The other was Lisa, who roughly once a month would get into a verbal fight with someone or throw a temper tantrum over something that annoyed her. In most cases, she stormed off to her room and pouted. The next morning she would emerge, make her apologies, and then act as if nothing had happened.
T.K. counseled anyone who was showing signs of irritability or depression.
Both most commonly occurred during the winter months, when everyone was by necessity living in close quarters. His counseling sessions usually consisted of a half an hour of prayer, questions and answers, some advice, and occasionally a good cry. T.K.’s never-flagging positive attitude and sense of humor did a lot to keep everyone else in good spirits. It was infectious.
One evening, when everyone around the dinner table was quiet and glum, absorbed in their own thoughts, T.K. yelled “Food fight!” He started throwing dehydrated peas at anyone and everyone. It turned into a major conflagration, with peas and instant mashed potatoes flung with abandon for at least a full minute. When the combat and the laughter died down, T.K. did most of the cleaning up of the food and putting it in Shona’s scrap bowl. The clean up job took nearly half an hour. As he later explained to Todd, it was worth it just to hear everyone laughing.
LP/OP duty was a tremendously boring experience. Aside from being able to watch the sun rise and set, and refamiliarizing themselves with the constella-tions, there was not a lot to do. Reading while on guard duty was forbidden, lest a picket lose track of time and let an intruder slip in. There were a few false alarms at first, mostly caused by visiting deer, porcupines, and bears. Eventually, though, everyone became familiar with the normal activity patterns, sights, and sounds of the game.
At night, guards listened for sounds of movement or vehicle engines. They also watched for any of the twenty trip flares that were set up around the perimeter. These military surplus M49A1 trip flares were strapped to the sides of trees and poles. They were mechanically activated when anyone stumbled into their trip wires. At first, a few were inadvertently set off by group members forgetting where they were located. A few more were tripped by deer or by Shona. This latter phenomenon ended when all of the trip flares were repositioned to a greater height. During daylight and twilight hours, pickets glassed the hillsides and the county road in both directions with binoculars. For countless days, nothing happened. No one was seen on the county road. Kevin Lendel aptly described LP/OP duty as “tedium ad nauseam.”
It was Lisa’s turn at picket duty when something finally interrupted the monotony. She stood in the LP/OP, snuggled in a surplus N-3B Extreme Cold Weather parka, occasionally stamping her feet, watching the gathering gray gloom of dawn. As she was looking at the tree line at the back of the property, Lisa heard Shona barking. She turned to see four pickup trucks in a tight column, coming down the gravel county road, running with only parking lights on.
As soon as she saw the trucks, Lisa picked up the TA-1 field telephone and pulsed the clacker on its side. Mary, who was on C.Q. duty, answered. “There are four rigs in a row coming in from the west. Just a minute… They are slowing down. They are stopping at the front gate. Get everybody up, now. Now, now, now!” Mary hit the panic switch. Mallory Sonalerts throughout the house began emitting a piercing, high-pitched tone.
Everything started happening very quickly when a man carrying a pair of thirty-six-inch bolt cutters hopped out the passenger side of the lead truck and ran up to the gate. Lisa rotated the selector switch on her CAR-15 and popped open the carbine’s scope covers. “Crud! Hardly enough light,” she cursed to herself. At about the same time, the gate swung open and the lead pickup gunned its engine. The truck didn’t stop to pick up the man at the gate, who had dropped prone and out of sight in the high grass and teasels.
Lisa sighted on the passenger side window of the second pickup, which was slowing down to negotiate the turn a hundred yards down the hill from her foxhole. She fired two rounds, and missed, her shots passing well over the cab of the pickup. The words “Slow down, Breathe, Relax, Aim, Slack, and Squeeeeze, or you won’t hit anything” echoed in her mind. With her next two shots, the passenger window of the third pickup crumpled satisfactorily. By now the first of the trucks was less than seventy-five yards from the house. Lisa continued to fire, much more rapidly, primarily at the backs of the pickups.
Inside the house, it was pandemonium. “From the front, four trucks!” Mary yelled.
Todd was the first in the house to start shooting, his HK91 bucking steadily against his shoulder. Just as most of the others got to their prearranged positions behind the slotted steel plates over the windows, three of the four trucks disappeared from view, wheeling quickly behind the barn. The fourth sped on, heading for the chain-link fence that surrounded the house.
No driver was visible behind the truck’s smashed windshield as it hit the fence. The fence gave way with seeming effortlessness. The pickup then skidded sideways and nearly rolled over as it came to a stop only twenty-five feet from the house. A crescendo of fire that sounded more like tearing canvas than individual shots peppered the side of the truck. Its driver and anyone who might have been lying in the truck’s bed were undoubtedly well ventilated.
Thirty seconds later, the firing stopped. Not out of self control, but rather because every one of the guns on the south side of the house were empty. All except Todd’s. After firing most of a twenty-round magazine, he replaced it with his one and only thirty-round magazine, scanning for targets. “Reload, and fire only at definite targets!” Todd shouted. He then heard the clatter of numerous rifles being reloaded.
“What on Earth’s happening up there?” asked Della from the back bedroom.
“Shut up and watch your sector of fire!” Todd shouted in reply.
A man briefly emerged from around the corner of the barn and fired three rounds from a SKS carbine at the house. All three rounds bounced harmlessly off the steel plates covering the windows. His shots were returned by several volleys from the house, which sent the man scurrying back behind the cover of the barn. The man popped the SKS around the corner and emptied it blindly.
Only two rounds hit the house. Another volley of return fire from the house shredded the corner of the metal barn.
Todd quietly asked himself, “Now what?” He could not see any movement behind the barn, far off to his right. All that he could do was wait.
The only one with a view of the attackers, and a partial view at that, was Lisa, one-hundred-and-fifty yards away at the LP/OP. She could see two of them, both armed with riot shotguns, and the back end of one of the pickups.
Fighting to control her breathing, she said quietly to herself, “Now let’s do this right.” She reached down into her ALICE pack and pulled out the bipod for her CAR-15. She clamped on the bipod and tried to center the four-power scope’s crosshairs on one of the attackers. This took some time because she was shooting downhill and the bipod’s legs were the wrong length. Only after she had shifted her position so that she rested on her knees on the chair was she able to acquire her target.
She fired twice, hitting the first man cleanly between the shoulder blades on the first shot. She couldn’t be sure about the second shot. Lisa quickly changed her point of aim to the second man, who at that time was dropping to the ground to take cover. She felt no recoil and heard nothing when she pulled the trigger. At first Lisa thought that her CAR-15 had jammed, but soon realized that its bolt carrier was locked to the rear—the magazine was empty.