Yesterday morning, I had yet another appointment with Austin Houston Crockett Bowie Bonham III, a sixth-generation Texas rancher and conservative political operative who, it seems, pays me a visit nearly every time he travels to Washington. Most of our consultation concerned election strategies for Mitt Romney, on whose campaign Mr. Bonham now proudly serves. Toward the end of our session, however, he changed the subject.
“Ya know Tom,” he observed, “we got a very smart, foresighted judge down in Lubbock County by the name of Tom Head. His cousin on his father’s side, name of Richard, is a close friend of mine.”
“You’re close friends,” I sought to verify, “with a Dick Head from Lubbock, Texas?”
“Yep,” Bonham vouched, “we been buddies since we met in Dallas at a rodeo back in the nineties. We go deer huntin’ in the Big Thicket just about every year. And Judge Head, right now, he’s in a heap of trouble for nothin’ more than speakin’ his mind, which is his right, ya know, under the First Amendment and all.”
“What did he say?” I asked.
“Well,” Bonham related, “there ol’ Judge Tom was, bein’ interviewed on Fox News and all, talkin’ about that [expletive] over there in the White House, when he told the reporter that if Obama wins in November, he was thinkin’ the worst – civil unrest, civil disobedience, the whole nine yards. He wasn’t talkin’ about a few riots or demonstrations or people with purple and orange hairdos invading churches to make YouTube videos, neither, nohow. He was talkin’ about a genuine, serious civil war if that God damned [expletive] Communist pickaninny gets another four years; fightin’ right up there on a par with what them fellers at Lexington and Concord gave the redcoats – genuine patriots takin’ up arms to get rid of that guy.”
“Oh yes, now that you mention it,” I confirmed, “it seems to me I do remember reading about that this week. But although Judge Head… um… predicted armed insurrection to overthrow the United States, he hasn’t, to your knowledge, ah… advocated that anyone do that, has he?”
“Nope,” Bonham assured me, “I ain’t never heard him say he thinks anybody ought to pick up their assault rifle and do nothin’ about these here pinheads in Washington – present company excepted, of course – and I’m sure I never will. He’s a judge after all – he knows the law, and he’s got enough common sense not to advocate the violent overthrow of the federal government. But what he did do, was ask a very sensible and important question, which is, what’s gonna happen if enough real Americans decide that enough’s enough and something’s gotta be done? Ain’t it obvious that Obama’s gonna react to that by sending in United Nations troops? Well, ol’ Judge Head, he don’t want them Blue Beanies in Lubbock County, no sir! And I agree with him, too! Matter of fact, I don’t want no [expletive] UN troops anywhere in Texas!”
“I’m certain you don’t,” I acknowledged. “But are you sure that a United Nations invasion is… um… a realistic eventuality for which Lubbock County in particular, or Texas in general should prepare?”
“Durn tootin’!” Bonham vouched. “Obama and that Korean son of a [expletive] Ban Ki-moon up there in Jew York City would like nothin’ better than to roll into Texas with a bunch of foreign soldiers riding on UN tanks who will take our guns, stop us from drillin’ for oil and make us put up windmills, raise our taxes, force us to teach evolution in our schools, put lesbian feminazis in charge of our kindergartens and then hang around lollygagin’, takin’ our teenage daughters out on dates to watch art movies with subtitles. Well, I say [expletive] that, ‘cause I ain’t havin’ no half Albanian grand children, jibber-jabberin’ some Albanianese United Nations [expletive] in my face when I tell ‘em to muck out the [expletive] stable and mend the [expletive] barbed wire fence!”
“Heard and understood,” I assured him.
“Right,” Bonham nodded with an air of satisfaction. “So, Tom my friend, how about you put on your general’s hat and tell me how you would defend Lubbock, Texas from a United Nations invasion force?”
“Well,” I mused as I posted a digital map of Lubbock, Texas on the oversized HDTV screen mounted on my office wall, “there are UN expeditionary forces, like you might see sent to quell factional fighting in emerging African nation, and there are UN expeditionary forces like the one Douglas MacArthur commanded during the Battle of Inchon.”
“Okay, so just what are you gettin’ at, then?” Bonham replied with a skeptical tone.
“That, at some point,” I observed, “the size of a UN force could be too large for Lubbock County to deal with, no matter how much funding it can practically provide for defense against military invasions.”
“Oh, all right,” Bonham sighed, “I guess there’s nothin’ to be done about that – at least nothin’ little ol’ Lubbock County, Texas can do all by itself. But what if we assume that Judge Head at least gets the sort of money he was askin’ for and figure that Lubbock County will set an example for all the other counties in America to do the same kinda thing. That way, when the UN invades, it won’t just be Lubbock they’re up against – instead, they’ll be fightin’ ten thousand Lubbocks.”
“Very well,” I began as I placed digital icons on the map, “in that case, let’s assume Lubbock County doubles its police force and recruits a suitably sized County Militia – let’s call it the Lubbock County Defense Force. Then we assume Lubbock buys two used M1 Abrams tanks with a four hundred gun rounds each, five M2 Bradley fighting vehicles with seven anti-tank missiles and nine thousand twenty-five millimeter cannon rounds each, eight battlefield equipped armored Humvees, ten FIM-92 Stinger portable infrared homing surface-to-air missile launchers with five missiles each, three hundred AR-15 assault rifles, a million rounds of AR 15 ammunition, one hundred nine millimeter or forty-five caliber semi-automatic pistols with two hundred thousand rounds of ammunition, ten thousand standard field grenades, thirty sixty-millimeter and ten one-hundred-and-twenty-millimeter mortars with five thousand rounds of ammunition, twenty-five fifty caliber machine guns with five hundred thousand rounds of ammunition, five M8281 SASR and ten 7.62 x 51 millimeter M40 sniper rifles with seventy-five thousand rounds of ammunition, three tons of assorted high explosives with appropriate detonation management components and devices, and associated support equipment to field one battalion of four companies deployed in sixteen platoons configured as seven regular light infantry, six armored support infantry, two special operations and one platoon of snipers. Add another two hundred troops to man, maintain and operate the armor and provide command staff, communications, cyberwarfare and logistical support. That’s a reasonably armed and equipped force of five hundred, and about the smallest credible military unit that could be fielded in the twenty-first century. You’ve got no air support, of course, there’s no way a county government could afford anything worth putting up in the air, really. Any light aircraft you could actually afford – a Lubbock Police Department helicopter, for instance – would get shot down by UN fighter jets within the first four hours of combat anyway. That’s what the Stinger missile launchers are for – they even things up for you.”
“How come no field artillery?” Bonham wondered, slightly disappointed.
“Again, that goes back to the lack of air cover,” I explained. “Heavy artillery simply isn’t mobile enough to avoid being destroyed from the air unless your side has the means to counteract an enemy fighter-bomber strike. The only large artillery that makes any sense for the Lubbock County Defense Force is what’s mounted on those two tanks.”
“Maybe if Lubbock County gets this off the ground,” Bonham speculated, “some private donors will step in and buy some field guns.”
“If anybody’s going to donate that kind of money,” I advised, “it should go for the purchase of more tanks. Field guns will be sitting ducks. Lubbock would never get a chance to use them.”
“Damn,” he fretted, “I sure as hell wish we could get some air power going here.”
“Thinking about every county in the United States having its own army is difficult enough,” I cautioned. “To fund what just we’re talking about right now, Lubbock County would have to cut back nearly every county service to the bone. But every county in the country having its own air force? Forget it – even if that was only one strike fighter jet, attack helicopter or A-10 Thunderbolt each, there would be no county hospitals, schools or libraries anywhere.”
“If it came down to havin’ a hospital, schools and a library or bein’ safe from UN invasion,” Bonham confidently proclaimed, “you know damn well where I’d put my [expletive] money!”
“No doubt,” I dryly responded. “But taking it from where we were, with a small, reasonably equipped battalion, let’s look at how Lubbock would defend itself from the United Nations. First of all, the most likely UN attack route would be from the north, down US Route 27 from Amarillo, through Canyon, Tulia, Plainview and Abernathy.”
“Those [expletive]!” Bonham hissed. “They’re headed right for the heart of Lubbock!”
“The major problem here,” I noted, “is that it’s flat as a pancake, all the way. No bridges to blow, no narrow passes, no places to block Route 27 with landslides – nothing significant at all between Amarillo and Lubbock, really. Your only choice would be to mine Route 27 with explosive devices and have your special operations squads detonate them when a UN convoy drives over their locations. We’ll also assume that Swisher County and Hale County, which are on the way between Amarillo and Lubbock, will have their own armed battalions and will offer some stiff resistance to the UN forces.”
“Yeah!” Bonham exclaimed, punching the air. “Swisher and Hale will give ‘em hell all the way to Lubbock!”
“You’ll have to mine Texas Route 87 in a similar manner,” I continued, “in case the UN invades from Midland in the south, up US 20 through Big Spring, then takes Route 87 through Lamesa. Same thing with Texas Route 62, if they decide to take 137 out of Lamesa to Brownfield and swing around to hit your west flank.”
“That would be just like the United Nations!” Bonham snarled. “Those sneaky [expletive] rat bastards! But they’re not gonna flank Lubbock’s west side, no [expletive] way!”
“Lubbock will have to mine Texas Route 114 west from Leveland and east from Crosbyton, and seal off Texas Route 64 from Slanton with mines, too,” I noted. “After that, command, control, communications and intelligence will be crucial. Whatever direction the UN comes in from – and bear in mind, that might be multiple directions – Lubbock forces have to be ready to ambush them from any available blind on the attack route. Station your first tank group here, at the Preston Smith International Airport, and your second one here, on the campus of the Lubbock Cooper High School. Station your Bradleys at the Canyon Lake Drive, near the Eastlawn Memorial Gardens; at Chapel Hill near the intersection of Texas Route 289 and Texas Route 62; at the Bingo Express near 289 and 84; at the Max O’Banion Baseball Field near 289 and 82; and, downtown at the Panhandle South Plains Fairgrounds. Place Stinger missile patrols on high rooftops or on the ground concealed by trees in the Skyview, Arnett Benson, North by Northwest, Northridge, West End, Raintree, Caprock, Southgate, Dunbar-Manhattan Heights and Heart of Lubbock neighborhoods. Spread roving Humvee patrols throughout the city, ready to react and concentrate firepower where needed during the invasion. Set up machine gun emplacements overlooking major intersections, such as US 27 and Texas 289; US 27 and Texas 62; 50th Street and University Avenue; and, Southeast Drive and Martin Luther King Boulevard. And then station your fifteen snipers on the fifteen highest places in Lubbock with orders to concentrate on taking out the UN command structure – kill the officers; cut off the serpent’s head. As always in the twenty-first century, digitize and encrypt all field communications; your best bet against the UN is a straightforward public key encryption system with a 16,384 bit prime. Just make sure your hardware has the necessary RAM and CPU cycles so the decoding lag doesn’t get anybody killed. ”
“And then we fight them to the death, right?” Bonham enthused.
“Actually,” I corrected, “since the Lubbock County Defense Force will be outnumbered and out gunned, the best tactic would be to fall back after the UN invaders reveal their intentions. Let them dig in and attempt to control whatever part of Lubbock they decide on. Meanwhile, you retreat to the periphery and engage them in a combination of house-to-house combat and relentless sniper attrition together with hit-and-run guerilla tactics, backed up by the mobile artillery on your tanks and the cannons on your Bradleys.”
“But how will Lubbock win?” Bonham anxiously inquired.
“Once the UN forces occupy Lubbock,” I explained, “they will immediately face the problem of maintaining their supply lines. The irony of the situation will be that, in effect, the Lubbock County Defense Force has the UN invaders surrounded. So, provided Lubbock County is willing to sacrifice the portions of the city occupied by the United Nations, it can win by cutting off UN resupply and reinforcement, while shelling those areas with the tanks, and blowing them up with some of those three tons of high explosives I mentioned – stealthily and covertly set in place and detonated by the Lubbock Defense Force special operations platoons.”
Bonham considered the digital war plan for a moment, then smiled. “Hot damn! I sure wish Judge Head could see this!”
“No problem,” I assured him. “I’ve been saving the whole thing as I went along in PowerPoint presentation format. Here’s a USB flash drive with everything on it.”
“Fantastic!” Bonham enthused as he accepted the thumb drive and shook my hand heartily. “Ya know, Collins, for some kind of opera-lovin’, thick book readin’, chess playin’ math whiz intellectual egghead policy wonk who works inside the Beltway, you’re still pretty near an okay guy.”
“Thanks,” I told him. “It’s not every day I hear such positive remarks.”
“Yeah,” Bonham chuckled as he made for the door, “I imagine most of the time, you have to deal with pathetically moronic, ignorant idiots!”
“Unfortunately,” I confirmed as he departed, “that part of my job seems to be pretty much inevitable.”