Founders (10 page)

There were no weapons or vehicles at Malmstrom that hadn’t already been issued. But because of his assigned security duties, Joshua was able to obtain an AN/PVS-14 night vision monocular, issued on a semipermanent hand receipt. The monocular was a third-generation (“Gen 3”) design with amazing clarity and sensitivity.

Just after he was promoted to assistant manager, Ken had an after-hours conversation with his boss, during which he mentioned that he objected to the foul language that had become frequent in the shop. Chet Hailey agreed, and gave Ken the authority to crack down on it. They agreed that Ken would have the say-so about behavior on the shop floor, and spent some time discussing a strategy and some new policies.

Ken waited a few days until he heard a particularly foul word that was shouted loud enough for everyone to hear. Ken shouted more loudly, “Drop your wrenches! Stand Down meeting in Chet’s office, ASAP!” This was a seldom-called meeting of everyone in the shop. Heretofore, they had been called only over safety issues.

Once everyone was in Chet’s office, Ken declared, “There is a problem in this shop with foul and profane language, and it has to stop. We are professionals here, and we need to treat each other with courtesy and respect. We also have to keep our customers, their kids, and the front office staff in mind. In the past few months the language here has gotten worse,
noticeably
worse. Nobody should be expected to work with that sort of language. You all know what I’m talking about, so there isn’t any need to spell it out.”

Tina, the shop’s diminutive payroll and accounting clerk, who was listening from the office doorway, gave a thumbs-up in agreement.

The junior-most mechanic—who was also the shop’s washer/detailer—voiced his objection. “You called a Stand Down over
that
?”

“Yes I did. I expect everyone to grow up, and cut out the gutter talk. There will be no more foul words used in this shop. Period. You will each be given just one warning.”

Another mechanic interjected, “But—”

Ken cut him off. “This is not a subject that is open to debate or discussion. No ifs, ands, or buts. I’m laying down the law. If you don’t like it, then see Tina to arrange your final pay. I’ve got a whole stack of applications from experienced guys who are looking for work.”

At that, everyone’s eyes turned to Chet, who put on a thin smile, and gave an exaggerated nod.

Ken declared, “Meeting adjourned.”

“At any rate, cost what it may, to separate ourselves from those who separate themselves from the truth of God is not alone our liberty, but our duty.”

—Charles H. Spurgeon

Joshua was a lapsed Baptist. Since joining the Air Force, he had only rarely attended church, mainly when he was at home with his parents on leave. He felt guilty about his backsliding. He often made excuses to himself and others, citing his duty schedule and the long driving distance from his rental house to the Baptist church near Great Falls that he liked best. But the truth was that he missed the interaction with his family and his old friends in eastern Washington. He simply hadn’t made the effort to find the right church home near Malmstrom.

The same day that Joshua moved in, Jim took him aside and declared, “Let me lay down some Monroe Doctrine for you. I know you’re a Christian. I wouldn’t have blessed your marrying my daughter if you weren’t. But if you are going to live in my house, then I expect you to attend home church meetings with us. We take turns meeting at different houses with the Webber and Boskill families. The circumstances these days necessitate that one
of us will have to be here to guard the house at all times. So on the Sundays when the home church meeting is over at the Webbers’ or at the Boskills’, then either you or I will take turns staying home. Otherwise, I consider attendance mandatory. Do I make myself clear?”

Kelly had warned Joshua that whenever her father used the “Monroe Doctrine” phrase he should take him very seriously. So Joshua replied, gravely, “I wouldn’t have it any other way, sir. You have my word that I will cease any backsliding.”

Malmstrom was better prepared for economic collapse than most other Air Force facilities. It was located in a lightly populated region, so it was well removed from the urban chaos that engulfed many of the bases in the eastern U.S. and on the west coast. The base also had deep logistics stockpiles. The logistical redundancy was due to the climate, and partly because the base was spread out over such a large area of Montana.

The runway at Malmstrom had been deactivated from regular fixed-wing use many years before the Crunch, and repainted with herringboned rings of helicopter landing donut markings. The massive hangars that once handled maintenance and repair of KC-135 tankers mostly stood empty. But one hangar had been repurposed to hold a squadron of six-seat UH-1N helicopters. These twin-engine variants of the venerable Bell Huey were reliable, but in the years following the collapse parts shortages forced them to cannibalize two of the helicopters to keep the others flying.

Three weeks into the Crunch, all of the squadrons at Malmstrom were taken off alert status, primarily due to personnel shortages. In all, nearly 40 percent of the base personnel went AWOL, because their pay was essentially worthless, because they couldn’t
obtain gasoline to commute, or because of worry for the safety of their family members. Of those who remained, most were soon put on “Special Reserve status,” which was a polite way of saying, “We can’t pay you, feed you, or house you, but we still need your help.” Watanabe was in this category.

Joshua was tasked with maintaining security of the A-01 MAF and its ten surrounding silos. To accomplish this, he drove the Monroes’ diesel Unimog to patrol the more distant silos, and rode his horse to the MAF and the closer silos except in the worst weather.

While many other Air Force bases were abandoned in the wholesale societal chaos of the Crunch, all of the bases that controlled nuclear weapons maintained some integrity. Brigadier General Anthony Woolson, the base commander, still showed up at his office every day to check the status of his dwindling organizations. The entire base command took on the name “Malmstrom Operations Group,” and the command structure was radically streamlined. There were no longer separate wings or squadrons, there was just “The Operations Group,” often simply called “The Wing.”

The 341st’s slab-fronted headquarters building had stylized 1960s architecture. The center section of the building had all glass walls. Because the power was frequently off, the remaining staff moved their offices to the center section so there would be enough light available to work. But after they spent the first few months bundled up in pile caps and parkas, General Woolson moved his entire staff to the 40th Helicopter Squadron’s hangar. The building had originally been designed for maintenance of KC-135s, so it was built on a grand scale. Following Woolson’s orders, the hangar had been retrofitted with enormous coal-fired space heaters situated in three corners of the building. The southwest corner of the hangar was dominated by a coal pile. This coal was shuttled to the heaters in wheelbarrows.

Locals had started mining a surface coal seam just west of Lehigh, a few miles southwest of Windham, and the coal was delivered in a five-yard-capacity dump truck that simply drove into the hangar when the main door was opened. The new coal mining co-op was thrilled to swap coal for JP-4, since they needed the liquid fuel to operate their heavy equipment. For lighting and for power to run tools and communications equipment, a 20-KW diesel generator set up outside was run continuously.

Most of the 341st’s offices were in trailers that had been towed into the hangar and clustered around two of the heaters. Because of the trailers and the coal pile, they never lost the feeling that they were camping out inside the hangar.

General Woolson’s office was spartan. A black-and-white still photo from the 1936 British movie
Things to Come
decorated the wall behind his desk. The photo showed a post-apocalyptic warlord chief in a crudely made Angora wool jacket, wearing a steel helmet, and holding a revolver. It was meant as a joke, but Woolson sometimes felt like the man in the photo, especially when the talk in the office turned to cannibalizing aircraft.

When the western power grid collapsed, the widely separated MAFs reverted to backup power. Their generators were fueled by tanks that averaged 1,800-gallon capacity. It didn’t take long for Woolson’s logistics planners to do the math and conclude that an order had to be given soon to shut down the backup generators. It was better, they concluded, to keep some fuel on hand for contingent needs rather than to run the tanks completely dry.

After the backup generators had been shut down, the MAFs became essentially uninhabitable. So Woolson’s command had to rely on volunteer “eyes and ears” to make sure that the unmanned MAFs and LFs remained secure from intrusion. There were surprisingly few security breaches. In the first year after the Crunch began, only two deserted but locked MAFs had their aboveground offices ransacked by looters. There were also signs of a halfhearted
attempted forced entry at one of the silos at the far end of Judith Basin County, but given the design, whoever had cut through the fence soon gave up on attacking the massive door.

Farmers and ranchers on the land surrounding the silos and MAFs were deputized by the 341st. They were given written “authorized deadly force” orders for anyone making forced entry. Coordination of security for each MAF and its associated silos was made the responsibility of one senior airman, usually E-5 or higher. Joshua Watanabe was one of just two E-4s entrusted with this job. The only other E-4 who had been given the responsibility was a security forces specialist.

“I, as President do declare that the national emergency still exists; that the continued private hoarding of gold and silver by subjects of the United States poses a grave threat to peace, equal justice, and well-being of the United States; and that appropriate measures must be taken immediately to protect the interest of our people. Therefore, pursuant to the above authority, I hereby proclaim that such gold and silver holdings are prohibited, and that all such coin, bullion or other possessions of gold and silver be tendered within fourteen days to agents of the Government of the United States for compensation at the official price, in the legal tender of the Government. All safe deposit boxes in banks or financial institutions have been sealed pending action in the due course of the law. All sales or purchases or movements of such gold and silver within the borders of the United States and its territories, and all foreign exchange transactions or movements of such metals across the border are hereby prohibited.”

—Proclamation by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, April 5, 1933

Sheila Randall owned a tidy little general store in Bradfordsville. Nearly half of the store’s display cases held gardening seeds. This was the inventory that first made Sheila well known in Marion
County. The rest of the cases held a wide variety of sewing supplies, hand tools, canned foods, batteries, flashlights, fishing tackle, knives, rucksacks, and other artifacts of the recently ended age of mass production. By current standards, Sheila Randall was a very prosperous business owner. She had patiently and shrewdly built up the store’s inventory, carefully trading from her initial supply of garden seeds, which had fit in one car trunk, when she, her son, and her elderly grandmother fled Radcliff, Kentucky, during the worst of the chaos in the early days of the Crunch.

Six months into the Crunch, Sheila learned that a Provisional Government (ProvGov) had been formed at Fort Knox, Kentucky. It was the brainchild of Maynard Hutchings, a member of the Hardin County board of supervisors. Although he had originally intended it to govern only Hardin County, it quickly grew beyond county lines and state lines, because it had the cooperative muscle provided by the U.S. Army units at Fort Knox. And, with the backing of the National Gold Depository, the Hutchings government had gravitas.

In Bradfordsville, ProvGov representatives delivered posters to be placed prominently at the post office, town hall, Bradfordsville Performing Arts Center, and at the old Bradfordsville School building. The latter had in recent years been turned into a senior center and designated storm shelter. The Provisional Government’s new poster read:

B-A-N-N-E-D

Effective Upon Posting in a prominent place in each County and in effect until further notice, the following items are hereby banned from private possession by the recently enacted Amplified United Nations Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) Normalization Accord:

1. All fully automatic or short-barreled rifles and shotguns (regardless of prior registration under the National Firearms Act of 1934).

2. Any rifle over thirty (.30) caliber, any shotgun or weapon of any description over twelve (12) gauge in diameter.

3. All semiautomatic rifles and shotguns, all rifles and shotguns capable of accepting a detachable magazine.

4. Any detachable magazines, regardless of capacity.

5. Any weapon with a fixed magazine that has a capacity of more than four (4) cartridges (or shells).

6. All grenades and grenade launchers, all explosives, detonating cord, and blasting caps (regardless of prior registration under the Gun Control Act of 1968 or state or local blasting permits).

7. All explosives precursor chemicals.

8. All firearms regardless of type that are chambered for military cartridges (including but not limited to 7.62mm NATO, 5.56mm NATO, .45 ACP, and 9mm Parabellum).