everyone’s attention with its piercing warble. Then he flipped its switch to talk and announced to the frightened audience: “Put all your weapons on the floor, now!
While nearly all the assembled officers hesitantly dropped their pistol belts to the floor, an obese Dutch colonel in the third row named Dekker panicked. He drew his HK USP pistol and leveled it at the American soldiers nearest him. He was breathing heavily, almost gasping. Within a few moments, there were four laser dots dancing around his eyes and forehead. Then Dekker shouted
“That was stupid,” Andy announced on the bullhorn. “Nobody else does anything stupid, and we’ll get along nicely. Now, I want everyone in the front row, and the front row
Andy continued ordering the moviegoers out, gradually, row by row. Outside, they walked into the blinding glare of five mobile floodlights on generator trailers, courtesy of some resistance sympathizers in the Kentucky Highway Department. Immediately outside the theater’s covered wooden entryway, three strands of concertina wire had been strung out to form a rectangular corral measuring 80 by 300 feet. Armed troops and resistance fighters ringed the enclosure, and their intent was clear. There were no attempted escapes.
In all, there were 663 prisoners, mostly men, although there were twenty-six women and two infants. All the adults were put in flex cuffs. Almost immediately, there were pleas for mercy and claims of innocence. After everyone was cuffed, nine high-ranking officers were singled out and taken to the stockade cells at the 34th Military Police Detachment headquarters in Building 204, on Old Ironsides Avenue.
One German captain who had recently been disciplined for making anti-UN statements as well as nineteen Americans were immediately released, after other officers and NCOs vouched that they were anti-ProvGov. But this left a large number whose status was deemed “ambiguous.” This included several women who claimed to be dates or spouses of UNPROFOR officers. But at least two of the women claiming this were recognized as foreign officers dressed in civilian clothes. There was a huge uproar, and shouted calls for various people to be released. Andy’s solution was swift. He shouted, “We take them
Through some careful coordination, at the same time as the Waybur Theater roundup, all the radio and television stations inside the collapsing area of UNPROFOR control began broadcasting resistance victory shows and playing patriotic music. Resistance forces congregated at the broadcast studios and transmitter sites to prevent UNPROFOR interference. Meanwhile, newspapers across the country were preparing Fourth of July victory editions. Announcing that all UN units had conceded defeat and were laying down their arms—although it wasn’t completely true—was a strategic masterstroke of PSYOPS, since it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. This was a fait accompli on a grand scale.
As the news of the impending victory spread, more than 10,000 militia unit members from as far away as Georgia, Arkansas, Iowa, Michigan, and Pennsylvania began overnight drives to Fort Knox. They had a celebration to attend.
There was a long delay before the prisoners from the Waybur were loaded onto eighty-passenger personnel carrier vans, since each one had to be individually searched. Not counting the 416 pistols and revolvers that had been dropped to the floor of the theater, the troops found eighteen pistols in shoulder and waistband holsters, eighty-four pocketknives, fifteen boot knives, twenty-nine sheath knives, two garrotes, seven saps, three pairs of brass knuckles, four nunchakus, three hand grenades, and twenty-six containers of pepper spray or tear gas. There were also more than 100 cell phones and radios confiscated, forming a large pile on the pavement.
The personnel carrier vans, each towed by a tractor truck, were a familiar sight at Army forts where basic training and Advanced Individual Training (AIT) were conducted. These replaced the older “silver side” cattle cars, but still looked very utilitarian. The vans also worked fine for hauling prisoners when they had their doors chained shut. Escorting Humvees bristling with guns ensured that none of the prisoners tried to leap from the windows.
At the same time that the arrests were going on at the Waybur, many Hutchings cabinet staffers and UN officers were also arrested. Some who were considered high-risk were jailed in the Building 204 Stockade.
By dawn, the group at the Abrams Auditorium swelled, with an additional 416 foreign officers and NCOs arrested on- or off-post during the rest of the night. By the next evening they began shuttling the prisoners in groups of thirty to a new makeshift prison camp that was set up in the old Basic Combat Training (BCT) Disney Barracks complex—the area commonly called “Disneyland.”
Creating the prison fence around the barracks complex took all three companies of the 19th Engineer Battalion two full days. Almost 200 pallets of concertina and razor wire were strung out and stacked six courses high. Some of the NCO prisoners were ignominiously detailed to help string the wire for their own prison camp. Three days later, the temporary concertina wire fence was supplemented by an array of passive IR sensors. Then a chain link fence was added, also topped with concertina wire.
Of the UNPROFOR troops who were arrested during the summer of victory, there were a few suicides by known rapists and “liquidators” who feared being brought to justice. After some debate, the Restoration of the Constitution Government (RCG) issued a general amnesty to UNPROFOR troops for embezzlement, theft, possession of stolen goods, and possession of stolen military property, but for no other crimes. The logic was that even some ostensibly good officers and NCOs had been given a share of loot. The prevailing culture in the New Army, it was argued, was to accept a share of loot, or else be suspected of disloyalty.
27. Anthem
“Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure than they have it now, They may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty. They will only exchange Tyrants and Tyrannies.”
At just before noon on July Fourth, everyone congregated at the Brooks Field parade ground. They quietly lowered the UN flag and raised Old Glory without much fanfare. Resistance soldiers cut up the UN banner into small swatches for souvenirs.
A mobile PA system was set up, with a pair of speakers and a microphone stand. There was no time to arrange for a band to play or for an artillery salute, but a bespectacled former Marine with a double chin and an amazing singing voice gave an a cappella rendition of all four verses of “The Star-Spangled Banner”:
