Trial By Fire (29 page)

Unfortunately, no one, not even Molina, could have predicted the strange border attacks that the United States was complaining of. Though no one doubted that something was happening along the border between the United States and Mexico, everyone was at a loss to explain who was behind it and why they were attempting to provoke the United States.

Each member of the council had his own pet theory, based on his personal and political beliefs. Zavala was convinced that the provocateurs were leftists, attempting to egg the United States into doing what they them selves could not do, eliminate the Council of 13. Colonel Angel Ruiz, minister of justice, agreed with the motivation but thought that the drug lords were involved in the raids, providing financial support if not manpower.

Molina,

ever the great mediator, refused to publicly support any theory.

Instead, he took a very practical approach. It didn’t matter, he pointed out, who was behind the raids against the Americans. What was important was the fact that they were occurring and, more importantly, that they were preventing the recognition of the council by the United States and driving American politicians toward extreme measures for solving the problem. To succeed, the council needed time to establish itself and its authority, reorganize state and political apparatuses, and, equally important, revive Mexico’s economy. A war, regardless of how short, would cripple these efforts. With this in mind, Molina, with the backing of the entire council, gave Guajardo a free hand to deal with the problem as he saw fit. The only restriction placed upon him was the need to do so quickly and without causing the Americans any further alarm.

Guajardo, as he half listened to his fellow councilmen, wondered how he could achieve the last. Any efforts to reinforce or increase military activity in the northern states were bound to increase American suspicions and fears. How, he had asked, can a man go about arming himself without worrying his neighbor? Eventually, he pointed out, that neighbor will feel the need to do likewise in order to protect himself. Not to do so, he said, would be, in the eyes of his family, criminal. Molina, speaking for the rest of the council, simply replied, “Do your best, my friend. That is all we can ask of you.”

Headquarters, 16th Armored Division, Fort Hood, Texas 0915 hours, 11 August

Finished with his morning run and fresh from a shower, Scott Dixon was ready to begin some serious work. Walking through the admin section of the G3 shop in search of his first cup of coffee, he told his deputy to have someone from the G3 plans section bring all of the
GREEN
plans and the briefing slides for them to his office and that no one, under pain of death, was to disturb him.

While Dixon sat at his desk, sorting through the heap of papers and memos stacked in his in-box, a clerk from the plans section came into his office and set a thick green loose-leaf binder, a large covered map board, and a stack of framed transparencies on the end of the conference table that sat perpendicular to his desk. As the clerk left, he asked her to close the door behind her. For a moment, Dixon looked at the loose-leaf binder, then at the muddle of notes and papers he still had left in his in-box. He thought about leaving the in-box until later, but decided against that.

Maybe, just maybe, he thought, there might be something of importance hidden deep in there. Against his better judgment, he finished sorting through his in-box. No doubt his deputy, whose task it was to ensure that all paperwork was straight, accounted for, and on time, would be relieved.

His

routine complete, Dixon took his coffee cup and the stack of papers he had reviewed and written comments on and walked out to his deputy’s desk. Dropping the papers in the center of the deputy’s otherwise neat desk, Dixon wandered over to the coffeepot, refilled his cup, and then returned to his office to review the
GREEN
plans.

The name of the division’s contingency plans for intervention in Mexico had a story all its own. Before World War II, the army had a comprehensive series of war plans, referred to as the
RAINBOW
plans, to deal with the threats that faced the United States in 1940. These plans were based on individual single-color war plans developed by the War Department, as the Department of the Army was then known, between 1920 and 1940 to deal with each nation that was considered a threat to the United States. Under that system, any plan dealing with Mexico was referred to as a
GREEN
plan. The
GREEN
plan, the most highly developed of all the War Department’s plans, was in turn a derivative of the General Mexican War Plan that was first drafted in 1919.

The 1919 plan called for sealing the borders of the United States, seizing the Mexican oil fields in Tampico as well as the coal fields just south of Texas, blockading the principal Mexican seaports, and cutting Mexico off from other Central American countries. Since many of the goals of the current.
XIX
Corps war plans were the same as the old
GREEN
plans, Dixon, with a degree in history from
VMI
, had decided to name the 16th Armored Division’s draft war plans for Mexico the
GREEN
plans. Big Al, the division commander, who liked to keep things simple, had kept the name.

There were actually six different and distinct contingency plans within the
GREEN
plans.
GREEN
ONE
was purely defensive, dealing only with the sealing of the border of the United States and the repelling of attacks up to the Mexican-United States border but nothing beyond. The sealing of the border, the primary operation in
GREEN
ONE
, was only an initial phase in all other
GREEN
plans.
GREEN
TWO
included the sealing of the border but assumed the active assistance of the Mexican military, which allowed combined Mexican-American operations south of the border.

GREEN
THREE
called for destruction of hostile forces south of the border, but assumed that the Mexican military would neither cooperate with nor interfere with those operations.
GREEN
FOUR
assumed that the Mexican military would defend its territorial integrity if the United States attempted to follow and destroy hostile forces south of the border.

GREEN
FIVE
called for occupation of selected areas in northern Mexico as a buffer against incursions against the United States.
GREEN
SIX
, the thickest of the plans, called for an all-out invasion with the goal of toppling the military regime and reestablishment of a freely elected democratic government. There was a
GREEN
SEVEN
plan, but since it included the employment of nuclear weapons, it was classified top secret, special compartmented information, and not available to the 16th Armored Division.

Each of these contingency plans, in turn, had at least three variations.

For example,
GREEN
ONE-i included only the two active-duty brigades of the 16th Armored Division.
GREEN
ONE-2 required three brigades, with the third brigade being the 173rd Infantry Brigade from Fort Benning, Georgia.
GREEN
ONE-3, also calling for three brigades, required the mobilization and deployment of the 16th Armored Division’s National Guard round-out brigade from Mississippi.

While it was the responsibility of the G3 plans section to draft all the plans and their various permutations, based on the division commander’s general concept of operations and Dixon’s specific instructions, Dixon had to ensure that the plans were complete, made sense, and had been coordinated with the other staff sections. This was not easy, especially when Dixon often found the intelligence estimates upon which the plans were based wanting. Unable to gather their own information, the G2

intelligence section of the division depended on the intelligence estimates provided by the
XIX
Corps G2 section. These estimates, in turn, were based upon those produced by national-level agencies, namely the
CIA
and the
DIA
, whose products Dixon had good reason to suspect. Using those estimates for the creation of operational war plans was, as Dixon pointed out on numerous occasions, like building a house on a dung heap.

Still, until those estimates changed, they were all he had to work with.

Dixon, scheduled to brief the concept of
GREEN
plans to a group of visiting congressmen and their staffers that afternoon, needed to refresh his knowledge and make notes for the briefing. Under normal circumstances, he would have spent little if any time preparing for a congressional delegation. Ordinarily, few, if any, of the members of the delegation would have had any real conception of what was being dis cussed. Today, however, Congressman Ed Lewis of Tennessee would be present. Lewis, a veteran and a member of the House Intelligence Committee, knew his stuff. Dixon wouldn’t be able to hip-shoot with him in the audience.

With his feet up on the table, his coffee cup in one hand, the green loose-leaf binder in his lap, the map board showing the operational graphics before him, and the slides to one side, Dixon prepared himself for the briefing.

Officers and Civilians’ Open Mess, Fort Hood, Texas 1845 hours, 11 August

Jan had so seldom come onto post that she had needed to stop for directions three times before she found the officers club. Embarrassed at being late, she decided to say nothing about why she was late. Instead, she entered the room where the staff of the 16th Armored Division was gathered, careful not to attract attention while looking for Scott. When she spotted him talking to the division intelligence officer, she maneuvered herself until she was able to approach him from behind. Coming up to his side, she slipped her hand around his arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. “There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you, Scotty dear.”

Looking over at her, Dixon grinned. He was about to ask if she had gotten lost again when Big Al came up.

With a loud and sincere welcome, Big Al greeted her. “Well, I see Scott has unshackled you from the stove long enough to come out and join us.”

Towering half a head over Big Al, Jan looked at the general then turned to Dixon. “Scott dear, do we have a stove?’!

This caused the general to laugh and Dixon to roll his eyes. Grabbing Jan by the arm, Big Al began to escort her away. “You, my dear, will probably dehydrate if you wait for that tombstone of a boyfriend to get you a drink. Come with me and let a dirty old man buy you one.”

“That, sir, would be a pleasure. No doubt Scott has told you I specialize in dirty old men, which is what keeps me going with him.”

Again, the general let out an unabashed laugh. “Scott, this is too much woman to be wasted on a tanker. She deserves an aviator, like me.”

Dixon threw his hands out in mock surrender. “As always, sir, you know best.”

With a smile the general pointed at Dixon. “Damn straight, that’s why I’m the general. Now, if you’ll excuse us, Colonel, I would like to introduce Jan to some people.”

With Jan gone, Dixon headed for the cash bar. En route, he ran across Captain Cerro, who was carrying two bottles of beer. Dixon stopped and looked at the young officer and the beer in his hands, and raised his eyebrows. “A real two-fisted drinker.”

Cerro looked at the beers, then at Dixon. “Well, no, not actually. One of them is for someone else, but I can’t find him right now.” Then as an afterthought, he offered one to Dixon. “Here, sir, might as well before it gets warm. I hope you don’t mind Corona. I hear tell that’s the official drink of the 16th.”

“Actually, I’m a Coors Light man myself, but since division policy states that field grade officers cannot refuse free beer, I couldn’t possibly refuse.” He took a sip, then held the bottle out at arm’s length. “Well, it ain’t Coors, but what the hell.” Turning back to Cerro, he asked how he was getting on in his new job.

As Cerro began to talk, recounting an incident of several days ago with one of the female infantry lieutenants, he realized that he had been with the G3 section for over a month, and yet this was only the second time he had had the opportunity to talk to the G3 one on one. It wasn’t like Dixon had been hiding. Dixon was always there. In fact, sometimes, it appeared that he was everywhere. Even when he was out inspecting training or at a briefing, his presence still seemed to permeate the offices of the G3

section. His majors, and he seemed to have a lot of them, referred to him as El Jefe, Spanish for “the leader.” He, in turn, referred to them as his Middle-Aged Mutant Ninja Majors.

The entire section, and how it operated, threatened to cause Cerro to redefine how he viewed staff officers and, in particular, Lieutenant Colonel Scott Dixon. The casual and seemingly relaxed atmosphere that had struck him in the beginning as the sign of a slack organization was, in truth, the outward indication of a well-working machine. It was a machine cast in the image of its creator, Lieutenant Colonel Dixon. Like him, the G3 section always seemed to be in motion, moving forward, in many directions, in a very deliberate and purposeful way. What was most amazing to Cerro was the efficiency of the whole operation. There was little wasted motion. In the month that he had been there, he had heard of only one meeting between the G3 and his majors, and that had lasted less than half an hour. And yet, Dixon seemed to be on top of everything.

Cerro had watched one day as a parade of officers, both G3 officers and officers from other staff sections, went into and out of Dixon’s office.

Each officer, with a different subject or problem, had filed into Dixon’s office, summarized what he needed from the G3, and, in turn, received guidance or new instructions from Dixon. Without skipping a beat, Dixon had listened, considered, decided what needed to be done, and issued his instructions in terms that even a finance officer could understand.