same as the other years.”

“How about I talk it over with my wife and get back to you?”

“You’re married now?”

“Just. We’re on our honeymoon. I’ll have to see how much I have cut and stacked.”

“How is the splitter working out?”

“Just fine. Oh, you’re the guy who paid for 5 pickup loads by giving me the splitter?”

“That’s me.”

“I see to it that you get your firewood.”

50
 The Other Shoe – Chapter 6

When I checked, I had 4 cords of red oak and two of Hickory. I called him back and set
up an appointment to deliver the wood. Lynn pitched in and we pocketed $700. I sug-
gested that it might be a good idea to cut more Hickory and if she agreed, I’d pull the
permit. Anything to help out she said. If we ended up at the acreage for any reason we
should have more firewood. The money bought .45-70 and .45 Colt ammo. Yes, I’d
found a used Marlin 1895 Cowboy and an original model Vaquero with a 7½” barrel.
Private sale.

She continued to board her two horses and we talked about building a suitable shelter
for the horses, chickens and rabbits. I intended to follow the rabbit, worm bed, fish tank
method outlined in numerous stories. Once summer came we spent every weekend
completing those tasks except that we didn’t buy rabbits, fish, chickens or worms. We
did lay in hay and grain for the horses, and chicken feed, just in case.

I realized what a hurried up affair our marriage had been and we hadn’t been intimate
so we didn’t have a problem in that regard. I asked her how it happened so fast. Her re-
ply was that from the time she’d laid eyes on me, she’d been on a mission. We started
to attend her church regularly. Once we had our firewood supply rebuilt, we went hunt-
ing and got 2 turkeys each. We hadn’t applied in time to get deer licenses. Lynn tried to
avoid cable news while I was glued to Fox channel a few hours every night. Little by lit-
tle the world situation was taking a nose dive, financially and in other ways.

If I thought my life had changed after I lost my job at Costco and moved to the Edgar
Springs area, it was nothing compared to the recent change. My first discovery came on
our wedding night when I learned Lynn had been saving herself. After that, every day
brought another discovery and they were good or better than good. With our combined
incomes and careful planning, we were able to do so much more than I’d ever thought
possible.

We revamped the cabin, replacing my homemade bed with another queen sized bed
and bought a good used 240v, 100 amp diesel generator. We found and installed a
10,000-gallon diesel tank made of fiberglass and started to fill it with 100% biodiesel,
purchased from a local man who pressed his soybeans and converted the oil. He fed
the soybean meal to his livestock. He was charging about half the going price for diesel
to members of his church and was a member of the same church as Lynn.

Attending those church services left me with a good feeling after church and it wasn’t
long before I was baptized and joined. I didn’t know whether I’d been baptized as a child
or not and a second couldn’t hurt. I made untold new friends and began to move away
from my reclusive ways. Careful about how we approached the subject, we began dis-
creet inquiries into who might be a prepper and who wasn’t. The one person we knew to
be a prepper was Harry, from work. Lynn and I invited Harry and his wife Sally (I don’t
know when they met) out to the acreage to check out our preps. I learned that Harry fa-

51
vored the Austrian STG-58, the Remington 11-87 shotgun and the PT1911. Sally had
an AR15 and a Browning Hi-Power but no shotgun.

Their tour started with the cabin and he pointed out it would get cramped when we had
a family. I asked if my assumption that the children would sleep in the loft was faulty. He
said not as long as we took steps to prevent them from falling out of the loft. I showed
him the recent improvements, the used Koehler generator, our PV system and solar wa-
ter heater. We moved to the slab concealing the cave and went into the cave. I could
hear him sucking breath; he hadn’t expected what he was seeing.

“You didn’t just find this cave, did you?”

“Actually, my criteria for a piece of property were that it had to have a cave that was
habitable. When I first moved here I lived in the cave. The cabin came later.”

“Did you have water and septic?”

“The previous owner died before the well was installed; however, the septic was in
place.”

“Where are the antennas for your radios?”

“They’re at the top of the bluff.”

“Nice pile of firewood next to the house. Did you get that from the National Forest?”

“I’ve been pulling special use permits from the Forest Service for quite some time.
When things got really tough, I sold some of it to keep afloat.”

“Nice wood splitter, buy that?”

“In a way. My first customer used to harvest his own wood but he bartered it with me in
exchange for several cords of wood.”

“From what I see of your setup, you should be good regardless what happens.”

“That’s the general idea. Let me say that if nothing happens, that will be fine with us.”

“TOM says bad things happen in 3s. If he’s right, we have a ways to go.”

“Who is this TOM? I’ve read his stories and always wondered if he was a half as well
prepared as his stories imply.”

“All I know is that he’s close to 70 and has lived in Palmdale, California about 30 years. I
think he has the firearms he talks about in his stories because he’s described some
problems he has had with them.”

52
“Such as?”

“He has so little strength in his hands, he has trouble loading his pistol magazines and
racking the slides on his pistols. He included the serial number of his Nazi .32 in one
story so I believe he has it. He writes so longingly about the Barrett rifle, I just had to
buy one.”

“You have a Barrett?”

“Sure do, M82A1M, the civilian equivalent to the M107. Shame I had to sell all of my
guns,” he said nodding towards Sally.

“Nice gun, but they’re $4 plus a shot to shoot.”

“I have some surplus, some of the Barrett M-33 and some of the Mk 211 MP.”

“How did you get that, it’s illegal?”

“Found a Sergeant in the Missouri National Guard who was down on his luck. Gave him
$250 a can and bought 4 cans over a period of months.”

“What did you have for a scope?”

“That BORS with a Leopold Mark IV 8.5-25×50mm ER/T M1.”

“You’re talking some real money with that setup.”

“About seventeen grand including the ammo I got from the Guardsman. Sally works and
we saved for about five years to buy it. Anyway, nice setup.”

“Your rifle or my cave?”

“Yep, both.”

“Care for some coffee? We can go to the cabin and brew a pot.”

“Sally prefers tea.”

“I have about 4 different flavors of Bigelow, I’m sure we have something she’ll like.”

We visited for most of the rest of the morning. And then, Harry thanked us for the coffee
and tea and said they had to go.

“It’s nice to know we’re not the only crackpots planning the overthrow of the govern-
ment,” Lynn laughed. “I’m 30 and if we’re going to have kids, we better get started.”

53
“Sure, why not, practice makes perfect.” We slid the bolt on the cabin door and prac-
ticed most of the afternoon. Two weeks later, Lynn announced she was late.

Harry came to me and asked about the possibility of Sally and he sheltering in our cave
if worse came to worst. I told him I’d talk to Lynn about it, but it was reasonably possi-
ble. Lynn agreed and for the two weekends that followed, we moved their supplies to
the second room in the cave. I gave him a duplicate key to the padlock on the blast door
and suggested he carry a pair of bolt cutters in case he lost the key.

The world economic crisis took another bump later in the year, perhaps reflecting the
recession of ‘37. For some countries it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Neighboring counties were invaded to secure additional food supplies. The UN con-
demned the attacks, but it was much like the 2008 invasion of Georgia by the Russians,
the UN was ignored. Tired of supporting a powerless and thereby useless organization,
the President gave the UN 6 months to have all of its staff and delegates off US soil. He
also withheld our dues, effectively withdrawing from the UN. Moreover, he began to limit
our participation in NATO due to the cost.

We held our breath as the world moved closer to some kind of confrontation. I felt it
wouldn’t come until the Russians commissioned the 4th and 5th Borei class submarines.
That could be a while in the future; the commissioning wasn’t scheduled until 2015.
Russia’s track record in such matters suggested that it would more likely be in 2020. Lit-
tle did anyone know that they had secretly commissioned numbers 4-6 and were work-
ing on the last two at a record pace. Starting with number 4, each sub carried 20 mis-
siles.

We also didn’t know that they’d managed to actually MIRV 10 150kT warheads per mis-
sile, although that was within the specs for the Bulava missiles. About the only military
program we had going was of the Arleigh Burke class destroyers and performing life ex-
tensions on the F-15s and F-16s. The F-15 was expensive, $48 million for the originals
and $60 million for the Strike Eagles. Its replacement, the F-22, ran around $400 million
per copy but was worth the extra money, if we’d have had it to spend.

It was the longest nine months of my life. Lynn had twins, a boy and a girl. We named
him Charles (Chuck), after my father, and her Cynthia (Cindy) after Lynn’s mother.
Lynn’s mother had been a twin although her twin sister died at birth. Lynn explained that
twins seemed to skip a generation. I asked if she’d have more twins and she said it
didn’t seem likely.

The company wasn’t able to give us pay raises due to the economy; we were thankful
just to have jobs. Sally had lost her job and agreed to babysit the twins at our house for
just a little extra money. She was drawing unemployment and we paid her cash, strictly
under the table. The Missouri unemployment pool was running short on money and the

54
feds were forced to step in and provide additional funding. Doing it this way avoided all
of the employment taxes and reportable income for Sally. Everyone was struggling just
to put food on the table and fuel in their tanks. Harry would come over with Sally and the
three of us carpooled to work.

“We’re going to have a war.”

“With who?”

“Best guess, Russia and China.”

“I sure hope not Harry, that’s a war that everyone would lose.”

“Too true, but it’s going to happen. We bought another 4 year supply of food from Wal-
ton Feed and I have it to bring out to the cave.”

“I suppose we should buy some things too, our supplies weren’t geared around having
children.”

“Better plan on buying that locally. You can add regular food for when they get beyond
the baby food stage.”

“Thanks Harry, I’ll discuss it with Lynn.”

“Sure, I’ll make up a list Hank, but it won’t be much, we can use the baby food mill to
make baby foods. People were having babies long before Gerber came along (1937).”

“Do we have a baby food mill?”

“We have three.”

“I didn’t know.”

“I’m pregnant again. There were two heartbeats.”

“Twins?”

“No one baby with two hearts. Of course it’s twins silly. You really took that be fruitful
and multiply to heart.”

“There’s no history of twins in my family.”

“I’d like you to do something for me.”

“What do you need?”

55
“Four rifles and pistols; something to put up for the kids when they grow up in case
they’re not available.”

“Which rifle and which pistol?”

“Mini-14s or Mini-30s for rifles. I’m not sure about pistols, you be the judge.”

I bought four of Rugers new tactical Mini-14s and half a truckload (just kidding) of .223
ammo. They were difficult to come by because of the BATFEPM. Most of the weapons
sales these days were accomplished without the 4473s. Only LEOs and military could
have weapons according to the BATFEPM who was ignoring the SCOTUS. Uncertain
about a pistol, I had a word with Harry. He had several recommendations and I ended
up with the 9mm Browning’s. (Total – $9,000 excluding ammo.)

Holsters came from a surplus company in Maine. I added pistol belts and magazine
pouches. There were 7 magazines for each pistol that I got from Impact Guns. I bought
the 5.56 from Ammoman. The strange thing about the law was that it outlawed guns but
not ammo.

“India nuked Pakistan.”

“Say what? When did that happen and why?”

“About 3 hours ago and it was over the Kashmir. Pakistan retaliated with everything
they had. Israel went on high alert, so this could be the beginning.”

“Man, I hope not. Lynn is 6 months along and if there is a war, we could end up deliver-
ing the babies in the cave.”

“Babies?”

“She’s expecting twins again.”

“If it were me, I’d make sure I had all of the fuel tanks topped off, just in case.”

“I’ll call and have that done immediately. I’ll have to order #2 diesel to top off the diesel
tank, my supplier doesn’t have any biodiesel at the moment.”

“What did you do on baby food?”

“I just received another 4 year supply from Walton Feed and we have a baby food mill. I
got extra non-fat milk and instant buttermilk powder.”

56
“If it were me, I’d keep my NOAA radio running and use an earplug. We might not get
much warning.”

“Do you have one?”

“Yes, but not with me.”

“Lynn has one, too, so I pass the suggestion to her and the warning.”

The EAS announcement came roughly six hours later. Lynn rushed to me and we told
Harry. We piled in the pickup and headed home. Harry and Sally left to pick up a few
things and said they’d be right behind us. We emptied the refrigerator and freezer com-
partment into a large Igloo cooler, gathered our bug out suitcases and the kids diapers,
both clean and dirty. We took off traveling as fast as was safe. Harry and Sally showed
up within 5 minutes of our arrival.

The diesel generator had been wired in to provide power to both the cabin and the cave.
When we did that, it allowed us to get a laundry washer/dryer stackable for the cave.
We also had added an electric hot water heater providing a good supply of hot water
(40 gallons) for washing and laundry. The original system was available as a backup.
Everything had at least one, if not two, backup systems and we were in good shape in
terms of redundancy.

When the NOAA radio announced an Air Defense Emergency, we closed and locked
the blast door and powered up the ventilation system. Lynn put on a pot of coffee while
we waited for TEOCAWKI. Sally boiled water for a cup of Earl Grey. The CD V-717
along with a recent acquisition, the AMP 200, a very high range radiation meter, were
ready to be connected, all antennas grounded and sensitive electronics placed in our
faraday cabinet, save for a single NOAA radio.

Every state has some targets. Missouri had Kansas City, St. Louis and Whiteman AFB
at the minimum. We were west of St. Louis and SSE of Kansas City. I’d say we were
probably more like SE of Whiteman, if not ESE. Whiteman was about 120 miles, line of
sight on a heading of 308° from Edgar Springs I later learned. The NOAA radio
screeched and went dead. That could have been a warhead or a HEMP attack; I doubt-
ed we would ever know for sure. Whatever it was, it wasn’t close because the ground
didn’t shake. With a GTW a certainty as opposed to speculation, we sat around the card
table discussing our options.

“There are a couple of thousand people in Licking, I rather we avoid the place,” Harry
said.

“Do you know of any other preppers in Licking?”

“Just the two of you.”

57
“I don’t know of any others either Harry. Our cabin is awfully small and we probably
don’t have room for Sally and you in there once we get out of the cave.”

“I have a travel trailer I can pull out. It’s a 40’ fifth wheel that can be lived in year round.
It’s the maximum allowable size, 400ft² and has multiple pullouts. It’s probably larger
than your cabin.”

The cabin may look small, but it is 20’x30’ or 600ft².”

“It’s about the same size as the trailer with the pullouts extended.”

“And, don’t forget, we have a large loft.”

“You’re going to need it with four kids.”

“Sally, do you know anything about birthing babies?”

“I never had any kids, so I just know the basics.”

“I watched the doctor deliver the twins, but that’s about all I know.”

“Hopefully we’ll be out of here by then.”

“I sure hope so.”

We would later learn that the strikes came in waves. Russia started with its SSBNs and
then moved to launching its ICBMs. Russia didn’t limit its attacks to the US; they also
attacked France, England, Canada and China. China attacked Taiwan, Japan, South
Korea and Russia. Israel attacked all of its enemies, taking out Iran with their Jericho III
missiles before Iran could launch against them. Israel proved to be the only country in
the Middle East that succeeded in repelling any and all attacks.

“How long would it take to get the fifth wheel?”

“Not much over a half hour, why?”

“Let’s get it now so it’s still available when this is over. We won’t get any radiation from
Whiteman for several hours. We can worry about hooking it up to our water and septic
later.”

“Sally, we’re going. We’ll be back in 45 minutes to one hour.”

“Do you have to?”

58
“I’d sure hate to lose the fifth wheel to some scavenger.”

“Be careful,” Lynn urged.

I didn’t realize that Harry’s pickup had the hitch in back or that he had a non-electronic
diesel engine. He was a prepper and like most preppers, he had planned well ahead,
anticipating EMP. I don’t know why he didn’t just hook up to the trailer when he came
here in the first place. It turned out that once we returned, I had to get a log chain and
add the pulling power of the Chevy to his pickup to get it near the cabin due to the slope
of the property, near the road.

“I didn’t believe I could get the trailer over the grade. Otherwise, I’d have brought it in
the beginning and saved the trip back to town.”

“That’s all right; we made it in less than an hour. We shouldn’t get any radiation for quite
some time yet. I need to check my weather instrument to find out the wind speed and
we can estimate how long it will be.”

The wind speed was around 12mph and gusting to 20mph. At 20mph, the remaining
time would be 5 hours and at 12mph, the remaining time was 9 hours. We’d have to
stay up late to get the peak radiation level and the one hour confirmation. I had a copy
of TOM’s spreadsheet and it would give us a really good idea of when it was safe to
leave.

TOM made a point to say that you shouldn’t leave your shelter until the level was below
104mR and in most of his stories suggested it was far better to wait until the level was
below 50mR, if you could. Jerry made a point in his stories that when people did leave,
it should be the older people who could cope with the risk of cancer better than younger
people. The US government’s limit for radiological workers was 5mR per year and the
US Army required MOPP level 4 around 25mR, give or take 5mR.

Between the blast door and the ventilation system, the slab of rock in front of the door
and the amount of limestone overhead, I figured our protection factor was about 1 mil-
lion. Unlike the PAW fiction stories, I didn’t have an airlock, just the single blast door. If
there was radiation out there when we opened the door, we’d probably get a little inside.
That was simple; don’t open the door until we were ready to leave. Little did that solu-
tion account for Sally’s claustrophobia. She didn’t have a problem when the door was
open, but when it was closed and she knew she couldn’t leave, it started to eat on her.
Maybe that’s why TOM suggested keeping some Xanax in your shelter.

The needle on the CD V-717 lifted off the peg about 7½ hours later, the wind was blow-
ing harder than we thought. It continued to rise for several hours and began to level off.
Finally the level started to fall and I was anxious to see where it would be in another
hour. But, it began to slip up again, maybe that second wave of attacks we learned
about later? It continued to climb until it reached 620R/hr per the AMP 200. According to
the spreadsheet, we’d reach 100mR around 1,626 hours (68 days) and 50mR around

59
2,916 hours (121 days); a long time for someone with claustrophobia. Lynn and I
weren’t without resources.

Unfortunately we didn’t have Xanax or Valium. We did have a substitute, Benadryl, an

antihistamine that was the main ingredient in the majority of the OTC sleeping medica-
tions. Benadryl was cheap, about $7 per 100 50mg capsules and we had several bot-
tles. We decided to wait and see because it made no sense to start the Benadryl only to
run out of it. There was a time when Benadryl was prescription only but that ended
sometime in the middle of the first decade of the 21st century. It was, at best, an adapta-
tion, like TOM mentioned in stories referring to Clint Eastwood in Heartbreak Ridge. We
had one course of treatment of Cipro, our only antibiotic.

We had enough food and water to stay in the cave for about 3-4 years. We might run
out of diesel fuel but there was the PV backup that had been one of the original power
sources. The Honda generator didn’t have enough available gasoline for more than a
few weeks, using it sparingly. Thank God it had peaked at 620R/hr and not 3,000R/hr.
The latter would have kept us holed up for 15 months. As it was, 4 months would be
pushing it. Since Sally and Harry were in their 50s and had no children, I’d have to ask
Harry if letting Sally out for a short time after 68 days created any risks, besides cancer.

One thing was certain, one or more of us would get to play doctor since Lynn only had 3
months to go. I had several medical documents on my laptop, Virtual Naval Hospital, No
Doctor, Hospital Corpsman Manual, Ranger Medic Handbook, Special Forces Medical
Handbook, Survival Medicine, Wound Closure Manual and the US Coast Guard Medical
Manual. The most comprehensive was the Virtual Naval Hospital manual because it
covered every procedure a doctor might face at some time in his career. Since our mili-
tary was integrated and sailors had dependents, no doubt it covered delivering babies.

On the other hand if we could get Sally to concentrate on learning how to deliver babies,
that might get her mind off the closed in feeling that she was developing. I realized that
the paint I had applied went a long way toward making the cave seem more spacious.
Hey, everybody gets lucky once in a while.

Besides monitoring the radiation, both outside and inside, Harry and I got together and
learned about each other’s firearms. He taught me about the Barrett and the STG-58
and I showed him how to strip and clean the Super Match. Since the Mini-14s we had
put up for the kids were very similar to the M1A, we didn’t bother with those. The same
applied to the Browning’s. As far as the cowboy guns went there was little to show,
move the lever down to eject the spent cartridge move it back up to chamber the next.
The SAA revolvers were easy, remove the cylinder and clean it and the barrel and then
reassemble.

60
 The Other Shoe – Chapter 7

Those cowboy guns might come in handy, if we were forced to go back to riding horses.
We’d have to find mores horses though, plus feed and grain; or, maybe not, we have to
wait and see. I’d better slow down and take things as they come and quit worrying so
much. That’s pretty hard when it’s your first GTW. Presumably, it would also be the last;
all people had to do was look around and see what this one brought. It was going to be
a long time before we restored industry, large farming operations, reestablished the
government and all that followed TEOCAWKI.

For now, we had my guerilla garden and our stored food. We’d have to wait a while to
hunt deer, turkeys and feral hogs. We weren’t next door to, or on the shore of, a lake, so
fishing would be a challenge. We’d be able to round up a rototiller and plant a garden
using Harry’s and my collection of heirloom seeds. A six acre piece of ground wouldn’t
be all that hard to defend for the most part.

As hard as I tried, I couldn’t help but think about the possibilities. We’d have to recover
the horses, get worms, rabbits, chickens and fish and possibly give some thought to
putting in a greenhouse. All things we should have had done before the crap hit the fan.
We left the horses boarded and didn’t get the rabbits, worms and fish because we lived
in town and it would have meant one or two round trips to the acreage daily. We could
have gotten the rabbits, etc. and kept them in Licking, but hadn’t. We wouldn’t have
made it to the property if we had to take the time to move them. We should have had
them and simply taken off work when the news about India and Pakistan came down.
As they say, hindsight is 20/20.

I checked, the PV panels were still charging the batteries and they had a full charge. We
had enough meat, frozen and canned to have meat for every meal while we sheltered.
Harry smoked and only brought a carton of smokes with him, so I drug out the Marl-
boros I put up as trade goods to tide him over. I’d quit smoking when I’d gotten out of
the Corps, but there wasn’t a better time to resume, so I got out the Kool 100s I put up
for the same reason. The ladies said we were limited to smoking in the storage room. I
guess it beats them telling us to go outside.

There’s another example of the government telling us how to live our lives. Over the last
quarter of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st, they raised taxes on ciga-
rettes and tobacco products to unreasonable levels and banned smoking about any-
where except your home. Some states banned smoking anywhere there were children
under a certain age. One of the last holdouts had been our state, Missouri, but even
they succumbed to the lure of higher tax revenues.

Sally did most of the cooking and she and I read up on everything we could find about
delivering babies. That included topics like breech birth, delivering the placenta and
other uninteresting topics. The decay of radiation was very close to the projected
spreadsheet readings allowing us to be confident that we’d be below 100mR around 68

61
days. We discussed the two choices we had, take Lynn to Licking at 68 days or deliver
the twin ourselves. After much consideration, we opted for the latter.

Our thinking was that the risk of exposing the babies and Lynn to radiation was far
worse than our delivering the babies. We had no assurance that we could find a living
doctor in Licking. With it only being 15 miles south of our location and lacking a major
Civil Defense Shelter, the odds against finding one were simply too great. We put what
we knew and read above taking that risk. The other option would have been for Harry
and me to go to Licking, find a doctor and bring him or her back. I didn’t have Tyvek
suits or gas masks. We were in the same boat as many other preppers, more needs
and wants than money to buy them.

That said we could shelter for as long as it took for the radiation level to fall to where we
wouldn’t need them. With Lynn’s second delivery coming only 15 months after her first,
it should be easier. Chuck and Cindy were just about 1 year old and just beginning to
pull themselves up, hence not toddlers. Another improvement we’d discussed was in-
stalling a raised floor in the cave and we hadn’t gotten around to that either. The barn
for the livestock took priority over the cave floor and there were only so many free hours
in a week.

Typically, according to what I’d read, learning to walk came sometime in the 12 months
to 18 months stage. Potty training usually didn’t begin before 18 months. We had two
cribs, the fold up traveling kind, which we were using for the babies. When Lynn deliv-
ered, we’d need someplace for the new twins, maybe a padded drawer until we could
salvage two additional cribs. It was going to be a challenge any way you looked at it
with four in diapers and cribs. We’d probably have four still on bottles for a short while;
because kids couldn’t really handle a cup well before 18 months. Next, as we tried to
adjust to living in a brave new world, or the aftermath, call it what you will, we’d have
two children going through the terrible 2s.

After two weeks, I hooked up the Hallicrafters and the Icom IC-9100H to see how others
were making out. Most everyone we heard was in a rural location. Their only problem
had been dealing with fallout and those damned MZBs. You could take it to the bank
that a major disaster of any kind would bring out the best in some people and the worst
in others. We were so far off the beaten path I doubted anyone would find us. Although I
did think I’d heard someone pounding on the blast door shortly after Harry and I got
back. It was faint and soon stopped so it could have been my imagination. I hadn’t
opened the door and checked because we were nearly at capacity and we hadn’t invit-
ed anyone else to use the shelter.

Back to the radio… most of the hams were rural and had some kind of power for their
radios; either generators or maybe PV panels and batteries. I didn’t know because we
only listened trying to piece it all together. It was during this time, two weeks up to the
time that Lynn delivered, that we learned much of what happened and I reported earlier.
One east coast ham reported he’d been in contact with someone he knew in Israel.
Some on the outskirts of major cities reported the number of strikes and general condi-

62
tion of the area. Most times it wasn’t good news and we started keeping a list of the lo-
cations struck by one or more nuclear weapons. It proved to be more than we thought
possible. One guy, obviously military, revealed that both Russia and China had nuked
the US. He went on to list some of the other countries they’d struck. I assumed military
because he seemed to be in the know. I made an exception and visited with him, telling
him I was a Marine living in Missouri and that it appeared that Kansas City and
Whiteman AFB had been hit. We were assuming that they probably hit St. Louis as well.

He confirmed St. Louis and began to share his list of cities. Once or twice I had to ask
him to slow down, I couldn’t write that fast. When he finished his list, he went on to say
he was in Colorado and in the Air Force, declining to give us his exact location or name.
Harry and I later speculated he was somewhere near Colorado Springs. We didn’t hear
him on the air again; he may have stopped broadcasting or changed frequencies. An-
other guy we picked up was from Lancaster, California. He said that Edwards AFB and
Plant 42 had been nuked. He also mentioned SCE’s San Onofre and PG&Es Diablo
Canyon, San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco. I realized after he was off the air
where Plant 42 was, Palmdale. I wonder… nah, he’s bulletproof.

The US had about 100 nuclear power plants. If all 100 were targeted and hit while oper-
ating, cleanup after this disaster would take much longer than had the plants not been
hit. There would be large quantities of radioactive iodine and cesium as well as radioac-
tive noble gases. This was one of the cases where you needed KI or KIO 3. It was also a
case where access to Prussian Blue was advisable (TOM talked about it in one of his
stories). PB helps remove radioactive cesium and thallium from the body after expo-
sure.

“Ooh, ouch.”

“Are you okay Lynn?”

“I hope Sally and you figured it out, it’s time; my water just broke”

“You’re early, what, three weeks?”

“I think that sometimes happens when you run out of room.”

“I’ll time them and Sally can check for your dilation.”

“Chicken.”

“Puck, puck, that’s me.”

“One centimeter.”

63
And that’s how it went for a while; every 45-minute series of contractions expanded her
cervix about 1cm. Just shy of 7 hours later, Lynn was ready to deliver. A head began to
push its way though and within a minute or so, that seemed like an hour or so, the first
baby, a girl delivered. It was a minute or two before the second baby, a boy, delivered.
We cleaned them up the best that we could, and washed their eyes out with normal sa-
line, lacking anything else. Then Sally cleaned up the girl while I cleaned up the boy.
We added disposable diapers from our only package and wrapped them in blankets.

“You’re stuck in a rut, Lynn, we have one girl and one boy. Any idea about names?”

“How about Lynette and Mark?”

“Named after anyone in particular?”

“Some people I met once, nobody special.”

“Sounds good to me. We’d better note the date and time so we can record the births
when Phelps County is up and running again.”

“When we can get to Rolla, you mean.”

“Yeah, that too.”

“What is the radiation level?”

“It’s right at 100mR.”

“Does mean I can go out?” Sally asked.

“You can, but I’d rather you didn’t,” Harry replied.

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to lose you to cancer ten years down the road. If we stay another 2
months, the risk will be very small, that’s why.”

“Once I’m past being engorged, I think I’ll breastfeed and supplement with Enfamil. I’m
not going to have enough milk for these two, could you get out the Enfamil?”

“You want the shells, bags and Enfamil, right?”

“Don’t forget the nipples.”

“Uh-duh, right, the feeding tubes.”

64
Since we were short the two cribs, rather than use a cardboard box because we didn’t
have any drawers to pad, we took turns sleeping. Lynn slept at night, except when she
had to feed the new babies and I slept during the day. I made sure that she got enough
sleep, because waking up at night to feed babies generally deprived the sleeping moth-
er of sleep. As soon as one of them would fuss, I got busy making up the bottles she
was using to supplement and she fed then in turn followed by me feeding them each the
bottle.

Once we had them burped, diapered and lulled back to sleep, she’d lay back down until
the next time. On average the next time was about 3 hours away. Lynn would clean the
diapers and generally run the washer. I’d dry and fold them. Were it not for the immedi-
ate situation, I’d have probably slept through the night, just as I’d done with Chuck and
Cindy.

In the present situation, someone had to be awake at all times, just in case, and it
worked out well. It is said that babies sometimes get their days and nights mixed up.
Hell, I was getting my days and nights mixed up. However, the time passed and soon
enough, the radiation was down to 49mR/hr per the spreadsheet and about the same
on the CD V-717. On the meter, that was the end of one range and the book said that
you couldn’t trust the first and last 10% of the range.

Harry and I put on N-95 masks, collected our firearms and the CD V-715 and unlocked
the blast door. I could only get it about halfway open. Whatever was on the other side
wasn’t hard so we pushed harder and I slipped through sideways. Crap, I did hear
knocking, Randy had wanted in the shelter and must have set down right there and
died. I moved his body and Harry swung the door wide open.

“Somebody you knew?”

“He was a mooch named Randy Oaks. That’s why I put in the camouflage so he
wouldn’t find the cave.”

“He knew you had a cave?”

“I don’t know if he knew or not, but he suspected I did because I started out sort of like a
hermit living in the cave. The first structure I built was the ice house, the second the
smoke house and the third the cabin.”

“Let me guess, the fourth structure you built was the barn.”

“Considering there are only four structures, I’d say you’re close.”

“What’s the reading?”

“Same as the CD V-717, tell Sally she can come out now.”

65
“What about Lynn and the kids?”

“I’ll bring them out just as soon as the cabin is warmed up.”

“It is a little cold, isn’t it?”

“At least we don’t have any snow.”

“Nuclear winter?”

“Well, the theory has never been disproven. I guess we’ll find out now. I guess I should
have asked, what is the setup on your trailer?”

“Everything is propane including the stove, refrigerator, generator and washer and dry-
er. Well the washer runs on electricity, but the dryer is propane.”

“Is that how it came from the factory?”

“No, we made a few changes.”

“Are your propane bottles full?”

“Yep, 2 100# bottles.”

“So, if we hook up water you’ll be good for a couple of days? I’d like to do any decon-
tamination before we hook up the water and sewer permanently. If we locate you rela-
tively close to the cave you can hook into the propane tank. It’s your choice, because
the tank has a wet leg and we can refill your bottles.”

“I think I’ll level it right where it sits. It’s close to the house and the woodpile. Is it ok if we
get some firewood for our woodstove?”

“You have a woodstove?”

“Like I said, we made a few changes. It’s a Napoleon Deluxe EPA Pedestal Wood Burn-
ing Stove and puts out enough heat to heat the trailer most times.”

“Let me get that fire going in the cabin.”

“Go ahead, I’ll start leveling.”

“Do you need help with the pullouts?”

“Not really unless you want to crank one out. It’s setup as a one man operation. I’ll get it
set and get Sally.”

66
I went to the cabin and started a fire in the wood burning kitchen stove and the fireplace
that was the main source of heat. When it warmed up enough, I went after Lynn, Chuck,
Cindy, Lynette and Mark. I carried the newborns and Sally and Lynn carried Chuck and
Cindy. We would still be going to the cave because it had our only washer and dryer
and real hot water heater. Next, I went back and got the cribs. Now we lined two draw-
ers with blankets and used them as temporary cribs. New cribs were back at our home
in Licking, still unassembled in the boxes. We were going to have to get down to Licking
and we also needed to get up to Rolla and record the births. It might be important,
someday.

Harry helped with minor amounts of decontamination around the acreage. He also
helped me bury Randy. We discussed going down to Licking and he suggested the
sooner the better. I wanted to stop by the house and pick up the cribs, pickup up the
horses and take a little bit of time to look for anything that might be of value for our long
term survival. I didn’t have anything particular in mind; I kept my options open on the
subject. The nearest Wal-Mart store probably was the one in Rolla, although there were
6 stores in the general area.

One thing that would make life a lot easier would be diapers and pins. A person never
passed up a chance to pick up some ammo, especially if it were match grade. With the
barrel with 1 turn in 10, my rifle could shoot most, if not all, of the match grade ammo
out there. It wasn’t at the top of the list because I had right around 5,000-rounds.

The Mini-14 tactical rifles, fitted to the standard synthetic stocks would be fine for the
kids, initially. I planned to keep my eye open for more Garand rifles and M14/M1As. If I
found .30-06 ammo, we could reload the clips for the Garand Lynn had inherited. She
had 5 sealed ammo cans of the Greek ammo, something she said her Grandfather
bought just before he died. The Greek .30-06 ammunition was packaged in 8 round
enbloc clips, 6 clips per bandoleer, 4 bandoleers per spam can thus 192 rounds per
spam can. I’d have preferred 5,000-rounds not 960, but you had to start somewhere.

We got the horses and tack after we picked up the cribs and he loaned us a 4 stall trail-
er saying he wanted it back. I asked about what they had done when the fallout was
high and he said they’d sheltered in their storm shelter which doubled as a cold cellar.
They weren’t sure how long to stay, but after 6 weeks, couldn’t stand it anymore be-
cause of the portable toilet and had bailed out. I wasn’t totally sure, but figured they’d be
okay.

Coming back through Licking, we saw our first town survivor. She had obvious signs of
radiation poisoning, half her hair was gone, her gums were bleeding, etc. We asked and
she said they had shelter in a building basement for about 3 weeks. We asked about
other survivors and she said there had been nearly 100 people in the basement, but she
had no idea where they went.

We didn’t find diapers or pins, so we went to the grocery store and cleaned out the re-
maining disposable diapers, regardless of size. While we were at it, we cleaned out the

67
toilet paper, coffee, tea, baby food and salt. We took more than that, filling the bed of
the Chevy, but I won’t bore you with the details. Most of the diapers were the larger siz-
es so perhaps Lynn could use them on Chuck and Cindy and use the cloth diapers on
the newborns after she ran out of the smaller size diapers. We tarped the load and
headed home.

The first thing we did when we got back was to unload the pickup and the second was
to assemble the cribs. Chuck and Cindy got the full sized cribs and Lynette and Mark
the travel cribs. I put a 30-gallon trash can near the front door to hold the dirty disposa-
ble diapers and figured I would bury them when the can was full or it was warmer,
whichever came first.

Since Harry and Sally had one of those stacked washer/dryer combos, Lynn used theirs
instead of the one in the cave. We moved the radio equipment and radiological instru-
ments from the cave and locked it down. The only time we would go in it was to procure
more supplies.

“What do you think, Hank? Wait a few weeks for those with radiation sickness to die off
and then go back to Licking for salvaging operations?”

“We can start at our house; we didn’t get all of the canned goods moved.”

“We’d better do that tomorrow. You can get anything you overlooked in your rush to get
to the shelter.”

“We need to take the horse trailer back too.”

“You brought the horses?” Lynn asked. “Are they okay?”

“Seemed to be. Apparently some breeds of animals are more resistant to radiation than
humans.”

“It’s a shame that Sally and I don’t have horses and tack.”

“Can you buy some? I guess what I’m saying is do you have a little gold and silver put
back for emergencies?”

“I’ve been at this prepping thing for at least as long as you have, of course I do.”

“I’d be willing to bet that 2 ounces of gold would buy you a fine mare or stallion. Four
ounces a pair and some rolls of silver halves, quarters or dimes, the tack.”

“Where?”

68
“The guy who boarded our horses was boarding horses for several people in town. Plus
he had his own small herd. He might be willing to sell two of his own betting on the out-
come that some of townspeople who owned horses didn’t survive.”

“And with possession being 9 points of the law…”

“Exactly.”

We took the trailer back the next morning and began negotiating. We got a stallion and
mare, both 5 year olds, and tack which included good saddles, saddlebags, rifle scab-
bards and even lariats; the whole nine yards, in a manner of speaking, for three ounces
of gold. We left there and went to first our house and then Harry’s. I cleaned out every
scrap of food and more clothes. Harry did the same. We took the time to board up the
houses and add hasps and padlocks to the doors. We used a matching set of 6 pad-
locks so any one of the twelve keys in the set would open both homes.

“Are you going to take a day off Hank? You’ve been on a dead run since we came out
of the cave.”

“I suppose I should, tomorrow is Sunday. Even God rested on the 7th day.”

“Sally has been helping with the babies, but I’m worn to a frazzle. I guess I wasn’t men-
tally prepared for 4 in diapers.”

When we got to Rolla, our first stop was Wal-Mart and I got both sizes of Kushies reus-
able diapers and every roll of liner they had in stock. It was a recent addition to the
store, added just before the war. The liner allowed you to put to the solid waste in the
trash can and wash the diaper. The label said that they weren’t recommended for septic
systems. We also did fairly well in their sporting goods department, primarily shotgun
and .22LR ammo. Finally, we went to the County Seat to attempt to register the chil-
dren’s births. The building was unlocked, but empty. We located the County Recorder’s
office and put a copy of the birth information in the inbox. If anyone showed up later,
they could sort it out.

There were several grocery stores in Rolla, many of which had been well picked over.
We checked each one, salvaging anything left that we could use. There was, for exam-
ple, at least some toilet paper in every store as well as Kleenex, an acceptable substi-
tute in an emergency. We found enough goods to require a trailer and borrowed a U-
Haul, packing it full. We took what we’d gathered up and returned home.

“Did you get the births registered?”

“There was no one in the County Recorder’s office so I left the information in an inbox.
We got these miraculous non-disposable diapers in two sizes with liners. They must be
something new for this store. Harry and I did the grocery stores and had to get a U-Haul
to bring back what we found. They’d been picked over, but not by any preppers. Pep-

69
pers would have taken all of the toilet paper and Kleenex. In fact, had they the time,
they’d have cleaned out the stores, starting with the one with the most merchandise.”

“Did you pick up any more firearms?”

“Didn’t see anything we couldn’t live without. However, we took every cartridge we have
firearms for, especially more ammunition for your Garand rifle.”

“Do you plan on reloading the enbloc clips?”

“That was the general idea, yes. If we can find any more of the loaded ammo, I’ll grab it
in a heartbeat. I didn’t look into reloading equipment because I’ve never reloaded be-
fore. We may collect the supplies like primers, powder and bullets in case we run into
someone who does reload.”

“I half assumed that you’d head for the Missouri National Guard supply depot and bring
home a bunch of military ordnance.”

“I don’t know where it is. If I did, I just might go looking.”

“Couldn’t you go to Independence and get ammo from the Lake City plant?”

“We could do that and probably will. However, I was thinking more along the lines of
some of the military only ordnance.”

“Such as?”

“M18 Claymore mines, M72 LAW rockets, assorted hand grenades including offensive,
defensive and various other types. We might be able to pick up a light, medium or
heavy machine gun or three.”

“Boys and their toys.”

“Lynn, I was a Marine and the saying is once a Marine, always a Marine. It’s not as if I
had to depend on what I saw in The Enforcer to be familiar with the LAW. We also had
training on the Claymore and hand grenades. My training isn’t so outdated that I
couldn’t use the latest variations of those weapons. I think Harry was in the Army, but I
don’t know that for sure. I don’t know if he saw combat or not.”

“Yes, I was in the Army, 1st Battalion (Ranger). I saw action in Urgent Fury (Grenada)
and Just Cause (Panama). They changed our outfit from an Infantry Regiment to a
Ranger Regiment, but it was only a name change. That’s the extent of my combat expe-
rience.”

70
 The Other Shoe – Chapter 8

“I was telling Lynn that I thought you were in the Army, but didn’t realize that you were a
Ranger. That’s not only good, it’s outstanding. Anything I know the Marine Corps way of
doing, you know the Ranger way of doing. Between us, if pushed, we can kick butt and
take names.”

“Plus we have a .50 caliber and a .30 caliber sniper rifle. We should be able to reach out
and slap ‘em upside the face without getting our hands dirty.”

“Lynn mentioned Lake City Ammo Plant in Independence. I don’t suppose you know
where the Missouri Guard had their ammo distribution point, do you?”

“’Fraid not. Two places come to mind, Springfield and Jeff City.”

“I was thinking Ft. Leonard Wood.”

“Well, we can try all three, if you want.”

“It would be nice to do it before it starts snowing.”

“Are you still worried about nuclear winter?”

“Like I said before, the theory has never been disproven.”

“What do you want to take if we go?”

“I was thinking we’d go through Rolla and get a second U-Haul trailer and we could get
two trailer and pickup loads and be done with it.”

“Just what did you have in mind to get?”

“Machineguns; light, medium or heavy with plenty of ammo. LAW rockets or AT4s de-
pending on what is available. M18A1 Claymore mines. M67 and M61 fragmentation
grenades, Mk3A2 concussion grenades, AN-M14 TH3 Thermate and various colors of
smoke.”

“You think they still have any of the M61 grenades? I thought they had been updated
with the M67.”

“Who knows what you’ll find laying around? The only branch of service to employ the
LAW these days is the Corps. But, in the past, the Army used them. I know that the
Lake City plant produces everything up to and including 20mm ammo, so regardless of
what caliber machineguns we take, we should find some ammo. My first choice would
be a M2HB and second would be the M240. Didn’t much care for the SAW.”

71
“Did you carry one?”

“I did for a while. As much as I disliked my M16, I preferred it to the SAW. We wore the
SAWs out and were down to using duct tape to hold them together.”

“But the Ma Deuce is a heavy brute.”

“I know, around 128 pounds plus ammo. You don’t carry it on a shoulder strap, though.
We’d need fixed emplacements for those.”

“George Patton said…”

“…fixed fortifications are monuments to man’s stupidity. I heard that. We only have 4
people and 4 young children. We either attract more people or go with something big
enough to do the job.”

“When do you want to go?”

“Tuesday?”

“How long will you be gone?”

“I have no idea. First, we have to locate the Guard supply depot. We’re going to check
Ft. Leonard Wood first and Jefferson City second, there has to be at least an armory.
Then, we’re going to Independence. If we haven’t found the supply depot, we’ll try
Springfield. For all I know, it could be up near St. Louis.”

“A week, maybe?”

“I sure hope so; I don’t like the idea of leaving Sally, you and the kids here alone.”

“If anything that looks like trouble comes along, we’ll move back to the cave.”

“One of you should be watching all of the time.”

“We can’t do that; not with only the two of us.”

“I’d feel better knowing you and the kids were safe. How about moving back to the cave
before we leave?”

“Did you pick up any tranquilizers when you were in Rolla?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. Xanax in 0.25mg, 0.50mg, 1.0mg and 2.0mg.”

72
“I’ll start Sally on the small one and work up to whatever size it takes.”

“I can’t believe it would take more than 0.50mg. I’d start with 0.25mg and up it to
0.50mg if they’re not powerful enough.”

“Ok, Hank, I’ll start with 0.25mg.”

On Monday we did all the chores we needed to get out of the way and moved the ladies
back to the cave. Lynn started Sally on the smallest pill and she chilled out without get-
ting too sleepy. We fueled everything and took spare cans of fuel, more for Harry’s sake
than mine. We took our pistols, shotguns, .30 caliber rifles and the Harry’s Barrett with
some of the Mk211. We got a second trailer in Rolla and headed for the Fort, just a
ways on country roads.

We found the depot. We got an M240 and a M2HB both with the spare barrel. There
were 4 NIB M4s and as much as I disliked the rifle, we took them anyway, along with
new magazines, magazine rebuild kits and slings. They had all kinds of play pretties.
Enough to let us play soldier for nearly forever. But, you say, this is not a game.

We went north from Jefferson City. We found a fuel terminal there and made note of
one source of gasoline and diesel. Continuing north we spied two tankers, both loaded,
one all diesel and the second all gas. We also saw two Wal-Mart trucks both locked, so
presumably loaded. West bound on I-70 we found more tankers and one grocery semi,
again full tanks or padlock cargo box. Vital information, we agreed and wrote down the
mile markers.

In Independence, we located the ammo plant and began loading ammo. M118LR for the
.30 caliber rifles; belted .30 and .50 caliber ammo, by the crate load. Although the trail-
ers weren’t full, they were fully loaded. Harry and I discussed our next destination and
decided to go home. We survived the nuclear attack; I figured everything after that was
a bonus. I momentarily lost track of Lynn and our four kids.

“You’re back?”

“Didn’t take as long as I thought it might.”

“Were did you go?”

“Jefferson City, Independence and Ft. Leonard Wood.”

“Did you get everything you were looking for?”

“We even got extras. We have 4 NIB M4 carbines for the kids, a pair each of M240s and
M2HBs, about 4 tons of ammo, the mines, rockets and grenades. Oh, I picked up some
M50 Joint Service General Purpose Masks with extra canisters.”

73
“Why would we need those now?”

“So we can use the tear gas grenades.”

“What all did you get?”

“Some of everything? They had flash bangs and the CS tear gas grenades so why not?

What’s the significance of Lufthansa Flight 181? Just another plane hijacking where GS-
9 rescued the hostages? Correct. However, GS-9 had help from 2 SAS operatives who
supplied the flash bang grenades in their first use in a hostage rescue situation. The
next time they used them was in the Iranian Embassy hostage crisis. Set the building on
fire, but they rescued the hostages. Got all 6 hostage takers, lost one hostage.

Remember that. In 40-50 years when they bring back games shows, you might win 1
million dollars.

“Can we come out of the cave now? Or, do you have somewhere else to go?”

“Well, we might go cut some firewood, but we’d be within CB radio range.”

“Can’t you just stay home and help for a while? Once Sally built up a blood level of the
Xanax 0.25mg, she was loop-de-loop. I basically ended up taking care of 5 children ra-
ther than 4. I gave up and just locked the blast door.”

“I can’t do that. Lynn, I’m convinced of the nuclear winter theory and with Harry and Sal-
ly using firewood, I’m not totally sure we won’t run out. Since we don’t have the snow
yet, I just thought now was the best time to harvest 3 or 4 standing dead trees and haul
them back here. It won’t take nearly as long because I have Harry to help.”

“I hope we do have a nuclear winter. At least you’ll be snowed in and not out and about.
Okay. Harvest your wood, but enough is enough. You stay home after that.”

“Well, there’s something I didn’t tell you.”

“More good news?”

“In a way, yes. North of Jefferson City we found two loaded tankers on US 63, one gas
and one diesel. We also found two Wal-Mart delivery trucks, presumably loaded. On I-
70, we found two more tankers, both 50/50 loads of gas and diesel and a locked gro-
cery delivery truck. We’re going to need that fuel, probably before winter ends. Oh,
there’s a fuel distribution terminal in Jeff City, too. On the propane side of the issue, Red

74
Top has what must be a 10,000-gallon tank or larger. They also had more of the larger
1,100-gallon storage tanks.”

“So, what you’re saying is that Harry and you are going salvaging.”

“Sooner or later and remember, the early bird gets the worm.”

“Speaking of which, we never got the rabbits, worms, fish or chickens. What are we go-
ing to do about that?”

“Look until we find them? It is kind like that election back in 2008, two choices, neither
one of them good. I guess what I’m trying to say is that we simply must recover those
tankers. To keep the fuel stable, we need one heck of a lot more PRI-G and PRI-D.
There are hundreds of marinas on our 9,999 lakes and mud puddles, so I think we can
find it, if we shop around.”

“9,999 lakes and mud puddles?”

“I think Minnesota has more, they claim 10,000.”

“I’m fighting an uphill battle, aren’t I?”

“Off and on for a while, you are, but not in the long run. Once we secure those tankers
and a semi-tractor or two to pull them, we will only have to go to the fuel distributors to
refill them. We probably need to recover those groceries before a hard freeze sets in or
some of the jars will end up broken.”

“Any chance I can agree, but put a condition it?”

“Of course, what is it you want, or what is the condition?”

“We have a large quantity of the 7.62×51mm NATO, now don’t we?”

“Large amount yes, huge amount no. What does that have to do with anything?”

“Since you’re going through Jefferson City, get 6 M1As. One for Sally, one for me and 4
for the kids.”

“What if we have more children?”

“We still would have 8 .223 rifles, wouldn’t we?”

“I’ll get all of the M1As I can find. Springfield Armory also made some M1 Garand’s in
7.62, want me to get any if we find them?”

75
“Those .30 caliber bullets pierce body armor, right? The M14 was based on the Garand.
Of course take them. Beats having them used against us plus having something you
might not need beats needing something you don’t have.”

“That’s a line out of nearly every PAW fiction yarn ever written. So is the idea of doing
salvage. There a fine line there, between looting a salvaging. That line that looters will
be shot on sight also applies to salvagers. The only difference, I think, is who will do the
shooting. It will be LEOs or military in the case of looting and angry locals in the sec-
ond.”

As far as our diesel usage was concerned, we started off with 10,000-gallons. It had
been approximately 135 days since we had been on generator power, not counting the
times we shut it down to service it. That was 3,240 hours and at a 50% load, we would
have used 4,860-gallons of diesel. We’d need more oil, oil filters, fuel filters and air fil-
ters to run it for the long term. We’d also need a second generator to back up the first; in
case it broke or simply wore out. The engine was a John Deere model 3029TF150 and
with a parts set or two, it could be rebuilt. It was only estimation, but it seemed like we
wouldn’t get through the winter without more diesel fuel.

“Pretty good trip Hank.”

“You’re right Harry. We still need to make a few trips. We need to recover those four
tankers, the 2 Wal-Mart trucks and that sole grocery truck we spotted. Lynn wants us to
look for M1A rifles in Jefferson City, too. Then we need to make another trip to Licking
and fill and bring back Red Top’s propane delivery truck. They had 3 more of the 1,100-
gallon propane tanks and it would be nice to have them. If I’m not mistaken, their deliv-
ery truck holds 3,000-gallons. We could fill all 3 tanks and go back for a second load.
What else? Oh, I remember another Kohler 30REOZJB generator, engine rebuild kits
and new alternator heads. We might try to find spare batteries without the electrolyte.”

“Is that all?”

“Not really. We don’t have enough firewood to last the entire winter.”

“I don’t suppose anyone has called you a slave driver have they?”

“We would have had enough firewood with only us using it. I don’t begrudge you the
firewood, not one bit. However, if we don’t want to run out, we’ll have to cut more. I heat
with wood, so I don’t have much choice.”

“We’ve been heating almost exclusively with the firewood too. I’ll be glad to help and
you do have a point about the fuels. How much do you estimate we used?”

“Roughly half of our supply, just under 5,000-gallons.”

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“If you’re keeping a list, add a new 100 amp generator for our trailer. If we’re going to be
salvaging, you should salvage a hot water heater, window air conditioner and compact
washer/dryer laundry combo. You should have everything in the cabin that you have in
the cave.”

“I suppose we could move back to Licking.”

“Be my guest, Sally and I are staying here come hell or high-water.”

We had our trials and tribulations recovering the trucks and it revolved around finding
running semi tractors. Patience prevailed and within two weeks we had the 4 tankers
and 3 cargo trailers to the acreage. The firearms Lynn wanted were available. Two were
the Loaded model and 4 the standard model. We took the rifles, cleaning kits, slings,
two bipods plus all of the ammo and reloading supplies in the store. The hot water heat-
er was a propane fueled, 40-gallon unit and the stacked washer/dryer combo was the
largest size we could find. We brought back drums of oil because an oil change required
8 quarts.

Our final destination was Licking where we made off with his last two, not three, pro-
pane tanks. We mounted one by the cabin and the second by the trailer. We drove back
a full delivery truck, filled the two new tanks and topped off the old tank. We returned to
Licking and topped off the tank. Finally, we were ready to cut the firewood. With two of
us working on it and using Harry’s chainsaw, we made short work of felling three large
Hickory trees and 3 very large red oak trees. Once we had the logs and usable branch-
es back to the acreage, we could cut and split the firewood at our leisure. The Forest
Service could clean up the trash. It is biodegradable, right?

“Home to stay or just visiting?”

“We’ll have to cut and split the firewood. That won’t keep me from lending a helping
hand on a continuing basis. Does that washer/dryer combo work ok?”

“It is nice not having to lug the dirty laundry to Sally’s or the cave. How much firewood
did you harvest?”

“Won’t know until it is cut and stacked; however, we cut 3 Hickories and 3 red oaks.
Would it be ok if I spent 2-3 hours a day cutting and splitting firewood while the kids are
sleeping?”

“Not on your life. You do it while they’re awake. It might be better if you did all of the cut-
ting first followed by the splitting. We’ll have to see how loud the splitter’s engine is in
the cabin before I decide when you should use it. Think about it; I get them down and

77
asleep, and then you fire up the chainsaw or splitter and they’re wide awake and
screaming. We can use some of the sawn limbs in the fireplace.”

“You need a rocking chair, don’t you?”

“It sure would be nice, I’ll admit that. Why, are you going to find me one?”

“I saw one in Rolla. It even had the removable cushions.”

“We are a bit short on seating; get a recliner or an overstuffed chair for you.”

“I get Harry and we’ll go now. You can begin breaking it in right away.”

“Thank you.”

After we had the Lazy Boy and the rocking chair in the cabin, Harry and I began cutting
wood. I kept my eye on my watch since the kids were usually put down after lunch. Har-
ry was just flying along cutting up the limbs, but the thick logs took much longer to sec-
tion. I had two logs cut when Lynn called me for lunch.”

“How did it go?”

“Harry is close to finishing off the limbs. I only got two logs sectioned and ready to split.
Looks like it may go 1½ cords per log.”

“Hickory or red oak?”

“Hickory.”

“I’m putting the kids down.”

“Okay, I’ll quit and listen to the radio for a while. I’ll wear the headphones.”

As I listened to various hams, I kept my eye on the alphabetical list of destroyed cities
and military installations. When someone mentioned a site not on the list, I added it. I
had the list on my laptop in a spreadsheet and would go back later and update the list.
The devastation was far more widespread than our initial indications suggested. Just
about every city with a population of 200,000 or more had taken a hit, as had countless
military installations.

The firewood preparation continued for 2-3 hours every morning. Harry had the limbs
cut up and the trash stacked to burn off. He started splitting the logs as I continued to
cut them to 16” pieces. Eventually, he caught up to me and took a morning off to do
odds and ends like checking over the tack he bought from the stable. He’d done his own
firearm shopping in Jefferson City with an eye towards getting lever action rifles and

78
single action revolvers. He found Vaquero revolvers in .45 Colt and Marlin 1894 rifles in
the same caliber. There were enough 1894’s in .45 Colt for me to get 6.

It wasn’t some phase we were going through, acquiring lever action rifles. It’s pretty
hard to put a semi-auto rifle in a scabbard with a 20-round magazine sticking out. The
single action revolvers weren’t the best choice because they only held 6 shots and took
time to reload. Our pistols could go in the saddle bags with extra magazines.

We were nearly two weeks cutting, splitting and stacking the firewood. We harvested 10
cords. Our list of unaccomplished tasks was growing shorter and this time items were
now chickens, rabbits, worms and fish. We went farm to farm until we found some
chickens scratching out a living in a fenced in area. We added to our pool of livestock.
We continued looking, rabbits being next on our list. When we found rabbits, we also
found worms and fish plus a recently deceased prepper.

He’d been riddled with gun fire and was maybe a week dead. He didn’t go alone, he
took some of those bastards with him. We buried him and ignored the MZBs bodies; the
feral dogs have to eat. After assuring ourselves that he’d been alone, we recovered his
unused goods. He seemed to prefer Mountain House. His firearm collection, while not
huge, was impressive. He had the prerequisite shotgun, the 590A1, the loaded M1A, an
M1911, a Ruger Mark II, a Ruger 10/22 and a HK-417. With that he had 6 50-round
drum magazines, a dozen 20-round magazines and an H&K suppressor.

It was legal because he had the badge, he was a Deputy Sheriff. The Deputy’s service
pistol was a .40 S&W and if he had a service rifle or shotgun, they were probably at the
Sheriff’s lockup. We hadn’t planned on this, but were pulling trailers since we weren’t
sure what we might find when it came to livestock. We filled one trailer with the Deputy’s
stuff and headed towards home, checking farms as we went. We found a sow with a lit-
ter of newborn pigs. She was pure trouble and we maneuvered the trailer to the barn
door and grabbed some piglets putting them in the trailer. She was in like a flash and
we closed the trailer and we got the remainder of the piglets to reunite the family.

Apparently the sow didn’t care for the trailer; when we got to the barn and back up to it,
she bolted with her babies trailing behind her. The Deputy’s rabbits, worms and fish
setup was better than the one Lynn and I had, so we used his and his rabbit food. We
started to get eggs almost immediately and they were a welcome treat. However, if you
eat the eggs, you eliminate your future chicken crop and we soon stopped so the hens
could set.

The only critter we didn’t have now was beef. One bull and a pair of heifers could keep
us in meat and allow us to increase our herd. We’d need more hay and grain because
this place wasn’t designed with livestock in mind. It took a few days to find live heifers
and more days to find a young bull. We pulled back wagons of grain and loads of hay to
supplement our existing supplies. And finally, it came time to sit on our butts and be
grateful we were alive. It was fun trying to connect a wagon tongue to a ball hitch. We
finally just removed the ball and dropped in a large bolt.

79
With our final acquisition, the barn was full. If we expanded herds, we’d have to expand
the barn. A project for when it warmed up. The sow needed a boar, let’s say for com-
panionship. We found a lot of barrows before we found a boar. We took the barrows an-
yway because we could butcher them when they reached 250 pounds and make hams,
bacon and pork chops. I’d smoke the picnics too and we’d get extra ham.

There were two ways to make ham, the dry cure and the wet cure. It was easier and
quicker to brine (wet) cure the pork. We could add or not add sugar and get sugar cured
ham for special occasions. The only thing I’d ever butchered was a deer and butchering
hogs was far different according to Harry because you cut the meat differently. The pork
loin went from the rib steak portion of the beef to the porterhouse portion of the beef.
Modern bacon was usually made from the belly and the ham and picnic could be
smoked or served fresh. What was left over went into sausage or plain or smoked
hocks. I wanted sausage patties and had Emeril’s recipe on the laptop:

2 pounds pork shoulder or butt, cut into 1-inch cubes

½ pound pork fat, cubed
3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh sage leaves
3 tablespoons minced green onions
1 tablespoon Essence, recipe follows
2½ teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon minced garlic

Essence was made as follows:

2 1/2 tablespoons paprika

2 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried thyme

The yield was about 2½ pounds of pork sausage. I figured to try it out and eliminate an-
ything we didn’t like; the cayenne pepper comes to mind. Plenty of time for that, the
hogs weren’t ready to butcher.

That boar we got sure had a nasty disposition. He should get along great with the sow
and her equally nasty disposition. Once the pigs were weaned, she ignored them and
went looking for her male companion. When the heifers came into estrus, the bull ex-
panded his family. We got no snow and despite the cold, had an acre rototilled, rocks
removed and then rototilled in some fertilizer. Sure would have been nice to have a
greenhouse, Lynn started plants in small fiber pots and we had pots all over the house.

80
 The Other Shoe – Chapter 9

The pots were 3” round and sold for around $110 per case of 1,500. That one case
would have to last, unless we could find more. The ground was ready for the plants. The
plants weren’t ready for the ground and it wasn’t warm enough to plant for a few weeks.
I’m beginning to believe that we should have gotten 4” pots.

We’d had exactly one visitor, since the war started and he’s buried over yonder. When
time permitted we installed the fighting positions, installing one machinegun in each. We
also added a box of grenades, mostly defensive, and whatever ammo the person as-
signed to the hole would need for their personal weapons. On nice days, we’d back off
from the bluff and use it as a backstop for practice session.

There was supposed to be an important announcement on the radio at 8pm. We ate to-
gether, got an after dinner drink and tuned on the radio.

My fellow Americans, (he needs a new line)

Recently our country was attacked in a first strike reminiscent of the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor. Initial estimates indicate that nearly 400 cities and most military installa-
tions were attacked. The countries behind this dastardly attack were Russia and China.
We retaliated warhead for warhead. As it stands at the moment, both China and Russia
fared far worse than we did.

I won’t kid you, our economy and our very infrastructure has been nearly wiped out. We
estimate the cleanup will take years. Those of you hearing my voice are requested to
offer all assistance at the local level. To the extent possible, we will do what we can to
ensure that no American goes without food and clean water. Medical treatment is in a
fragile state and health care officials are only treating the most seriously injured people
who present any opportunity of surviving. Expect to see military convoys of food and
water sometime in the next six weeks.

We launched all actively deployed missiles and were preparing to begin drawing down
our stored weapons when the attacks stopped. I cannot tell you what the coming days
will bring, certainly hardships on a massive scale. If you have extra food, please share it
with your neighbors, it will be replaced where possible or you will receive ample com-
pensation.

Thank you and goodnight.

ATM, it seems as if those PAW fiction writers got it right, stay in your shelter until it’s
safe to come out, do some salvaging, plan ahead some like making sure you have
enough firewood and other fuels; start thinking about growing some kind of garden, ei-
ther in a greenhouse or on your available land. The primary problem as I saw it was that
most people weren’t preppers, hence had probably never read a PAW fiction story.

81
They had, at most a week or two worth of groceries, no shelter and no idea how to
make one in a hurry because they’d never heard of Cresson Kearney.

Neither had they dropped a grand or so at Radmeters4U to get the necessary radiation
sensing equipment that had been calibrated and was reasonably accurate. Even if they
had, what was the difference between a Gray, a Sievert and Röntgen? One Sievert was
equal to 100REM. One Gray was equal to 100Rad. They meant the same thing provid-
ed the Q factor, whatever that was, was equal to one. It was important only because
scientists spoke in terms of Sieverts and Grays while the equipment Radmeters4U sold
was calibrated in Röntgens.

But then, most of them didn’t have the equipment rendering the issue moot. There had
been enough movies on the subject of radioactive fallout, for example The Day After, so
that many people knew to shelter. Many probably believe the 343 hours or two-week
rule. You can’t always come out of the shelter at two weeks; it was simply a guideline
that assumed a peak level of 100R. Weapons generally created a peak level at ground
zero of 3,000R/hr one hour after the radiation settles down.

Assuming they managed to survive and come out of the shelter, but still weren’t prep-
pers, they might be a little hungry; don’t you agree? Stop and consider the tools availa-
ble to them in their quest to satisfy their appetites. Their vehicle is probably a late model
with more electronics than a TV. That puts them on foot. Well they’ll just run down to the
market and buy, beg, borrow or steal some food. Say that could be dangerous, better
take along the shotgun, pistol, revolver or rifle used for hunting and self-defense.

It quickly becomes a way of life, borrowing or stealing, and it doesn’t stop with food. If
they find a vehicle that will run, they need fuel and none of the pumps work. They fail to
distinguish between taking abandoned property and property in the possession of oth-
ers, hey my gun will persuade them to share. My share, everything you got. Don’t like
it? Blam.

Law Enforcement is not really in any better shape to deal with a disaster like a GTW
than anyone else. They have late model cars, families to take care of and more fires to
put out than they have water. Some police and sheriff departments are very small with
barely enough sworn officers to do the job in the best of times. If the fatality rate ap-
proaches 50%, how many people will they have available to help their fellow citizens?
Not enough, for sure. They’d be lucky if they had enough staff to investigate homicides
and now the rules have changed and homicides seem to happen frequently.

Somewhere along the line Survivalist became a dirty word. Maybe because of the mili-
tant militias, who knows? So survivalists who had no intention of overthrowing the gov-
ernment changed their titles and became preppers; same people, same plans, same
attitudes. They faded to black, below the radar and still did their thing. They were well
informed, watching the local, state, national and world scene. They watched food pro-
duction in times of abundance and shortage. They watched the price of oil in the same
manner. Oil was just one of many commodities they kept an eye on.

82
The bottom line was that they got as ready as they could afford to be. Not that they ex-
pected law and order to be restored anytime soon in the case of something like a GTW,
but they prepared, nonetheless. Then, the government finally shows its head and has
the nerve to suggest you give away all of your hard earned, carefully stored, food. Kiss
my butt Mr. President, sir. Give them your food because they were stupid and didn’t
prepare. Why do you think it’s called Preparedness? I’ll decide who I help and under
what circumstances, thank you very much.

The Lone Ranger (2 spaced gunshots) A fiery horse with a speed of light, a cloud of
dust, and a hearty ‘Hi-Yo, Silver!’ (multiple gunshots)The Lone Ranger! Hi-Yo, Silver,
Away! With his faithful Indian companion Tonto the daring and resourceful masked rider
of the plains led the fight for law and order in the early west. Return with us now to
those thrilling days of yesteryear. The Lone Ranger rides again. Wait, check that, Clay-
ton Moore died in 1999 and Jay Silverheels died in 1980.

Besides who would talk to a horse that way? Hi-yo? Get real!

Although we had running vehicles and an ample supply of fuel, for now, our needs were
few. After the early salvaging trips, we could see little reason to go anywhere. Until,
someone brought up the subject of our getting a green house. I recalled from a PAW
story that there was a large greenhouse manufacturer in Texas. Texas is mighty big and
a long way away. But, a greenhouse is simply a building with transparent siding and
roof. It lets the available sunlight in and warms the inside.

The sun was shining, but not as brightly. Well, plan B called for grow lights and a heater
of some kind. It was easy enough to get some lumber, just help ourselves. It was the
Plexiglas or Lexan that would present the first problem. We could use glass, but it was
very heavy meaning heavier construction. Plus, we’d still have to find it.

“How big of a greenhouse are you planning?”

“As big as we can build from the available materials. We’ll make it 8’ high at the wall and
put in a steep roof, say a 1 in 1 pitch, 45°.”

“Can you calculate that?”

“Sure, a squared plus b squared equals c squared. For example, say the greenhouse is
20’ wide. The middle would be 10’ and rise 10’. Square the numbers add them together
and you have 200. The square root of 200 is 14.14’. So, for every 4’ section of a 20’
wide greenhouse, we’d need 6 4’x8’ sheets of siding. A square greenhouse 20’ square
would require 30 sheets, not counting the ends. The ends would require another 5
sheets wide plus about 3 sheets high, call it 8 more sheets. The whole building would
need 46 sheets at 20’ square or 76 sheets at 20’x40’.”

83
“Where would you get the siding?”

“We could look in Rolla, but I think the best bet would be Jefferson City. Second best
would be Kansas City or St. Louis. They were both nuked and I’d rather avoid them if
we can.”

We dinked around looking at various ways to design the greenhouse and kept coming
back to the plan for a 20’ wide building. Harry had brought back a Jefferson City phone
book and we checked the Yellow Pages. He said that years ago AT&T had a theme, Let
your fingers do the walking to promote their Yellow Pages. He also had a Rolla phone
book. Once we decided on where we’d look for the materials, including electrical whole-
salers, we gave our wives a hug and a kiss and took off looking.

We started in Jefferson City because the amount of Plexiglas or Lexan we found would
determine how much lumber we’d need. We found enough of the Plexiglas and Lexan
to build a bigger greenhouse since it was simply a matter of adding to the length. From
the quantity of plastic we could also calculate the number of fixtures. When it came to
bulbs, we started with 4’ grow lights and filled in the empty corners with a 50/50 mix of
warm and cool white.

We were going to use 2×6s for the roof rafters and joists. Wall construction would be
standard 2×4s. The doors would be whatever pre-hung doors we could find; they didn’t
need to be special. We added all of our lumber requirements up for the beams, joists,
rafters, sills, plates and studs and then added 10%, just in case. We got the lumber in
Rolla together with the four doors, a pair on each end, and several boxes of nails. We
figured what the heck and got new hammers.

We first used a truck load of Sackrete to pour footings after we installed a water pipe. It
didn’t really take that much longer for the first stage of framing, the stud walls. Next, we
made a pattern and built the roof supports in the form of trusses. Our 40’ long by 20’
wide green house was taking shape when we began to add the trusses 2’ on center. We
started at the peak of the roof and put Plexiglas, using screws, down to where the walls
were and cut off the excess. The wall panels went up quickly and that took us to the
harder part, the ends. It took us nearly as long to do the ends as it had to do the roof.

We added a kerosene heater and warmed it up. Working in relative comfort, we in-
stalled the light fixtures and one switch for each row of lights. We started the first row 2’
in from the side and put the rows in 4’ on center meaning we had 5 rows of lights. Elec-
tricity wouldn’t be a problem, we were only using 4.8kw. However, the lamps needed up
to 3 times as much power to start so it was better to light one row at a time. Then we
moved all the plants from the trailer and cabin and got our homes back. The ground was
still too cold to plant.

84
Kerosene was available in 2-gallon jugs, but we needed more to run the heater. How-
ever, no worries mate, kerosene is mainly used as fuel for jet engines (more technically
Avtur, Jet A, Jet A-1, Jet B, JP-4, JP-5, JP-7 or JP-8). The Rolla/Vichy, VIH, airport had
Jet-A as well as 100LL, Avgas. All we needed was a few drums and a pump; plus, as it
turned out, our rifles.

When we arrived at VIH with our empty 55-gallon drums and a pump with a long intake
hose, we didn’t notice anyone at the airport. It seemed more like a ghost town. We
moved to various locations until we found the cover to a tank of Jet A. It was rather easy
to distinguish the difference in smell between kerosene and Avgas. There were six
drums on the back of my Chevy and full, they’d probably put me on the frame. The eas-
iest way to fill them was to use a hose from the pump and pump the fuel through the 2”
bung. We were on the fifth drum when, zing… a bullet whizzed by Harry’s ear.

“See anybody?”

“Not yet.”

“I can’t tell where the shot came from and we won’t know until they shoot again.”

“Shut off the pump, Hank, I’m getting under the pickup.”

“Good idea, I’ll join you.”

Zing…ding…zing. A second bullet hit the apron and ricocheted off.

“You got them now?”

“Closer, over by the terminal building, but I don’t know exactly where.”

Zing…ding…zing. A third bullet hit the apron and ricocheted off followed almost imme-
diately with “Son-of-a-beech that hurt.”

“You hit?”

“Sorta. Concrete fragments. I have a gouge or two in my face. I still can’t see the SOB
doing the shooting.”

“I’ll move around and check out your face and see if between us, we can spot him.”

“Could be a gal. Him is not politically correct.”

“Screw PC. Whatever the gender, the shooter isn’t half bad.”

“I’m just glad for the half.”

85
“Hold still. You won’t need stitches, just some large Band-Aids.”

Zing…ding…zing. A fourth bullet hit the apron and ricocheted off close to where I been
moments earlier.

“I see him. Hold on while I set this up. Three hundred and fifteen yards, two clicks
should be enough. Hold it, hold it.” Blam “Got him.”

“Not half bad, Hank. Why don’t I finish off filling the drums and you go check out our
shooter?”

“Good, the sooner we’re out of here the better.”

Holding my Super Match at low ready, I slowly moved the 300 plus yards to where the
shooter was, near the end of the terminal building. Since I couldn’t see him, I slowed
down as I neared the corner and moved out a bit so I could see the body. Check that,
make that her. I’d just grazed her forehead rendering her unconscious. As I arrived she
started to come out of it and I grabbed the Mosin-Nagant model 1891/30. It was a good
one, a sniper rifle. Sniper rifles, based on the M1891/30 rifles, hand-picked for accuracy,
were issued with scope mounts on the left side of the receiver and with bolt handles
bent down.

I began to pat her down, looking for a handgun or holdout. She didn’t like being
touched, she slapped my face.

“Why were you shooting at us?”

“I should have hit you, the rifle is accurate enough.”

“Look, you just shot at us and I was checking for a handgun, not feeling you up.”

“My handgun is in the holster on my belt, right side.”

“Give it to me, using only 2 fingers please.”

She handed me the Browning Hi-Power pistol. It looked brand-spanking new.

“Okay, on your feet and move to the truck.”

When she saw the blood on Harry’s face, she said, “Well, I came close.”

“Lady, close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and dancing. Just be glad you
didn’t kill Harry. I’d have taken that personally and been forced to kill you.”

“What now, I suppose I’m your sex slave.”

86
“I don’t believe my wife would approve of that one bit. You have a husband?”

“Had. As in couldn’t get home before the fallout arrived and probably ended up with ra-
diation poisoning.”

“Children?”

“None.”

“I’m sorry for your loss. The question now is what are we going to do with you?”

“You could just let me go.”

“So you can find another rifle and someday shoot us? I don’t think so.”

“Well, if you keep me, you’ll have to feed me unless you plan to starve me to death in
which case, you should shoot me now.”

“Food isn’t a problem.”

“Then, what is the problem?”

“Well, look at yourself. I’d say you’d clean up pretty good. You’d be almost as attractive
as my wife Lynn and I don’t know that she’d like having you around.”

First you say you do, and then you don't,

And then you say you will, and then you won't;
You're undecided now, so what are you gon - na do?

“That’s Undecided by the Ames Brothers.”

“I thought it was Ray Charles.”

“He did it later.”

“So what’s going to happen to me?”

“Unless Harry objects, I think we’ll take you home with us and let our wives decide.
You’d better hope that Sally or Lynn don’t love us as much as we think they do.”

“What’s that mean?”

“If they do, you might die the death of 1,000 cuts, administered by their fingernails.”

87
In one of his stories, TOM wrote about the underground city in eastern California. He
later said he’d lost his reference to the link. I did a search before the war and discovered
why TOM couldn’t find the link. At this website, you click on ‘The Underground City’ for
the explanation. (socalfunplaces dot com slash topic_desert dot htm) The owners blast-
ed the entrance shut just so TOM and his two Amigos couldn’t go there.

I noticed a problem with my footwear, but that could keep for the moment. All the way
home, I wondered what Lynn and Sally’s reactions would be when we showed up with a
single, reasonably attractive female. The more thought I gave to it, the more I became
concerned. In the end, all Harry and I could do was explain what happened and hope
for understanding spouses. We put her Russian rifle and Belgian pistol in the back with
the drums of Jet A and headed home. She was sandwiched between us and couldn’t
escape.

“Mind telling us you name?”

“Susan.”

“Is that your first or last name?”

“First; my last name is Johansson.”

Well Susan Johansson, where have you been staying?”

“In our home in Rolla.”

“And what were you doing out at the airport?”

“Looking for anything I might be able to salvage and trade for things I need.”

“What might that be, besides food?”

“Well, I could use a better rifle; I wanted anything in .308 NATO.”

“How did you get to the airport, it is 10 miles north of town?”

“I rode a bike. I couldn’t find any running vehicles.”

“Is that how you intended to get anything you salvaged back to Rolla?”

“I thought I could find a diesel powered pickup. It would have to be an automatic; I’ve
never driven a stick shift.”

“Were did you get the rifle?”

88
“It belonged to my husband, Swede.”

“Was he from Sweden?”

“No, he was from Indiana. His people immigrated between the first and second world
wars. He was a traveling salesman, selling parts for farm implements. Things like nuts,
bolts, and other hardware.”

“Where was he when the attacks came?”

“Kansas City.”

“So you took his rifle and pistol and went salvaging?”

“The rifle was his; the pistol was mine. I tried everything to get him to spend the money
on a real rifle, like the ones the two of you have. He wasn’t a prepper and I could only
go so far on the available money. When we lost power, we lost everything. The food in
the refrigerator began to warm and the freezer contents began to thaw. I put the stuff in
a large cooler and picked up some blocks of ice. And then, I did what I could to impro-
vise a shelter in the basement. Must have worked, I survived and have no symptoms of
radiation poisoning.”

“You’ve seen our rifles; if you had a chance which one would you want?”

“They’re both .308 NATO, aren’t they?”

“Yes they are.”

“I probably go with the one, uh Harry has. It looks more like an assault rifle than yours.
Yours looks like fancy hunting rifle.”

“Harry’s rifle is an Austrian rifle, a STG-58, also known as a FAL. My rifle is an M1A, the
civilian version of the M14 from the mid-50s until the mid-60s. However, they’re still in
service, make that were in service, because of their accuracy.”

“Is that the way it came, with the scope?”

“I added the scope and mounts plus a National Match flashhider with a bayonet lug. I’m
using a combination bayonet/fighting knife. We’re well equipped to deal with any little
problem that might pop up.”

“What about a big problem popping up?”

“That could be more challenging, but we’ve taken our precautions. We’re there; let Har-
ry and I do the talking at first.”

89
“You going first or do you want me to?”

“I start the explanation and you can fill in anything I miss.”

“Better thee than me,” Harry smirked.

“Did you get the fuel?”

“Yes, we did. We also picked up a passenger.”

“So I see, flavor of the month?”

“Actually, Harry and I were about ⅔ done filling the drum when a bullet whizzed by Har-
ry’s ear. We shut down the pump and crawled under the Chevy. She fired 3 more shots
including one so close to Harry he got some concrete chips in the face. I took one shot
and grazed her but knocked her out. I recovered her rifle, a Russian sniper rifle from
WW II and a Browning Hi-Power pistol.”

“Her name is Susan Johansson and her husband was in Kansas City when the attack
started, so she’s newly widowed. I didn’t know what to do with her so we brought her
back here for Sally and you to decide.”

“Why didn’t you just shoot her? You said she tried to shoot you?”

“I couldn’t just kill someone in cold blood. Why don’t you two talk to her while Harry and
I unload the drums of kerosene?”

“You found kerosene?”

“Jet-A, same difference and we probably have a life time supply. Since it’s about the
same thing as diesel, I’ll use PRI-D to stabilize it.”

“Bring the bimbo in and we’ll talk to her.” (Bimbo is a term that emerged in popular Eng-
lish language usage in the early 20th Century to describe an often attractive, yet unintel-
ligent woman. The usage of this term began in the United States as early as 1919; simi-
lar to a dumb blond.)

90
 The Other Shoe – Chapter 10

The drums of kerosene were heavy; 55-gallons at 6.82 pounds per gallon plus the
weight of the drum. Pretty close to 400 pounds; fortunately, they roll. We put them in the
greenhouse and added the pump to the first drum. We could pump the kerosene into a
pail and use a funnel to fill the heater tank. One more project done and we had a large
supply of Jet-A available; at least several tens of thousands of gallons. If it didn’t warm
up, we’d raise our garden in the greenhouse but cut back on the number of plants.

When Harry and I agreed that our wives had sufficient time to reach decision, we re-
turned to the cabin. I expected icy stares. Instead, Lynn said, “We’re glad you brought
her back, she can help with the gardening and babysit the kids if all four of us have to
leave.”

“Uh, okay. Where are you going to put her up?”

“If Harry agrees, with Harry and Sally, we don’t have the room and they do.”

“Is that right Sally?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You can give her the rifle and pistol back.”

“I don’t think so. Her rifle is an old Russian sniper rifle that must be about 80 years old.
I’ll give her one of the standard model M1As. She said she was looking for one when we
ran into her.”

“Then what was she doing at the Airport?”

“Salvaging to find things she could trade for a good rifle.”

“I suppose I can find time to teach her to shoot the M1A, Hank.”

“She was very good with the Mosin-Nagant. I’d really rather keep her at arm’s length or
further. Under the dirt, there’s an attractive woman who is almost as pretty as you are.”

“Think that one up on the drive back?”

“Yeah, but it is true.”

Sally kept a close eye on Harry and Susan. There was no evidence of any interest be-
tween the two. Susan hung with Sally, only speaking to Harry when it was absolutely
necessary. She spent most of her time either in the greenhouse or babysitting the kids
so Lynn could have a break. Although spring came on the calendar, you sure couldn’t

91
tell it by the weather. No snow on the ground, but plenty cold. We never had a chance
to plant an outside garden and were forced to rely on the greenhouse.

We did all we could during the course of summer to locate livestock feed. They were
always short day trips and we were home in time to tend to the livestock. We always
drove the pickups and pulled the trailers. If we found some grain or hay, we’d load up
what we could and bring it back. Once or twice, there was enough hay to require us to
use the semi. One thing we could use, provided we could find one, was a grain trailer to
haul the grain in. A grain trailer is like a box trailer without a top and not nearly as tall as
a box trailer in most cases.

On days when we got busy, I didn’t have a chance to keep my diary up to date. That’s
where I was now, trying to remember everything that had happened during the past two
weeks. We had more feed than livestock. The grain had been hauled and piled on tarps
and we’d gone back for more. It occurred to us that we could kill two birds with one
stone, so we stopped and stacked the hay three layers deep around the grain. We
draped traps over the hay down to the tarp the grain was piled on and filled in the hole
we created with more grain. It was an economy of scale, the most feed in the smallest
area.

As far as Susan goes, I still believe she thinks I was trying to grope her when I was
checking her for guns. She stays well away from me. That makes Lynn happy so it
makes me happy too. Someone took a pot shot at us at one of the locations where we
found a small amount of hay but no grain. Whoever it was, must have taken off; we
checked carefully and didn’t find anyone, just an empty .270 cartridge case.

“Damn fine hunting cartridge, that .270. Shoots flat as a pancake at good ranges. Great
sniper round.”

“You sound like Jack O’Connor, Harry, he loved the .270.”

“Of course for a military application, .30 caliber is better.”

“They’ll both kill you just as dead.”

“‘Cept the .270 will do it quicker. Runs ‘bout 3,200fps.”

“Do you get along with Susan?”

“I suppose so, she mostly keeps to herself. She eats meals with us and there’s usually
conversation over meals. She seems to like doing the greenhouse work. Why?”

“She treats me like I have the plague. I’m half convinced she really believes I was grop-
ing her instead of checking her for a handgun.”

“If you think that, you’d be wrong. Apparently, you remind her of her husband, Swede.”

92
“Was that really his name, Swede?”

“I think it was a nickname but you know, I don’t think she has actually ever said what his
name was. I’ve seen her practicing with that M1A you gave her. She’s better with it than
she ever was with that Russian rifle.”

“I guess we should be thankful she didn’t find an M1A before she met us.”

It only got up to around 50°F the entire summer. Harry finally got Susan to open up a bit
and Swede’s name was actually Norman. There were a few people in Licking, none in
Edgar Springs and more up in Rolla. Jefferson City probably had the largest population
but it was under 10,000. We hadn’t been to Springfield, but, like Jefferson City, it hadn’t
been hit. If the pattern followed, there were maybe 15,000 alive in Springfield.

What it boiled down to that between the attacks and the aftermath, 90% of our popula-
tion was gone. Air bursts produce less fallout and create a large damage pattern.
Ground bursts create more fallout but have a smaller damage pattern. We weren’t about
to go check out St. Louis to find out which method the Chinese and Russians used; the
amount of fallout said all that needed to be said, Ground Bursts and lots of them.

That didn’t take into consideration diseases that may have broken out later like Cholera,
Typhoid or Dysentery. We’d seen that some of those in Licking had survived only to
leave shelter too soon, get radiation poisoning and die. Some had or would die in bat-
tles, either as the protagonist (hero) or the antagonist (MZB). Still others might simply
starve.

We had the resources to prevent most of those things from happening; food, good wa-
ter, a means of defense and location off the beaten path. We feared someone would
spot us out on a salvaging mission and either kill us on the spot or worse, follow us back
to the acreage, kill us and take our wives. For a time there we acted like we had an ex-
tra pair of eyes in the back of our heads. But, with the sole incident, we relaxed a bit.
Besides, it wasn’t like we weren’t well equipped for a battle, should one happen.

Lynn and Susan wanted to make a trip to Licking and they wanted me to drive. When I
asked why, Lynn said personal reasons. We went to Licking and I checked around town
while they went shopping for clothing. I remembered I needed a good pair of boots,
hopefully something better than the Wal-Mart specials I wore and found a Red Wing
store. They had two pair nearly identical to the ones I wore and they were in my size. I
got the boots and a bottle of mink oil to waterproof them. When I returned, they had
completed their shopping and were waiting.

“I went shopping too.”

93
“Oh, what did you get?”

“Two pairs of Red Wing 2218 - Mens - 9-inch Logger work shoes.”

“No cowboy boots?”

“They had a pair in my size of the Red Wing Laramie 969 - Mens - 10-inch. Should I get
them?”

“Are they cowboy boots?”

“I think they were motorcycle boots that looked like cowboy boots.”

“Let’s stop and get them before someone else does.”

“What did you gals find?”

“Some clothes for Susan.”

Since they were being closed mouth, I let it drop. We got the other boots and returned
to the acreage. Harry and I spent the next month harvesting standing dead trees, doing
a good job in our area of cleaning them out. We kept track of deadfalls and could har-
vest them later. When we finished, we must have had to 20 cords of hardwood cut, split
and stacked. A month later Harry and I learned what our wives already knew; Susan
was pregnant.

Norman and she had been married less than a year and this meant she’d end up being
a single parent for quite some time, unless she found another man. And, she didn’t ap-
pear to be interested in looking. Sometime in September, she asked if Lynn and I would
take her back to their home so she could recover some mementos.

When we pulled up to the house, I noticed smoke coming from the chimney. I took my
Mossberg and a bandoleer of buckshot, just in case. Susan unlocked the door to the
house and as we entered we realized that there was a fire in the fireplace.

“Stay here, let me check it out.”

After checking the downstairs I slipped up the stairs as quietly as I could. In what I took
to be the bedroom, there was a man sleeping in the bed. I moved closer and nudged his
foot with the shotgun. He started to come around and the first thing he said was, “Who
the hell are you and what are you doing in my house?”

“Your house? What’s your name?”

“Norman Johansson but my friends call me Swede.”

94
“No shit. Man you’d better get dressed quick, I have a surprise for you. By the way, I’m
Hank Brown.”

More curious than anything else Swede got dressed and we went downstairs. There
was a squeal of pure delight and Susan ran to him smothering him in kisses and hugs.
She finally disengaged and told him to get some clothes around while she gathered up
a few things. He was either too surprised or so happy; he didn’t question her, just got a
suitcase.

“Hank, I have some things in the garage.”

“Yeah, Like what?”

“I call it my just in case stuff. There are totes of LTS foods, seeds, fertilizer, diesel and
gasoline. I also have a small portable generator, 12kw, diesel fueled.”

“Was the Mosin-Nagant rifle yours?”

“One of my older guns, yes. I let Susan use it and she didn’t know about the other guns
I had put up.”

“What do you have?”

“I have a FAL, a HK91, a M1A, 3 PT1911s, two Remington 11-87Ps and a Ruger
10/22.”

“You have two M1As now; I gave one to Susan to use.”

“She’ll return it and I’ll give her my M1A. I prefer the HK91.”

“How did you manage to keep you gun collection secret?”

“I had it before we married and I never brought it up. I gave her the Russian rifle and the
Browning, just in case. She knew about my .45 and HK but didn’t know where they were
stored.”

“We’re going to need to find you a travel trailer. My friend Harry has one and might
know where we can get another.”

“Then, I take it we’re not staying in town?”

“It’s not a good idea and Susan works for us now so we’ll have to provide housing. We
could always use another rifleman on the acreage and someone to help with the gar-
dening if it ever gets warm enough to grow a garden.”

“I suppose you’re wondering how I got here.”

95
“I’m curious, but you don’t have to explain unless you want to.”

“Do you know the expression shank’s mare?”

“You walked?”

“All 250 plus miles. I holed up in a subbasement of a building on the outskirts of Kansas
City. I figured being so close to ground zero would mean the radiation was higher than
normal. I have a NukAlert but never really trusted it. Anyway I stayed down there, going
up occasionally to the basement storeroom for the cafeteria they had. Do you know how
much bottled water a cafeteria goes through in one day? They had pallet loads of water.
Most of the cans of goods were those huge gallon sized cans, but I made do, opening
them with my Swiss Army Knife.”

“Anyway, I stayed down there until my NukAlert suggested it was okay to leave. I put
together a supply of food and water to take with me, just in case. I couldn’t find a usea-
ble vehicle so I limited the food to what I could carry and headed home.”

“And, you crossed 250 miles of rural Missouri without any problems?”

“I had my share of problems, that’s for sure. Susan doesn’t know it but I have a CCW
and carry a Walther PPK in .380 with spare magazines. I first stayed on state highways
assuming it would be the shortest way home. I had a minor incident with a guy confront-
ing me and switched to secondary roads. My NukAlert chirped only a little when I left
and the further south I went, the less it chirped. I made it home in about 15 days. Susan
was gone and I didn’t know where to look for her. What with me being a closet prepper,
I knew that the only weapons she had were the Hi-Power and the Mosin-Nagant.
Thanks for taking care of her.”

“Save your thanks until you talk to her and find out how we met.”

We got Susan, Swede and their things back to the acreage. Considering he was a clos-
et prepper and had managed to hide his preps from his wife, he had done well. Most
had been acquired before Susan and he were married.

“Harry, Norman. Norman, Harry.”

“This mean we get our trailer back?”

“If we can find one like it for Norman and Susan.”

“Jefferson City. They always had a bunch in stock. We’ll put ‘em up for tonight and go
shopping tomorrow.”

“Anyplace else sell them?”

96
“Probably Springfield.”

Jefferson City was 82 miles; Springfield was 114 miles over some of the same roads we
had to drive to get to Jefferson City. The next day we headed out for Jeff City. On the
way up, I finally learned what that shopping trip was all about.

“Not only did I find Susan alive and healthy, we’re expecting a baby.”

“I think I may have taken Lynn and Susan shopping for maternity clothes.”

“You knew?”

“No, they were pretty tight lipped. Did she explain what happened at the airport?”

“Yes she did. I told her what she did was wrong and that you were salvaging, not loot-
ing. I also told her she was lucky you didn’t kill her. If your shot had been one inch to the
left…I shudder to think about it.”

“I didn’t scope the windage right or I would have hit right where I aimed. I’m glad I didn’t
but don’t kid yourself she’s one heck of a marksman.”

“That’s the place over there.”

“Are we here already? I guess Norman and I got involved in a discussion.”

“Hank, it is Swede to my friends.”

“I’m your friend after almost killing you wife and groping her?”

“You didn’t kill her even if you tried. You did what I would have in an identical situation. I
don’t blame Susan or you for what happened and it was a good object lesson for her.”

“The third one down the line is exactly the same as the one that Sally and I have; if
that’s what you want, we can pick up some of the conversions we made to ours and
load them in your pickup. And then we can hook onto the travel trailer and pull it back to
Edgar Springs.”

We found a similar wood stove to heat the trailer, picked up more 100# propane bottles
and added some furniture. We also added the combo stacked laundry pair with a pro-
pane dryer. We had time and looked around to see if we could find a grocery store that
hadn’t been emptied. The one we found had very little, but it gave us a supply of spices,
bottles of yeast and the back room had some laundry soap. Washing diapers would
come back when we ran out of the disposables. We got a diaper bag, 8 dozen cloth di-
apers, pins, and A&D ointment for when the bottoms got sore and a small assortment of
baby clothing, running from newborn to 6 months of age. A drug store provided a large

97
supply of prenatal vitamins. The way kids grew, the clothes we had for our four could be
shared if necessary.

When we got back, we leveled the travel trailer and extended the pullouts. We connect-
ed water with a hose like we’d started out with Harry and Sally and would connect sew-
er the following day. Finally we went into the cave and brought out a selection of our
LTS foods to stock the trailer.

So far we’d been lucky and hadn’t seen a living soul out near the acreage. We were 6
adults of varying age from twenties, thirties and fifties in age. We did produce food on a
continuing basis in the greenhouse, but not enough to share. I’m not sure what we’d
have done if somebody asked; I believe I’ve said that before.

On a bright cool morning we took our rifles out and practiced. Just because we hadn’t
had trouble up until now didn’t mean we wouldn’t in the future. Local survivors would be
out looking for food, probably spreading out from where they lived. Since nobody had
been to any of the communities offering food and no state or federal aid had been forth-
coming, Harry and I agreed that sooner or later, we’d need to use the military equipment
we’d picked up.

We went out hunting, as much to measure how much wildlife had survived as get more
meat. We weren’t really that badly off, plenty of pork, a full beef, 3 dozen frozen chick-
ens, frozen fish and rabbits. We moved the rabbit/worm/fish setup into the greenhouse
so it would continue to produce when it really got cold.

Harry had done the modifications to their travel trailer by himself so he was our expert
on making the conversions to the new home for Swede and Susan. They didn’t really
take all that long, putting a hole through roof for the stove and installing flashing, adding
the washer/dryer combo and adding water and gas lines. We didn’t need to replace the
generator when we got to looking at it; it was a Quiet Diesel by Cummings and had a
maximum output of 104amps at 120v. Its fuel tank was small, 50 gallons, about enough
for 48 hours at full load. However it had a fuel pump to pump fuel from an alternative
source. We hooked it into the big tank.

Susan was more than earning her keep, working endless hours in the greenhouse
planting, cultivating, harvesting fruit and vegetables and harvesting heirloom seeds. In
the time she had before the baby interfered with her work, she’d more than double our
seed supply. Around 8 months, she could no longer do it and Sally and Lynn took turns
taking over her duties. Norman hadn’t said if he had any military service, but based on
his selection of firearms, I began to suspect he did.

“What branch of service were you in Swede?”

“Special Operations.”

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“What, SEALs, Special Forces, Rangers, or Force Recon?”

“Army Special Forces.”

“Green Beret?”

“Well, that was the color of our beret. We didn’t wear it a hell of a lot. Most of us pre-
ferred boonie hats. I did one tour in Iraq and a second in Afghanistan.”

“Are you still serving your reserve requirement?”

“I was supposed to be, but I couldn’t find anyone to hook up with.”

“Harry was a Ranger and I was Marine Infantry.”

“Two chiefs and one Indian, huh?”

“That’s one way to look at it. We did the usual PAW salvaging. We got M240s, M2HBs,
M72 LAWs, and all kinds of different hand grenades. We also found M18A1 Claymores.
We went up to Kansas City and loaded up on ammo at the Lake City ammo plant. We
also got fuel, mostly diesel, but have a tanker full of gasoline. We needed kerosene for
our heater in the greenhouse and decided Jet A would suffice. That’s what we were do-
ing when we ran into Susan. Our propane tank has a wet leg and can refill your bottles.
As you can see by looking around, we have a lot of fuel. We hadn’t planned on having a
third trailer and we’re going to have to harvest more firewood.”

“What do you think of the weather? I don’t recall it ever being this cold.”

“I think it’s a nuclear winter; however, we haven’t had any snow. Basically I don’t know
what to think, but north of I-70 there’s snow on the ground and a fairly large amount.”

“I walked through some flurries on my way home but it was isolated and didn’t amount
to much. About halfway home, I walked out of it. Have you lived here a long time?”

“Not really. I worked for Costco in St. James up near St. Louis. I had purchased the
property primarily because of the cave. It had septic but no well. I added the well, the
ice house and the smoke house. Most of my efforts were spent on improving the cave. I
lived in it until I got my cabin built.”

“How much help did you have doing that?”

“The cabin? None. I’ve never complained but sometimes wondered if it was worth the
labor required. I met Lynn when I was working for a company in Licking. She didn’t date
and the other men called her the Ice Queen. I found an opening and introduced myself
by asking a simple question something like, what kind of cowboy guns did she use?”

99
“It was a short courtship and we had a simple wedding on a Saturday morning at the
Methodist Church in Licking. Her mother was a twin and apparently it passed to her. We
ended up going from no children to 4 children in 15 months, all in diapers. Only now are
Chuck and Cindy potty trained. They still have accidents, but overall are doing pretty
good.”

“Does she have family in Licking?”

“Her dad ran off when she was a child and her mother died before the war from cancer.
She’s never mentioned other relatives.”

“How long have you been a survivalist?”

“Since before Y2K. How about you?”

“I had the firearms before I went into the Army but didn’t start accumulating food until I
got out. I put my enlistment bonus in a CD with a good interest rate and spent it all on
food and supplies as soon as I got out. Not long after, I met Susan and based on some
of her comments, kept my preparations to myself. I left a letter marked ‘open only in
case of my death’ laying it all out. I forgot to mention the firearms, but thought if some-
thing happened she’d find them. Apparently she never looked.”

“When do think the MZBs will show up?”

“Hard to say, you’re really off the beaten path. Unfortunately you’re on a road and they’ll
probably go up and down every road looking. Too many out there were unprepared for
anything from a tornado to WWIII.”

“I make the casualties at 90%. Fatalities I’m not sure, but most of that 90% would die
without adequate medical care. They hit so many cities, it is mind boggling.”

“What is under the tarps down towards the road?”

“Machineguns; M2HB and M240.”

“Salvage?”

“Fort Leonard Wood. We’re well equipped, LAWs rockets, hand grenades and Clay-
mores.”

“Why don’t you have them set up down by the entrance? You could rig up a trip wire
and detonate them that way.”

100
“We haven’t had enough people to have someone guarding the entrance fulltime. I’m
afraid your wife and I got off on a bad footing and I haven’t dared to ask her. Plus we
have two sets of twins in diapers and have mostly just been getting by.”

“But with a tripwire…”

“We might blowup a friendly. Lord knows how few have survived the attack and the af-
termath. We simply can’t afford to kill anyone who might be on our side.”

“How many people does it take to have someone on duty, in say 8 hour shifts, 24/7?”

“I read somewhere that it took four.”

“And before I showed up you had 5 people; why didn’t you set up the guard?”

“We had to do salvaging for our long term survival. Now we’re pretty much done with
that so a guard force is possible. Everyone here is relatively proficient with one or more
weapons so if we had one person on guard duties he or she could raise a warning on
the FRS radio.”

“So no more salvaging?”

“I didn’t say that. We’ve located long term supplies of things we need on an ongoing ba-
sis and can go after more when they’re needed. Things like propane, diesel fuel and
gasoline. I must say we probably have a lifetime supply of stabilized gasoline.”

“You have weapons and mentioned Lake City so should I assume you have enough
ammo?”

“We probably have more than we need. But there are some things you can never have
too much of.”

“So you’re well stocked on toilet paper? What about cigarettes?”

“Marlboro’s and Kool 100s.”

“Do we need more?”

“It might not be a bad idea. It won’t require a special trip; we get them in Jefferson City.”

Finding Susan’s husband had strained credulity. It had been a long trek and he’d had so
little with him to make it. Perhaps it was his love for Susan that was his source of ener-
gy. Our main problem, from my view, was our small numbers; too few to really handle a
large group of attackers and too many to avoid being noticed. We had force multipliers,
true; did we have enough? Some common force multipliers are:

101
●Morale
●Technology
●Geographical features
●Weather
●Recruitment through diplomacy
●Training and experience
●Feared units
●Deception

We were in fairly good spirits, having been successful in providing for future needs.
Lynn had the babies without any problems. We had machineguns, grenades, rockets
and a very large supply of ammo. The lot ran north to south with the road being on the
south side. Our only geographical advantage was the upslope from the road. It also
made all of the physical facilities clearly visible from the road, except for the cave. The
weather was beyond our control, with continuing cold. Our recruitment had consisted of
taking Susan prisoner and inviting her husband to join when he finally showed up.

Training and experience would be our long suit. One Marine, one Ranger and one Spe-
cial Forces represented a well-trained force, if we could learn to blend our skills. All of
us had some combat action, somewhere. Nobody feared us because nobody knew we
were here, or so we hoped. Neither fear nor deception would be much of a factor. An
example of deception was George Patton’s phony Army leading up to Normandy. The
German’s were afraid of Patton and convinced that he, being our most aggressive Gen-
eral, would lead the D-Day invasion. The movie got that part right.

There are some out there that think that George was the best thing since sliced bread,
as far as a military commander. I think I probably quoted him earlier in my diary. He
called the M1 Garand called it the greatest implement of battle ever devised. The BM-59
and the M-14 were improvements on the Garand. The former had a system which al-
lowed it to be fired in full auto and not shoot the moon. The latter was our version of the
same and available as a semi-auto, for what amounted to a fortune.

Beretta developed an innovative barrel-mounted tri-compensator to solve two problems

associated with full-automatic fire: heavy recoil during firing and the wide spread of the
bullets that result from the upward rise of the barrel while firing. Operational testing
showed the tri-compensator gave smaller bullet patterns during automatic firing. In ei-
ther full-auto or semi-auto firing, the tri-compensator effectively reduced muzzle flash.

Tri-compensators came in detachable (for parachutists) and fixed versions. Most, but
not all, tri-compensators were adaptable to rifle grenades: but a different gas cylinder
necessitated a non-US standard bayonet. A gas spindle valve, operated by erecting a
grenade-launcher sight mount, redirected the gases from the gas cylinder to the muzzle
in order to launch grenades. Beretta also produced a finely machined sight for indirect
grenade launching. In full-automatic fire, various BM59 models had a theoretical firing
rate of 750- to 810-rounds per minute. However, given the time required to replace

102
empty magazines, the cyclic rate was still about 400-rounds per minute – still a substan-
tial firepower increase over the Garand.

I think that Patton would have like the M-14 just fine. I also believe that he wouldn’t have
allowed it be produced until the US either licensed the Beretta System or solved the
problem some other way. The M-14 ended up being more like the M1918 BAR than in-
tended. The BAR, too, had a problem staying on target. Probably the people who got
the most use from the BAR were Bonnie and Clyde. But, that character in John Ross’s
story Unintended Consequences used one for shooting targets out of the air. Remem-
ber, it was fiction.

“All things considered, we’re in fair shape.”

“I don’t know, Harry, we could always have someone show up and try to clean us out.”

“How much traffic was there on your road before the war?”

“Almost none. Mostly people going into the Mark Twain Forrest.”

“So a few, right?”

“There were always a few. Only had trouble one time and that ended badly.”

“That guy you shot?”

“Yes. He was going for a gun. I don’t understand why he was so angry. I guess because
he didn’t win the court case. I thought I was going to lose my PT1911 over that deal.”

“We haven’t talked a lot about the war. What triggered it?”

“The world economy. More than that, I don’t know; you’d have to ask an economist or a
history teacher. You saw how it started, India and Pakistan. We’re just lucky we had
plenty of notice.”

“We won’t get any notice if some survivor thinks they need what’s here more than we
do.”

“That’s why we have the force multipliers.”

“There’s a limit to that.”

“Don’t I know it? Then again, Swede and you were special ops.”

103
“We weren’t that much different; it was mostly advanced training. We didn’t really learn
to shoot anything that we didn’t already know how to shoot. At best, we became more
proficient. You, however, were a Marine and, what’s the saying, Every Marine’s a Rifle-
man?”

“This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. It is my life. I must master it
as I must master my life. Without me my rifle is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I
must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than the enemy who is trying to kill me. I
must shoot him before he shoots me. I will. My rifle and I know that what counts in war
is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, or the smoke we make. We know that it
is the hits that count. We will hit.

“My rifle is human, even as I am human, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a
brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strengths, its parts, its accessories, its sights and
its barrel. I will keep my rifle clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready. We will be-
come part of each other.

“Before God I swear this creed. My rifle and I are the defenders of my country. We are
the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life.

“So be it, until victory is America’s and there is no enemy.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s The Marine Corps Rifleman’s Creed.”

“So, do you sleep with your rifle?”

“No, I sleep with my wife. However, my rifle is never far from reach.”

“Figures. I knew the market meltdown could lead to war, hell many of us did. But it
wasn’t the market that started the war, it was India and Pakistan.”

“It was the market, Harry. In those days before the war, grain couldn’t be exported to
feed the starving masses because nobody would take letters of credit. The price of oil
fell like a bad rocket; didn’t do much at the pump, if you’ll recall. We’re lucky to have
survived at all.”

“I’m glad we found Swede, upped our firepower measurably.”

“Right, by ⅓.”

“Why not by one-sixth?”

“Someone has to watch the kids. Since Susan is expecting, it means that Lynn and Sal-
ly can help us and Susan can watch the kids. Make it 20%.”

104
“They probably won’t roll in here bold as brass and attack. I know I wouldn’t.”

“You’re assuming that they already knew we were here. It’s just as likely they’ll come
down the road, spot us and keep on rolling. Then, they could stop, come back and re-
connoiter. Once they did that, they could attack from any direction.”

“But we’d see them first and be ready.”

“That would only happen if we’re running a guard operation 24/7; which, at the moment,
we aren’t.”

“Maybe we should,” Swede suggested. “We might not need to do it forever, but so soon
after, I think we should. We could split it into 8 hour shifts and just we three do it. It
wouldn’t be much different from a farmer with livestock who is pretty much tied to his
place. That would let us set up the Claymore mines, too.”

“This may sound crazy, what with me being the mad hermit with the cave, but I think we
should add more people. We wouldn’t have growing area for anything more than the
greenhouse and garden, but still…”

“Right, we need a recruiting program.”

“And, if we could find a few preppers, so much the better.”

“Hell, I settle for some veterans.”

“Good point. Where would we look? Can’t just open up the Yellow Pages to Survivalists,
now can we?”

“Any special qualifications?”

“They have their own weapons/ammo and are married. They should have some sup-
plies although they may be short on those.”

“What kind of weapons?”

“NATO standard calibers, 7.62×51mm or 5.56×45mm.”

“Any branch of service?”

“I suppose. I prefer people with an infantry background; we don’t have catapults or air-
craft.”

“We could use a good comms man.”

105
The discussion continued for several hours. We decided on a guard program to run until
the threat diminished or we found more people. We knew where we could get more
travel trailers, Jefferson City. We decided to get the trailers first and see to their installa-
tion on the theory that having places ready to go might help with our recruiting. The well
was plenty good and the septic oversized. We could find and install more propane
and/or diesel, as required. Finishing off the additions to the trailers to incorporate ameni-
ties like a wood burning stoves for heat, compact washer and dryer and perhaps freez-
ers wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. More food might be hard to come by. The
same could be said for medical supplies.

We’d talked about it enough, it was time to get off our duffs and implement what we’d
discussed. First we’d have to run it by our wives, something this far reaching couldn’t be
decided unilaterally. It also gave them an opportunity to make some shopping lists for
our future needs.

1. Freezers
2. Generators
3. Adult work clothing
4. Medical supplies
5. Additional feminine hygiene supplies
6. Additional children’s clothing/diapers
7. Additional fuel storage
8. Canning supplies

There were no priorities to their list and we could do that later. The trailer we got for
Swede and Susan was the third one down in a row of six very large trailers. We could
add the other five and a week of trips to the Capital would see that we had everything
we needed to install and set them up. The things on the list might be harder to come by,
or not. We hadn’t been to Springfield, yet, and didn’t know what we might find there. If
we wanted booze, there was always Branson.

“Looks like snow.”

“You think so? We’d better hurry up the underground installations. How long to have all
of the trailers converted?”

“Three weeks, why?”

“Time enough to get propane tanks and get them hooked in. Diesel tanks seem to be
hard to come by.”

“If we could get one large tank, we could hook them all to the same tank.”

“Those new gas station tanks we saw,” Swede and I echoed.

106
“That’s what I had in mind fellas.”

“How big were they?”

“About 10,000; but there were two.”

“Can we get by with above the ground if we use a berm?”

“Wouldn’t recommend it. We can use the backhoe and half bury them and then use the
dirt to cover them.”

It took a month before we finished. We had space for five additional families and the on-
ly thing we lacked was enough food. We’d filled the wish list to the best of our ability.
Our two oldest were now potty trained taking some strain off Lynn. Susan had a green
thumb and was producing more in the greenhouse than we thought possible. Sally
hadn’t been feeling well and absent a doctor, we didn’t have a clue what might be
wrong.

“Do you think we could find a doctor in Jefferson City?”

“We won’t know until we look, Harry. We should go there anyway and see if anyone
missed any food we could use to fill in the holes.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Leave early, say 8am?”

“Works for me, I’ll tell Sally.”

“Lynn do you think we could get Susan to watch the kids tomorrow?”

“What’s up?”

“Sally hasn’t been feeling well and we’re going to Jeff City to find a doctor. We need to
look around for whatever on your list we didn’t get and some food stuffs we’re getting
low on.”

“What are we low on?”

“Cigarettes and coffee to name two plus other basic stables; wheat, corn, and other
grains we can grind for consumption, plus rice and beans.”

“Where would you look?”

107
“Grain elevators first, health food stores second, feed places last. From what we’ve
seen, the regular grocery stores are empty.”

“Are we critically low on anything?”

“Just the cigarettes and coffee. I almost wish I hadn’t taken up smoking again, but it
helps with the stress.”

“I thought we were well prepared, what stress?”

“Things have changed. For example, we’re going to the Capital hoping to find a doctor
for Sally. We’re depending upon what we grow far more than what we can buy or sal-
vage. Sooner or later, someone is going to come down that road, spot our setup and
attack us to get what we have. Our newborns haven’t been vaccinated against any of
the standard diseases. There’s nothing to prevent one of the adults from being exposed
to something and bringing it back.”

“I was worried about that too.”

“See what I mean? Things are very different. What if Sally has something seriously
wrong with her? Can it be treated or will she die for lack of treatment?”

“All we can do is put one foot in front of the other and keep marching, Hank. I’ll go ask
Susan to watch the kids tomorrow.”

“Ready to go?”

“More than ready. Sally is really off her feed today.”

“Sorry you aren’t feeling well Sally, Lynn will ride in back with you in case you need
something.”

“I figured we’d just ask around for a doctor. There still have to be a few around the Capi-
tal.”

“Lynn and I are going to try and fill in loose ends while you’re with the doctor. If you fin-
ish early, call me on channel 30. If we finish early we go back to where we dropped you
off.”

When we arrived we asked around and located a doctor. Sally told him her symptoms
and he seemed very concerned. Lynn and I left to do you shopping/salvaging. We found
smokes in a bonded warehouse of all places. We found several cases of coffee in the
back room of a grocery store that everyone had overlooked. We only came up with
beans and rice in the stables department. Harry hadn’t called and we went back to
where we dropped them off. There was no one around and I called him on the radio.

108
“Harry, we’re done, where are you?”

“Capital Regional, 1125 Madison St.”

“Give us a bit.”

“No hurry, they’re doing an ultra sound.”

“Ultra sound?”

“Yeah, they can’t use their MRI.”

“Did Sally say anything to you Lynn?”

“Sally’s always been a rather private person, Hank. She doesn’t engage in the usual girl
talk. She did mention abdominal pain once or twice, but that could have been anything.”

When we arrived at the large hospital we had a time finding Harry and Sally. When we
did, Sally wasn’t present and Harry was talking to someone, presumably a doctor. Harry
was trembling and as pale as a ghost. He crashed in a chair like he’d been unable to
support his own weight.

“Is it serious, Harry?”

“Stage IIIc Uterine sarcoma and it has metastasized to both the pelvic and para-aortic
lymph nodes.”

“But surely they can operate.”

“Not only can’t they operate, they lack the chemicals for chemotherapy. Radiation ther-
apy is out in this instance, according to the specialist from the cancer center.”

“Did they say how long?”

“Not that long, not with her being at stage IIIc.”

“And you had no clue?”

“About 25 years ago, she had radiation therapy for a benign tumor. The doctor seemed
to think that had a bearing on this.”

“How is she?” Lynn asked.

“Seems resigned to her fate, but I suspect she’s more upset than she’s letting on. Not to
change the subject, but that cuts our defense by the 20% Swede added.”

109
“We don’t need to talk about that now.”

“Yes, we do. We should just put a note on the bulletin boards and ask, Any Preppers
around? If you’d like to improve your situation, see Hank or Harry at the Library in Lick-
ing. At least it won’t tell them where we are.”

“Right and they’d have to have some capabilities to get to Licking.”

“Ideally, we could attract a small MAG that wasn’t quite ready.”

“Not ready in what way?”

“They had individual supplies but no bug out location other than the National Forest.”

“What makes you think they’d see the bulletin board?”

“Probably doing the same things we are, including salvaging from Jefferson City.”

Sally came out of the examination room. She’d obviously been crying and looked like
she’d been hit by a bus. Lynn comforted her and Harry and I got a scratch pad from a
nurse and wrote up several identical notes which we posted at various locations around
Jefferson City. We put one at the fuel terminal.

We returned home and shared what we learned. But there was no joy in Mudville –
mighty Casey had struck out. Harry and I cornered Swede and explained about the
notes. He didn’t think much of the idea, but at least we hadn’t brought them here. He
obviously realized the implication of Sally’s illness, but kept silent beyond extending
sympathies. We agree to wait 3 days before we started to send someone to the library
every day. Swede would go too and say Hank and Harry sent him. He could call us on
the ham radio in the truck and we could be there in about 45 minutes.

Should they have someone on watch, they would likely assume we’d come from the Na-
tional Forest or someplace north on US 63. We could really throw them a curve by tak-
ing H to Lenox and C to the east side of Licking. With a 45 minute travel time, we’d have
to wait before we left to maintain the illusion. We were in our third week of hanging out
at the library when two men showed up.

“You Hank?”

“No, I’m Swede, Hank and Harry sent me. I can call them on the radio and they can be
here in about 45 minutes.”

“Hold on before you do, tell us a little bit before we bother them.”

“Hank owns the place and it is small, about 6 acres with septic, well, generators, some
solar heated water and some PV panels. There are lots of salvaged fuel and supplies.

110
We have five empty travel trailers, 40’ jobs modified for wood heat and so forth. All of
the new trailers run off the same 2 10,000-gallon diesel tanks with totally stabilized fuel.
Our greenhouse is 20’ by 40’, 800ft².”

111
 The Other Shoe – Chapter 12

“Call Hank and Harry, I think maybe we should learn more.”

“I’ll be right back.”

“This is Swede, who’s on the radio?”

“This is Lynn, what’s up?”

“Two guys at the library, tell Hank and Harry I’ll see them in 45 minutes.”

“10-4.”

We showed up right on schedule and introductions were made all around. The older of
the two was Frank Cassidy and the younger Jeb Smith. Their group had 6 families and
generally met the criteria we had established. They had reinforced their basements cre-
ating shelters and had been in the market for a piece of property when the war came.
Each had the minimum MAG required one year supply of food and most had several
times that. Their MAG also had weapons requirements, ammo requirements, vehicle
requirements and a whole lot of well-thought-out rules.

I went on to explain our situation, including the fact that we had one terminally ill mem-
ber of our group. The sticking point seemed to be housing, we were one trailer short.
There weren’t any more in Jefferson City because we’d cleaned them out. Frank said if
we could add plumbing for another trailer, they would provide the trailer. They had one,
but it wasn’t 400ft². Under the circumstances, it would do until something larger was
found. They went on to discuss each family in their MAG, indicating the number, gender
and age of the children. One family also included the wife’s older sister.

There was also a family that consisted solely of two twin brothers. One criterion for join-
ing their MAG had been that at least one member of each family had military service.
With the exception of the twins, they were generally the head of the house. Both twins
had served in Iraq in the Army and the older sister had served 20 years in the Army.

The sister, Stephanie, was a bit of an oddball or individualist. She rode and had her own
Arabian stallion. She had more firearms than the remainder of the MAG put together.
She was 39 years old, if anyone cared. Apparently before the war, she’d had two boy-
friends, neither of them a steady. Her weapons collection included an M25 and an M21.
For regular use, she used a Super Match, but had a Loaded for a loaner. Her handgun
collection included a USP Tactical with suppressor, a Kimber Tactical II, a .357 revolver
and assorted .22 revolvers and pistols. Her favorite pistol was the Ruger Mark II with
integral suppressor.

“What about cowboy guns for when she rides?”

112
“I can only tell you about the ones I know about. She has Winchester rifles in .45 Colt
and .44 Remington magnum. She has a Ruger Super Blackhawk in .44 magnum and a
pair of 1995 Ruger Vaqueros in .45 Colt, one 7½” and one 4⅝”. She wears something
called a Laredoan crossdraw. On top of that she has an 1895 Cowboy in .45-70. You
know the gun?”

“We have some so yes, I know the gun.”

“What’s in it for us to move to your place?”

“Housing and most of the modern amenities. A large supply of various fuels, a green-
house, and probably most importantly there’s safety in numbers. We’re feeling the pinch
in that area and that’s why we’re making the offer.”

“Honest too. What are the chances of seeing this place?”

“Could you live with being blindfolded until we got there? Even at that, the location is a
bit distinctive and you could probably find it again if your motives were less than honor-
able. I don’t believe they are so I’m willing to risk it.”

“Thanks for that, I guess.”

“I’ll tell you one thing up front. It is not as far away as our delay in getting here would in-
dicate. I wouldn’t be telling that to you fellas if I wasn’t fairly certain you’re the good
guys.”

“You hear that Jeb, we’re the good guys. Keep up the pretense, it’s working,” Frank
laughed. “We’re taking a lot on faith too. You have us outnumbered and possibly out-
gunned, you know.”

“So we’re both taking a chance. Does that even things out?”

“Ask me the same question when we’re done and if I can answer it, the answer will
probably be yes.”

We went ahead with the blindfolds and were back at the acreage in 15 minutes. Jeb
looked at his watch and whistled because the drive back had been so quick. They start-
ed to examine everything, the trailers, fuel supplies, woodpile, ice house, smoke house
and possible defenses.

“I’d say we could put one more trailer here, what do you think Hank?”

“We can extend the pipes to this spot and let gravity do most of the work, Frank.”

“Off hand, I’d say this is a go.”

113
“You said you had six families and 7 had military experience including what’s-her-name.
What about the rest, we have a Ranger, a Special Forces and I was a Marine.”

“One SEAL, one Marine FORECON, one Marine Infantry, three Army Infantry and one
Air Force Combat Controller.”

“Same problem as we had before.”

“What’s that?”

“All Chiefs and no Indians.”

“Two Army Infantry and I understand that Stephanie did a tour in Iraq as an MP.”

“Can we put aside the inter-service rivalry enough to work together?”

“Have the three of you been able to?”

“Yep.”

“We have too. I suspect when they’re shooting at us we’ll all be on the same side.”

“Do you need to talk to your people before you decide? I have no doubt that we’ll ac-
cept, but I believe we should.”

“Pick a frequency on, say, 20 meters and a date and time. We’ll call and let you know.”

“How about 48 hours? Well, make it 7pm two days from now.”

“And the frequency?”

“How about 14.175mhz?”

“Ok, 14.175 at 7pm two days from now. I expect the answer will be yes. If you leave the
blindfolds off, we’ll know how to get here.”

“How about we meet you half way on that? We’re near Edgar Springs. If the answer is
yes, we’ll meet you in Edgar Springs and lead you back here without the blindfolds.”

“Well ok, you’ll take off the blind folds when we get to Edgar Springs?”

“We’ll tell you and you can take them off yourselves.”

No doubt you’ve seen movies where the hero is able to reconstruct where he was
based on where he is and the feel and sounds of the road getting there from where he
started out. It’s claimed that when a person is blindfolded, the other senses are height-

114
ened. Maybe so if the blindfolded person just listens. Thus we engaged them in conver-
sation until we were past Edgar Springs and then told them to remove the blindfolds.
We dropped them off in Licking and waited for an hour after they’d left.

“Well, what do you think?”

“I thought we were going to talk this over with our wives.”

“We will, individually, but I can’t see the need for a meeting. I favor having them join us.
Harry?”

“I agree. Swede?”

“Yeah, me too. Who will be in charge of security?”

“Which of all of the operators has the broadest experience?”

“The SEAL.”

“Yep, that’s what I think. Harry?”

“Whatever.”

Harry was probably thinking about Sally. She’d taken a turn for the worse and was be-
ginning to pass blood according to Lynn. The doctor had warned her it was possible,
even likely, and there wasn’t a lot they could do about it under the present circumstanc-
es. Even before the war, her chances were quite low considering how advanced the
disease was. It would have taken surgeries and chemotherapy. He told her he suspect-
ed that her condition was related to the radiation therapy she’d received for the benign
tumor.

Once we three had agreed to go forward with the merger, each of us brought it up at
home. Sally flat out said she wouldn’t be here that long so she didn’t give a damn. Su-
san told Swede to do whatever he wanted and she’d back him up. Lynn had more ques-
tions than a two year old. There were questions about the other group’s military qualifi-
cations, what did we know about their families; so many I can’t remember them now.
She did seem to be impressed that most of them were some kind of Special Forces.

Lynn finally agreed claiming we’d probably already made up our minds anyway. I didn’t
acknowledge that she was right. When they called the next night at 7pm, I told them we
were agreeable if they were. Frank said they’d be at Edgar Springs around noon the
next day. We already had the pipes in for diesel, water and septic, electing to do that
before I talked to Lynn.

We were waiting in Edgar Springs the next day. When they showed up, one of them
was pulling a 36’ travel trailer with only one pullout. Another was pulling a four stall

115
horse trailer holding one horse. I got a look at Stephanie and she wasn’t overly pretty,
but not so ugly you couldn’t look at her. If she’d been named Jane, her first initial would
have been P. (plain). Lynn took one look at her and said, “Humph.” Then, she went over
and struck up a conversation with her about Stephanie’s Arabian Stallion. It would take
a woman with almost no self-confidence to let Stephanie bother her. I was more inter-
ested in how well she could shoot and if she had any more guns then the ones Frank
and Jeb mentioned.

By the end of the day, everyone was moved in and settled and the 36’ trailer connected
and inhabited. The family Stephanie was living with had a former Marine as head of the
family and two kids. Stephanie had been sleeping on the couch since the war. Let’s see
if I can remember the names. Frank’s wife was named Shirley. They had two kids
named Lloyd and Donald. Jeb’s wife’s name was Janet. They had one child, Julie, age
three. There was Charles, his wife Anna, sister-in-law Stephanie and three children
Ronald, George and Sara. David was married to Mary and they had two adolescent
daughters, Jennifer and Kathryn. Finally, the folks with their own trailer were Henry and
Marilyn and their two preschool age kids, Elizabeth and Joshua. I hadn’t matched the
service branches to the families, except for Stephanie – Army. I didn’t have all of the
last names. The twins were named David and Donald and both single.

Most of the guns were .308 or 5.56 NATO. Pistols ran to 1911s, and Browning’s. All of
the pistols except for holdouts were .45ACP or 9×19mm. Frank covered Stephanie’s
cowboy guns, a different gun for every circumstance. One could only presume she
knew how to use them.

The following morning Harry came to the door, knocked, came in and sat down.

“What’s wrong, you look like you’ve seen a ghost?”

“When she went to bed last night, Sally was complaining that she was losing more
blood. I asked if we should go back to Jefferson City and she said no.”

“Are you going today?”

“It wouldn’t do any good guys, Sally died last night in her sleep.”

“Oh man, I’m sorry.”

“She mentioned to me that she thought her time was short, didn’t she mention it to you
Harry?”

“Not one word Lynn. I assume she concluded that it wouldn’t do any good and thought
that it would be easier on everyone if she went to sleep and didn’t wake up.”

“What can we do?”

116
“We’ll need a grave and a coffin. I thought maybe you could get Swede to help and take
care of that Hank. Lynn, Susan and you could take care of getting her cleaned up and
dressed.”

“Where do you want her grave?”

“How about under that oak that’s at the lower edge of your property?”

“Swede and I will take care of it. I’ll tell Frank and he can pass it on to his group. Lynn, I
think the sooner we lay her to rest the better, how long to get her ready?”

“Maybe 3-4 hours.”

“Harry, we can have a service tomorrow. Why don’t you get a cup of coffee, tea or a
drink and I’ll go get with Frank and Swede?”

“Got any tequila?”

“In the portable bar, help yourself.”

“Frank, Harry’s wife Sally died last night.”

“I’m sorry, Hank. Is there anything I can do?”

“Don’t suppose you could build a coffin could you?”

“Do you have the materials?”

“Let me show you.”

I took him to the cave and showed him the materials stored inside of the door. There
was plywood and 1x2s to build the coffin.

“When did you intend to show us this?”

“Later today; we wanted you moved in before we revealed our biggest asset. Think you
can come up with a 2x2x6’ box?”

“No problem. When will you hold the service?”

“Tomorrow morning. I hoped you would attend even though not all of you had met her.
Uterine sarcoma and when it was discovered she was in stage IIIc.”

“Treatable?”

117
“Might have been if it weren’t a Post Apocalyptical World (PAW). It had metastasized so
she probably didn’t have much of a chance.”

“We’ll take care of it. We’ll find someone to help out Harry with his trailer for a few days.”

“Thanks Frank. Gotta get Swede and get the grave dug.”

“What’s his real name?”

“Swede? His name is Norman Johansson.”

“The introductions were a bit brief and we were having trouble remembering them. Then
the question came up whether Swede was a nickname.”

“I gave up and wrote them down before I forgot.”

“I got the adults, but don’t have your kids.”

“That’s complicated; we had two sets of twins, a boy and a girl both times. We have
firearms put up for the kids for when they grow into them in 8-10 years. Our oldest two
are Charles and Cynthia, Chuck and Cindy. The younger pair’s names are Lynette and
Mark. They’re 15 months younger than Chuck and Cindy. I’m giving you their names in
order of their birth.”

I got Swede and filled him in. I took the backhoe and he rode along carrying a shovel.
We dug the grave as close to 3’x7’ as we could and he climbed in and level it out. The
thought of going to Licking for the minister briefly passed my mind, but anyone can say
a prayer over a grave and God will listen.

By the time we’d finished, the girls had Sally ready and Lynn had gotten Shirley to
watch the kids. A wake was held allowing those of us who knew Sally to say a few
words so the newcomers knew a little more about her. The following morning around
10am Sally was transferred to the coffin and transported to the grave. After we lowered
her coffin, those of us who spoke at the wake said a few more words and repeated both
The Lord’s Prayer and the 23rd Psalm; the former from memory and the latter from the
KJV of the Bible.

After the grave was filled, Frank took me aside and asked if it would be okay for Steph-
anie to lend a hand cleaning Harry’s trailer and preparing meals for him in the event he
wasn’t invited somewhere to eat. I told him I presumed it would but that I’d have to
check with Harry.

“Thanks for the service Hank, I’ll be eternally grateful.”

118
“That’s what friends are for, forget it. The reason I’m here is that the new group wants to
provide someone to give you a hand with cleaning and cooking. I told Frank I’d ask be-
fore I okayed it.”

“Who did they have in mind?”

“Stephanie because she has the most free time. You’re invited to our cabin for dinner
tonight. I’d speculate that everyone will offer a meal or two while you’re in mourning.
Sally kept a good house and it would only take Stephanie a few minutes a day to pick
up and dust.”

“Do you think she would mind boxing up Sally’s clothes for me? Someone else might
get some good from them and I started but just don’t have the heart.”

“I’ll ask, but I’d imagine she’d be willing.”

“Okay, thanks, I’d appreciate the help. Twenty-five years going on twenty-six. It just
doesn’t seem fair.”

“Nothing is fair; it is just how it is.”

“Maybe, but it still isn’t fair. If they knew that those radiation treatment years ago could
eventually cause cancer, they should have said something and she might have seen a
doctor sooner.”

“I’ll seed her grave tomorrow and it should grow fairly fast. I don’t know what we can do
about a headstone.”

“I’ll get a piece of limestone and chisel out something appropriate. Thanks for everything
Hank.”

“Dinner will be at six.”

“Did you remember to invite Harry for dinner?”

“I told him 6pm.”

“I’m going to do fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy. Corn or green beans?”

“How about corn?”

“Canned or frozen on the cob?”

I picked the vegetable, you pick the flavor.”

“Okay, corn on the cob.”

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“We don’t really need that icehouse any longer since we have so many freezers.”

“It’s awfully small, what could you convert it to?”

“I was thinking maybe a larger smokehouse. I’ll have to ask Henry and Marilyn if they
have a freezer. If they don’t we’ll find them one up in Rolla. I know that the rest all do
because we supplied the trailers with those, a wood stove, propane kitchen stove and
the electric hot water heater plus the stacked laundry centers.”

Since we hadn’t taken anything that wasn’t survival oriented during our salvage opera-
tions, my conscience was clear. My conscience was also clear about killing that hunter
so many years before. I could have been wrong on that deal; he could have been reach-
ing for a first aid kit. But, like I told Randy, it was a hell of a place to keep a first aid kit.
At least Randy wouldn’t be hungry anymore and mooching meals. Anyone need a Ger-
man Karabiner 98K Mauser? It fires the 7.92x57mm IS cartridge.

The newcomers brought a whole different skill set. They had in their midst a diesel me-
chanic who claimed he could rebuild any diesel made. Harry’s propane generator had
been replaced with a diesel and we had parts kits for every generator. The propane
generator was moved back by the cave near the propane tank and was available for the
cave. Sorry if I’m repeating myself, just trying to keep you in the loop. Another fella was
an over the road tractor trailer operator. One was a Deputy Sheriff. Another cut meat for
a grocery store. One was a carpenter and the last one a plumber.

The SEAL in their group was the Deputy. As a Deputy he had one advantage over the
remainder of his group and us; he could legally own fully automatic weapons. His Sheriff
was lenient in that regard and readily provided the letters on Department Letterhead to
allow his Deputies to acquire weapons. Perhaps he realized that doing that meant the
Deputies were signing up for a lifetime career because they’d be unwilling to give up
their weapons should they leave the Sheriff’s Department. Interesting question; if a LEO
legally acquires a machinegun made after the FOPA went into effect, can he still own it
when he retires? Not that it applies in the current circumstances, I was just curious. We
didn’t really have all that many machineguns.

“I would have expected you’d have your sniper rifles equipped with suppressors.”

“The only one we have is for a HK-417 that we recovered from a dead prepper.”

“Are you familiar with the FA762S?”

“What is it?”

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“A suppressor made by a company in Fountain Valley, California. The FA denotes ‘Fast
Attach’ and the 762 the caliber. The ‘S’ denotes it’s for a rifle as opposed to a ma-
chinegun.”

“Silencers don’t really silencer a firearm anyway.”

“True, but it adds about 50fps to the bullet and improves the accuracy of the rifle.”

“It would take several because we have all kinds of M1As.”

“If I could provide several with the adapters, then what?”

“I guess it would be worth a try. More for the improved the rifle accuracy than the silenc-
ing effect.”

“Bring your rifles by one at a time and I’ll install them.”

“Ok David, we’ll give it a try. I don’t know how much it good it will do; my Super Match is
very accurate.”

David had more suppressors than we had .308 NATO rifles, excluding those we ac-
quired for our kids when they grew up. I’ll have to admit, though, that the rifle was far
quieter than I expected and it was marginally more accurate. Not enough to justify
spending the price of the suppressor, some $1,700, but when the suppressor was free,
it was better to have one than not. David said that the company claimed they’d never
worn one out. We also added them to our 4 M4s (FA556A).

David, although younger than many of the others, was a SEAL and only recently sepa-
rated from active services and become a Deputy. He was stuck with the position of
head of security and providing any training he thought we might need. At least, he didn’t
try to put us through Hell Week. He had tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, especially
the latter where he’d been in country for a long time.

His first step was to certify everyone on the range and make certain they could handle
the weapons of their choice. That included a rifle, handgun and, in addition for some, a
shotgun. The heavier weapons, excluding the machineguns, were in short supply and
never fired. One LAW rocket was used over and over to teach functioning without actu-
ally being fired. We had accidently picked up a box containing M-69 practice grenades
and extra fuzes and we used all of those.

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 The Other Shoe – Chapter 13

The Claymore mines were installed without tripwires and the two guards on duty each
had the clackers in their fighting positions. Why don’t they call them foxholes anymore?
Defensive fighting positions sounds so, well you know what I mean, no zing. Sandbags?
You bettcha, covered with soil and leaves to conceal their true purpose. The M2 went in
one and the M240 in the other. The other two were put in foxholes closer to the trailers,
but not so close that a miss would hole a trailer. You do recall we took 2 of each so we
had a spare, don’t you?

That was when David got a wild hair and decided that the trailers and cabin should be
behind a berm. Thick enough, he said, so no stray rounds could punch through and
ventilate a trailer. There was just enough room around each end to move a trailer or the
tanker trailers. We’d made another trip to Jefferson City and refilled the empty tanker
and learned that they were using the same fuel depot and saw our note.

From that point on, someone was always out scavenging. They were looking for a short
list of specific items plus anything we, as a group, could make good use of. One thing
always in demand was clothing for the growing children. We had a greatly improved first
aid kit courtesy of the MAG. They had a bit of everything, including things to replace lost
blood volume and quite a few blood stopper bandages. It was just something they as-
sembled for when they acquired their property. They, in fact, had an offer out on a piece
of property when the war happened. With the owner in residence, they hadn’t tried to
take the place over.

We muddled through yet another winter and this time actually got snow. Problem this
time was when it started; it didn’t have the good sense to know when to stop. Our ac-
cumulation was several orders less than we expected; however, it snowed a little nearly
every day.

Somehow the topic of conversation turned to religion, especially Christianity, because

everyone here was a Christian. One group insisted that we were in the 1,000-years of
Tribulation that followed the Battle of Armageddon. The rest seemed to think that we
hadn’t had the battle, but once we did, Tribulation would begin. When St. John the Di-
vine wrote Revelations, he made it clear that Christ and the Anti-Christ would meet in
battle on the plain of Megiddo aka Har Megiddo aka Armageddon. We didn’t know what
went down in the Middle East, but from our viewpoint such a battle was beyond our vi-
sion.

Did that mean we were scheduled for 1,000-years of peace? That would be a nice
change, let me tell you. If it were broader in scope and referred to was between nations,
we could still have local troubles. For that reason, and that reason alone, we prepared
to the utmost of our ability. We three couples and the other five couples, with Stephanie
temporarily taking Sally’s place constituted a force of 16, not counting the older children.
Counting all of the teens, we numbered 22, with 4 of the 5 teens being effective for a
defensive mission. The other could guard the children.

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Once satisfied with everyone’s skills and the minimal defenses installed, David posted a
guard schedule based on 4 on and 12 off. We divided into two groups, one to work the
greenhouse and the other to harvest firewood. The MAG group had two Stihl chainsaws
with long blades and one with a shorter 24” blade. There were freestanding dead trees
all over when we began to search a larger area. They were cut to an 8’ length and taken
home where two worked on splitting and stacking.

Our goal was to cut 12,800ft³ of firewood, 100 cords. Once completed, we’d work each
winter to return our existing stock to our base level of 100 cords. It served two purposes,
the first and obvious was to keep a supply of firewood. The second, less obvious, rea-
son was to keep the National Forest as clear of fuel for potential forest fires as we
could.

However, we reached our goal much earlier than planned and as a result, kept cutting
splitting and stacking. We posted notes on the bulletin boards in Licking advertising
firewood for $150 a cord, delivered. We noted we’d take gold, silver or trade goods de-
pending on what was being offered; cigarettes and coffee brought a slight premium.
They were instructed to meet us on Fridays between noon and 2pm at the Licking Li-
brary.

You shouldn’t get the impression we were out of or low on coffee and cigarettes, we
weren’t. They were the most rapidly consumed items and we’d prefer a large back stock
as opposed to a smaller 2 year supply. The only reason I could use to explain my pack
a day habit was my concerns for our long term well-being.

The nicest part of living on the acreage was still having modern conveniences and elec-
tricity. We had generators and PV panels, but not one wind turbine. I’d noticed that at
the top of the bluff, the wind really blew, probably on the order of 15mph most of the
time. A wind turbine large enough to provide power for the cabin, 7 trailers (Harry’s plus
the six newcomers’) and the cave wasn’t your typical home installation. Harry and I dis-
cussed it and agreed we’d want a 1,000 amp turbine that put out 48vdc with several
submarine batteries and several magnum sized inverters putting out 120/240vac. Triple
redundancy was the goal, but whether or not we could achieve it remained to be seen.
Kilowatt wise, we were looking at 120-125kw.

They made smaller, of course, and bigger; however did they make one in our size
range? It was time to read the files on my computer under the heading: Wind. I found
that a Vestas 120kw wind turbine would be the perfect choice. I also learned that there
were quite a few installed one state to the north, Iowa. However, without several subma-
rines worth of batteries, we couldn’t store much electricity. The turbines have a blade
diameter of approximately 66 feet and were mounted on tubular towers, with an 80 foot
hub height. They were made in Denmark and imported, but lots had been imported.

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We could go to Liberal, Kansas or Nevada, Iowa, just two places on my list of installa-
tions nearby. We didn’t want to go north where the snow might hamper our search,
leaving Kansas. Liberal was roughly 575 miles west, while Nevada was much closer,
roughly 390 miles. If we waited until the snow melted, either place would do and closer
is better.

Do you want to know how to dismantle, move and reassemble a 120kw wind turbine? I
can tell you in two words, very carefully. Since we had no large batteries the power pro-
duced by the wind turbine (48v dc) was to be inverted to ac before we brought it down
the bluff through some very heavy gauge wires, one set for each facility. Four of us went
and everyone else stayed home to provide security.

Nevada, Iowa was a small town. I’d guess around 6,500 before the war. It was the
County Seat for Story County. The big city, Ames, was a few miles to the west. We got
off I-35 before we got close to Ames and went cross country until we arrived in Nevada.
We didn’t see any people, so we looked around. A notice posted several places around
the town said, ‘Population relocated to Ames, town has been stripped.’

The wind turbine was right there inside town. It wasn’t operating at the moment. Then
again, there wasn’t much wind. They had been erecting a second wind turbine and
about all we had to do was unbolt the tower, disassemble it into two pieces and load it
on the first semi. The generator and clamshell for it were still in boxes, making it even
easier. The last items to load were the large inverter and associated equipment. We still
had an empty truck so we loaded it with those big spools of heave gauge wire. It had
taken one 10-hour day to dismantle what had probably taken weeks to assemble. Frank
grabbed a set of blueprints and several books on the equipment.

“Man, I’m tired. Do you want to stop to rest or drive straight through to home?”

“How about we drive to the border and then pull off this side of Kirksville?”

“Okay, that’s about ⅓ of the way home.”

“It is closer to half way home. We should get there about 3½ to 4 hours after we leave in
the morning.”

“I guess you may be right. Stop north of Kirksville and leave before dawn?”

“The fewer people that see this load, the better. We’d better figure out some way to skirt
Jefferson City and Rolla.”

“We can go around Jefferson City, but there’s no way around Rolla. We should be with-
in radio range and could call the camp and have some of them meet us north of Rolla.”

124
“We’ll sleep on it and decide in the morning. The 20-meter IC-7000 radio will reach the
camp and we can call them anytime. I asked Lynn to monitor 14.175mhz 24/7, just in
case.”

“I put my Yaesu FT-857D in my truck for the same reason and my wife is monitoring the
same frequency.”

“Call her and fill her in. Tell her that Lynn and she can take turns monitoring the fre-
quency and with luck, we’ll be home before noon.”

“Anything special you want passed to Lynn?”

“Just that I love her and will see her tomorrow.”

However, it didn’t quite work out that way. There was no way to really bypass Kirksville.
Unloaded, it was of little concern. Loaded with the large wind turbine and equipment
that filled the four trailers we immediately attracted attention. Mind you, we passed
through around 4:30am, but they had a watch set for the nighttime hours.

“What’s on the trucks?”

“A wind turbine so we can provide power for our town.”

“Where might that be?”

“Licking. Don’t worry we borrowed it from central Iowa. It’s not big enough to provide
much power, only about 75kw.”

“Wouldn’t it power Kirksville?”

“It wouldn’t even power either of the colleges you have here.”

“Gee, I don’t know, maybe I’d better bump this up the chain of command.”

“Suit yourself. Say what are you; you’re not wearing a uniform?”

“Kirksville militia.”

“And all they armed you with was a single shot shotgun?”

“Ammo is hard to come by.”

“Are you familiar with the H&K USP Tactical?”

“What’s that?”

125
“Here, let me show you.”

Pfutt, Pfutt.

“I think he lost interest, Hank.”

“Seems like, let’s get this show on the road before we have to make more demonstra-
tions.”

The advantage of a suppressed .45ACP was the subsonic ammo and the suppressor
H&K provided, strictly top of the line. First time I’d ever fired the H&K I’d borrowed from
Stephanie just for this trip. Maybe she’d consider trading or selling it. On second
thought, probably not, she’d chosen her firearms carefully and only had exactly what
she felt she needed. I’d have to contend with borrowing it unless we could find another.

Stephanie suggested getting a threaded barrel for my PT1911 first and looking for a
suppressor second. I told her thanks, but I needed a handgun that was ready to go
without spending time looking all over for the barrel and suppressor and then hoping the
suppressor worked on the pistol. Her next question was even more interesting. If she
could come up with one, what would it be worth to me?

I asked if she was referring to my PT1911 or the H&K USP. She replied neither; what
she had in mind was the H&K Mk 23 with an AWC Nexus II suppressor. I asked her how
much and she said 1½ ounces of gold, minimum, it all depended. I all but dared her to
find me one. She disappeared the next day and was gone for about 7 hours, but came
home with a smile on her face. The next day she brought the threaded 6” barrel and the
suppressor. The final price was two ounces of gold but she included 1,000-rounds of
230gr Speer Gold Dot. It was engraved Mk23 USSOCOM.

I had it on the range within an hour and it was worth the two ounces of gold it had cost.
It was bulky and a bit on the heavy side, but that reduced the recoil. I didn’t know if the
suppressor had a Nielsen device or not, but I didn’t care, it worked and worked well.
She said she had extra baffles if I needed them although she doubted I would. She
knew someone that carried H & K weapons and parts.

Meanwhile the fellas were up on the bluff trying to figure out where to pour the base for
the tower. I suggested they pour it anywhere they wanted, who knew if the guy who
owned the property was still alive? They decided that with the weight of the tower and
turbine, their best bet was a base 10’x10’x10’. 1,000Ft³ of concrete is 37 yards or about
3 truckloads, provided they could find large, 12-yard ready mix trucks.

Step one was digging the hole. That took them 4 days. Then they went to Rolla and got
3 12-yard trucks overloading them slightly. When the hole was filled, they screed it off
and called it good. While we waited for the concrete to cure, we reassembled the tower
and set it aside. Next, we built a small building to house the various controllers and in-
verters at the base of the bluff. We strung the wires down the face of the bluff in 6”

126
schedule 40 PVC pipe, and ran the power through the large inverter. Finally, we wired
the inverter outlet into the ATSs each home had, filling the grid side for the first time.

Erecting the tower wasn’t the hard part; the hard part was assembling the generator at
the top of the tower, 88’ off the ground. With that done, we installed the 3 turbine blades
and locked them in place. We checked and rechecked the wiring and when it was pro-
nounced good to go, we released the brake on the turbine. It slowly spun up to the
standard rpm based on a 15mph wind and all of the gauges showed the system was
producing electricity. The ATS’ started switching to the grid position and the generators
started to shut down, one after the other.

“Hot damn, we did it.”

“Couldn’t have done it without your excellent supervision Hank.”

“This puts us just that much closer to being totally independent.”

“When will we be independent?”

“When we can grow food outside and raise enough feed for the livestock.”

“On 6 acres? Are you out of you mind?”

“Well, there is that abandoned farm down the road a bit, I thought we could use it. I was
thinking maybe Harry and Stephanie might be willing to move there and keep an eye on
things.”

“Is that a good idea? Sally hasn’t been gone that long.”

“It will keep his mind off his troubles and Stephanie is who I’d want backing me up, if I
had a choice. Harry and Sally each had a horse with tack so perhaps they can breed his
mares and increase our horse herd. The farm has a hog house, a barn, a corn crib, a
chicken house and a machine shed. We can supply all the fuel they will need. Harry is
about 15 years older than Stephanie so I don’t see them becoming romantically in-
volved.”

“How big is that farm?”

“One hundred sixty acres, a quarter section; it was one of those homesteads that came
when Lincoln created the land grab back in 1862. A good portion of the LTS foods be-
longed to Harry and Sally, but most of them are in the cave and marked.”

Our road dead ended at the farm down the road where I was suggesting Harry and
Stephanie should go. I had raised it as a trial balloon to see if it would fly. The opinions
were divided, maybe 50/50. Charles had talked it over with Anna and they decided to
urge Stephanie to move. Lynn and I had Harry over for dinner and I brought it up. His

127
first impression wasn’t positive. Then, I brought up the fact that Stephanie was a good
shot, had her own guns, had her own horse, etc. I guess I wore him down, he finally
said it would be up to her. However, he warned, he wasn’t a farmer.

The twins had been raised on a farm and had farmed until they went bust. After, they
got factory jobs, eventually losing those too. They agreed to help teach all of us what we
needed to know and do to farm the 160 at the end of the road. Harry and Stephanie
would take one M240 and an assortment of our ordnance to hold off attackers until we
could come to the rescue. Of course, that would only happen if whoever was on guard
duty was asleep on watch. It seemed to me that there was a famous story about a sen-
try falling asleep on watch that I couldn’t remember. It involved Washington, Lincoln or
one of our truly famous presidents.

William Scott (c. 1839 or 1840-Aptil 17, 1862) was a Union Army soldier during the
American Civil War. He was the “Sleeping Sentinel” who was pardoned by Abraham
Lincoln and memorialized by a poem and then a 1914 silent film.

HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC Washington, September 8.

Private William Scott, of Company K. of the Third regiment of Vermont volunteers, hav-
ing been found guilty by court martial of sleeping on his post while a sentinel on picket
guard, has been sentenced to be shot, and the sentence has been approved and or-
dered to be executed. The commanding officers of the brigade, the regiment and the
company, of the command, together with many other privates and officers of his regi-
ment, have earnestly appealed to the Major-General commanding, to spare the life of
the offender, and the President of the United States has expressed a wish that as this is
the first condemnation to death in this army for this crime, mercy may be extended to
the criminal. This fact, viewed in connection with the inexperience of the condemned as
a soldier, his previous good conduct and general good character, and the urgent en-
treaties made in his behalf, have determined the Major-General commanding to grant
the pardon so earnestly prayed for. This act of clemency must not be understood as af-
fording a precedent for any future case. The duty of a sentinel is of such a nature, that
its neglect by sleeping upon or deserting his post may endanger the safety of a com-
mand, or even of the whole army, and all nations affix to the offence the penalty of
death. Private William Scott of Co. K. of the Third regiment of Vermont volunteers, will
be released from confinement and returned to duty.

By command of Maj. – General McClellan, S. WILLIAMS, Asst. Adjt.-General

'Twas in the sultry summer-time, as war's red records show,

When patriot armies rose to meet a fratricidal foe;
When from the North, and East, and West, like the upheaving sea,
Swept forth Columbia's sons, to make our country truly free.

128
Within a prison's dismal walls, where shadows veiled decay,
In fetters, on a heap of straw, a youthful soldier lay;
Heart-broken, hopeless, and forlorn, with short and feverish breath,
He waited but the appointed hour to die a culprit's death.

Yet, but a few brief weeks before, untroubled with a care,

He roamed at will, and freely drew his native mountain air;
Where sparkling streams leap mossy rocks, from many a woodland font,
And waving elms and grassy slopes give beauty to Vermont;

Where, dwelling in a humble cot, a tiller of the soil,

Encircled by a mother's love, he shared a father's toil.
Till, borne upon the wailing winds, his suffering country's cry
Fired his young heart with fervent zeal, for her to live or die.

Then left he all; a few fond tears, by firmness half concealed,

A blessing, and a parting prayer, and he was in the field.
The field of strife, whose dews are blood, whose breezes war's hot breath,
Whose fruits are garnered in the grave, whose husbandman is death!

Without a murmur he endured a service new and hard;

But, wearied with a toilsome march, it chanced one night, on guard,
He sank, exhausted, at his post, and the gray morning found
His prostrate form, a sentinel asleep upon the ground!

But God is love - and finite minds can faintly comprehend

How gentle Mercy, in His rule, may with stern Justice blend;
And this poor soldier, seized and bound, found none to justify,
While war's inexorable law decreed that he must die.

'Twas night. In a secluded room, with measured tread and slow,

A statesman of commanding mien paced gravely to and fro.
Oppressed, he pondered on a land by civil discord rent;
On brothers armed in deadly strife: it was the President!

The woes of thirty millions filled his burdened heart with grief;
Embattled hosts, on land and sea, acknowledged him their chief;
And yet, amid the din of war, he heard the plaintive cry
Of that poor soldier, as he lay in prison, doomed to die!

'Twas morning. On a tented field, and through the heated haze,

Flashed back, from lines of burnished arms, the sun's effulgent blaze;
While, from a somber prison house, seen slowly to emerge,
A sad procession, o'er the sward, moved to a muffled dirge.

And in the midst, with faltering step, and pale and anxious face,

129
In manacles, between two guards, a soldier had his place.
A youth, led out to die; and yet it was not death, but shame,
That smote his gallant heart with dread, and shook his manly frame!

Still on, before the marshalled ranks, the train pursued its way,
Up to the designated spot, whereon a coffin lay-
His coffin! And, with reeling brain, despairing, desolate-
He took his station by its side, abandoned to his fate!

Then came across his wavering sight strange pictures in the air:
He saw his distant mountain home; he saw his parents there;
He saw them bowed with hopeless grief, through fast declining years;
He saw a nameless grave; and then, the vision closed-in tears!

Yet once again. In double file, advancing, then, he saw

Twelve comrades, sternly set apart to execute the law-
But saw no more; his senses swam-deep darkness settled round-
And, shuddering, he awaited now the fatal volley's sound!

Then suddenly was heard the sounds of steeds and wheels approach,
And, rolling through a cloud of dust, appeared a stately coach.
On, past the guards, and through the field, its rapid course was bent,
Till, halting, 'mid the lines was seen the nation's President!

He came to save that stricken soul, now waking from despair;

And from a thousand voices rose a shout which rent the air!
The pardoned soldier understood the tones of jubilee,
And, bounding from his fetters, blessed the hand that made him free!

'Twas spring. Within a verdant vale, where Warwick's crystal tide

Reflected, o'er its peaceful breast, fair fields on either side;
Where birds and flowers combined to cheer a sylvan solitude,
Two threatening armies, face to face, in fierce defiance stood!

Two threatening armies! One invoked by injured Liberty-

Which bore above its patriot ranks the symbol of the Free;
And one, a rebel horde, beneath a flaunting flag of bars,
A fragment, torn by traitorous hands from Freedom's Stripes and Stars!

A sudden burst of smoke and flame, from many a thundering gun,

Proclaimed, along the echoing hills, the conflict had begun;
While shot and shell athwart the stream with fiendish fury sped,
To strew among the living lines the dying and the dead!

Then, louder than the roaring storm, pealed forth the stern command,
"Charge, soldiers, charge!" and, at the word, with shouts, a fearless band,

130
Two hundred heroes from Vermont, rushed onward, through the flood,
And upward, o'er the rising ground, they marked their way in blood!

The smitten foe before them fled, in terror, from his post-
While, unsustained, two hundred stood, to battle with a host!
Then, turning, as the rallying ranks, with murderous fire replied,
They bore the fallen o'er the field, and through the purple tide!

The fallen! And the first who fell in that unequal strife
Was he whom Mercy sped to save when Justice claimed his life-
The pardoned soldier! And, while yet the conflict raged around-
While yet his life-blood ebbed away through every gaping wound-

While yet his voice grew tremulous, and death bedimmed his eye-
He called his comrades to attest he had not feared to die!
And, in his last expiring breath, a prayer to heaven was sent,
That God, with his unfailing grace, would bless our President!

The old farm had a wood/coal furnace and used propane for the stove and hot water
heater. We could fill the propane tank, move a few cords of firewood and even look
around for coal for greater efficiency. The 500-gallon farm tank was half full of gas and
we added some PRI-G and topped it off with stabilized gasoline. Next, we moved a fair
amount of food and their personal possessions. Harry said he’d leave the trailer for our
use, just in case. We also moved the propane fueled generator and hooked it in.

The gals cleaned the house like they were getting it ready to put on the market; it was
so clean, it squeaked. The bedding was washed and the beds made up in all three bed-
rooms, two smaller rooms for Harry and Stephanie and the master bedrooms just in
case they had guests. Canned foods in the basement were organized and dated and
none of the lids bulged so we tried a couple of jars. Tasted good and nobody got sick
although the potatoes stored had to be disposed of because they were past due. An-
other scavenging trip resulted in rounding up a few free ranging cattle. They were gaunt,
apparently having had trouble finding enough to eat. We moved chickens, a bred sow
and 3 feeder hogs so they could begin refilling the cleaned out freezer. Any skills the
two them lacked were available from within the MAG. I sure hated to see the Barrett go
and that gave me an idea.

“Anyone know where Murfreesboro, Tennessee is?”

“Same place it’s always been? What do you want a Barrett rifle?”

“Harry took his with him. I fired it several times and really liked it. I don’t know anywhere
else to find one.”

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 The Other Shoe – Chapter 14

“So you want to make a trip to Tennessee?”

“If we could, yes. It’s more of a want than a need because in times of trouble Harry has
his.”

“Do you have any idea how far it is?”

“I looked it up in my Rand McNally and it is around 450 miles or a little less. We might
need to skirt Nashville because it took a hit. Otherwise, we should have clear sailing.”

“There is no sense in going there for a single rifle, I’ll see if anyone else wants one.”

“Thanks Frank, I appreciate it.”

“I’ve got the list, 4 people want the rifle, you, Stephanie, and the twins. We’ll get six ri-
fles, spare parts and 100 10-round magazines plus all of the .50-caliber ammo availa-
ble. I understand that Harry has some Mk 211?”

“He only bought 4 cans of 120-round. If we could find more, it would be ideal.”

“Where did he get it?”

“From some Sergeant stationed at Fort Leonard Wood.”

“Oh, local, huh? We’ll have to look around. We could use anywhere from 50 to 100
cans.”

“I wonder if they’d have that much. The stuff costs the government $900 a can.”

“They must have some; we’ll try and find whatever they have. You should know by now
that the government only cuts costs by screwing the troops, not by purchasing practical
quantities of things they use.”

“You have a point; we got LAW rockets from the Missouri National Guard. The Army re-
placed the LAW with the M136 AT-4 20 years ago. Probably some supply Sergeant who
couldn’t stand to part with them in case they were needed in some future conflict.”

“Is the Mk 211 imported or made in the US?”

“It’s made under license by Winchester, but I have no idea where.”

“You want to leave tomorrow and plan on a long day trip or an overnighter?”

132
“Whatever it takes. Tomorrow is fine with me. My Chevy is rather nondescript, let’s take
it.”

“I’ll fill 10-cans with diesel and you top off your truck. Let me borrow your atlas and I
look for alternative routes.”

“Lynn, Frank and I are leaving tomorrow on a little trip. It’s about 450 miles one-way so
we may make it an overnight trip. We’ll be back sometime the next day if everything
goes as expected.”

“Oh? Where are you going?”

“Murfreesboro, Tennessee to the Barrett factory.”

“Boys and their toys! Harry only moved down the road two miles, can’t you borrow his
when you want to make a lot of noise?”

“I could I suppose. However, I rather suspect that should I need it, Harry will already be
using it.”

“You scare me sometimes. You often sound like an Army Battalion is going to attack
us.”

“Would you rather have it and not need it?”

“Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. If you’re going to go, just go. Be careful; I’d like
you back intact and still breathing. No bullet holes allowed.”

“Thanks dear. I’ve got to run over to Harry’s and find out something. I won’t be gone
long.”

“Harry, are you settled in?”

“Yep and she plays cribbage. What’s up?”

“The Mk 211 MP you bought.”

“What about it?”

“Was that Sergeant from Fort Leonard Wood?”

“I didn’t ask, but I’m pretty sure he was. Why?”

“Frank and I are going to the Barrett factory in Tennessee to pick up more rifles. I doubt
they carry Mk 211.”

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“You want me to go over to the Fort and have a look see?”

“We’d need anywhere from 50 to 100 cans, if they have it.”

“Well, I’ll take Stephanie with me to cover my back. She did the full twenty years and
may have a few ideas where to look. If they have more than 100 cans, do you want us
to take it all?”

“Maybe you’d better. I’d rather be shooting it at them than have someone shooting it at
me. I’m hoping we can find a group of rifles that were packed up waiting to be shipped
to the Army. That way, we’d be sure they were the M107s.”

“Good luck. When are you leaving?”

“Before dawn tomorrow. It will either be a very long day trip or an overnighter.”

“Say, we have a porker and a beef ready to butcher. Could you ask whoever to come
over and give us a hand?”

“Can do. I’ll check with you when we get back, Stephanie wanted one of the rifles.”

“Figures; she gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘gun nut’. Man. You ought to see
her ride; she moves her stallion with knee pressure alone when she wants to. I frankly
surprised she hadn’t latched onto a man.”

“I understand she dated some.”

“She said she sometimes had two or more boyfriends at the same time. Then, she
laughed and said variety is the spice of life. She just had her 40th birthday and I think
she’s beginning to realize that she doesn’t have anyone permanent in her life. She is
quite the gal.”

“Do I detect some interest on your part?”

“Sally isn’t cold in her grave yet. Maybe someday, but not right now.”

Harry had a faraway look in his eyes, sort of like he wanted to say more, but I let it go at
that. With Stephanie helping, he’d get the Raufoss if there was any to be had. The Fort
was used primarily for training and who knew what they had. Unless I’m wrong, they did
AIT there.

We were on the road by 4:30 the next morning, to beat the rush hour traffic. We didn’t
even see any traffic until we got to Paducah and that was a lone vehicle. We kept a
watchful eye all the way to Murfreesboro and didn’t see another human being. That
didn’t mean we hadn’t been seen, just that we hadn’t seen them.

134
There were 12 rifles in the shipping department all addressed to the DoD. We took
those, spare magazines, drag bags, M-33 ammo and an assortment of spare parts. We
weren’t sure what wore out first so the parts assortment was fairly large. I even took one
of their rifles in the .416 caliber to give to Stephanie. It was a model 99 single shot that
was supposed to have better ballistics than the .50-caliber rifle. And, to be certain I
could silence one, I took a model 95 with a Nightforce scope w/BORS. We spent about
two hours going through the factory and loading up our haul. And then, we moved off
about 30 miles before we stopped and had an MRE for lunch.

We drove on through and made it home just before midnight. I pulled the Chevy in the
shed and went in to see if Lynn had left me any leftovers. She was up, having heard us
drive in. I had a sandwich and gave her the high points of our trip. She wanted to know
about Nashville and I had to tell we took a different route to avoid any lingering fallout. I
explained that we brought back 14 rifles, 12 M107s, 1 model 99 for Stephanie so she
could experiment with the new .416 cartridge and a model 95 for me. We did well on
ammo bringing back 150 cases of .50-caliber (12,000-rounds) and 50 cases (4,000-
rounds) of .416-caliber.

I also explained that Harry said Stephanie and he had planned to go to the Fort to look
for more Mk 211. She said that explained his call. All he’d said was 125 cases and that
I’d know what he meant. I sure did 15,000 rounds of ammo worth around $112,500.
When I told her, she gasp and then asked what dollar figure I put on this latest adven-
ture.

“Well, figure 144 grand on 12 rifles, 9 grand each on the other two, and 350 bucks times
200. I guess that’s nearly 232 grand in Tennessee. Harry’s take was about 108 grand
for a grand total of 340 thousand. And, we didn’t corner the market at Barrett; we just
picked up a prepackaged DoD order and some spares. You want to go over to Harry’s
tomorrow morning?’’

“I would like to see the expression on her face when you turn over her share of the haul.
Are you done gallivanting around the country for a while?”

“Until I think of something else we need, yes.”

“One of these days, this salvage work is going to turn around and bite you square on
the butt. I’ll come visit if the prison isn’t too far away.

“I think I have gotten back every penny of taxes we’ve paid. Now, the only question is,
‘Who will show up first, the MZBs or the JBTs’?”

“I think we’ll take all those loose .50-caliber links and make up a half dozen belts of Mk
211. We don’t have a linker, but we might be able to come up with one at the Fort, even
if all it is that manual belt loader John Moses Browning came up with.”

“How are the kids?”

135
“Lynette is potty trained, but Mark is being a stinker about it. I’ll be so glad when all four
of them are in training pants.”

“Three down and one to go, you’re getting to be an expert.”

“Yeah and the stretch marks are disappearing.”

“Time for another pair?”

“No, thank you.”

We crawled in bed and I was out like a light, it had been a long day. The morning came
way too early, but I got up, showered and dressed. There was leftover pancake batter
so I started my breakfast.

“Sit down, I’ll finish that. How hungry are you?”

“Finish off the batter.”

“We’re down to homemade maple flavored syrup, is that ok?”

“Sure.”

“You eat and I get someone to watch the kids while we go to Harry’s and Stephanie’s.”

“I’ll only be a few minutes. The syrup is very good.”

She grabbed her coat and took off. She got Jeb’s wife, Janet, since she only had one of
her own. We unloaded most of the guns, ammo and accessories and headed down the
road. Stephanie was pleased with the M107 and awestruck with the model 99. We un-
loaded M-33 for her plus the .416 ammo and loaded up the Mk 211. After we returned
home, we called a meeting and passed out the rifles and ammo plus the accessories. A
couple of fellas complained they wished they had asked for one and we filled their wish-
es from our supply of extra rifles. Not much got done that day besides sighting in the
rifles and practice at various ranges.

“Bring ‘em on, we’re ready.”

“Be careful what you wish for, God has a sense of humor.”

Within a week we had our first visitors and they came in numbers.

“We have the Missouri National Guard down here wanting to speak to whoever is in
charge.”

136
“I’ll get Frank and we’ll be right there. Lynn, get on the radio and give Harry a heads up.”

“Are you in charge here?”

“I own the property, all six acres of it. You could say that Frank and I are in charge.
What can we do for you?”

“You had any trouble?”

“What do you mean, attacks by roving gangs?”

“Yes, they’ve been active in the area.”

“Nary a one, Sergeant.”

“Where’d you come up with the machineguns?”

“Courtesy of the US Army. Where have you been the last two years?”

“Getting reorganized. What’s your food situation?”

“We have just enough to get by and raise fresh foods in our greenhouse.”

“We’re under orders to confiscate anything over a 30-day supply.”

“You’d be lucky to find that much food among us. We have livestock but only a little and
none of it is ready to butcher. One of our group, Harry, took over the abandoned farm
down the road. Come spring we intend to help him get in a crop to produce livestock
feed. We’ve been supplement our meat supply with wild game. A large deer doesn’t go
far when you’re dividing it among several families.”

“You don’t look like you’ve missed many meals. Not like most of the others we’ve
found.”

“We were prepared to some extend for any kind of disaster. We have done limited sal-
vage when necessary.”

“Looting?”

“Salvaging; the property was abandoned.”

“Sez you.”

“Ask around, we’ll all tell the same story, salvage. It was mostly fuel for our stoves and
generators.”

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“I guess we’d better check down the road.”

“I’ll come with you; Harry and Stephanie both have Barrett rifles and hair triggers. I can’t
say what they might do when you pull into sight.”

“Two people? No sweat.”

“One is a former ranger and the other retired after 20 years in the Army. She’s quite the
gun collector and is good with every weapon she owns. Your best bet would be to tie a
white flag on your antenna.”

“We kind of figured you hillbillies would be trouble.”

“I beg your pardon? I hail from St. Louis and only moved down here when the economy
went belly up. Frank’s group came here from Jefferson City, after the war. We banded
together for security reasons.”

“Sez you.”

“I’m starting to very much dislike you Sergeant. I don’t think I’ll go with you to Harry and
Stephanie’s. You deserve whatever you get. You might be surprised how well we’re
prepared to repel boarders, be they mutant zombie bikes or jack booted thugs.”

“We’re just following orders.”

“The Eichmann defense didn’t work the last time, the Israelis hung him. You might want
to check those orders, Sergeant. We’re all veterans of one war or another and we didn’t
put our lives on line so you could behave as you are.”

“Let me guess, you were a jarhead.”

“I was a Marine and did my tour in Iraqi; more than one actually. Most of our force is
former Special Forces of one type or another. Our security chief is a former SEAL who
did a tour in Iraq and more than one in Afghanistan. As you know, the marksmanship of
the soldiers is ranked based on their skill: marksman-sharpshooter-expert. We all quali-
fy as Experts or better. Most of us meet the civilian standard for Expert which is roughly
equivalent to a military sniper rating. Don’t mess with us Sergeant and we won’t mess
with you. Tell that to your Lieutenant.”

“We’ll see about that mister.”

We followed the three Hummer convoy down to Harry’s and had them boxed in if they
started trouble. Stephanie was wearing her ACUs with her collar rank insignia and that
backed the Sergeant down very quickly, she was an E-9 and booked no shit from a 25

138
year old E-5. Harry told me he’d seen her dress uniform and she had seven rows of rib-
bons and a Combat Infantryman Badge, with three stars. Certain badges are allowed on
the ACU. The three stars represented 4 conflicts, Panama, Southwest Asia, Somalia
and the War on Terror.

In our group, having a combat infantry badge, or the equivalent, wasn’t uncommon. Nei-
ther were having one and sometimes two stars. We were fairly long on combat experi-
ence and most hadn’t forgotten lessons learned the hard way. While it was true that we
hadn’t taken body armor as salvage, that was easily remedied because we weren’t that
far from Leonard Wood. It would mean taking each person up there and specifically fit-
ting the armor, something easily accomplished before the Guard returned.

With that in mind, we drove over two couples at a time and got the Interceptor plus
spare plates. Our haul didn’t begin to approach our recent weapons and ammo haul, but
it seemed to be very important, given that Sergeant’s attitude. Harry and Stephanie also
went the first day with Lynn and me, Frank and Shirley. The last ones to go were David
and his wife. Also with the Sergeant’s attitude in mind, we went ahead and loaded 6
belts with Mk 211, alternating between Mk 211, AP and APIT or API-DT. Every
APIT/API-DT round was followed with an Mk 211 round, making the belts longer at 120
rounds.

We added a third M240 so we had 2 Ma Deuces and 2 M240s at our place. The M240s
went down by the road and the Ma Deuces higher up, in front of the berm. The 7.62
belts were 4 rounds of M993 and one M62 or one M276. You might say the difference
between the two was day and night. These belts were stock right out of the ammo can.
Since we had acquired night vision, dim tracers were necessary if we were firing the
weapons wearing might vision. It was the AN/PVS-14 and could be helmet mounted,
hand held or rifle mounted. Let me explain how that happened.

“Man, was that close.”

“What happened?”

“We weren’t three miles down the road when we ran into a convoy, Missouri National
Guard. It was probably that same bunch who came here last week raising hell. They
had maybe three dozen school busses, the big ones, packed to over flowing with civil-
ians. I suspect they’re going to start a refuge center there. We couldn’t really get a good
look, but Mary said they didn’t look too happy.”

“Those writers, Fleataxi, TOM and Jerry D Young, among others, suggested something
like that might happen.”

“The next question becomes where they’re going to get the food to feed them.”

“Well, they’re not getting it from us, count on it.”

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“It’s going to be difficult to stop then, especially if they turn up with a couple of Compa-
nies of grunts. I picked up another M240 and more ammo. We can put two .50-caliber
and two .30-caliber guns here and let Harry keep the one he has. Once they start
checking the inventory of ordnance Leonard Wood is supposed to have against what’s
left, I expect they’ll be back.”

“Do you have any good ideas of how to deal with a force that large?”

“First off, they’re weekend warriors while most of us have some kind of Special Forces
background. Second, we extremely well-armed, more than I thought we’d ever need.
Third, rather than waiting for them to bring the fight to us, we can take the fight to them
and dictate our own terms. We need to get scouts out immediately equipped with radios
that will reach from the Fort back here.”

“We’ve used 20-meters with good success, want to continue with that?”

“As long as we change the frequency every 4 hours it might work. How about Harry and
you start the ball rolling and I’ll get everything organized here? Use 14.175mhz.”

“I’m going with my Super Match and my Mk-23. There’s no point in announcing our
presence.”

“Does Harry have a suppressor?”

“He can borrow Stephanie’s USP Tactical and use his M1A with the Surefire suppres-
sor.”

“How do you think it would work out if each team had a woman and a man?”

“If there’s any jealously involved, that might be a bad idea, unless you use husband wife
teams.”

“I can’t do that, if they get caught, that could level the children with no parents.”

“Figure out something, I know that Lynn and I will team up since we seem to have an
odd number of people, 8 men and 7 women. I’m also willing to pull twice as many tours
as the others, if that will help.”

“What do you have for optics?”

“I have a very good pair of binoculars and an 80 power spotting scope. Harry has some
things along the same lines, I think.”

“Remember to take your night vision. You probably won’t need it presuming the Fort is
well lighted, but…”

140
“I’ll square it Lynn and call Harry and tell him what to get around. He and I generally use
the CB on channel 31.”

“It sure would be nice if we had SINCGARS and some of those handhelds that they’re
using now. Last I heard, it was a battle among several bidders for the contract. I think
that ITT Industries had the edge.”

“I read about those, they’re called Spearheads. They use the same frequency hopping
scheme as the SINCGARS and only weigh a little over 19 ounces.”

“What’s the battery life?”

“About 8 hours and they’re rechargeable. If I recall correctly, they have a choice of
combination earphones/microphones.”

“I’ll tell you Hank, if we had SINCGARS for all of our vehicles and homes plus Spear-
heads for operations, we’d be in pretty good shape.”

“ITT is headquartered in Indiana, but I don’t know where they make the radios.”

“Why is it Hank that you seem to be so well informed?”

“When I lived in St. James, I spent hours on the internet every night. After I moved, I
began to go to the library in Licking trying to keep up to date. I’m an encyclopedia of
useless facts.”

“I can’t say I agree, you’re better prepared than we were.”

“I was single when I moved down here. I met Lynn and the rest, as they say, is history.”

“You know sometimes only Congress and the Services know about the latest develop-
ments. The last I knew they were working on the JTRS. Phase V of that program was
for a small handheld radio. Maybe they fielded one that we don’t know about.”

“I think I read that they killed JTRS.”

“I’m just afraid that it means SINCGARS then.”

“You figure out where to get them and Harry and I will go shopping. Funny thing about
the SINCGARS is it required 28 volts except for the man pack that uses 12 volts. If we
get SINCGARS, we’ll get the man packs and Spearheads if we can find them. We’d
need 2 or 3 batteries per handheld to be sure we always had a battery charged. Some-
one else will have to install them and set them up. We’ll get the CD that’s available for
programming the frequency hopping.”

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“You ready?”

“I guess so, what are you taking to eat?”

“MREs.”

“Give me a minute and I’ll grab a box. Did you put in a 5-gallon can of water?”

“Yes and both of my canteens are full. Besides, my BOB has a Katadyn filter.”

“I suppose you went top of the line, right?”

“I always do when it’s a question of life or death.”

“How close are you planning to get?”

“No closer than necessary to find out what we need to know. Our primary task is to de-
termine if the rescued people are being helped or locked up behind barbed wire.”

“And, if they are?”

“Let’s take one thing at a time. First we get the facts and then we make the decision.”

“You know for a hermit, you’re on the go 25 hours a day; it just doesn’t fit the image I
first had of you.”

“Well, like Gomer always said, surprise, surprise, surprise.”

We took off up M until it turned into J and from there picked up I-44 at Powellville. We
got off I-44 just past St. Robert at the Gospel Ridge exit and took off cross country until
we came to the Fort. We looked around until we found a good observation spot and set
up a light/cold camp. We checked our weapons one last time and took turns observing
with the binoculars and the spotting scope. We really didn’t see much until dark when
they turned on the lights to the internment camp. It had a wire 10’ in we assumed was
the do not pass line. The concertina on top of the fence was turned inward. We saw a
mess hall, toilets and presumably showers.

We knocked off for the night and resumed observing the following morning. I noticed
right off that no one went to the mess hall for breakfast. The first meal served was lunch
and as nearly as we could see, it was a sandwich and a bottle of water. We continued to
observe and the residents returned to the mess hall around 5:30 and lined up waiting to
be fed. We couldn’t see what they were given, but it was a sit down meal; a very brief sit
down meal. Our replacements showed up and we directed them to our lookout position
on 20-meters. We covered what we’d seen and made sure they had identified the com-
pound.

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“Ok, what did you see?”

“They have a compound with a 10’ trip wire and 8 or 9’ high cyclone fence topped by
concertina turned inward. We saw toilets and showers plus a mess hall. They didn’t get
breakfast, had a sandwich and bottle of something, probably water, for lunch and a sit
down supper that reminded me of boot camp where you only were given a few minutes
to eat.”

“No rough treatment or anything?”

“Not that we saw. There are a lot of tents set up and I think the place could hold some-
where between 1,200 and 1,600 depending on the capacity of the tents. I counted and
there were 100 tents.”

“Guards?”

“They were armed plus there were machineguns in the towers at the four corners. The
one thing we didn’t see was chimneys coming out of the tents.”

“So they don’t have heat? I’ve got our comms guy out looking for radios. He didn’t seem
to think it would be much of a problem. I think he’s planning on breaking in a couple of
Guard Armories for the SINCGARS and look around for the Spearheads. We have a list
of Missouri Armories and he’ll quit just as soon as he has what we need.”

“What about that compound?”

“For now we just keep on watching. If they’re up to no good, we’ll know that soon
enough. Would you do otherwise based on the information you just brought back?”

“No, I suppose not.”

“Let’s just get those radios and install them. For all we know, they have scanners moni-
toring the CB bands and the ham bands.”

So, we watched as the compound began to fill. We now had the radios and they’d all
been installed. Radios installed in home were powered with power supplies and a six
frequency skipping setups were programmed into all of the radios. The Spearhead was
limited to six frequency skipping options which we labeled Tac-1 through Tac-6. As the
compound continued to fill, our level of concern increased.

For one thing, the size of the food shipments hadn’t changed with the population. While
convoys of troopers were out rounding up more strays, a small force was left in place to
hover over the compound. That varied from 2-3 squads up to a full Platoon, in this case
a force of about 50. We concluded that this wasn’t the only camp, we’d seen or heard of
larger group of people than the number in the camp. A sign was erected and we as-

143
sumed it said something like Stalag Luft #. However, it actually said Relocation Camp
MO-9. A rose by any other name…

Back at that acreage, David said he blew it when the berm was built. If we had four
people in front of the berm with the machineguns, there would be no way for them to get
behind the berm without exposing themselves to the attacker. Plus, he said, you don’t
just pick up a M2 and carry it around like a M240. He said the only solution he could
think of was placing the machineguns on the berm, constructing fighting positions that
were open from the rear. He went on to say we could put the heavy machineguns at the
top of the bluff, but that had problems too.

Relocation Camp MO-9? The MO could stand for Missouri. If this was camp 9, where
were 1 through 8 and how many more camps were there beyond the nine? It wouldn’t
be the first time someone skipped a few numbers to mislead the opposition. The
thought was there although I couldn’t come up with an example. Something military was
my nagging thought. Was it the way they numbered SEAL teams? You know how it
goes; you get a thought and can’t remember the answer. It drives you nuts until you re-
member and by then, it doesn’t matter.

The solution to the machinegun problem was easier than figuring out what was going on
at Leonard Wood. The machineguns we moved to the top of the berm with an open
fighting position allowing exit to the housing and cave. We had that done in no time flat
and it was well that we did, the Guard came back, looking for their machineguns.

“Got a warrant?”

“We’re under martial law, we don’t need a warrant.”

“You may not, but I do. Anyway, what makes you think that they’re your machineguns?”

“Where else would you get them?”

“From a class III dealer? Damn heavy price tag if you ask me.”

“And of course you have ownership papers?”

“Sure do but they’re in the safe in my basement at our house in Licking.”

The M240 was originally the FN MAG developed during the 1950s. The US got around
to using them in the late 1960s to early 1970s. Any imports that predated the Firearms
Control Act and the Firearms Owners Protection Act were legal to own if you had the
BATF stamp. Martial law or not, we had decided, as a group, that no one was going to
violate our rights under the 2nd Amendment. Besides, the John Warner Act that gave the

144
President authority to ignore Posse Comitatus during a national emergency had been
repealed. It boiled down to who had the biggest guns.

“Step aside, we’re going to search.”

“No, I don’t believe you are. If I raise my hand like this,” I said raising my right hand,
“when I drop it they’ll open fire. Hurry up and decide, my hand is getting heavy.”

“What are we up against?”

“A whole lot more than 4 machineguns, I promise. We Marines always had a special
place in our hearts for the M-72.”

“You mean the LAW rocket? “

“Light Anti-tank Weapon, 66mm, stationary target range 200 meters, moving target
range 165 meters. Unlike the National Guard, Special Operators use whatever is avail-
able with spectacular success.”

“This is above my pay grade; I’ll be back with either my Squad Commander or Platoon
Commander.”

“You can reach us via CB radio on channel 9. Call ahead and we’ll be ready.”

“That went well.”

“Not really David, I believe that Sergeant will be back. Listen, I have an idea, how about
we get the women and children into the cave for a few days? When they’re secure and
we’ve taken precautions to protect our possessions, we use their return to cover an at-
tack on Stalag 9 and set the inmates free?”

The Germans had several names for prisoner of war camps, among them the slang
term Stalag. In Germany, Stalag was a term used for POW camps. Stalag is an abbre-
viation for "Stammlager", itself a short form of the full name "Mannschaftsstamm und -
straflager". The types of pow camps were:

●Dulag or Durchgangslager (transit camp) – These camps served as a collection point

for pows prior to reassignment.
●Stalag or Stammlager (base camp) – These were enlisted personnel POW camps.
●Oflag or Offizier-Lager (officer camp) – These were POW camps for officers.
●Stalag Luft or Luftwaffe-Stammlager (Luftwaffe base camp) – These were POW
camps administered by the German Air Force for Allied aircrews.
●Marlag or Marine-Lager (marine camp) – These were Navy personnel POW camps.

145
●Milag or Marine-Internierten-Lager (marine internment camp) – These were merchant
seamen internment camps.
●IIag/JlagI or Internierungslager (internment camp) – These were civilian internment
camps.

In the US during WW II, we called them war relocation camps or pow camps. The for-
mer held Japanese American citizens and the latter, German pows. You’ve got to watch
those Executive Orders, like EO 9066. The difference between Theodore and Franklin
was simple. Teddy said Bully and Franklin was a Bully.

The approach to taking down the camps couldn’t have been more simple, which is good
because none of us were officers. We take 8 LAW rockets, one for each tower and a
spare. We’d use silenced sniper rifles, mostly M1As, sighted in using Black Hills 168gr
or 175gr BTHP. We could get close enough that terrain wouldn’t be a problem. Concur-
rently with taking out the 4 towers, we’d take out the guards at the main gate. After that
it would just a matter of mopping up Jap positions and... wait, that’s a line out of In
Harm’s Way, uttered by Captain Eddington.

“Is this going to work?”

“It’s one hell of a time to be asking that question, it has to work. We’re taking all 8 men
and Stephanie. It would be easy; we’ll only be outnumbered about 5 to 1. We’ll be firing
from the dark and using those superior flashhiders. They won’t know where to look. As
soon as the 4 towers are down, the rocket men will join the snipers and pick off any re-
maining guardsmen.”

“I never thought I’d live to see the day we’d be shooting our own troops.”

“No one did. That’s just it; they’re not acting like our own troops and deserve a wakeup
call.”

“Base Camp, LWFO (Leonard Wood Forward Observer).”

“Go LWFO.”

“I have a convoy pulling out with about ⅔ of the military personal. It appears that they’re
on a mission.”

“Roger LWFO. We’ll be on our way in five minutes. We should arrive just about dark.”

“Lynn, it’s time for you and the others to get into the cave and lock it down. If everything
goes as expected, we’ll be back in two hours. Who knows, we might catch the Guard
ransacking the place and be forced to stop them.”

146
“You be careful.”

“We will be. If we can make good use of our tactical advantage, we could walk away
without a scratch and the people would be free.”

“Where will they go?”

“Beats me but I don’t believe they’ll stick around very long.”

There was only one good way to get from the acreage to Ft. Leonard Wood, the one I
described earlier. With that in mind, we took off like a bat out of hell, and made it about
halfway to the Fort before we parked off the road and waited. When the convoy of 3
HEMTTs had passed, we took off again, just as fast, until we were close to our forward
observation point. The sun was setting and we could begin to see stars in the nighttime
sky. With no further ado, we moved out placing our rocketeers first, followed by those of
us who would be sniping.

It is said that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. If you plan well, you take that
into consideration and have backup or alternative solutions. The LAW rockets must
have been old, all four fired but one failed to explode. The rocketeer switched to his
backup (spare) rocket and took down the last tower. The guards in that tower were well
aware that they were in someone’s sights and were climbing down as fast as they
could. The second rocket helped them along, collapsing on them. It was now our turn
and we opened up on the gate guards.

Unfortunately, they weren’t complete idiots, when the first 3 towers fell, they took cover.
We took out as many as we could with the first rocket volley. Some changed positions
when the fourth tower fell and they fell around the same time. Within the compound the
remaining force consisting of about 3 squads sought cover in the mess hall.

“We need all remaining rockets fired into the mess hall.”

“What about the people in there?”

“It’s well after dinner time; the only people in there should be the guards.”

The 3 remaining rockets slammed into the building having less effect than anticipated. It
did drive out some of the soldiers, whom we dispatched, but most stayed where they
were. Two of our number went to the only gate and opened it wide and then began urg-
ing the internees to leave. There was a mixed reaction. Those people who hadn’t want-
ed to be in the camp in the first place, grabbed their possessions and boogied. Some of
those that thought the government’s reason to be was to protect them and had figured
out it wasn’t true soon followed.

But, there will always be some who can’t find their butt without a map and would starve
to death without the government hand out. They simply milled around asking what we

147
wanted them to do. Any authority figure in a storm? We had more pressing problems,
we needed to clear out the mess hall and we needed to get home and try to pick up the
pieces. With our rockets gone we turned to the next most powerful ordnance available,
Mk3A2 concussion grenades and M67 fragmentation grenades. What we needed was
some of those 40mm grenades. It was a case of wish in one hand and spit in the other,
we didn’t have them. Oh, we saw them, but weren’t too keen on the M16 rifles and the
only ones I had were the 4 M4s that were put up for the kids.

“The grenades didn’t work. Now what?”

“I vote we leave. The only people hanging around are a bunch of sheeple who are afraid
of losing their meal ticket.”

“Let ask the others and I’ll let majority rule.”

David polled the other seven of our small force and the vote was surprisingly in favor of
leaving and getting back to our families before the soldiers discovered the cave. We
saddled up and headed down the road, our fingers crossed that the dark was working to
the advantage of our families by hiding the cave. If those troops had demolitions, the
blast door might not keep them out.

“I don’t see any HEMTTs, have they been here?”

I’ll call Lynn on the radio and find out. Lynn, this is Hank, we’re back. Are you still safe in
the cave?”

“Oh it’s you; I thought maybe it was them.”

“They haven’t been here?”

“No, they haven’t.”

“Oh, oh. We did what we needed at the camp and hurried back just in case you needed
help. Did you hear what she said?”

“She said here comes trouble. Shhh, I hear something out in the woods and it doesn’t
sound like a herd of deer.”

“What does it sound like?”

“Missouri Jacka…., uh mules. I’d say about 3-4 squads of guys with two left feet each.
We need more rockets, grenades and loaded magazines.”

“Try the ice house.”

“What are they doing there?”

148
“The ice all melted and I was going to convert it to a smoke house and then I…never
mind, get what you need from the ice house.”

Not everyone used the M1A rifle, no, that would have been too easy. Some like the FAL
and others preferred the HK91. The magazines weren’t interchangeable. A 7.62×51mm
cartridge was a 7.62×51mm cartridge and they worked equally well in all three of the
firearms. The most popular type of magazine in modern rifles and handguns, a box
magazine, stores cartridges in a column, either one above the other or staggered zigzag
fashion. This zigzag stack is often identified by the misnomer double-column when in
fact, it is a single, staggered column. As the firearm cycles, cartridges are moved to the
top of the magazine via spring tension to either a single feed position or side-by-side
feed positions. Box magazines may be integral to the firearm or removable.

A detachable box magazine is a self-contained mechanism capable of being loaded or

unloaded while detached from the host firearm. They are attached via a slot in the fire-
arm receiver usually below the action but occasionally to the side or on top. When the
magazine is empty, it can be detached from the firearm and replaced by another full
magazine. This significantly speeds the process of reloading, allowing the operator
quick access to ammunition. This type of magazine may be straight or curved, the curve
being necessary if the rifle uses rimmed ammunition or ammunition with a tapered case.
Box magazines are often affixed to each other with clips, tape, straps, or otherwise, for
quicker access.

Wait, I’m not done. A STANAG magazine is a type of detachable firearm magazine
standardized by NATO in October 1980. It doesn’t apply to FAL, HK91 or M1A rifles.
The listed rifles there all shoot poodles, lots of different flavors though. And those that
have the direct gas impingement system can be cleaned with carburetor cleaner. Wet it
down and let it soak, repeat until it is down to bare metal. Starting a combat patrol with
clean rifle means your M16/M4 will be good for the standard load out of 210 rounds. If
you soak it with Breakfree CLP, you can stretch it an additional 90 rounds or three mag-
azines. If you still have ammo left and you don’t have much choice, a second soaking
may or may not help. In the latter days of Iraqi Freedom, the insurgents began using
snipers. If you could spot him, a belt of .50-caliber usually solved the problem. Usually.

When I left on this attack I was loaded down with 1 magazine in my rifle, 8 more in my
Tac Force chest vest and another 8 in musette bag. I restocked my grenades and
passed out more as our people came looking for rockets, grenades and loaded maga-
zines. Those using magazines other than M1A magazines were given bandoleers hold-
ing 60-rounds (two per pocket) on 5-round stripper clips. The only grenades passed out
were M67 defensive grenades and we limited everyone to 3 rockets. The 4 ma-
chineguns were retrieved from the ladies in the cave and placed in their tripods on the
backside of the berm.

“This is the Missouri National Guard. You’re surrounded. Lay down you guns and step
away.”

149
“Molōn labe!”

“You think they’ll understand what you said?”

“Do you want me to repeat it in English? Okay. Listen up out there, what I just said
means Come and take them. It was spoken by King Leonidas of Sparta to Xerxes of
Persia around 480BC. It was basically repeated by Colonel William Travis to General
Santa Anna in 1836 at the Battle of the Alamo. Leonidas and Travis lost but they
weren’t Special Forces Operators.”

“I didn’t know about Travis saying that at the Alamo.”

“He may not have used the words, but actions speak louder than words. They only have
three squads; the odds are in our favor.”

“How do you figure?”

“We’re defending our homes and those good ol’ boys are just following orders. The
main thing we have to do is keep them from finding the cave. I know Lynn and that
means that our wives and teenagers are armed. They’re sort of hampered by being in
the cave. One demolition charge and they could be finished.”

“What’s in the fifties?”

“One tracer, one Mk211 and three AP; the belts are longer than normal because of the
Mk211 rounds and each belt holds 120 rounds.”

“Shit, you’re loaded for bear.”

“It was never if, just when. I expected MZBs but we got JBTs.”

“What are the ROE?”

“Screw ROE.”

“Last chance, lay down you guns and step away.”

“Pry them from our cold dead hands soldier boy.”

They either had a DM or a sniper, a shot rang out and Harry grunted, “I’m hit.” The
shooter must have hurried his/her shot or was new to the sniping business. That
changed the odds so we located the Guard troops, they were down by the creek, and
replied in kind, using head shots only. That cut their number by 8. Harry didn’t shoot
back and someone missed.

150
Even with our taking 1 to their 8, we couldn’t afford this, especially if someone missed.
“Take your time, be sure of you target and aim for head shots only, they’re probably
wearing body armor.”

“It’s me, Harry. They don’t know about our body armor ‘cause I took one straight to the
plate. Sum Beech that hurts.”

“Cut the chatter and let’s take them out.”

Those good ol’ boys mistook concealment for cover. Second, they didn’t know about our
having body armor. Finally, they didn’t know what loads we had in the Ma Deuces or
that we had grenades and rockets. Those manning the machineguns lay down their ri-
fles and changed to their big boy toys. At that point the battle became decidedly uneven
and we were having a merry old time. I was astonished how much damage 4 machine
gunners and 5 snipers could do. The battle might have lasted longer, but they began to
run out of ammo. Some idiot must have insisted that a standard combat load of 210
rounds would be adequate.

We also used the hand grenades but didn’t bother with the rockets for obvious reasons.
They were going to be hard to replace and the troopers were so spread out, it would
have been a waste of a valuable resource. When they were down to about 15 people
and out of ammo, the survivors surrendered. They threw down their guns, raised their
hands and stood up.

“We need one live Officer or Noncom to question. Disarm and detain the rest until we
talk this over.”

Well, not everyone grabbed his/her handgun and ran forward to dispatch the remaining
attackers. I suppose it was because of the uniforms they wore, American uniforms.
Moreover, they could claim they were only following orders and would probably be tell-
ing the truth. I was having second thoughts now that we’d won and was beginning to
think that the soldiers were the wrong people needing killing.

“Harry, are you ok?”

“I’ve got one hell of a bruise; it was good that they weren’t using real rifles. If you need a
volunteer to question that Officer/Noncom, I volunteer.”

“You can join in, but I think it’s really a job for SEALS and Special Forces. Follow their
lead. David, you can hook up with Swede and pry the information out of the guy any
way you see fit.”

“What do you want to know?”

“First, who is behind this? Second, where are the other camps?”

151
°

“What did you find out?”

152
 The Other Shoe – Chapter 16

“The Adjutant General of the Guard is dead. Some light colonel is running the show. He
apparently doesn’t have orders from any higher authority and is making this up as he
goes along.”

“Does he have the full backing of his subordinates?”

“Some yes, some no.”

“It sounds like if we took out the colonel and some of his supporters, we could help the
Guard get back on track,” David suggested.

“Where is he operating from?”

“Springfield.”

“You got a name?”

“Colonel Matt Cromwell.”

“Hey, I know that name.”

“Where from Harry?”

“Don’t know if it’s the same guy, but he was a Captain back during the days I served.
Real piece of work, that one; there was only one way to do something properly, his
way.”

“That sounds about right for our guy. So now what?”

“A road trip to Springfield!” echoed from 9 mouths.

“What do we do with these guys?”

“You got their arms, right? Put them in one of the HEMTTs and tell them to get lost. If
they come back, we’ll kill them on sight. Explain that they don’t have anyone to guard
anymore over at Leonard Wood.”

“Lynn, this is Hank. You ladies can come out now, it’s all over. Good guys 2, bad guys
0.”

“You’ve got to stop doing things like this; my heart was in my mouth the whole time.”

“Sorry babe, one more exercise and then we’ll stop.”

153
“You can explain it better tonight over a late supper.”

Oh, I explained it all right. I might as well been talking to the wall. Until she got a
thoughtful look on her face and said, “You have all those Barrett sniper rifles; could you
take him out at a mile or more?”

“Sixteen hundred ten meters, give or take. That should be doable.”

“So if you took four other guys, you could have five rifles each spitting out a round of the
Mk 211 stuff?”

“Most snipers only work with an observer.”

“Is that chiseled in granite?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Fine, take five riflemen and one observer.”

“Two people would be less obtrusive than six.”

“I’ll get you a blanket.”

“What for?”

“You’re sleeping on the couch until you change your mind.”

I thought Lynn was kidding and figured after a night on the couch she’d change her
mind. Impasse: a point at which no further progress can be made or agreement
reached. As in:

“Changed your mind yet?”

“Nope.”

“Enjoy.”

All the while, the others were pressing David to do something about the Lt. Colonel in
Springfield and he, in turn, was pressing me. I explained my problem and told him I was
sticking to my guns. If he wanted do something that would get me out of the standoff, he
should feel free. With that, the others began developing their own plan and it was about
halfway between what I wanted to do and what Lynn wanted. I was not invited to partic-
ipate and only knew about it because of Harry. It would be accomplished by four people,
a sniper and observer, a driver and the driver’s bodyguard.

154
More details came to light; they’d be driving one of the HEMTTs with the driver and his
bodyguard in the front and the sniper and his observer in the back. After dropping off
the sniper and observer, the truck would be driven to an out-of-the-way spot and they’d
wait for a radio call for the pickup. They were allowing two weeks for the operation. If
they couldn’t get a clear shot and take the Colonel out, they’d come back home and re-
think the process.

The Colonel apparently thought he was the reincarnation of George S. Patton. Patton
often claimed to behold visions of his ancestors. Anecdotal evidence indicates that he
held himself to be the reincarnation of the Carthaginian general Hannibal, or a Roman
legionary, or a Napoleonic marshal, etc.

“Changed your mind yet?”

“It’s out of my hands; they left this morning to do it themselves.”

“Who left?”

“David, Jeb, Frank and Stephanie.”

“Three men and a woman? What is she, crazy?”

“They’re all like family to her and they didn’t go to play grab a…you know what I mean.”

“I guess you’re off the couch unless you still plan to participate.”

“And if I do?”

“Enjoy.”

“Now just one minute. I knew about it and didn’t go, doesn’t that count?”

“Did they ask you to go?”

“Well, no.”

“Then it doesn’t count. All you have to do is agree not to go to Springfield and try to take
out that Colonel with less than a full force and you’re off the couch.”

“How long do you intend to keep this up?”

“One day longer than you plan to.”

“I give up, you win.”

155
The couch had lumps in all the wrong places. My bed had lumps, too; all in the right
places. The lumps in the couch were hard to the touch while the lumps in my bed were
soft and yielding to my touch and occasionally gave off sounds of delight. What was that
song? Afternoon Delight by the Starlight Vocal Band. I had downloaded several songs
from YouTube with Real Player, including two versions of the song. I also had several
versions of other songs that I liked: Space Oddity by David Bowie, Sukiyaki by Kyu Sa-
kamoto and by Trish Thuy Trang, to name a few. I even burned them onto DVDs so I
could play them without my computer when I wanted.

The English version of Sukiyaki, actually named ‘Ue o Muite Arukuo’ had nothing in
common with the Japanese words other than using the same music. It’s like this:

上を向いて歩こう ue o muite arukō ([I] shall walk looking up)

涙がこぼれないように namida ga kobore nai yō ni (so [my] tears won't fall)
思い出す春の日 omoidasu haru no hi (remembering spring days)
一人ぼっちの夜 hitori bocchi no yoru ([on this] lonely night)

"Ue o Muite Arukou"

Ue o muite arukou
Namida ga kobore nai you ni
Omoidasu haru no hi
Hitoribotchi no yoru.

Ue o muite arukou
Nijinda hoshi o kazoete
Omoidasu natsu no hi
Hitoribotchi no yoru.

Shiawase wa kumo no ue ni
Shiawase wa sora no ue ni.

Ue o muite arukou
Namida ga kobore nai you ni
Nakinagara aruku
Hitoribotchi no yoru.

Omoidasu aki no hi
Hitoribotchi no yoru.

Kanashimi wa joshi no kage ni

Kanashimi qa tsuki no kage ni.

Ue o muite arukou
Namida ga kobore nai you ni

156
Nakinagara aruku
Hitoribotchi no yoru
Hitoribotchi no yoru.

“I Look Up As I Walk”

I look up as I walk
So that the tears won't fall
Remembering those spring days
But I am all alone tonight

I look up as I walk
Counting the stars with tearful eyes
Remembering those summer days
But I am all alone tonight

Happiness lies beyond the clouds

Happiness lies up above the sky

I look up as I walk
So that the tears won't fall
Though the tears well up as I walk
For tonight I'm all alone tonight

Remembering those autumn days

But I am all alone tonight

Sadness lies in the shadow of the stars

Sadness lurks in the shadow of the moon

I look up as I walk
So that the tears won't fall
Though the tears well up as I walk
For tonight I'm all alone.

“Sukiyaki”

It's all because of you

I'm feeling sad and blue
You went away, now my life is just a rainy day
And I love you so
How much you'll never know
You've gone away and left me lonely.

Untouchable memories seem to keep haunting me

Love that's so true

157
That once turned all my gray skies blue
But you disappeared
Now my eyes are filled with tears
And I'm wishing you were here with me.

Soft with love are my thoughts of you

Now that you're gone I just don't know what to do.

If only you were here

You'd wash away my tears
The sun would shine
And once again you'd be mine all mine

In reality
You and I will never be
You took your love away from me.

If only you were here

You'd wash away my tears
The sun would shine
Once again you'd be mine all mine.

In reality
You and I will never be
Cause you took your love away from me, oh baby
You took your love away from me.

Kyu Sakamoto was dead too, killed in an airliner crash in Japan, JAL flight 123. The
crash didn’t come as a surprise; he had time to write a goodbye note to his wife.

You Tube was long gone, along with the Internet, destroyed either by EMP or a direct
strike. Anyone who actually knew the fate of You Tube and the Internet was probably
long dead. I don’t know where You Tube was being run from, but Wiki said it had started
out in San Bruno, California and was the product of three former employees of Pay Pal.

Back to Sukiyaki, it is a Japanese dish It consists of meat (usually thinly sliced beef), or
a vegetarian version made only with firm tofu, slowly cooked or simmered at the table,
alongside vegetables and other ingredients, in a shallow iron pot in a mixture of soy
sauce, sugar, and mirin. Before being eaten, the ingredients are usually dipped in a
small bowl of raw, beaten eggs. Doesn’t that sound loverly? Loverly was a word from or
coined for My Fair Lady, if it sounds familiar, but you can’t really place it.

All I want is a room somewhere

Far away from the cold night air
With one enormous chair
Oh, wouldn't it be loverly

158
Back to the present, since we had four of our shooters off on an adventure, it seemed
that the rest of us should maintain the guard. The rest consisted of Charles, Henry, the
twins David and Donald, Harry and me. Six people could run 4 hour shifts, 4 on and 20
off. Since we had two David’s, David the twin became Dave, his brother Don and David
the SEAL/Deputy stayed David.

It remained to be seen if the soldiers we’d run off would go back to Leonard Wood,
gather up their remaining buddies and come back. They were disarmed giving the pris-
oners an advantage because they’d been seen retrieving M16s and M4s. The soldiers
in the mess hall still had their M16s and M4s and could hold off the sheeple that were
left. Anyone with any courage at all had bolted the moment the gate was open, taking
whatever weapons they could put their hands on.

Although we told them we’d shoot them on sight, it meant that we had to see them first.
Some of the survivors of the first attack knew the lay of the land and should they come
back, they wouldn’t be obvious about it. Their first action with us had taught them les-
sons they could use against us. We installed replacement Claymores and added some
to both sides of the property. A box of assorted grenades was placed in each fighting
position along with 4 LAW rockets. We had a total of 7 foxholes and only six troops to
man them. At least one of them would have to be ‘manned’ by a woman. Sally would
have been perfect but she was buried under the oak tree. Frank’s wife Shirley volun-
teered and their two boys, teenagers, armed themselves to act as backup. The other
two teenagers we felt were old enough, Ronald and George, likewise armed themselves
to act as backup. All four were using .30 caliber rifles, the M1As. We had one more teen
who we didn’t consider ready for combat, Sarah. She could watch the kids if our wives
were forced to join in.

If the Lt. Colonel was a rogue officer, what did that say about the people higher up? We
could start at the Pentagon and go all the way to the President and the National Com-
mand Authority. The NCA was the President and the Secretary of Defense, acting in
concert. Some of us were actually curious about who was running the country. We’d
find out later and with it, other startling revelations. TOM had made much ado about
who succeeded the President if no elections were held. He hadn’t researched far
enough; the answer lay in the 20th Amendment.

The line of succession is mentioned in three places in the Constitution: in Article II, §1,
in §3 of the 20th Amendment, and in the 25th Amendment.

●Article II, § 1, Clause 6 makes the Vice President first in the line of succession and al-
lows the Congress to provide by law for cases in which neither the President nor Vice
President can serve. The current such law governing succession is the Presidential
Succession Act of 1947 (3 USC §19).

159
●§3 of the 20th Amendment provides that if the President-elect dies before his or her
term begins, the Vice President-elect becomes President on Inauguration Day and
serves for the full term to which the President-elect was elected. The section also pro-
vides that if, on Inauguration Day, a president has not been chosen or the President-
elect does not qualify for the presidency, the Vice President acts as president until a
president is chosen or the President-elect qualifies. Finally, §3 allows the Congress to
provide by law for cases in which neither a President-elect nor a Vice President-elect is
eligible or available to serve.
●The 25th Amendment, ratified in 1967, clarified Article II, § 1: that the Vice President is
the direct successor of the President. He or she becomes President if the President
dies, resigns or is removed from office. The 25th also provides for the situation where
the President is temporarily disabled, such as if the President has a surgical procedure
or becomes mentally unstable. It also required vice presidential vacancies to be filled by
the President and confirmed by Congress. Previously, when a vice president had suc-
ceeded to the presidency or otherwise left the office empty (through death, resignation,
or removal from office), the vice presidency remained vacant.

The current line of succession is:

Vice President and President of the Senate

Speaker of the House
President Pro Tempore of the Senate
Secretary of State
Secretary of Treasury
Secretary of Defense
Attorney General
Secretary of Interior
Secretary of Agriculture
Secretary of Commerce
Secretary of Labor
Secretary of Health and Human Services
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Secretary of Transportation
Secretary of Energy
Secretary of Education
Secretary of Veterans Affairs
Secretary of Homeland Security

Persons who are not natural-born citizens are constitutionally ineligible to the office of
President, as are persons who are not at least thirty-five years old or have not resided in
the United States for fourteen years. This is also specified in the Presidential Succes-
sion Act. To be in the line of succession, an officer must have been appointed and con-
firmed by the Senate, prior to the death, resignation, removal from office, inability, or
otherwise failure to qualify of the President pro tempore. Therefore, acting officers who
have not been confirmed into the position cannot be in the line of succession.

160
Yeah, I know, where did I come up with that? I had a file called Presidential Succession
on my computer, copied from multiple Wiki sites, that I’d never bothered to read before.
With the present situation, I decided it was time to read the file. If we still had the Inter-
net, I’d have emailed a copy to TOM.

Our small force returned home on the 10th day, all smiles. They’d nosed around some
and figured out whom that Colonel’s supportive aides were and Stephanie had demon-
strated her shooting skills, killing the Colonel and his two highest ranking aides in the
span of about 45 seconds. The next highest ranking subordinate was totally against
what the Colonel had been doing and he was now in charge. Word was that he was to-
tally opposed to the internment camps; we’d have to wait and see.

“Congratulations, you deserve a medal for a job well done. Would you settle for a cold
beer?”

“Outstanding. You should have seen Stephanie, pop, pop, pop; all in a span of 45 sec-
onds tops. Could have easily been anywhere from 15 to 30 seconds, I wasn’t watching
my watch because my eye was glued to the observation scope.”

“What was the range?”

“Maybe 1,200 meters (1,312 yards). Anyway, with three shots spaced so close together,
they immediately looked in our direction and we boogied as soon as we called the
HEMTT.”

“You could have let us know.”

“It wasn’t that far home; we figured you could wait a couple of hours. Are you still sleep-
ing on the couch?”

“I caved in.”

“Good for you, you have to let them win sometimes.”

“We’re set here except for needing 2 loads of diesel for reserve, we filled the tanks while
you were gone.”

“That wind turbine working well?”

“You betcha.”

“I’ve got to go tell Shirley that we’re home to stay.”

“See you later, Frank.”

161
The next day we drove two tanker trailers up to the depot in Jefferson City and refilled
them. Each tractor had a driver and two riflemen, just in case. We didn’t have any trou-
ble and as soon as the 32,000-gallons of diesel were loaded, we headed home.

No troops showed up for about 3 months. When they did, it was a Hummer, driven by a
private and carrying two more privates and a Sergeant. They stopped at the turn in to
the acreage and honked their horn, waiting to see if anyone was there. In less than a
minute, we had them surrounded. The Sergeant and two of the privates dismounted,
their M16s slung.

“I’m Sergeant Johnson out of Springfield. We’re moving through the area taking a cen-
sus and seeing if anyone needs food or medical aid.”

“I’m Henry Brown and I own this property. Are you sure you aren’t from Stalag 9?”

“Are you referring to camp MO-9?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

“What do you know about the place?”

“Not much, only that it exists.”

“Existed. Some group of patriots attacked the place and set everyone free. The new Of-
ficer in Charge of the Missouri National Guard has ordered all twelve camps closed, the
internees provided with food, medical care and returned home. Does anyone here re-
quire medical aid? No? How is your food supply?”

“We have a little, maybe 30 days’ worth. Further down the road is a 160 acre farm that
two of our members occupy. We’re planning on growing livestock feed and maybe a
truck garden.”

“When you have food available, let us know.”

“How?”

“On 40-meters, the frequency we use is 7.150mhz. How about that census?”

“Come up to the house, we’ll answer your questions and feed you some coffee.”

“You have coffee?”

“You mean you don’t?”

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 The Other Shoe – Chapter 17

“Instant.”

“We have Folgers, if that’s ok.”

“More like wonderful. All four of us?”

“Sure thing.”

“Everyone seems to have a military bearing. Are you all veterans?”

“Yep, mostly special forces of one kind or another. I was a Marine and our Chief of Se-
curity was a SEAL. We have Rangers, Special Forces, FORECON and even some In-
fantry.”

“Anyone interested in reenlisting? They’ll give you a two-step promotion.”

“I can’t speak for the others, but I wouldn’t do it for a promotion to Master Gunnery Ser-
geant.”

“Noncoms get a three-step promotion.”

“Thanks, but no thanks. Ask everyone, I doubt you’ll get many takers.”

It took about an hour detailing who was in our group, where they came from, births,
deaths, occupations, prior military service, etc. All newly born/unvaccinated children
would be put on a list and vaccinations would be available at the county seat. We’d be
informed beforehand to make sure we’d bring the kids. Children who hadn’t completed
their vaccinations series would receive vaccinations per a doctor’s instructions.

“You know, this group would make one hell of a local militia. Have you ever thought of
starting one?”

“Our main interest has been in protecting our homes.”

“The law provides for unorganized militias. The National Guard is the organized militia,
but we’re simply spread too thin. We’ve been suggesting small, local unorganized mili-
tias not under our span of control. When a group is formed, we review their equipment
and try our best to give them whatever they need. We can supply radios, rifles, ammuni-
tion, ordnance and quite a range of things.”

“We have all of that.”

“Yes? Care to tell me what you do have?”

163
“A few poodle shooters, a large number of 7.62×51mm rifles, assorted hand grenades
including smoke, concussion and fragmentation. Rockets and Claymores plus a whole
bunch of .50-caliber Barrett rifles.”

“It’s not our policy to ask where you got the stuff; you’d probably just lie anyway. I would
in the same position. If you need more AT-4s, we can get them.”

“We don’t have AT-4s; we have M72A7s.”

“Really? We might be able to get you the M72E10 versions if you need them. The M72
was to have been replaced by the M136 AT4 rocket, but remained in US service to sup-
port the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). You’d be surprised how many there are out
there in various locations.”

“Not really, that’s where we salvaged ours, out there.”

“Need any 7.62 ammo?”

“No, do you?”

“What are you using in your Barrett rifles?”

“M-33 and Mk 211. The .416 caliber uses ball ammo.”

“Jeezus, remind me not to get on your bad side.”

“Tell us more about this unorganized militia.”

“Well, here goes.

“Title 10, Subtitle A, Chapter 13,

Ҥ 311. Militia: composition and classes

“(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of
age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or
who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and
of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.

“(b) The classes of the militia are:

“(1) The organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia;
and

“(2) The unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not
members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.”

164
“So, the authority lies in §311b2?”

“Exactly. You are expected to provide your own weapons, but we’ve been making ex-
ceptions. We have also been supplying all kinds of ordnance, mostly ammunition.”

“How are they being unorganized, city by city or county by county?”

“County by county, in conjunction with, but not reporting to, the County Sheriff.”

“How large are these unorganized militias?”

“It varies. Mostly rural counties get by with a much smaller force than an area that in-
cludes a major city, like Jefferson City. The key seems to be how many military veterans
there are in each county.”

“Who provides the training?”

“Whoever assembles the local militia.”

“What’s the span of the militia’s authority?”

“Maintain law and order in accordance with the laws of Missouri. Certain laws have
been preempted; firearm laws are a good example since we’re arming some of the mili-
tias with M16 rifles and M4 carbines. If your county Sheriff needs assistance, he’ll let
you know.”

“I’ll have to say that it sounds like a contradiction of terms,” David replied, “An orga-
nized, unorganized militia.”

“Regardless, are you interested?”

“We’d have to talk it over and get back to you. What about the Sheriff?”

“I’ll mention a group that’s considering it and only give him one name.”

“Better yet, give him two first names, Hank and Harry; no last names.”

“You have a deal. Don’t forget, the frequency is 7.150mhz.”

40 meters is considered the most reliable all-season DX band, most useful for inter-
continental communication at night. It is extremely useful for short to medium distance
contacts from local contacts out to a range of 500–1500 km, depending on conditions,
during the day. In higher latitudes, daytime inter-continental communication is also pos-
sible in winter, for example a good path often opens between Japan and northern Eu-

165
rope in the hours leading up to European midday from late November until late January,
with a long path opening to the west coast of the US and Canada after midday.

Due to the 24 hour nature of the band, the wide variety of ranges that can be spanned
with it, and its shared nature, it tends to be extremely crowded, and interference from
other amateurs and broadcasters can be a serious limiting factor. In addition, amateurs
in east and south-east Asia have suffered severe interference from illegal users in re-
cent years. It was easy to see why the Missouri Guard had picked the frequency.

When the Sergeant offered to supply radios, I imagine he was thinking along the lines of
HAM radios. We had HAM radios, but more importantly, we had SINCGARS and
Spearheads. He didn’t follow up on his question and we didn’t expand our answer. Per-
haps when a good level of trust was established, we might; actually, I rather doubt it in
view of Stalag 9.

My fellow Americans,

I come to you today from a little known federal bunker. My name is Herb Walker and be-
fore the war, I was the Secretary of Interior. As such, I was 8th in the line of succession
to the Presidency of the United States. I have been sworn in as President because the
President and the successors above me didn’t survive the war.

I assure you I didn’t want the post. Our country and most of the world has been de-
stroyed in the nuclear conflagration. As nearly as we can tell, 90% of the world’s popula-
tion died as a direct or indirect result of the war and its aftermath. Our information
sources are the same sources as those who survived so I assume you have reached
the same conclusions.

At the moment, we do not have an effective standing Army or Air Force. We have Ma-
rines and Naval personnel who were on board ships not directly involved in the conflict.
I won’t pull any punches here; for the moment, the states are on their own.

We lack most, if not all, of the things we’ve previously taken for granted. There is no or-
ganized… anything. We will not federalize any of the state’s National Guard units be-
cause the states need them worse than we do. About the only thing your federal gov-
ernment can do for you is to use our remaining Naval Forces to provide for a common
defense. However, I fail to see that that will be necessary.

Representatives will be in contact with whoever is in charge of the states, excluding

Alaska and Hawaii, and we’ll do our best to coordinate cleanup and recovery efforts.

God bless the survivors.

“Secretary of Interior? Anyone know anything about the guy?”

166
“The Agency is called the US Department of Everything Else. Most of the Secretaries
are from the western states. I think this guy is from New Mexico or Arizona. They have
the BLM, Bureau of Reclamation, BIA, National Parks, USGS, a whole bunch of agen-
cies that don’t fit into a better department.”

“We need to make a decision about that militia thing. What do you think?”

“About as much bad as good, if you ask me,” I answered.

“Explain that.”

“As a militia supporting the laws of Missouri, our actions would be sanctioned. So far,
we’ve only gotten involved in actions that we’ve chosen. The way I see it, once we’re
sanctioned, we’ll be subject to call up. If it’s to take on some place like MO-9, that’s one
thing; if it’s to be an extension of the Sheriff’s Department, that could be quite another. I
didn’t vote for the guy because we lived in another county, Texas County. This retreat or
whatever you choose to call it is located in Phelps County. Most of you came down here
from Cole County and you didn’t vote for him, either.”

“True, but…”

The discussion continued for several days with no resolution. I was trying to keep track
of everyone’s position for my diary. I’d started the diary back when I worked for Costco
in St. Peters. But, I digress and I did want to explain why I’d picked the particular fire-
arms I’d purchased. My inspiration came from TOM. He must have studied the M1A for
years and knew exactly what he wanted. He couldn’t afford it, based on something he
said in one of his stories based on his family and settled for the Loaded rather than the
Super Match. He said he’d first heard of the M14 as a child and had wanted one ever
since. Fifty years later, he finally had one.

I was single at the time I started saving in 2004. He liked anything 1911 when it came to
handguns and for a time talked about the Springfield Armory Hi-Capacity. He settled for
the Taurus PT1911, probably because of the PRK’s limit on 10-round magazines. Wait,
that’s not right, the PT1911 wasn’t California legal so that wasn’t it. I knew he highly fa-
vored the Remington 870 and was surprised when he said he’d gotten a Mossberg
590A1. Again, he studied guns and I figured if it was good enough for him, I couldn’t go
wrong. The one other rifle he wanted was a Barrett M107, but confessed that he proba-
bly couldn’t even pick it up.

Several other squirrels thought highly of the M1A with the main complaint being the cost
of the rifle, the extra magazines and especially the ammo. At least we’d found a good
place to get ammo and the price was right. Every former service member of our group
had a M107, Stephanie also had that model 99 and I had the model 95 with a silencer
because it was a bolt action. There was no real reason why we couldn’t act as a local
Phelps County Militia; of course, we had planned on farming the 160 down the road.

167
Harry said if we counted him out, he’d take a stab at the farming if the twins would an-
swer his questions.

That cut our potential force to nine and made for an odd number eliminating any tie
votes. When the final vote came, despite all of the debate, it was 9 for, 0 against, form-
ing a militia unit. We notified someone on 7.150mhz, it wasn’t the Sergeant, and they
said they’d notify the Phelps County Sheriff. It would be up to us to go to Rolla and in-
troduce ourselves.

“Hank, I may be in charge of security, but this is your place. How about Frank, you and I
go see the Sheriff?”

“Ok David, when?”

“Now is as good a time as any.”

One of the long-time Deputies was now the acting Sheriff; we didn’t know him and he
didn’t know us. When he took over, he decided he’d allow salvaging, but no looting. He
was using the same definitions that you generally saw in survival fiction. For all we
knew, he could be a closet prepper or a flat out survivalist. We called ourselves prep-
pers; down deep we were all survivalists. I’d reflected on how much our actions reflect-
ed the behavior of other survivors in some of TOM’s stories. Perhaps I’d let his stories
influence me too much.

There was a poll one time on Frugal’s asking about your 3 weapons. That assumed you
didn’t have more or less, I suppose. I didn’t add a comment; TPTB went to the website
and why tell them what I had? If they really wanted to know, there were always the
4473s. I did agree with one point, an AR15 was not a Main Battle Rifle. The US had a
long history of over 100 years using .30-caliber rifles for MBRs. It started with the .30-40
Krag, moved to the 1903 Springfield .30-06, graduated to the M1 Garand .30-06 and
finally to the debugged Garand, the M14 in .308 NATO.

While the M14 remained in service, during the war in Vietnam, an Assault Rifle was
adopted to replace the MBR. What can I say? Carlos Hathcock didn’t use a poodle
shooter to make his kills. He generally used a Winchester model 70 in .30-06 with a
Unertl scope. Perhaps as a result of his using a M2HB machine gun mounting his tele-
scopic sight for sniping and making a kill at 2,286 meters or 1.42 miles, Barrett felt in-
spired to build the Barrett .50BMG rifle. Although the military didn’t routinely issue
MBRs, they still had them and they were used by the SEALS, Designated Marksmen
and even the Navy and Coast Guard.

As it happened, the Super Match I started out with had a muzzle brake as opposed to
the national match flashhider. When we outfitted it with the FA762S, I had a choice and
stayed with the muzzle brake because it served to reduce the recoil slightly and was a
better flashhider than the national match flashhider. In case you’re interested, Surefire’s
part number is MB762SSA. The rifle was Springfield Armory’s part number SA9804CA.

168
The Deputy thought he was bad, a real hard case. He hadn’t done anything about Sta-
lag 9, although he most certainly knew about it and admitted that he did. His claim was
that he didn’t have enough people in Rolla. Come off it, Sheriff, we did it with 10 people
and almost had too many to handle the attack. The only real difference between our
group and any other group of veterans was some additional training. For a Marine it was
just a longer boot camp. We didn’t say much because we had his number.

“Do you believe that shit?”

“I was going to offer him one of the SINCGARS we captured and enough Spearheads
for his Deputies; thank God I didn’t open my mouth.”

“How many spares do we have?”

“SINCGARS or Spearheads?”

“Both, either.”

“We have 3 SINCGARS and 9 Spearheads after each vehicle, each home and the cave
was equipped with SINCGARS. All 10 of us have Spearheads and the extras are for our
wives, if they need them.”

“You may need all 9 if you have more kids.”

“We’re not planning on having any more, 4 is enough.”

“You realize that planning and what actually happens have nothing in common.”

“We’re taking our precautions.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

“I have something to tell you. Promise you won’t get mad?”

“How can I make a promise like that until you tell me?”

“Well, I can’t change it and if you don’t like it, there’s always the couch, again.”

“Ok, I promise.”

“I’m pregnant.”

“I guess I should have stayed on the couch.”

169
“At least we’ll only have one in diapers.”

“Yeah, unless you decide to have twins again.”

“It’s not me, it’s you Hank.”

“Maybe it’s both of us; we’re just a lucky combination. So are you going to have twins,
triplets or quadruplets?”

“Bite your tongue. We could handle twins, again, but I only have two spigots. We don’t
have much Enfamil stored up, either. Fortunately, we have plenty of diapers. I’m not the
only one who is pregnant, or haven’t you noticed?”

“That comes from not having TV.”

If anything good came out of our meeting with the Sheriff, it was that we learned about
the family practice doctor in Rolla. Family medicine differs from the traditional European
general practitioner. In the US family practitioners usually complete an undergraduate
degree and then complete either the Doctor of Medicine degree (M.D.) or a Doctor of
Osteopathic Medicine degree (D.O.). Physician who specialize in family medicine (also
known as a family physician), however, must complete a three-year family medicine res-
idency in addition to their medical degree, and are eligible for the board certification now
required by most hospitals and health plans.

The term "family medicine" is used in many European countries instead of "general
medicine" or "general practice". In Sweden, certification in family medicine needs five
years working with a tutor, after the medical degree. Similar systems have been imple-
mented in other countries.

Most family physicians practice in solo or small-group private practices or as hospital

employees in practices of similar sizes owned by hospitals. Still, many choose to teach
medicine at medical schools or family medicine residency programs, though usually for
much less pay. Others choose to practice as consultants to various medical institutions,
including insurance companies.

“There is a family medicine practice doctor in Rolla.”

“What no OB-GYN?”

“I didn’t hear about one, but the doctor should know if there is an OB-GYN, don’t you
think?”

“I haven’t needed one so far, OB-GYN is a surgical specialty. I’ll be okay as long as we
only have twins or a single baby.”

170
“Why?”

“Usually, triplets and more are delivered by C section.”

“I didn’t know that. It’s strange; Harry was just saying something about you getting
pregnant again.”

“Oh, what did Harry say?”

“We were talking about the radios and I told him we had 3 SINCGARS and 9 Spear-
heads left. He said, You may need all 9 if you have more kids. I told him, We’re taking
our precautions. I thought we were.”

“I think the pills are getting old. They were expired when we found them.”

“Are you sure you didn’t miss taking one?”

“I don’t think I did. Surely missing one dose wouldn’t result in a pregnancy.”

Very low dose progestogen-only contraceptives, such as traditional progestogen-only

pills, inconsistently inhibit ovulation in ~50% of cycles and rely mainly on their progesto-
genic effect of thickening the cervical mucus and thereby reducing sperm viability and
penetration. Lynn was taking the so-called mini-pill, a progestogen-only contraceptive. I
guess we should have read the label before she got pregnant, not after.

“Guess what?”

“Lynn is pregnant.”

“How did you know, Harry?”

“I didn’t but you were so damned sure of yourself, it just sort of figured. That new Sheriff
is a real piece of work, I happy that I said I’d stay down on the farm.”

“I think we all plan on staying down on the farm, it is as simple as not monitoring the ra-
dio frequency he gave us, 14.000mhz. That’s an extra class only frequency and I think
we should obey the law for a change.”

“Listen but not transmit?”

“Wouldn’t want to break any more laws, now would we?”

“What did David, you and Frank tell him about our location?”

“I gave him our mailing address and the zip code 65542.”

171
“Wait, that’s the zip code for Licking. Edgar Springs is 65462.”

“You don’t say.”

“You did it on purpose.”

“Only after he tried to play hard ball. It’s pretty close; just a slip of the tongue.”

Did any of you ever read the story where TOM described Fourth Generation War? It
wasn’t his idea, rather, something he’d read. The guy behind it was William S. Lind.
Fourth Generation warfare has often involved an insurgent group or non-state entity try-
ing to implement their own government or reestablish an old government over the cur-
rent ruling power. However, a fourth generation war is most successful when the non-
state entity does not attempt, at least in the short term, to impose its own rule, but tries
simply to disorganize and delegitimize the state in which the warfare takes place. The
aim is to force the state adversary to expend manpower and money in an attempt to es-
tablish order, ideally in such a highhanded way that it merely increases disorder, until
the state surrenders or withdraws. Fourth generation war could be said to be the ulti-
mate strategy of scorched earth, leaving nothing for the occupier to occupy. Speaking
figuratively, the non-state adversary, not being able to expel the invader from his home,
tries to bring it down on both their heads, leaving the invader no choice but to leave the
ruins alone.

Lind was an opponent of Iraqi Freedom and is the Director of the Center for Cultural
Conservatism at the Free Congress Foundation. He advocated a Declaration of Cultural
Independence by cultural conservatives in the US, in the belief that the Federal gov-
ernment had ceased to represent their interests, and begun to coerce them into nega-
tive behavior and affect their culture in a negative fashion. The Center believed that
American culture and its institutions were headed for a collapse, and that cultural con-
servatives should separate themselves from the calamity it foresees. It supported set-
ting up independent parallel institutions with a right to secession and a highly decentral-
ized nature that would rely on individual responsibility and discipline to remain intact, but
would prevent the takeover of the institutions by those hostile to cultural conservatism's
ideals.

Lind has been criticized by writer Thomas E. Ricks in a The Atlantic Monthly magazine
article The Widening Gap Between the Military and Society where Ricks asserted that
Lind's rhetoric differs from what Ricks called "standard right-wing American rhetoric of
the '90s" because Lind suggests that "The next real war we fight is likely to be on Amer-
ican soil."

You don’t say…I read the paper too; it described Operation David which made more
sense than some of our activities in Iraq and Afghanistan. I like the part where it says,
‘The aim is to force the state adversary to expend manpower and money in an attempt
to establish order, ideally in such a highhanded way that it merely increases disorder,
until the state surrenders or withdraws.’

172
Why is that important? It would depend upon which ‘state adversary we were facing. If it
was the County Sheriff, we’d probably send one person to resolve that situation, maybe
Stephanie. If it was the state of Missouri, it might take all of us and then some. If it was
the feds, we’d just stay home and let the other good citizens of this country taken them
on. However, irregular warfare conducted by highly trained soldiers acts as a force mul-
tiplier. As long as we didn’t get a big head and start to believe we couldn’t be taken, we
probably couldn’t. Over confidence could get you killed in a New York minute.

173
 The Other Shoe – Chapter 18

The strange part was the Sheriff didn’t call and ask for help. Well, if you allow yourself to
become full of pride, you will find yourself humiliated. Be modest. Pride goeth before
destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. Better it is to be of a humble spirit with the
lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud. Read that in a book somewhere (KJV). We
almost went up to Rolla to see if everything was ok. We decided that if it wasn’t, the
Guard would let us know.

The upside to that situation was we all got a chance to learn how to farm, with Harry su-
pervising. Except Harry didn’t know squat about farming and Dave and Don would have
to teach him how. It turned into a group affair and Stephanie would go up to the acreage
to spend time with our wives and we stumbled around learning how to mount a 3 bottom
plow, to plow in a straight line, disk down the chunks and drag it level. I swear his corn
planter must have been 60 years old. It was a John Deere that used a knotted wire to
trip the planter to release the seeds.

Don said that it was a pain in the butt, but you sure got pretty looking corn rows; and,
you could see down the rows, across the rows and diagonally if you did it right. We also
planted soybeans, oats and wheat. We had the garden spot up on the acreage and it
was the first thing we plowed after we had the plow mounted. It was one hell of a lot
easier operating a fork lift.

While we did the farmer bit, our wives and Stephanie did the gardening. They made a
trip down to Licking and cleaned out our jars, Harry and Sally’s jars and all the jars and
rings available in abandoned homes. They collected the available lids, yielding enough
for two canning seasons.

I contacted the Sergeant down in Springfield and he turned out to be in his office, or at
least available. I explained that we could produce more food if he could get us jars, lids
and rings. He wanted to know if those plastic lids would do and I explained they were for
use after you opened a canned jar of food. He said they’d do their best. How were we
getting along with the Sheriff? I told him the Sheriff hadn’t called so we were getting
along fine. He then asked if there was a problem and I turned the question around and
asked him the same thing.

“He wasn’t the elected Sheriff, just the longest serving Deputy. He seemed to know
what he was doing, but I didn’t get the feeling he was strong on public relations.”

“Well, the Sheriff thought he was bad, a real hard case. He hadn’t done anything about
Stalag 9, although he most certainly knew about it and admitted that he did. His claim
was that he didn’t have enough people in Rolla. Hell we did it with 10 people.”

“I wondered about that.”

“Oops. I forgot we didn’t tell you it was us.”

174
“In a pig’s eye. You just didn’t want to get caught between a rock and a hard spot.”

“There is that. When you asked if we had radios, were you talking about Ham radios or
military radios?”

“All kinds of radio, Hank. If you have SINCGARS, so much the better. How did you get
them to run on 12v systems?”

“We took the 5w man portable radios because they were 12 volt. We have enough
Spearheads to equip anyone trained to carry a rifle. I knew what they were from reading
some literature, but never knew the military issued them. If the Guard has them, the
military must have them because the Guard gets what’s left over. One of our guys is in-
to comms.”

“How many select fire weapons do you really have?”

“Not many, most SpecOps folks prefer the MBR. I have 4 for my kids. There may be a
few others, I think Stephanie probably as one. She’s a real gun nut and has one of eve-
rything worth having. However, we do have suppressors for most of the M1As and
M16s.”

“Did you clean Lake City out?”

“Nah, we only took some trucks, not a train.”

“And I suppose it’s all stored in your bomb shelter?”

“Wrong again, we have a cave. It’s rather nice and large enough for everyone here if it
weren’t for an extended period. It’s just your typical cave with a blast door, ventilation
system, hot and cold water, washer and dryer, freezer, refrigerator and the standard
appliances. We’d have to sleep in shifts if we need to use it again.”

“I’ll bet that’s an interesting story.”

“Next time you come by, stop in for coffee and we’ll fill you in.”

“I’ll do what I can on the canning supplies; watch your back when it comes to that Sher-
iff.”

“Talk to you soon Sergeant Johnson.”

“I’ll bring up the disk with our programming codes we’re using on our SINCGARS, if you
have extra, you may want to program one with our frequency hopping data.”

“Thanks.”

175
°

A month later, a pair of HEMTTs showed up with jars, lids, rings and canning spices.
Sergeant Al Johnson came along and we sat and talked about what had happened after
the war. He was on his third pot of coffee by the time we’d covered all of it. I asked if
they’d ever come up with coffee and he admitted that they had, but there was only
enough for the officer’s mess. I showed him the cave and while we were in the storage
room, gave him a full case of Folgers.

“That’s for you and the troops; it’s not salvage that you found for the officers. It’s only 12
cans and won’t go too far, but we’ll look around for more.”

“You saw the elephant, huh?”

“Ugly SOB. I suppose that within our group, David has the most experience; one tour in
Iraq and two in Afghanistan. Got out and became a Deputy Sheriff up in Cole County.”

“Jefferson City?”

“Right, that’s where we get our, uh, some of our supplies.”

“I saw those fuel tankers. Depot in Jefferson City? Wait, don’t answer that, maybe it is
better if I don’t know. It might be a good idea for you to stock up before the Guard is
forced to commandeer those supplies.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. If we did, it would just about use up our supply of PRI products.”

“We can get those products, does the stuff really work?”

“I can guarantee it does.”

“Can you get by if we take what’s left?”

“If we get 2 more tankers, we’ll have 96,000-gallons in tankers, about 16,000-gallons of
gasoline, 80,000-gallons of diesel plus the 20,000 plus-gallons of diesel in under the
ground tanks. We should be okay for now.”

“Do you have enough to refill my tank?”

“Gee, I don’t know, how much are you paying?” I laughed.

I wasn’t about to step on it now that we had a new friend in one Sergeant Albert John-
son. A M1114 only holds about 25 gallons and we wouldn’t mess that little. Besides, Al
said he had a source for PRI-G and D. After he left, we tried to figure out where we’d
last seen a pair of empty tankers. We’d gotten those we seen along the highways and

176
we’d seen none in Licking. We’d try Rolla first and Jefferson City second. Empty tankers
should be easier to find than full tankers, too.

We took the last of our PRI products with us, we had just enough for 32,000-gallons of
diesel; 16 gallons of PRI-D. We also decided to check around Jefferson City for coffee
service companies. They frequently maintain large supplies of premeasured envelopes
or packages of coffee; plus creamers and sweeteners.

We found one tanker in Rolla and another in Jefferson City. While four of us worked on
filling the tankers with diesel, several of us went shopping. We filled a U-Haul load from
one coffee place and a second from another. We filled one pickup from a third and the
last from a fourth. Those were the only coffee services we could find in the Yellow Pag-
es. We were home in 6 hours and I called and left a message for Al to radio back con-
cerning coffee.

“Hank, Al Johnson. What’s this about coffee?”

“How about a straight trade, coffee, creamers and sweeteners for PRI products?”

“Did you find some more?”

“We have about 6 different brands, all in premeasured packs. We have two pickup loads
and two trailer loads. In exchange we’d like to have 4 cases of PRI-G in gallon cans,
and 16 cases of PRI-D. One case will treat 12,000-gallons. Just so you know, there are
6 one-gallon jugs per case. We have another source if you take over that depot.”

“What do you have?”

“A lot of Jet A.”

“Where did you get that?”

“Not over the air. Don’t forget your SINCGARS codes.”

Most US Army trucks will run on anything from alcohol to gasoline to Jet A to #2 diesel.
We had those HEMTTs and a good mechanic to tune the engines if they didn’t like the
fuel we were using. That would be for some time, our wind turbine was producing al-
most all of our electricity now and the PV panels were keeping the batteries charged.

It was interesting that we’d quickly transferred to a barter economy, especially in that it
was with the Missouri National Guard; the good one, not the ones who ran the Stalags.
Even more interesting, at least to me, was the fact that the Secretary of Interior, now
President, admitted they couldn’t do much to help and had shifted the burden back onto
the states, where it should have been in the first place. It wouldn’t hurt the country to
take a step back and undo some of the entitlements and various programs that had
come with FDR’s New Deal.

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Many of those programs were nothing more than government operated charities and
their administrative costs and inefficiencies weren’t the best way to operate a nation.
The country needed to get its nose out of other countries problems and address our
own. Which is a good place to remind you about TOM’s view on the Rule of Threes. He
well and truly believed that bad things happened in 3s. Going by that standard, we were
⅔ of our way there. The first was the total collapse of the world economy and second
was WW III.

I had some kind of natural disaster at the top of my list such as in a Gamma Ray Burst,
an Asteroid, a major earthquake or possibly, although remote, a Supervolcano. The
most recent was Mt. Toba 75,000 years ago and the next one back had been Yellow-
stone or Long Valley; Long Valley had erupted before the last Yellowstone eruption, I
think. California had more than its share of earthquakes and the New Madrid Fault Zone
was not very far away from Edgar Springs, a few hundred miles, down in the boot heel. I
seriously doubted that the Europeans were still working with the CERN collider and a
black hole seemed unlikely. It seemed like the only possibilities that might affect us
were New Madrid, Yellowstone or Long Valley.

Since the war had involved all nuclear powers and several non-nuclear powers, even if
the President wanted to call for UN assistance, none would be forthcoming. Russia had
hit multiple targets in Western Europe and the minor nuclear powers were even less ca-
pable of providing assistance. The only continent we hadn’t heard from so far was Aus-
tralia. If they’d been hit, it was the work of the Chinese. There weren’t that many targets
in Australia compared to the US and Russia. Plus, the Chinese had to consider the
Japanese.

Back in 2008, I think, there had been some discussion in the MSM about Japan devel-
oping a nuclear weapons program, despite prohibitions in their Constitution. I’d seen a
program on History Channel, I think, describing the Japanese test of an atomic bomb
during WW II. There was a write up about it on Wiki and the facts were disputed.

I could only imagine that the Chinese had hit the Japanese as a precaution. The Japa-
nese Islands are geologically unstable; they have more earthquakes than California.
Back in 2004, a tsunami that reached all the way to Africa was triggered by a subsur-
face fault zone slip off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The USGS reported rum-
blings at Yellowstone in response to earthquakes as far away as California and Alaska.
Going with that, I realized that we had our own subduction zone, Cascadia. Now what
would happen if Cascadia slipped and triggered the San Andreas? With two massive
earthquakes, what would that do to Yellowstone, Long Valley or the New Madrid Seis-
mic Zone?

They say the odds are 1:20,000. Twenty thousand days is about 54.75 years. The last
time Yellowstone went boom was around 640,000 years ago. Why aren’t the odds more

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like 1:233,760,000? The last major earthquake on the New Madrid was in 1811-12. The
last major earthquake on the San Andreas was 1906. The odds on the former should be
something like 1:73,500 and the latter 1:38,716 for any given day. Yellowstone was
overdue, but that didn’t mean squat, it didn’t answer to anyone except Mother Nature or
Global Tectonics. Yellowstone could blow up tomorrow or 25 generations hence. It
doesn’t pay to worry about what is beyond your control.

When the garden came in, our wives and Stephanie began canning up a storm. They
were using Mirro, Presto and All American pressure canners. The water bath canners
were used to get the food prepared for canning. We didn’t plant lettuce outside because
we grew more than enough in the greenhouse. We went for the big plants, potatoes,
corn, squash, and green beans. They did a few rows of beets; it wasn’t the most popular
vegetable. Other large crops included onions, peppers, and several varieties of tomato.

It was best to stay in the present; we were plenty busy getting the field crops tended to
in the same vein as our wives tended to the garden. One thing did come up, Harry and
Stephanie. It seems that their casual relationship had morphed into something more.
Harry said to blame it on Stephanie and she said to blame it on Harry. I had the distinct
impression that there was an additional empty bedroom in the farm house. It was best
to not stick my nose in their business.

“Have you heard about Harry and Stephanie?”

“They’re an item, right?”

“That’s news to me; she didn’t say anything about that. No, she’s teaching him how to
ride a horse. You know how shaky he was on a horse. Well, she’s been teaching him
riding and says he close to becoming an accomplished rider. What makes you think
they’re an item?”

“Nothing specific, Lynn. They seemed to be very comfortable around each other. I
asked Harry and he said blame it on Stephanie. Stephanie came back early from can-
ning, so I asked her and she just smiled and said blame it on Harry. Since they’re both
living in the same house and both single, I assumed they were sharing the same bed.”

“You know where assuming gets you, don’t you?”

“Yeah, it makes an ass out of u and me.”

“Leave me out of it; you’re on your own here.”

“Not to change the subject, but how goes the garden? Will we have enough to supply
others or just enough for ourselves?”

“My best guess would be the latter. Depending on how much wheat you produce on the
farm, we might have wheat or flour available. Why?”

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“We got that coffee in Jefferson City and I let Sergeant Al Johnson know. He’s bringing
us PRI fuel stabilizers in exchange for the coffee. I noticed he’s wearing a wedding ring
and got to wondering if his family was safe. They might be ok; but, on the other hand,
this is about as safe a place as a person could be.”

“Harry and Stephanie have one empty bedroom. If you’re right about their situation, they
might have two. Talk to your friend Al about moving them down here, if you want. If
nothing else, he might be able to get them a travel trailer. For that matter, there is Harry
and Sally’s trailer that he left for our use.”

“There you go Hank, it was all we could find on short notice, but there is enough for
300,000-gallons of diesel and for 32,000-gallons of gasoline.”

“The coffee products are in the two U-Haul trailers and under the tarps on the two
pickups we used. Have your guys’ load the stuff and we’ll have lunch. I wanted to talk to
you about a personal matter.”

“You have a problem?”

“No, I was wondering if you might have a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“Well, I saw the wedding band. You’re married, right?”

“My wife’s name is Jolene and we have two children, Albert Jr. and Janice. Why do you
ask?”

“How comfortable are you with their personal security?”

“Oh, I see what you mean. I’d have to say I’m moderately comfortable. We only live
about two miles from military headquarters. I’ve equipped Jolene and Al Jr. with M4s
and M9 pistols. They have a radio and can call for help, if needed.”

“Where is headquarters?”

“Springfield-Branson Regional Airport.”

“We have an empty trailer. It was the one that Harry originally brought here and his wife
Sally and he lived in. First off, Sally died of cancer and Stephanie helped out keeping
that trailer clean for him. Later, he and she moved to the 160 acre farm down the road
and he left us his trailer in case we needed it. We have one empty travel trailer that’s

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fully equipped plus Harry and Stephanie have one or two empty bedrooms. I discussed
offering a place for your family with my wife Lynn.”

“That might not be a half bad idea. Jolene is worried about being so far from HQ. Would
you have enough food and things like that?”

“As far as food goes, our garden is only producing enough for those who live here.
About the only surplus we might have would be our wheat crop and some of the corn
and oats.”

“What would they need to bring?”

“Their clothes, of course and we’d prefer that they have something like the M14 rifles
and decent handguns, like .45-caliber pistols.”

“What, no shotguns? There’s the Benelli M4 Combat Shotguns, also known as the
M1014. We have three. I also have one Mossberg 590A1 that I bought a few years
back.”

“Any chance you could get your hands on the other guns?”

“I can get one M21 and 3 or 4 M14s. There are all kinds of M1911A1s lying around. We
only have one at the moment.”

“When does your enlistment run out?”

“It ran out about a year back.”

“It did? Why are you staying?”

“First off, they said we were extended for a year. Second off, we didn’t have a place to
go.”

“How are they paying you?”

“Food; plus use of a Hummer to get to and from home.”

“Can you get your hands on an M107 and ammo?”

“I’m not sure, maybe. I assume you’re referring to Mk211MP ammo?”

“If it’s available. We have quite a bit, but you can never have too much. We have on the
order of 12,000-rounds of M33 Barrett and more than 15,000-rounds of Mk211.”

“I’ll talk to Jolene and call you on our private SINCGARS channel. Anything else you
need?”

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“The one thing you can never have too much of is toilet paper.”

“Do you want me to leave some of the coffee here?”

“No, but I’d suggest you check all of the coffee service companies in Springfield. You
can go through what’s loaded on the HEMTTs and keep some back, if you wish.”

When I saw Al unloading the Folgers coffee from the HEMTTs and putting it in Harry’s
trailer, I considered the matter resolved. Either that or he was setting back the coffee for
his personal use. Since the latter was out of character for the man, I assumed the for-
mer.

If he called on the radio, it had to be when everyone was away from the radios which
happened on occasion. The next thing we knew, a M1044A1 Hummer pulling a military
trailer pulled in. The Hummer was armed with an Mk19 Mod 3 40mm grenade ma-
chinegun and the trailer was half full of belted grenades. The remainder of the trailer
was filled with their few personal possessions and weapons. Al had all the weapons
we’d discussed and had scored a fourth M16A3 and M9 plus added M203s to their
M16A3s. He only had 5 cans of Mk211 and about a case of .45acp 230 grain ball am-
mo. While he had almost no ammo for the .308 NATO rifles he had 6 cases of new
USGI 20-round magazines. He also had a fair amount of M855 on stripper clips plus 4
cases of 124gr military ball 9mm.

We gobbled up the new USGI magazines like we hadn’t had lunch in a year. Since I’d
ended up with some Browning Hi-Powers, I had several cases of 124gr Gold Dot +P
and an equal quantity of Lawman in the same bullet weight. Al could shoot his FMJ for
practice and switch to the Gold Dot for action. I’d loaded up on Browning 13 round
magazines from Ammoman, he’d had them at $165 for 10 magazines, so I’d purchased
4 lots of 10. He’d raised and then dropped his price on 7-round USGI M1911 magazines
and I bought 40, just in case. I gave those to Al because he needed them more than I
did. This was going to prove interesting once I showed him the remainder of the things
we had.

“Did you get settled in?”

“It’s going to take a little getting used to. I lived in a house once that had a master bed-
room closet almost bigger than the whole trailer.”

“About the only time people are in their trailers is to eat or sleep, Al. Be grateful Harry
and Sally had all of those pullouts. Did you have a specialty in the Guard?”

“Plain old infantry, 11B5. Had a few qualifiers doing with skill level and seniority, but I
was a plain old grunt.”

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“Nobody spends much time in their trailers. We’ll have to adjust the guard rotation to in-
corporate you. Frank suggested having you take Stephanie’s place and leaving her to
guard the farm. He thought that would be easier and not jumble up the schedule.”

“Sounds like a workable plan. Have you had to fight many battles?”

“That’s the funny part, Al. We only fought one. When we went to Stalag 9, we assumed
they were in the process of attacking the acreage. They did, but only after we got back.
Didn’t kill all of them because they ran out of ammo and surrendered.”

Was it all bad? The answer to that question may depend on your viewpoint. Once the
smoke, dust and fallout settled out of the air, we thought we were in for clear sailing.
Vast areas that had been farmed before the war began to grown native grasses. With
the reduction of industrialization, far fewer of the gases supposedly responsible for
global warming were being produced. There were fewer livestock producing methane,
very few motor vehicles. On earth, the most abundant greenhouse gases are, in order
of relative abundance: water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone and
CFCs.

Planet Earth had been near a tipping point. Global Warming had melted the Arctic ice-
cap and was working on Antarctica. Places like Greenland and Iceland had been pour-
ing billions of gallons of fresh water into the Atlantic Ocean. This had begun to lead to
Global Cooling and depression of the Gulf Stream. The war and its aftermath stopped
that due to the temporary global cooling and over the long term reversed the effects.
Elimination of approximately 90% of the world’s population served to increase the bene-
fit. What a terrible price to pay.

Eight months later Lynn presented us with a first, a single baby boy. The doctor did the
belly button thing before he discharged her from the hospital in Rolla. As far as our mili-
tia activities went, we stayed close to home and rarely answered the new Sheriff’s calls
for assistance. One time we actually had to go help him out. Those idiots from Stalag 9
had laid low for the better part of a year before they ran low on rations or something.
They decided to attack Rolla, in broad daylight no less. To be honest, it took us longer
to get there than solve the problem.

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 The Other Shoe – Chapter 19

The Sheriff was scared, but the information he was supplying was accurate and he and
his Deputies had them pinpointed. We started dropping off people with long range ar-
maments about ½ mile from town. Following the Sheriff’s instructions, we located the
JBTs and eliminated them one by one. This time the ROE was El Degüello. They had
their chance once and failed to take advantage of it; the only thing was we didn’t bring a
red flag, but they probably wouldn’t have known what it meant.

I only knew what it meant because I’d studied the Battle of the Alamo. In those days,
posting a red flag indicated no quarter would be given. By late afternoon San Antonio de
Bexar was completely occupied by about 1500 Mexican troops, who quickly raised a
blood-red flag signifying "No Quarter" above the San Fernando Church. Truth is
stranger than fiction.

We were home in less than an hour and had our guns clean in a few minutes, waiting
for the next time the Sheriff became overwhelmed. Hell, there were only about a dozen
of them and many of us didn’t fire a single shot. Stephanie now stayed on the farm as
the primary guard and Jolene took over her place canning the garden output.

By the time we’d harvested the crops and finished up the garden, we had food for our-
selves plus wheat, oats and corn for those few survivors in Licking and large band in
Rolla. We wouldn’t take greenbacks because there wasn’t much of a government to
have full faith and credit in. We set up a barter economy and accepted durable goods
with value to us, firearms and ammo in good working condition plus gold and silver and
pre-65 90% silver coins. I suspect we cleaned out a few coin collections. People quickly
realized that their coin collections contained a pretty fair sum. The only other thing we
accepted was labor chits. A commitment of one full day for a family of four got them fed
for the day and an additional one day’s food supply.

Slowly, inexorably, the MZBs and JBTs disappeared. They were outnumbered and a
new criminal justice evolved post war. The first things that disappeared were prisons.
The only jails remaining held captives accused of a crime. Justice was quickly deter-
mined and generally found at the end of a piece of rope. The hangings weren’t hidden
behind prison doors; they were conducted on the local gallows that nearly every county
seat had built. In western movies, we used to hear the expression, They hang horse
thieves. That was the case now, and it wasn’t limited to taking horses.

Even as society started to sort itself out, the planet began to heal from mankind’s’ ex-
cesses. We named our new son Jeremiah, Jere for short. That came from the movie In
Harm’s Way; Jeremiah was Admiral Rockwell Torrey’s son. The Lord said, Be fruitful
and multiply. Everyone on the acreage did the best they could. The result was we out-
grew our digs. None of the jobs any of us had before the war were available. What was
available was a 2 section farm not that far from Licking. We started a campaign to find
housing to put on the 1280. We ended up with a collection of singlewide mobile homes

184
and not just one for each family, but rather a collection because those children would
grow up and need their own places to live.

We made a few road trips in the early years, Geneseo, Illinois, being an early trip with a
swing by Lake City on the way back. We found various distributors or manufacturers
and built up an arsenal for our children. We’d train them on .223s and graduate them to
.308s when they were ready. Suppressors became the new norm because they had the
side benefit of protecting your hearing and Doctors were few and far between.

During those days just about any kind of medical professional had all the work he/she
wanted. Some knew where the government stashed the emergency medical supplies
that were held back for disasters, and that helped a lot. The government called it the
Strategic National Stockpile. The SNS is a national repository of antibiotics, chemical
antidotes, antitoxins, life-support medications, IV administration, airway maintenance
supplies, and medical/surgical items. The SNS is designed to supplement and re-supply
state and local public health agencies in the event of a national emergency anywhere
and at any time within the US or its territories. People worked hard absent the technolo-
gy of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. No doubt that accounted for, in part, the gen-
eral reduction of long term medical conditions. Often, if you developed a long term med-
ical condition these days, it killed you if the needed drug wasn’t in the SNS. Only a few
drugs have a truly short shelf life. Epinephrine and the cyclines come to mind. Medi-
cines were now distributed by the doctors and remaining hospitals.

The very large cities were abandoned or placed on the back burner for cleanup and re-
building as the US embraced its agrarian roots. For the most part, manufacturing was
very limited before the Industrial Revolution and it was now. It didn’t matter that there
weren’t many cars because there wasn’t much gasoline. Cars were converted to run on
pure ethanol or biodiesel. Plus, most families had a work truck and some sort of pas-
senger vehicle to haul the kids. Often those were converted SUVs.

We made out like bandits with a license to steal. Once we were settled on the new farm,
we had room to grow all kinds of crops. We also set aside 40 acres solely for gardening.
We recovered new farm equipment from farm equipment dealers and we did have one
full time mechanic in our midst. Anything that broke got fixed, pronto. We even went
with some of the big stuff, like a self-propelled combine with grain and corn heads.

You take a product like Mason jars and the lids, for example. With a 40 acre garden we
needed quite a few. We asked around on the radio until someone told us where the fac-
tory was and where they warehoused their inventory. We did a convoy and brought
back all we could haul and there were too many for us to bring back at one time.

We located and dismantled a large commercial greenhouse so we could grow some-

thing year around. Those labor chits we issued in exchange to food started to come in
handy. With the proper equipment, it’s not hard to farm 1,280 (gross) acres. We found a

185
locker plant to butcher our beef and butcher and cure our pork. Hired help did the chick-
ens. We only grew a few sheep and that was primarily for their wool, few of us liked
mutton or lamb.

Two of the largest states producing dry beans in the past were the Dakotas. We dupli-
cated their efforts on a smaller scale. We also had one rather large rice paddy putting
us ⅔ of the way to a proper diet of beans, rice and corn. One source provided a large
grain roller and we could produce rolled oats. Another provided large grain mills allow-
ing us to grind flour.

By many standards, ours was a small operation producing a bit of this and that. By other
standards, ours was an operation to emulate. We grew canola for biodiesel, corn for
ethanol, livestock feed and Missouri sipping whiskey. The Missouri wine region was fur-
ther north, up by Jefferson City. Since we weren’t in business to please others, we grew
what we liked and let others meet market demands for things we didn’t like.

Some things disappeared from our shelves over time. We had no more Spam, tuna,
macaroni & cheese dinners. We had macaroni and made cheese but it wasn’t quite the
same. Since we didn’t bother to process cheese, you had to settle for Colby or mild
cheddar to go with your macaroni. You had to grate it yourself and mix it with milk to get
a cheese sauce.

Chuck and Cindy just turned 12 and they got their own rifles and handguns. We kept
them under lock and key for now and only took them out to practice. Lynette and Mark
were about 10½ and would get theirs for their 12th birthdays. Jeremiah just turned 7 and
it would be a while for him.

In addition to the 4 Mini-14s and the four M4s, we scored a group of Glocks in 9mm and
45acp calibers, the short frames. Since we had five instead of four, and since there
were several new children, we went shopping and came up with more of the Ruger’s
and Colts. We traded for some rifles from a manufacturer headquartered in Virginia and
came away with quite the haul including 416s, 417s, USP Tactical’s, UMPs, MG4s,
M320s and finally the MSG 90A1. It was just about H&K’s full product line.

Now, if you’re thinking we’d turned the farm into an armed camp, I can’t argue with that.
We hadn’t had trouble in years; that didn’t mean it wasn’t out there waiting for an oppor-
tunity. Plus the equation wasn’t complete or TOM had been wrong, we’d only had two
major disasters, the economic meltdown and WW III. Despite all of my earlier speculat-
ing we hadn’t had any natural disaster that affected us. Well, we had a tornado go
across one field, if you choose to count that.

The following year we took over another 640 that had gone back to grass and used it as
a permanent pasture for our huge herd of cattle and horses. The separate hog house on
the place was adequate for our 40 sows. Although we’d located a trainload of coal
bound for some coal fired electrical plant and burned it instead, we still harvested wood.
Somehow coal in a fireplace didn’t ring my chimes. Harry and Stephanie married about

186
5 years back, but made a conscious decision not to have children. Harry thought he was
too old and Stephanie was worried about having a baby with Down’s syndrome. I can’t
say that I blame them for that.

Even all of the time that had passed didn’t keep us from maintaining a watchful eye. All
of the teens were required to take a turn on guard duty. We only had one rule, no coed
guard teams. They might get occupied playing grab ass and we wouldn’t get the warn-
ing.

Was everything easy to find? Not on your life, tires were a prime example. Sometimes
you’d find new tires that the rubber had aged to the point where they were beyond use.
You took what you found and took your chances. Perhaps some of the failures of tires
could relate to their storage conditions. New batteries were easier because they were
stored dry.

Research and tests show that as tires age, they begin to dry out and become potentially
dangerous, even if unused. Aged tires may appear to have similar properties to newly
manufactured tires; however once the vehicle is traveling at high speeds (i.e. on a free-
way) the tread could peel off, leading to severe loss of control and perhaps a rollover.

The date of a tire's manufacturer is found on the rim, to the right of the product code.
The date code is often found on the inward side of the tire, so if they are already in-
stalled on the vehicle, the person has to lie underneath the car with a flashlight to check
the dates. The date is a four digit code WWYY, with WW denoting the week (1-52) and
YY denoting the year.

Many automakers and several tire manufacturers (Bridgestone, Michelin) have recom-
mended a six year limit on tires. However, an ABC's 20/20 investigative report by Brian
Ross found that many major retailers such as Goodyear, Wal-Mart, and Sears were
selling tires that had been produced six or more years ago. Currently, no law for aged
tires exists in the United States.

Our vehicles lasted much longer for a variety of reasons. First, we didn’t drive a lot due
to the shortage a fuel and lack of places to go to. Second, not driving a lot meant you
might only put 6,000-miles a year on your most active vehicle whereas, in times past,
the little old lady who only drove her car to church on Sunday was credited with driving
about 12,000 miles per year and the lowest mileage bracket was 7,000-miles-per-year.
Third, most of the roads weren’t being maintained and nobody drove fast on a freeway
any longer because it wasn’t safe.

First grass began to appear in the cracks in most roads. That was followed by frost
heaves in the northern part of the country. The safest roads in those areas were the
gravel roads and even they became subject to wash-boarding over time. County
maintenance departments, to the extent they existed, we barely able to maintain dirt
and gravel roads and hard surfaced roads began to become unusable.

187
It was around Lynette and Mark’s 12th birthday that TOM’s prediction came true. You
wouldn’t think that about 14 years between events would qualify as happening in 3s but
if you considered the scope of the disaster, it had to be true. I believe I hit on it earlier
when I discussed possibilities, but I never quite believed what happened, could happen.

You don’t know the meaning of cold unless you’ve worked on the North Slope or in Ant-
arctica, up until now. You could almost see your breath before you left the house. The
well on the farm didn’t freeze and the septic was buried deep, just in case. No sooner
had the ash stopped falling than we began to get snow. Now you can think about that 9’
Indian. We had a Bobcat skid steer loader and it could barely keep the area around the
homes clear. The upside was that we didn’t need to maintain the guard force and the
teens were put to shoveling snow.

A ham operator from Québec reported 750cm (24.6’) of snow in downtown Montreal. A
normal year produced about 300cm, maximum. We stayed in touch and come spring
the snow didn’t melt. Our snow settled significantly over the winter, but the spring melt
didn’t occur until after Independence Day. The previous year’s crop had been harvested
and put up. We’d held off producing ethanol until later in the year and dropped the idea
completely after earthquakes and eruptions. We lacked the facilities to dry the mash into
livestock feed.

We had food growing in the greenhouse and it was enough or more to see us through a
year at a time. The wind blew like crazy and we weren’t short of power from the wind
turbine. We had to be very judicious in its use, however. The disadvantage of our move
was that we no longer had a cave to fall back on for shelter. It was also much further to
harvest firewood. We could, however, bring dump trucks loaded with coal from the train
we captured.

A large coal train called a "unit train" may be two kilometers (over a mile) long, contain-
ing 100 cars with 100 tons of coal in each one, for a total load of 10,000 tons. A large
plant under full load requires at least one coal delivery this size every day. Plants may
get as many as three to five trains a day, especially in "peak season", during the sum-
mer months when power consumption is high. Off hand, I’d say we had enough for a
few weeks, at least; our train had 104 cars. The only thing we lacked was an especially
good way to unload the train. On a good day, we could maybe unload ½ a car.

Those wood burners we’d put in the travel trailers worked just fine as a source of sup-
plemental heat and they did burn coal. We added more to the new singlewide mobile
homes we found. We were trying our best to avoid running the generators due to their
being fuel hogs. We were also guarding our supply of propane and when we finally got
to Jefferson City, we brought back every delivery truck we could find. We hadn’t ex-
hausted the supply although we were working on it. Everyone had installed a 1,100-
gallon propane tank and it almost got them through the winter. The real problem was
the dry air the propane furnaces produced. We found and installed whole-house or fur-
nace humidifiers, which connect to a home's HVAC system to provide humidity to the
entire house. They did serve to prevent colds and the humidified air felt warmer.

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The snow returned on Labor Day. It was what they call a skiff of snow, e.g., a small
amount. We hurried to the locker plant to pick up our butchered beef and pork. We had
accumulated several more freezers and could probably store a 2-year supply of meat.
However, once the roads closed, it would be very difficult to get to. We were butchering
2-3 hogs per family and ½ beef. Except for some of the extra smoked meats, bacon and
ham, we traded a portion to the butcher for his labor and sold him the balance at a fair
price. A fair price is all the market can bear, if you’re curious.

We spent much of the previous long winter grinding corn and wheat and rolling oats. We
packaged those products in 25# bags just as we did with the beans and rice. Our
cheese went in 5-pound blocks, packaged by our seal-a-meals. We kept a skeptical eye
on our diminishing supply of toilet paper, coffee and tea. It appeared that next summer
we’d need to go looking for paper products and a supply of green coffee we could roast
ourselves.

The Coffea plant is native to subtropical Africa and southern Asia. It belongs to a genus
of 10 species of flowering plants of the family Rubiaceae. It is an evergreen shrub or
small tree that may grow 5 meters (16 ft) tall when unpruned. The leaves are dark green
and glossy, usually 10–15 centimeters (3.9–5.9 in) long and 6.0 centimeters (2.4 in)
wide. It produces clusters of fragrant, white flowers that bloom simultaneously. The fruit
berry is oval, about 1.5 centimeters (0.6 in) long, and green when immature, but ripens
to yellow, then crimson, becoming black on drying. Each berry usually contains two
seeds, but from 5 to 10 percent of the berries have only one; these are called peaber-
ries. Berries ripen in seven to nine months.

Just thinking out loud here, but what if we could locate some coffee seeds and move the
smaller greenhouse from the acreage? Woo-Hoo, we might be able to grow our own
coffee and tea. It seems like they liked the same climate conditions and we should be
able to create any climate in a greenhouse. That’s just a guess and we don’t have any
coffee beans to plant. While not the largest producer, Mexico produced 311 million tons
in 2005. Four single roaster companies buy more than 50 percent of all of the annual
production: Kraft (Maxwell House), Nestlé (Nescafé), Procter & Gamble (Folgers), and
Sara Lee (Douwe Egberts, Kanis & Gunnink & Big Joe, Burger King’s house brand of
coffee).

On the other front, Scott Paper, the inventor of toilet tissue, merged with Kimberly Clark.
Georgia Pacific produced Northern brand tissue and Procter & Gamble had purchased
Charmin Paper Company in 1957. They discontinued all of their products except bath
tissue. Charmin was manufactured by the Hoberg Paper Company in Green Bay, Wis-
consin. Of note was the fact that on November 19th 2007 - Charmin says a final farewell
to Dick Wilson, 91, who portrayed the loveable Mr. Whipple on Charmin advertising
from 1964-1985, but only because he died.

A personal quote, “I've done thirty-eight pictures and nobody remembers any of them,
but they all remember me selling toilet paper.”

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They replaced Mr. Whipple with a cartoon bear.

The snow came early and came deep; however it melted early, too. We had a really
good amount of subsoil moisture and it looked like it might be a banner year, crop wise.
And then, it turned hot and we didn’t get a lot of spring rain. It began to use up the ac-
cumulated moisture in the soil and the old well didn’t have enough capacity to allow us
to irrigate. Early summer showers came to our rescue, just in time.

Unlike the previous year, winter came late, more like December than late August. It was
cold and very dry. We figured that didn’t bode well for our situation unless we got some
snowfall to replace the moisture in the soil. It didn’t snow until March and that was only
4-5 inches, about ½” of water. The last snow of the winter came on April 15th, again, 4-
5”. Our soil was nearly bone dry and we decided to seed grass to keep the soil from
blowing away.

Fortunately we’d held on to most of last year’s crops and had feed for our livestock. The
horses and cattle could graze on the grass when it came up reducing our need for feed.
We pressed the oil out of the canola and fed the pulp to the hogs. I think they’ll eat
about anything (even people, or so I’ve heard).

We planted a one acre garden, just enough to get by, that we could irrigate. We watered
morning and night and I think the garden did better than the large one the year before.
Al suggested to David that with the change in weather, we’d better consider upping our
guard force because food would again be short. Everyone spent some time on the
range checking the sighting on their weapons and refreshing their skills. I didn’t think
they’d be any trouble this long after the war, but why take a chance? Because of our
ongoing requirement to maintain firearms skills, nobody actually had to spend long on
the range.

We had a nice little community on the 1,280; eight families and everyone aged 14 and
up was considered as and treated as an adult, up to a limit. Hanky-panky was still dis-
couraged, to the extent that we could do it. Two words describe that winter; cold and
dry. I left out the wind part, it was ferocious and at one time I thought the braking system
on the turbine would be overwhelmed. When spring rolled abound, we’d used up most
of the firewood, a portion of the coal and most of the propane tanks were near empty.

We went back to Jefferson City for all the propane we could haul back and tried to find
another unit trainload of coal. We let four look, two vets and two teenagers and the rest
of us set about replenishing our wood supply. We found precut firewood at the business
locations of two guys who cut firewood for a living and took that so we’d have a supply
of dry wood to begin the winter. We went through the Mark Twain National Forest mark-
ing standing dead trees with orange paint and marking their locations on a map. We set
it up so we could do it in steps, locating the trees, cutting the trees, transporting the
logs, and splitting the firewood. Our goal was to cut, split and stack 200 cords or
25,600ft³.

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We refilled our propane tanks and sent the delivery trucks off to be refilled. We actually
didn’t need any diesel or gasoline because we hadn’t needed to run the generators ex-
cept for 15 minutes weekly. There was a sense of unease within the group and Lynn
and I thought it might be related to the weather. The best way to find out was to call a
meeting and ask a few direct questions.

“We’ve noticed a feeling of unease within the community. Can anyone explain what’s
bothering them?”

“I’ll tell you what I think,” Frank said. “First it’s that we didn’t grow any food this year be-
sides garden crops. Second, most everyone in the area knows that we have and pro-
duce food. On more than one occasion, I’ve seen people come to Licking to see if we
were at the Farmer’s Market. They didn’t look too happy when they discovered we
weren’t there.”

“I don’t know if any of you are aware,” David added, “but they’ve had cars out cruising
trying to locate our farm. Fortunately the only people besides ourselves who know
where it is are the people we do private trades with and they’d be foolish to let it slip.”

“We’re not going looking for an Abrams, if that’s what’s on your mind.”

“It wasn’t, but I wouldn’t mind having an M3 Bradley Cavalry Scout Vehicle. The current
model will resist 30mm shells and we would need but two people to man the vehicle.
That 25mm Bushmaster is a very impressive piece of ordnance.”

“I’ll go along with the majority. I feel that I should point out that we haven’t had any trou-
ble in years.”

“Let’s keep it that way, Hank.”

“All in favor of getting to M3 Bradley’s raise your hand. Ok, it’s unanimous, we’ll get two
plus the AP and HE ammo for the Bushmaster and ammo for the M240.”

Here we went again, becoming even more of an armed camp. Al was quick to volunteer
where he thought we could get the Bradley Cavalry Scout Vehicles and the ammo. For
a minute, I thought he was going to ask, “Would you rather have it and not need it
than…” We’d all but worn the expression out justifying our other acquisitions.

We continued to accumulate logs and a small party went looking for the Bradley’s. We
now had 4,000-gallons for each of our propane tanks, the tanks contents and one
3,000-gallon delivery truck. We finally stopped harvesting timber in September and
joined the crew that was splitting and stacking the firewood. To improve our rate of
work, we picked up another splitter identical to the first, doubling our daily output.

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Over the course of the following winter, we got more moisture, about 20” of snow which
was still not enough to grow crops. We contracted for 4 additional irrigation wells, feel-
ing that we had little other choice. The driller said that wouldn’t be enough and that we’d
need at least one per 160 and preferably one per 40. We went with one per 160. Our
money tree wasn’t doing well due to the drought.

When I found time, I re-read the Abrupt Climate Change paper by Peter Schwartz and
Doug Randall. Frankly, I was looking for hints to explain the cold, long and dry winter
the previous year and the sudden rise in temperature and low moisture levels we’d ex-
perienced recently.

The report explored how such an abrupt climate change scenario could potentially de-
stabilize the geo-political environment, leading to skirmishes, battles, and even war due
to resource constraints such as:

1) Food shortages due to decreases in net global agricultural production

2) Decreased availability and quality of fresh water in key regions due to shifted precipi-
tation patterns, causing more frequent floods and droughts
3) Disrupted access to energy supplies due to extensive sea ice and storminess

We had the war and it sure wasn’t over an abrupt climate change. The war was over the
usual things that all wars are caused by: famine, a worldwide economic meltdown, the
distribution of natural resources or, perhaps, a difference in religion. We dropped the
first nuke back in 1945. The Japanese quit before they found out how many we had.
The United States expected to have another atomic bomb ready for use in the third
week of August, with three more in September and a further three in October. On Au-
gust 10, Major General Leslie Groves, military director of the Manhattan Project, sent a
memorandum to General George Marshall, in which he wrote that "the next bomb…
should be ready for delivery on the first suitable weather after 17 or August 18."

On the same day, Marshall endorsed the memo with the comment, "It is not to be re-
leased over Japan without express authority from the President." There was already
discussion in the War Department about conserving the bombs in production until Op-
eration Downfall, the projected invasion of Japan, had begun. "The problem now [Au-
gust 13th] is whether or not, assuming the Japanese do not capitulate, to continue
dropping them every time one is made and shipped out there or whether to hold them…
and then pour them all on in a reasonably short time. Not all in one day, but over a short
period. And that also takes into consideration the target that we are after. In other
words, should we not concentrate on targets that will be of the greatest assistance to an
invasion rather than industry, morale, psychology, and the like? Nearer the tactical use
rather than other use.

Irrigating 1,260 acres of ground is a truly difficult project. The irrigation pipe alone would
take a couple of years to locate. Another decision had to be made concerning how we’d
irrigate. Would we use sprinkler pipes of small ditches? What was it Jodie Foster called
it? Occam’s razor? "All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best." It

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would be ditches. We could create them when we planted seed. We’d run irrigation
pipes to the high end of the ditch and it would flow to the other end or something like
that.

The paper didn’t give me any information that I/we didn’t already have. It was hot and
dry in the summers and cold and dry in the winters. The water had to be going some-
where. Our problem was that we weren’t where it was going. As one might imagine, re-
ports from the National Weather Service simply didn’t exist. If they had, we’d have
learned that the Arctic Ocean was covered in ice and snow didn’t melt above 45°N lati-
tude. That’s about 1° south of the North Dakota border.

We had extreme temperature ranges and a drought. Anything that couldn’t be watered
by irrigation wells wouldn’t grow. We’d cut back the garden to a single acre, only grow-
ing enough to tide us over until the next year. A thought kept coming to mind, but before
I could grab it, it sort of slipped away. It was something I’d read and it was recently. Why
does the term Younger Dryas come to mind? Then the light bulb in my head went off
and I grabbed my Abrupt Climate Change paper.

“The research suggests that once temperature rises above some threshold, adverse
weather conditions could develop relatively abruptly, with persistent changes in the at-
mospheric circulation causing drops in some regions of 5-10 degrees Fahrenheit in a
single decade. Paleoclimatic evidence suggests that altered climatic patterns could last
for as much as a century, as they did when the ocean conveyor collapsed 8,200 years
ago, or, at the extreme, could last as long as 1,000 years as they did during the Young-
er Dryas, which began about 12,700 years ago.”

This abrupt change scenario is characterized by the following conditions:

●Annual average temperatures drop by up to 5 degrees Fahrenheit over Asia and North
America and 6 degrees Fahrenheit in northern Europe
●Annual average temperatures increase by up to 4 degrees Fahrenheit in key areas
throughout Australia, South America, and southern Africa.
●Drought persists for most of the decade in critical agricultural regions and in the water
resource regions for major population centers in Europe and eastern North America.
●Winter storms and winds intensify, amplifying the impacts of the changes. Western Eu-
rope and the North Pacific experience enhanced winds.

Schwartz and Randall, again. But wait, shouldn’t that have all been canceled out by the
nuclear winter? Maybe, providing we had a nuclear winter; the jury is still out on that. As
long as we’re discussing confusing issues, why would we need 10,000 tons of coal?
Preservation of resources, pure and simple; our supply of propane for the stoves and
water heaters couldn’t last forever and our coal/wood burning stoves were a great
source of heat. In prewar terms, those 10,000 tons of coal would be just enough to
power a large coal burning power plant for ONE DAY. It would last us just a bit longer,
maybe a millennium. We’d probably run out of ammo before we ran out of coal and here
we were looking for more.

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 The Other Shoe – Chapter 20

One other question, if the most recent one was called the Younger Dryas, when was the
Older Dryas? It preceded the Younger Dryas by about 3,000 years and the Oldest Dry-
as preceded that by another 4,000 years, give or take a couple of days. Put another
way, the Oldest Dryas was about 18,000-15,000 years BP; the Older Dryas was about
12,000-11,800 years BP and the Younger Dryas was about 11,000-10,000 years BP
(before present). I can’t check that without Wiki.

We weren’t going to waste the coal on starting up a power plant because our wind tur-
bine was working just fine. Most of the time, the generators only kicked in for their peri-
odic run cycle. Did we have it made? Where did you ever get a silly idea like that? We
had food to eat and left some of our LTS food in the cave on the acreage, call it our
cache. The new, to us, large farm of 3 sections required a lot of work but with the water
shortage, we were forced to curtail production.

It had been reported that people were unhappy that we hadn’t brought goods to the
Farmers Market in Licking. It was likewise reported that cars had been seen cruising up
and down roads attempting to locate our farm. I don’t know why they were having trou-
ble; it’s in the same place it’s always been. Oh, that right, we ‘forgot’ to tell them where
that was.

We salvaged (to save used, damaged, or rejected goods for recycling or further use)
and we scavenged (to search for or through discarded material in order to find some-
thing usable). Close, but not exactly the same. We did not loot (money or goods that
have been pillaged during wartime or a riot)! Doing any of the three posed a risk; the
abandoned property might not be abandoned, rejected or discarded. There were more
sources of propane out here somewhere, too.

With our five kids growing up and us growing older, we most definitely had to plan for
the future. For example, we hadn’t been attacked in years. That didn’t mean that some-
one might not drive down our road tomorrow and discover the farm. Our force, that
numbered less than 20, would be hard pressed to repel a major invasion by a criminal
gang. The world is filled with two kinds of people, good people and bad people. Among
those good people one may find some desperate good people willing to do anything to
provide for their family.

All they had to do was ask. Remember what I said about pride? An approach like this,
“My family is starving, I do anything to provide for them,” would probably get them an
invite and a good meal, maybe even a job offer. An approach like this, “My family is
starving, I’m going to take your food,” is a one way ticket to a coffin.

Our group was nothing more than unique. We were mostly combat veterans and some
had some kind of Special Forces training. After they recovered the Bradley we even had
a 25mm cannon. A great weapon for the teens, they’re mostly out of harm’s way and
they probably get a kick out of shooting the M242. We maintained lookout towers, a re-

194
cent addition, at one mile intervals and they could see about 1 mile or more in any direc-
tion. We were running full security long after the war.

Harry was slowing down although that didn’t matter because we had abandoned the
160 years back when we took over the section and later the second and third sections.
Our herd of horses had all been saddle horses; over the years, we began to add and
breed draft horses. We’d end up farming with horses like the Amish or most American
farmers did early in the 20th Century. We wouldn’t do it until we had too, though. One 40
acre field was farmed using horses; what you might call a training field. Some of the
salvage came from museums that featured horse drawn farm equipment. Amish farmers
tend to use a team of about seven horses or mules when spring plowing and as Amish
farmers often helped each other plow, teams were sometimes changed at noon. Using
this method about 10 acres can be plowed per day in light soils and about 2 acres in
heavy soils.

The twins used two single bottom walking plows and it took them the better part of a
week to plow the 40 acre field. They used teams of two horses and changed teams fre-
quently. When it came time to disk, they used a four horse team and completed that in
three long days. Dragging was even quicker than disking, taking only two days. Using
horses, it took two weeks what could have been completed in a few days using a mod-
ern tractor with a 3-5 bottom plow, 24’ tandem disc and perhaps a 24’ drag. The disk
and drags were called harrows by whoever wrote the article on Wiki. Drag harrows, Wiki
claimed, weren’t used much. The reason it took so long to disk was that the horses
were walking on the very uneven plowed field, not because it was all that hard to pull
the disk harrow. It was easy to see why the Amish farmers would get together and
worked one farm at a time; it was a tremendous amount of work and required many
draft horses.

We now had more adolescents and teens than adults. The easiest thing to teach them
was marksmanship and use of our assorted ordnance. They considered it to be fun, but
occasionally questioned the need because we hadn’t been attacked for a very long
time. It was a dangerous sentiment that we tried to discourage. On the other hand,
farming was becoming more difficult as the modern implements wore out and we
couldn’t find replacement/repair parts. The parts may have been out there, somewhere,
but we couldn’t travel the country hoping to find a few specific parts and we couldn’t find
anyone that could build them for us.

David and Donald, the twins, courted ladies up in Rolla and eventually got married. The
only singles on the farm were the children. They ranged in age from under 5 to nearly
20. In my humble opinion, we’d made it too soft for them and the farm was known far
and wide as a place to avoid at all costs. One would have thought our problems were
over; unfortunately, they weren’t. If you’ve considered what global warming might do to
the planet, then you also had to consider the concept that global warming could lead to
global cooling. I noted it earlier in my diary, but it just keeps getting colder. It’s not a rap-
id change in temperature, just 1°F per year. We’ve been keeping records of the temper-
ature and moisture since the war and it continues to get colder and dryer.

195
I believe in my heart that it will reverse. I’m just guessing, but I think it’s likely that the
Arctic and Antarctic are where the moisture is all going. Lord knows that Greenland had
just about melted off. Iceland didn’t have much ice left when we had the war. Did we ac-
tually have a nuclear winter that triggered another mini ice age? There’s no NWS to ask.
People we heard on the radio years before have long since stopped transmitting. Don’t
believe the old saying that no news is good news, ‘cause it isn’t true.

It seems like the first countries we stopped hearing from were in Northern Europe. From
Scandinavia, it moved further south, a little at a time. One would have thought that, if
they had a problem, something would have been said. We were all having problems try-
ing to survive in the aftermath even though we hadn’t been in many battles with people.
I put it that way because we were battling Mother Nature. We had hot summers, cold
winters and very little moisture. The crops we planted became fewer and fewer and
most of the animals grazed or went hungry.

Pigs are omnivore, which means that they consume both plants and animals. Pigs will
scavenge and have been known to eat any kind of food, including dead insects, worms,
tree bark, rotting carcasses, garbage, and even other pigs. Chickens are omnivores. In
the wild, they often scratch at the soil to search for seeds, insects and even larger ani-
mals such as lizards or young mice. Cattle and horses will graze the pasture and we
could pump enough water to irrigate to keep the grass growing.

Our food came from the greenhouse, for the most part. Certain crops we still planted in
the garden, but had to be irrigated. Instead of farming most of the 1,280, we were actu-
ally farming less than 40. Just enough to grow some wheat, oats, and assorted bean
crops. The most certain thing you could say about the weather was that you couldn’t be
certain what the next season would be like, but it would most likely be hot summers,
cold winters and very little moisture.

On another subject, the M2HB, you individually headspace and timed each barrel, right?
Unlike the headspace and timing of something like the M240, the gunner does it every
time they put in a new barrel, right? WRONG. We found that after inserting a new barrel
the timing rarely needed to be changed. However, every barrel had a different number
of clicks out after it was inserted. We counted the clicks and wrote it on a tag we at-
tached to the barrel. Voila, pre-headspaced M2HB barrels; insert fully, turn out the
number of click on the tag, verify with headspace gauge. Poor TOM, he could have ex-
plained that and not caught hell from the squirrels.

Wow, I haven’t made a diary entry for about two years now. The thing is, there’s nothing
new to add. It got cold and leveled off around 14°F below normal. We were able to grow
small crops to keep the livestock going although it was close more than once. I think
maybe I’ll wrap this up, not much point this long after the economic meltdown, WW III
and the modern mini ice age to keep taking notes.

196
If I were to advise someone about what they should do, it wouldn’t be to get a cave in
the Ozarks and hide out. I do believe that I would advise them to include a .308 NATO
caliber rifle in their preps. I would probably also suggest a .45ACP for a handgun and a
high capacity 12 gauge shotgun. If they wanted other firearms, they should stick with
popular cartridges. For a lever gun, there’s nothing wrong with a good used Winchester
.30-30. They have fewer parts than the Marlin, although the Marlin would be a good
second choice.

Should you decide that you want to salvage/scavenge after TSHTF, remember, not eve-
ryone agrees that it’s not looting. Your best bet is to be well prepared in advance so all
you have to do is fill in the holes. It wouldn’t be good timing to wait until the missiles are
in the air to decide you need a CD V-715 or CD V-717.

One other thing and I’ll quit. It’s about TOM’s fallout spreadsheet. Remember, radiation
begins to decay immediately. Therefore, you have to make allowances and determine
the peak radiation at the site of the blast by working backwards. You can use the
spreadsheet to do that and determine the peak level at detonation. Back in the days af-
ter Obama got elected, there was talk about TSHTF. Remember…

The effects of a 1mT surface burst are assuming a wind speed of 15mph, a wind direc-
tion of due east and a time frame of 7 days:

3,000 Rem
Distance: 30 miles
Much more than a lethal dose of radiation. Death can occur within hours of exposure.
About 10 years will need to pass before levels of radioactivity in this area drop low
enough to be considered safe, by US peacetime standards.

900 Rem
Distance: 90 miles
A lethal dose of radiation. Death occurs from two to fourteen days.

300 Rem
Distance: 160 miles
Causes extensive internal damage, including harm to nerve cells and the cells that line
the digestive tract, and results in a loss of white blood cells. Temporary hair loss is an-
other result.

90 Rem
Distance: 250 miles
Causes a temporary decrease in white blood cells, although there are no immediate
harmful effects. Two to three years will need to pass before radioactivity levels in this
area drop low enough to be considered safe, by US peacetime standards.

Radius of destructive circle: 1.7 miles

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12 pounds per square inch

At the center lies a crater 200 feet deep and 1000 feet in diameter. The rim of this crater
is 1,000 feet wide and is composed of highly radioactive soil and debris. Nothing recog-
nizable remains within about 3,200 feet (0.6 miles) from the center, except, perhaps, the
remains of some buildings' foundations. At 1.7 miles, only some of the strongest build-
ings – those made of reinforced, poured concrete – are still standing. Ninety-eight per-
cent of the population in this area is dead.

Radius: 2.7 miles

5 psi

Virtually everything is destroyed between the 12 and 5-psi rings. The walls of typical
multi-story buildings, including apartment buildings, have been completely blown out.
The bare, structural skeletons of more and more buildings rise above the debris as you
approach the 5-psi ring. Single-family residences within this area have been completely
blown away – only their foundations remain. Fifty percent of the population between the
12 and 5-psi rings are dead. Forty percent are injured.

Radius: 4.7 miles

2 psi

Any single-family residences that have not been completely destroyed are heavily dam-
aged. The windows of office buildings have been blown away, as have some of their
walls. The contents of these buildings' upper floors, including the people who were
working there, are scattered on the street. A substantial amount of debris clutters the
entire area. Five percent of the population between the 5 and 2-psi rings are dead. For-
ty-five percent are injured.

Radius: 7.4 miles

1 psi

Residences are moderately damaged. Commercial buildings have sustained minimal

damage. Twenty-five percent of the population between the 2 and 1-psi rings are in-
jured, mainly by flying glass and debris. Many others have been injured from thermal
radiation – the heat generated by the blast. The remaining seventy-five percent are un-
hurt.

After Obama was elected, nobody had ammo for sale and Assault Weapons were on a
waiting list. If you were prepared, you already had yours. More ammo might be nice, but
not at a premium price. Don’t kid yourself; you can have too much ammo. But, you can
always use it as trade goods.

© 2011, Gary D. Ott

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