Swallowing hard, Deacon pressed his transmit button. “Blue Mace leader—this is Mace One. Stand by. I am going to make one pass and take a look at what’s what.” With that, the Air Force general dipped the nose of his aircraft and aimed for the cluster of maintenance buildings, barracks, and motor pools of Gowen Field.

Though he had expected that they would encounter some ground fire, Deacon had imagined the response would be slow in coming. When it did, he had hoped it would be sporadic and ineffectual. He was therefore quite taken aback by the maelstrom of small arms fire that rose up to greet him as he started his run. For the briefest of moments, Deacon was mesmerized by the image of bright orange orbs that came arching up toward him. These were tracers. Given the normal mix of tracers versus ball ammunition, there would be four unseen bullets coming his way for every tracer he saw.

That this was happening was only logical. It had been anticipated. Not all of the pilots who declined this mission did so because the thought of firing on their fellow Americans violated their personal morality. There were those among them who not only supported the stand that the governor of Idaho had taken, but were willing to do what they could to help further the budding rebellion. So the appearance of Deacon’s aircraft, boring down on the men and women of the Idaho Guard, was far from being a surprise to the forewarned Guardsmen.

With a blink and quick shake of his head to clear his vision Deacon forced himself to look past the hail of incoming small arms fire and refocused his attention on the ground targets. Catching sight of an A-10 making its way from a taxiway onto the main runway of the municipal airport, Deacon abandoned all thoughts of making a quick look-see pass. Instead he jiggled his joystick and turned to line up for an attack on the Guard aircraft.