Chapter 7

Things rolled right along after we were tentatively tasked with opening a front in Panama in the Canal Zone. We had four days to get home and pack up. When we were ready a shit load of Chinooks came to pick us up, and I do mean pick us up. Our people were loaded inside and then our vehicles were slung beneath.

We happened to be ther first bunch to arrive at the new training facility at Ft Hood near Killean Texas. Of course we were hardly the first group to train there since Ft Hood was one of the Army's main training facilities. We were the first of the Border Patrol's heavily armed troops though.

We were all signed up when we got there and we were also issued camo uniforms and most standard equipment including Kevlar vest. Damned if we didn't look like regular military except for our firearms. Each "trooper" was assigned both an M821a Barrett and a Browning Automatic Lightweight Stalker. Each had a 6 to 18 variable day/night scope attached. Thankfully they came with hardcases that would hold both at the same time. We each had a 30-90x90 zoom spotting scope along for the ride.

We had a week of mostly PT so the women and men could get accustomed to carrying their loads. We also had ample time on the range to sight in and become familar with our new weapons, including the two Glock 10mm pistols which we wore "Cowboy" style on dual holster belts.

At the end of a week of this training we took a week off with only light PT during the day and then we took another week of intensive PT and weapon handling to make sure everyone was up to the task.

We finally left via airlift directly to the Canal Zone. We set down five miles from the strike zone and had to immediately begin clearing the zone of Panamanians. These were mostly less well armed versions of the assholes we'd been clearning off US highways in the four states area.

It seemed robbers and thieves were always some of the first to arrive on scene at a diaster. They were basically trying to steal anything that had been left behind after the strike.

They weren't impressed by our uniforms and were generally uncoperative until the firing started. Sadly many Panamanians were sent to meet their maker before we got a handle on things. We started out on the Atlantic side of the fuckup and split up half and half on either side of the canal. With plenty of Apache help we headed west clearning out assholes who had been stalling the repair work by robbing and killing the workers. The Panamanian government didn't have a say in how we operated since the Canal Zone was ours to administer by treaty. We concentrated on the north side first and once it was nominally cleaned up US National Guard units took our places behind us. When we reached the Pacific side we crossed everyone over and finished our clean up on our way back.

One of the biggest snarls was what to do with all the potentially pregnant panamanian women and girls who'd been happy enough to provide pussy to the males in our unit. Every male was instructed to usher the girl or woman in question to the medics on the morning after for emplacement of a small medical microchip which was programmed with her date of service and the identity of her prospective "Daddy." All troops were offered the choice of explosive castration if they forgot even one of their conquest. We didn't want to curtail the beginings of new population since so many had died already. We just wanted to know which should be named American at birth.

I thought it was probably all useless since I couldn't see anything but statehood for Panama and for all of Mexico after things settled down. To me it seemed we'd be looking for a way to cram sixty to seventy stars in our flag before long. That didn't even count Canada which was already begging for help and getting plenty to start with.

There were some Panamanians who didn't approve of course, but they were all of the political stripe. They were all assholes trying to line their pockets as far as I was concerned. Currently my three thousand well trained troops were camping out along the north side of the strike and they were training several Panamanians who'd volunteered to our cause. Of course they were being trained in all manner of assination. We turned them loose after six weeks of training and suddenly the political voices against us stopped talking. Of course more than half of them stopped breathing too, but you can't have everythingl.

Still there were some holdouts, as in Generals. Suddenly an alarming number of Panamanian troops took up station across the Canal from us. The President of the United States had already staked his cliam with our side and we were winning hands down in the US opinion polls. After some weekend firing from across the Canal we woke one fine Monday morning to an airstrike. The movement of a US carrier hadn't been mentioned in the press, but the airstrike sure made the news. It seems the Panamanians across from us suffered eight thousand dead and fifteen thousand wounded. They also lost all fifteen of the planes they'd sent up to get them some relief.

Apparently POTUS had had enough by now and a hundred thousand marines made an Amphibious landing of sorts. They had been carried as far as possible up the Canal and then made their way to dry land on landing nets to the side of the Canal.

The Pres even took a page out of my book and had every Panamanian politician executed by the troops when they were caught. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf had just happened to be hanging around on the Carrier so he went in with an honor guard of a thousand special ops troops and took the surrender of the highest official he could find. Said official being the only one left alive at the time.

Three days later the fifty-first state of the Union was ushered in at a special session of the US Congress. Stormin Norman was put in place as the temporary governor and a hundred bureaucrats were sent in directly from Washington DC.

What with the success we'd had so far President Obamalamadingdong decided it was time for a joint armed forces operation and a week later two hundred and fifty thousand troops landed from the Gulf of Mexico onto the shores of the fifty-first state. Three carriers were also in place by now and a base was set up within four feet of Costa-Rica's border. The next day an account of the takeover was published in several papers, including a listing of all the politicians who had been tragically mistakenly shot.

Other things to make the news was a big write up mentioning the tremendous amount of aid being sent from the US to Panama. Getting by without so much notice was a group of ten thousand military officers coming to show the Panamanian troops how to run an army. Not to mention the three thousand MPs coming in to rid the police of coruption and clean up the brutality just a smidge. Panama was going to be jerked kicking and screaming into the ranks of the decent countries.

Costa-Rica was already begging to be allowed to become a part of the US of A. Their politicians had noticed how many of their Panamanian brothers had been tragiccally killed in the change of administration and frankly, they wanted no part of a hostile takeover.