Glimmer of Hope (Land of Tomorrow Book 1)

Part I, Chapter 11

Major General Butch Matthews thought that any plan that went exactly as planned was probably destined for a big painful surprise, and the excursion to Fort Campbell went almost too well. The toughest part of the mission so far was negotiating and re-negotiating the fifty or so miles of blocked roads leading from the Jackson Purchase to the abandoned army post. They had brought a wrecker to help pull abandoned vehicles out of the roadways.

Butch thought it was also smart that they came with plenty of armed soldiers. Although there weren’t yet any issues, Butch just felt like he was being watched, and in his experience that feeling usually came right before someone started shooting at him.

Master Sergeant Johnny Robels was true to his word. After making their way through an unmanned checkpoint along the back edge of the post that morning, they first proceeded to one of the brigade motor pools and commandeered several large five-ton trucks as well as six huge fuel tankers. They then drove to base fuel points, cut the locks off the fuel tank covers, fired up a generator, and filled the vehicles and the fuel trucks to the brim. The fuel wasn’t a major objective of their plan, but when Butch saw the tankers, he just couldn’t resist.

Robels next took them to the base ammunition supply point, where he pulled a big ring of keys out of his pocket and proceeded to open the large heavy doors to the squat structure built into the grassy hillside.

Once inside, Butch was relieved. His plan rested on their ability to arm themselves quickly. When he saw the inside of the huge underground warehouse, he knew they had found what they were looking for.

Not only were there large pallets of 5.56 rifle ammunition, there was 7.62 and .50 caliber machine gun ammunition. 60 and 80 millimeter mortar rounds, 40 millimeter grenades, claymore mines, antitank mines and rockets were in abundance. After conferring with Robels, Butch left half of his men to load up the ammunition and took Robels and the other half to several unit arms rooms nearby to procure weapons.

Getting into the arms rooms was much harder than getting into the ammo supply point, but Robels was an old hat. They dug into each concrete arms room from above using pickaxes and sledge hammers. Robels explained that the ceiling was the weak point of these ‘vaults’, which mainly relied upon electronic measures and warning signs to deter anyone from trying to get in. After cutting locks off weapons racks, they loaded several thousand M4 rifles, a few hundred machine guns, and as many grenade launchers as they could find. Additionally, they loaded dozens of mortar tubes from the division headquarters arms room. Butch almost didn’t bother with the night vision goggles, knowing they would be useless without batteries, but in the end he grabbed twenty pairs of these as well. They also secured Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifles from the 5th Special Forces Group arms room, as well as radios and medical supplies.

Initially, Butch also had planned to take uniforms, equipment, backpacks and other basic items, but they simply did not have the room after loading all the weapons and ammo. They had already fueled up more trucks and were at maximum capacity with two soldiers per vehicle, one driver and one man riding shotgun. Besides, there were lots of places to get equipment and uniforms even if they were forced to make them. Weapons and ammo were another story.

Finally, near dusk, everyone was ready to depart. They locked the ammo supply point back up, having not even made a significant dent in the massive stock of ammunition. The men worked straight through in a fever without a break. They were tired and soaked through with sweat. The base itself was strangely quiet. They didn’t see anyone, but felt unseen eyes upon them. Robels noted there were still individuals and small groups of soldiers around when he departed several months ago with his family, but he guessed they drifted away on their own when food became scarce.

Butch decided he did not want to spend the night on the base and ordered everyone to load up. They would drive at least an hour west and then camp out in some field if needed.