Chapter 4

It was a hassle with the fully loaded truck, but we got the tires replaced. Fortunately, we were able to find the tires that the ambushers had kept handy to put on our truck as soon as they had liberated it from us. When we finished changing the tires and were ready to leave, we debated returning to the gun dealer and settling with him. It was obvious to us that he had set up this ambush because there was no other way for the ambushers to know what size tires to have ready to fit our truck. We decided that we really needed more fighters and more trucks to do a proper job on the dealer and his inventory, so we would revisit him in a few weeks.

We returned to Ochnee and unloaded the weapons in our armory. I got on the phone while the unloading was still going on and invited more of the prospective militia members to show up tomorrow at 9:00 AM, since we now had more guns. Jimmy wanted me to bring the first militia class up to 50. He figured that 50 would be enough to beat off any attempted invasion by anyone but the regular Army, and that was just about the limit to the number of people that he could effectively teach at one time.

The next morning when all those people showed up was another euphoric occasion. This was the first time in their lives for some of the people to feel like they were back in control, and the others who could remember the time before 2008 were celebrating the return of old times! With the number of weapons that we had purchased and the number that we had looted from the dead enemies, we had enough guns for every member of the militia to have both a rifle and a pistol. One thing we turned out to be a little short on was extra magazines. We had enough for two magazines for each rifle and each pistol, but Jimmy wanted everybody to have four, each. He figured that as the limit of what some of the smaller people could carry in Florida's summer heat.

This day, we did not issue any ammunition. Today was spent emphasizing gun safety and maintenance. By the end of the day, everybody was sick of the subjects of safety and maintenance, but everybody understood what was required of them. All we had to do to make them devoted slaves of safety and maintenance was to threaten them with losing their guns if they screwed up on those two counts. They were allowed to take their guns home to show off to family and friends, but no ammunition for a little while. Jimmy wanted to make sure that they fully appreciated what a loaded gun could do if it was not treated with respect and care.

While all of this was going on the last three days, John Mason had been madly building a shooting range for us at one end of the parade ground. Contrary to the usual doctrine, we wanted our range close by so that it was easy to use. We wanted everybody to become familiar with his weapon, both rifle and pistol, so the range was open at all times during daylight. The range was rather primitive with a firing line and targets at 100 and 200 meters. There was a dirt bullet catcher behind the targets tall enough to catch any reasonable miss. Everybody was told that they would lose their guns if they were caught shooting over the dirt bank. They only needed the one warning.

The next day, everybody showed up, again, at 9:00 AM, and Jimmy divided them into details of 10 students per group. The four guards who had gone with us to collect the guns were detailed to review safety and maintenance with the non-shooting details while Jimmy was teaching shooting to a group. It was obvious that Jimmy had in mind making each of the four instructors into sergeants and squad leaders as soon as we got that far.

I went with the first group of trainees, because, God knows, I needed the training! Today, we concentrated on the rifles. Things like getting the proper sight picture and that sort of thing. Each session lasted 90 minutes, and the last 20 minutes was taken up with letting us fire in single-shot mode. We would fire in full-automatic mode later. The first part of the class was work, but this was fun! Now that some of the pressure was off me, it turned out that I was actually a potentially good shot in all four positions: prone, sitting, kneeling, and standing. We didn't spend much time in sitting position, since that was expected to be rarely used. The other three positions were the ones we concentrated on.

When the class was over, I got Jimmy's permission to stay on the range and keep practicing. I really loved this game! I didn't know it at the time, but I was to become Jimmy's body guard, since he would need protection while he tried to direct a battle. Therefore, he wanted me to become the very good shooter that I had the potential to be.

We spent three weeks in intensive training with both the rifle and the pistol. I got to be pretty good with the pistol, but I got to be spectacular with the rifle. Nobody expected much accuracy from the AK-74 beyond 200 meters, but I was dead on at 100 and 200 meters on the range, and I was much better than average up to 400 meters. Beyond that, there was just no point in shooting. Oh, the bullets went farther than that, you just didn't have a good idea of where they were going!

Finally, it was time to pay another visit to the arms dealer who had tried to steal from us. We formed a convoy of four trucks and six SUVs. Our entire militia made the trip. We didn't need that many people, but it was a reward and an outing for the troops to repay them for the hard work that they had put in over the past three weeks. They assembled with a holiday spirit, but that dampened down a bit when Jimmy reminded them that there would be fighting at the end of the ride, and some of them might be killed. As with any well honed fighting unit, everybody looked at somebody else and thought, "You poor bastard."

Jimmy had come up with the idea of using the flag of the State of Florida as our banner, and somebody had found several of the flags. Every one of our trucks flew the flag and a couple of the SUVs. I was riding shotgun in the lead truck, and I noticed that a couple of roadblocks were hastily moved aside when the men stationed there counted the number of vehicles in our convoy. I couldn't help laughing when I contemplated what had happened at the roadblock on our first trip.

We pulled into the loading yard at the arms dealer unannounced, and the people there didn't know at first what to make of us. We stopped in the middle of the yard, but Jimmy drove up to the office and stepped out with his entire detail. He had told me to be in charge of the people in the yard, since he had plenty of help with him this time. I noticed that he had Caroline Jones, the mysterious female gun expert with him, as the sergeant in charge of the guard detail.

The group marched into the office, and, a minute or so later, there was the sound of a single gunshot. A few minutes later, the detail came out, and Jimmy was holding a bunch of keys in his hand. He came up to my truck and asked for the bullhorn I was carrying. Taking it, he climbed on the roof of the truck cab and announced that this facility now belonged to him by right of conquest. Anybody who objected to that was subject to being shot, and anybody else could get the hell out of here, because he was going to burn the place as soon as he had taken what he wanted.

Every one of the workers scurried out of there, and we set out to systematically loot the facility. We picked up rifles, pistols, and shotguns of all kinds. We even came up with some sniper rifles and two 12.5 mm machine guns. Jimmy was especially pleased with the 60 mm mortar we found. I lost count of the number of cases of ammunition we loaded into our trucks and SUVs. Yes, we had so much stuff that we had to use the SUVs to haul it. We confiscated two trucks while we were about it, and we barely had enough space in all of the vehicles for the weapons, ammunition, and personnel. The one thing that disappointed Jimmy was that there were no RPGs to be found. Oh, well, you can't have everything.