The road patrol supervisor had been the first to arrive and started approaching the door to glance inside. He didn’t really know any better. He was a freshly promoted sergeant, E-5 and had little experience. His original MOS, or military occupational specialty, was communications.
He had just finished changing his MOS and graduated from the MP academy three months ago and two months before he had gotten his promotion. To top it all off, his English was hard to understand because he was from Puerto Rico. But, being the army, there was no rhyme or reason and here he was in a position he didn’t need to be in.
In the meantime two units showed up toward the back of the credit union and one more up front by the road patrol supervisor. The grunt inside saw the reflection of the blue lights and got scared. He started toward the front door and the road patrol supervisor literally lost it and took off running toward the back of the building.
The grunt exited the building and headed the same way. The unit up front hadn’t even gotten out of the car yet and was in awe at what was happening. The units in back were standing ready when the sergeant came running around the back yelling in Puerto Rican.
Haliday’s senior partner, who was also from Puerto Rico, was the only one who knew what was being said. He yelled, “watch out,” and motioned toward the side of the building. No sooner had the road patrol supervisor passed them by when the grunt came around the side as well.
The four MP’s at the back were yelling for him to stop. The grunt almost fell over trying to stop so quickly. “Drop it, drop it now!” It was in chorus from all four of them. The grunt shifted his stance and raised the shotgun. The sounds of the 1911’s, .45 caliber pistols firing was a deafening sound. The grunt was jerking violently around and then dropped to the ground in a large mass of flesh and blood.
Haliday and his partner approached the grunt’s body slowly after a quick magazine change and one MP from the other car stood watch while the fourth called it in to dispatch. Dispatch acknowledged and said they were sending an ambulance. Wouldn’t do any good for the grunt, but the road patrol supervisor could use it. He was standing there in shock.
This was his worst day as an MP and this would also be his last day as an MP. Looking down at the poor guy, they realized he never had a chance. Between the four of them, 32 shots of .45 had been fired. They only hit the guy 11 times, but with a .45 it was enough to turn him into hamburger. Haliday had never seen anything like that in his life.
He told Dawn the story and told her some of the emotions she could expect if she ever had to do this. There would be shame because you took a life, but you would justify it with the “It was them or us” thought process. There would be anger because the person made you do this and you didn’t want to. There would be sadness you could not associate with anything at all. Sleepless nights would occur at first, but you would eventually get past it. You would get physically sick and probably throw up. But after time, you would learn to live with it. You would never forget it, but you would learn to live with it.
Dawn snapped back from remembering this story, grabbed a trash bag out of the kitchen and went upstairs to her room, where she took the clothes off and put them in the trash bag. She put on fresh clothes and went downstairs, where she tossed the bag in the laundry room. She wasn’t sure if she should wash or burn them. She told her mom and sister to either go change and get ready for some breakfast or just head to the kitchen because they needed to get a lot done and get it done as soon as they could.
Everyone was sitting at the table now, they had boiled up some water and made some instant oatmeal and sat there eating. Her sister asked her what they had to do. Dawn went to the living room and grabbed her notebook. She had a list—she had lists for everything. She always wanted to know what to do and what she needed to have. She didn’t quite have everything they needed, but at least they were ahead of the curve.
She liked the name sheeple she had read and heard on occasion. The sheeple were going to be in big trouble. It was the sheeple she was preparing for. They were also going to be a big problem for those who had taken the time, energy and money, and had prepared for whatever event would change their lives forever.
“Time to get to work,” she said. “First things first.” She hated that saying. Wouldn’t first things always be first? Just like “It is what it is?” Another one she hated. She thought the degradation of the English language was a big part of why this country was turning out the way it was. She remembered stores and gas stations being closed on holidays. People attending church and not just on the holidays. TV being clean and fun.
Her favorite show was Leave it to Beaver. Haliday said he watched it as a kid and she remarked, "It’s good isn’t it?" He burst her bubble by saying he and his friends only watched it because of the pointy bras and boobs like June Cleaver used to have. That drove her nuts. Haliday drove her nuts. He always had something to say. The good old days, she thought.
She was trying to keep herself busy thinking of these things, but soon enough the work around the house would do that. She opened the garage door and grabbed some wood. Haliday had helped her make the window covers he used. They got busy putting these on the windows of the lower level. It took two of them and sometimes all three, especially with the door wall to the patio. The lower level was finished. They took a quick break, then readied themselves for more.
The upstairs windows were hard to get to. Only the two smaller bedrooms had an eave under them, with the rest being out of reach. They added a couple more dowels to keep them secured and then retrieved some fire extinguishers from the basement to place by each upper window. The two windows over the eave could be access points, so these they handled differently. Since they actually provided a very good line of sight for the front of the house, they used quarter inch thick Plexiglas, which was secured in a frame that had a couple boards across the middle for strength.
The eave itself would have a few surprises itself. Haliday had taken some two and a half inch nails and painted them black. He then took some heavy duty tar paper and pushed the nails up through them. The pieces of tar paper were trimmed down enough to slide up under the shingles and there were 60 of these ready to go. The eave was a mere 20 feet wide and only 4 feet deep, so there were plenty of foot and knee pokers. Haliday told her, “Kind of like punji sticks like they used in Vietnam.”
She went outside with a ladder from the garage and then put them in place and went back inside when she was done. She locked the garage door down along the rails but did not have grid wall like Haliday. Instead she had four 2X6 boards which when placed vertical spread across the garage door. They were connected at the top with five long screws into the door header.
The bottoms had taken a bit more finesse. There was a base plate attached for strength and then a large hole drilled through. This was attached to eye bolts they had secured in the concrete floor. If someone wanted to push through the door it wouldn’t be that easy. They would meet a good amount of resistance.
The windows and doors were now locked down and secured. They took another break and decided to go over the list that Dawn had made. She got up, walked over to a shelf and flipped on her ham. They had strung a wire antenna in the trees next to her house and ran it into the house next to the fireplace where the ham was plugged into a 12v source.
She only had a couple of outlets running on a few batteries. It was nothing like Haliday’s set up. She would wait a bit and then try to reach him. She was told to wait until 24 hours, enough time to get home, secure the place and take care of any little things. To travel twelve to fifteen miles in one day was more than acceptable the first couple of days of an event.