Forest Road # 245
North of Missoula, Montana
April
Dressed in camouflage BDU’s, a thick, silvery beard covering the lower half of his face, Thorton Campbell, known to his associates as Thor, sat quietly at the head of the rough wooden table. Two men sat on his right and one on his left while a large group of men filed into the room. Fifty-five years old, with piercing blue eyes, closely cropped gray hair and a steely gaze that covered the room in a slow, calculated sweep, all that was lacking to fulfill the image of a highland warrior was a crested shield, a breastplate of stiffened leather, and a green, black, and blue tartan kilt.
Six generations after the original Scottish immigrant, Angus Campbell, had cleared a hundred and sixty acres, Thor had abandoned the original Campbell family farm in Minnesota. Five years earlier, when Thor had retired from the Army after twenty-eight years of service and two major wars, Vietnam and Gulf I, he had settled in northern Montana.
Always aware he wasn’t cut out to be a farmer like his ancestors, the former Army Ranger had graduated from the Virginia Military Institute, entered active duty, and had retired as a lieutenant colonel. Two negative efficiency reports and a formal charge of negligence had stopped his rise to full colonel. In 2004, twice-divorced and uncertain of what to do after the Army, he had purchased a fishing and hunting supply store about ten miles north of Missoula and quickly found common ground with the local militia unit, becoming their small-arms instructor. Elevation to command of the platoon-sized membership came quickly by virtue of his natural leadership skills and the fact that he was the only one among the group who had held a valid military commission. No one else in the unit had more than eight years’ enlisted service, two of those becoming NCO’s. Only two had seen combat, and about half had never served on active duty beyond the initial stint in boot camp. The Blackfoot Brigade, about forty-two strong at its core, with additional members in various levels of activity, ranged in age from seventeen to sixty-eight. Campbell had invited only three of his command staff to attend this gathering, including both of the combat veterans who now served as unit NCO’s.
All in all, during the past two days, about eighty staff officers had arrived from over a dozen militia units, settling into the stark accommodations at Camp Brockton, so named after a popular local youth who had excelled at football in the 60’s, and then won the Silver Star posthumously in Vietnam in 1967 at the age of nineteen. The gathering of unrelated units was unprecedented. They represented the broader western region-north to Washington state, south to Arizona, northwest along Idaho’s panhandle to the Canadian border, and east to Colorado-with most of the states in-between represented. Campbell had driven to each region, contacting the top leadership of these separate militia groups, requesting them to meet and discuss the new terrorist threat facing America. The terrorist attack throughout the nation, coming on the heels of Campbell’s invitation, had been fortuitous, raising the group to a fever pitch and giving Campbell status as someone who was knowledgeable. Someone had to deal with these rag-heads, was the prevailing outcry.
Traditionally, paramilitary groups preferred to act alone, content to battle the government with words and small acts of rebellion, tax avoidance, or inflammatory statements aimed at showing their neighbors that the authorities were not as invulnerable as they seemed. The occasional stand-off with local law enforcement was usually more bluster than substance. Truth be known, some of the militia ranks came from the same law enforcement officers who ringed their training camps holding them, ostensibly, under siege. The call for a general gathering of unit leadership was the result of the growing domestic terrorist threat they had all long-predicted would be forthcoming. The time had come.
Campbell sat at the front of the room, not because he was seen to be, or had been selected as, the leader, although he did command his particular group, known locally as the Blackfoot Boys, but it was his invitation that had been delivered, and his camp that had been selected to host the gathering.
When the last man was seated, without preamble the room grew quiet. Campbell rose, and for several long seconds scanned the room, nodding to several personal acquaintances. Most were dressed as he was, in camouflage BDU’s, field jackets, or blue jeans and down vests. They had one obvious thing in common: to a man, they were Caucasian, of European ethnic origins. Although April had arrived and spring was in the air, a brisk Montana mountain chill still permeated the room. In a deep, sonorous voice, Campbell began to speak, softly at first.
“America is under attack. For nearly fifteen years, we’ve been under attack by foreign terrorists. Now, three weeks ago, there was the opening barrage with the shootings at the baseball parks, courtesy of World Jihad. We all heard the taped message night after night on the news. Then there was the rash of drive-by shootings in mall parking lots a couple of weeks ago, again, claimed by World Jihad. Last week, people in nine cars were shot across the nation’s highways, causing several multiple car pile-ups and over a dozen deaths. And what is our government doing about it? Nothing!” he shouted, pounding his fist on the wooden table. “Sure, they sent APB warnings, eventually found one of the vehicles on the highway and blew the rag-heads to hell, but Washington is impotent to prevent these attacks. This gathering,” he said, making a sweeping motion with his arm to include all in the room, “is long overdue.” A few heads nodded around the room.
“Even the military will not be able to deal with this invasion,” he continued. “It’s not a war for frontal assault, military tactics, or set piece battles. The cops will be hamstrung by politically correct, ethnically restricted, no-profiling laws that have no bearing on this threat and will totally disable their effort to protect honest Americans. There’s not one damn thing wrong with racial profiling. If you’re looking to kill a snake, you avoid the animals with legs and look for something that slithers. That’s profiling, it’s not racist, and it’s appropriate in this instance.
“The Pentagon will claim we need to invade another foreign country. Politicians will claim it’s a law enforcement problem. But even if the cops make some headway, whenever they appear to be successful, the liberal court judges will reverse their actions. If any of the invaders are actually caught, the ACLU will defend them and the courts will turn them loose to kill again. The politicians are genetically spineless and physically timid-if not cowardly-always sniffing the wind before they make a decision. They’ll fear the loss of power more than they fear the loss of liberty.” More heads nodded and some verbal assents rumbled throughout the room.
“ We,” Campbell said, again sweeping his arm from left to right, “America’s true patriots, are not so restricted. We will defend America, beginning right here, right now, in this room. We will seek out and destroy the rag-heads, the invaders, those who think they can come here and kill our women and children. We are America’s first line of defense. We are the leadership cadre. We will patrol the highways, protect our cities, and hunt down these vermin. We will kill these animals wherever we find them. Our numbers are few, but once the word is out, we’ll grow. Many of you served on the Arizona border with the Minutemen. Other like-minded patriots will flock to our banner. Americans will finally listen to our call. And we, the American Brigade Command… we will be ready.”
Shouts of agreement rose, some men took to their feet and began clapping and within two minutes, Thor Campbell, commander of the Blackfoot Brigade, had pulled the disparate cluster of disgruntled men together through common cause. The American Brigade Command, quickly dubbed the ABC, had been formed.