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“Tom” the C-130 returned a couple of hours after Carlos left that morning. It was 10:00 am on the second day when Preston heard Je
The barbed wire was weird stuff, and dangerous, as Preston found out when he was helping to stretch it out. Thick protective gloves were needed. The rolls were extremely thick and weighed a couple of hundred pounds. The forklift had been needed to transport them to the gate, which was pretty tough for the little guy on an uneven road surface with its small wheels. It had taken most of the morning to string out the first six rolls. Each roll was placed on the ground and the wire end tied to Preston’s truck. He pulled it away from the roll and the round wire formation just elongated out 100 feet and became a twisted length of dangerous wire, three feet high and three feet in diameter. The next one was pulled out next to the first one, and then the third was placed on top of the first two, creating a triangular effect and becoming a six foot high wall.
The same was done on the other side of the gate, and then the gate was dressed in cut sections of the wire. It still moved, but was virtually impenetrable when shut. Preston left the men and his truck to complete the next 100 feet and returned to inspect the runway.
“Hi Je
“Hi Preston, I’m about 20 minutes out coming in a little heavier this time. I have some Christmas gifts for you from the Rockies,” she replied.
“Wind from the north, five to ten miles an hour, temperature 38 degrees, runway lights are removed, you have the whole field. Over.”
“Roger,” she replied. “Will be coming in from the south, unpacking, and then refueling at your neighbors to the south. They are now up and ru
“Good to hear that. We are heading out anyway to get some extra, just in case, but I’ll wait for you,” he replied.
She came in, her rear tires hitting hard on the ground several feet before the begi
He was surprised to see a small, camouflaged bulldozer and a second forklift back out of the rear of the C-130. That was not all. There were another two dozen troops, tents, two porta-potties, boxes of rations, gas cylinders, and another dozen rolls of barbed wire. Then three large mortars, nearly five feet tall, and dozens of cases of mortar bombs on pallets were lifted out. Lastly, bags of what looked like sandbag cases, on plastic wrapped pallets were forklifted out.
“We are digging in here,” stated Je
“Yes, we installed the first 200 feet of it this morning. Horrible stuff, that barbed wire,” Preston replied. “We are going to need at least 600 yards of the stuff just for the front area and I worked out another 700-800 yards to cover the sides. The rest of the perimeter should be OK with the natural water boundary. We can’t do the whole lot?”
“I agree,” acknowledged Je
Joe radioed in that they were on their way over, and Je
“I saw a couple of little Cessna 172s at the airport and thought of getting someone up there to patrol tomorrow,” said Preston, nodding up at the sky. “When some of our fly-in pilots actually return, and we are almost out of flyers right now, it could be an early warning system to get something up there to serve as a spotter plane. A Cessna 172 could stay up there for four hours at a time, and as long as the heater works, it could give some of our fancy Air Force or civilian pilots some very boring flying time.”
“Nobody thinks that anything will happen today,” replied Je
“How much fuel can the Air Force get their hands on right now?” asked Preston.
“They have set up a system hotwiring one tank of jet fuel at Seymour Johnson. It’s the smallest one of three tanks, but still holds about a million gallons. The other two are bigger. Andrews AFB has your generator up and ru
“Also, before I forget, there are one or two more C-130s in service as of later today, so expect some new traffic in here. I hear we might have three old F-4s serviceable today or tomorrow as well. They were General Allen’s retirement project for the Air Force museums. He told me that he had Tom and Jerry completed, two F-4s at Hill, and a third one at Edwards, I heard. Mother Goose is a surprise—one he wouldn’t even tell me or Sally. Mother Goose should be here sometime today and his ‘surprise’ to you will hopefully be here by morning. Mother Goose is yours, on loan from the Air Force for awhile. I was told not to tell you about her, or the surprise—the even bigger surprise.”