Master Sergeant Sours managed to violate just about every safety rule and regulation as he moved the M-1 tank through the motor pool. How his driver managed to navigate past scores of vehicles and buildings without hitting a one was nothing short of a miracle. With Sours standing high in the commander’s hatch, the lone M-1 tank burst out of the motor pool and onto West Gowen Road. There, it had one final brush with an accident as a car drove into the ditch instead of taking on the massive steel beast that jumped out in front of it. The only time Tim slowed was when he came to the ditch on the south side of the road. Even then, Sours gave him a sharp reprimand over the tank’s intercom. “Kick it in the ass,” he kept shouting as he searched the flat, open pastures beyond. Excited by the situation as well as by Sours’s demeanor, Tim jerked the throttles on his steering “T” bar forward, throwing Sours backwards as the tank picked up speed and leaped the ditch.

When the tank was on flat ground, Sours scanned the horizon. All across the plain he could see individual figures moving about, forming themselves into clumps. In his haste the National Guard master sergeant had not worked out the details of how he, Tim, and the tank were going to prevent the paratroopers from assembling and moving on the motor pools. They had no small arms ammunition. Only selected Guardsmen manning the gates or assigned to other security duties had been issued a single magazine each. On board the tank the closest thing to a weapon was a length of pipe, known as a cheater bar, that slid over the end of a wrench in order to add leverage when tightening track bolts.

The one thing the tank did have was a functional engine that drove two tracks, each consisting of over two tons of steel and rubber. These, Sours hoped, combined with the vast bulk of the tank, would be enough to buy time for his fellow Guardsmen to respond to the alarm he had raised. By charging about the open range which offered little cover to the paratroopers, Sours planned to keep them from forming up and pressing their attack. It wasn’t much of a plan. But it was the best he could come up with. He, like the paratroopers he was turning the bow of the tank toward, was committed.

Like most plans there was a flaw in the one which Sours settled upon. It was a common one. In deciding what he was going to do, Sours assumed that the paratroopers out there were operating under the same handicaps and constraints that the Idaho Guard was working under. Specifically, the lack of ammunition on the Guards’ part and their attitude concerning using deadly force.