With his full attention now focused on what he considered to be a more immediate crisis, King turned his back on Nathan’s distant firefight for the moment. Lowering the radio’s hand mike, King looked to where the 1st Platoon was now assembled. Even with them he would have fewer antitank missiles than the National Guard had tanks and Bradleys. With that in mind he cast his gaze back over to the east. Squinting in the early morning sun in an effort to see what Dixon’s platoon was doing, for a brief moment he considered recalling them. Just as quickly, King dropped that idea. Even if the 3rd Platoon were able to break off their engagement now, he reasoned, they would never make it over to where he stood in time to make a difference.

Over the radio King heard the 2nd Platoon leader calling for instructions. Drawing in a deep breath, King brought the mike up. “Break contact. Fall back to 1st Platoon’s position. I’ll meet you there, out.”

Without waiting for acknowledgment, King handed the mike back to the RTO and started off in search of the leader of the 1st Platoon. His primary mission of securing the National Guard facilities was now clearly beyond his grasp. The best he could do, he reasoned, was secure the drop zone and hope that the remainder of the battalion could rig for a jump while in flight and join him before he was overrun.

The movement of Guard vehicles in the motor pools across from where King’s 2nd Platoon had been frantically burrowing into the ground was far less menacing than it appeared to the anxious para-troopers. In truth the danger the platoon leader reported was not a coherent effort with the aim of crushing King’s scattered company. Rather the chaotic movement of tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, self propelled guns, and personnel carriers was the cumulative result of individual Guardsmen bent on saving their vehicles from capture.

Of all the people racing about the motor pools of Gowen Field only one major had anything resembling a plan. Yet even if that major managed to carry out his design, Captain Andrew King and Company A would still not be in danger. The major was collecting every armored vehicle he could lay his hands on for the purpose of parking them on the Boise Municipal Airport’s runway. Just as paratroopers get nervous when tanks wander out into their drop zones, aircraft tend to be reluctant to land when large, heavy vehicles are sitting about on their landing strip.