Because most of the training was done in civilian clothing and without carrying their weapons, it never attracted the attention of law enforcement. When questioned as to their particulars, they were simply “a hiking club.”
Mike Nelson, as a Chicago police officer, had developed the cover story of “training aggressors for my department’s SWAT team,” but he never had cause to use it, or even to flash his badge. The group was careful to conduct their armed training patrols (using blanks and blank-firing devices) in only civilian clothing, and only in remote areas of the northern Michigan peninsula. The standing rule was, “If we are carrying guns, no camouflage clothing, but if we are unarmed, camo uniforms are okay.”
Jeff had a few habits that annoyed most of the other group members. Their biggest complaint was that he was notoriously late for group meetings. He also occasionally missed group meetings and other appointments. When confronted about these incidents, he would shrug his shoulders and say, “Sorry about that.”With a large circle of drinking buddies and several lady friends, Jeff often found too little time available for group meetings. Jeff’s other annoyances were his booming voice and his tendency to verbally chastise other group members for relatively minor faults.
Jeff Trasel was a member of the group for only three years. At his last group meeting in 2006, he announced that he was quitting the group because he was “bored,” and because the group wasn’t “going anywhere.” When pressed, he wouldn’t be any more specific about his complaints. He just got up and left the Nelsons’ apartment.
With the exception of Trasel, the original group was still intact when the Grays activated their retreat in Idaho during the stock market crash. After so many years, the group seemed almost like an extended family. All of the group members felt that they could trust each other with their lives. With the gloomy scenarios they envisioned, they knew that they might have to do just that.
CHAPTER 4
Gearing Up
“Oh how great is the interval between the conception of a great enterprise and its execution. What vain terrors! What irresolution! Life is at stake—much more is at stake: honor!”
Throughout its first five years, the Group “geared up” and trained with varying intensity. The 9/11 terrorist attacks first inspired the formation of the group, but their interest was redoubled with the advent of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
There was no such thing as a “typical” training session for the group. Training was a loose term with eclectic boundaries. It ranged from anything from an evening learning how to can fruit, to a night of target shooting using tritium sights, to a practice session suturing induced wounds on a dead piglet. One memorable three-day weekend training session was “The Bucket Weekend.”
The weekend was designed to teach the importance of prioritizing. Everyone was limited to packing all of their food and camping supplies for the weekend in one five-gallon plastic bucket. After 9/11, meetings were held twice a month in the winter and once a month in the summer. At least one of the two meetings was dedicated to training. With the greater resources derived from holding full-time jobs, the group members embarked on a well-calculated buying spree.
Purchasing for each member began with a battle rifle, a riot shotgun with a spare “birdgun” long barrel and screw-in choke tubes, a .45 automatic pistol, and a .22 rifle for target practice and small game hunting. Next came all of the paraphernalia to support these guns: ammunition, dozens of magazines, cleaning kits, spare parts, holsters, and an Army LC-1 “web gear” harness with canteen and gun magazine pouches. Next, each member was expected to buy a good quality cold weather sleeping bag, and a good quality “four season” backpacking tent. All of these purchases had to conform to specific standards set by the group.
The first major point of disagreement in standardizing the group’s purchases came when they selected their field uniform. Some of the group’s members thought that wearing a camouflage uniform might attract more attention than it was worth. Eventually, however, it was decided that camos were a must when Jeff pointed out that they would assure positive identification of group members at a distance. He explained that this would make it difficult for a non-group member to slip into the perimeter of their retreat without being noticed. By the time that the Group was standardizing their uniform, the U.S. Army had long since issued the woodland camouflage battle dress uniform (BDU), which replaced the old olive drab fatigues. The issue of digital pattern Army Combat Uniform (ACU) camouflage to the U.S. Army starting in 2005 did not alter the situation significantly, since woodland pattern BDUs were so ubiquitous.
Rather than buy woodland BDUs or ACUs, which were widely available on the surplus market, Todd’s group decided to standardize with the British DPM (disruptive pattern, marine) camouflage fatigues and jackets, which were then available as surplus at a reasonable price. The reasoning behind the DPMs was that because the BDU pattern was so widely available as military surplus, it had become ubiquitous. It was Kevin Lendel that made the cogent observation that if the Group were to standardize with the BDU pattern, then outsiders might still be able to slip into their perimeter without being noticed. It was better, he said, to be in camouflage, but in a different pattern than that normally seen in the States. The only serious drawback to the decision to standardize with DPMs was that the dollar lost value on foreign exchange markets in the early “Aughts.” Just before the Crunch, the price of DPMs had risen to ninety dollars a set. In retrospect, Todd wished that that they had standardized with a civilian camouflage pattern like Real Tree or Advantage. And at the time there was yet another option available—the plethora of surplus uniforms from former Soviet Bloc countries that flooded the market. Any of these would have been less expensive options than continuing to pay high prices for the increasingly scarce DPMs.
The second point of disagreement over standards, which was never fully settled, was about the group’s standard rifle. Most of the group’s members realized the potential of the powerful 7.62mm NATO cartridge (also known as the .308 Winchester), and wanted to standardize with either the Springfield Armory M1A (a civilian version of the Army’s M14) or the West German HK91 battle rifle. Others, mainly the women and those of small stature such as T.K., wanted to standardize with the less powerful 5.56 mm NATO cartridge, (also known as .223 Remington). A number of good defensive rifles were available chambered in this cartridge, including the Colt AR-15 (a semiautomatic version of the Army’s M16) and its collapsing stock and short-barreled sibling, the Colt CAR-15, later called the M4. Two other well-made alternatives were the Ruger Mini-14 and the Armalite AR-180. One of the main lines of reasoning for .223 was that more cartridges per pound could be carried than with .308. This weight would make a difference on long-range patrols.
The argument over a group standard semiauto rifle raged for three meetings. Dan Fong voiced the key question:“Why do we need a standard rifle anyway? All we need is a standard cartridge. Everyone can just stock their own spare parts.”
Jeff Trasel rebuked: “When we are out on a patrol, and get into a firefight, some of us will undoubtedly run out of ammunition so darn quick that they won’t believe it. At a time like that, when they are shouting to other patrol members for spare ammo, they certainly won’t want to be worrying about whether one magazine will fit in another weapon. That’s why we absolutely need to have a standard rifle. Interchangeability of magazines is the key factor, but interchangeability of spare parts is also a plus.”