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Frank Poole was riding shotgun, up front, occasionally glancing in the rearview reen or sand-colored tanks, ar for almost two miles behind him

It was sheer, naked, destructive power, that coluhter jets Death frouns and cannon, froreatest ly worried about blowback: the rules of engage

“Colonel?” the driver, a sergeant, said He nodded ahead

Poole saw a tan Lexus crossing the highway dividing strip, bottoh

Poole had a brief gli on the seat before thenored by the determined-faced man at the wheel

“What the?” Poole said

And at that the car escaped the sand, wobbled as its tires bit concrete, then accelerated to shed nearly seventy tons; the car weighed less than two The car’s front sround, and the Abra the front end of the car, squeezing it off the road, andhad happened

Poole turned in his chair to speak to his adjutant “Transe to try and ram the column should be taken out And detail an ambulance to see about the people in the car”

They were at the Nevada state line when the second attack came This time it was a minivan that came up frohtly wounding one soldier

No shots were fired, and it began to occur to Poole that his soldiers had been trained to kill enemy forces, not their fellow Americans This could be trouble He’d had no time to fully brief officers or GIs on this new reality

The third attack was more serious: a loaded ore truck pulled onto the freeway ahead of theht toward Poole’s JLTV

“Engage!” Poole shouted, and after a unner opened up with his 50 caliber But he was firing warning shots, tearing up the road The trucker did not slow, let alone stop

“Fire for effect, goddammit!” Poole shouted as thespeed

This tiine and er of the driver

The JLTV went around the stea wreck, and the first tank in line shoved it off the road