Patti and I drove separate vehicles to KCC Wednesday morning. She was going to be in charge of the day shift for the next 5 days, but did not know it yet. The Mideast trip was going to last that long and I had no doubt she could handle the job.

The smile said all that needed to be said when I told her, “A pool secretary is going coming over to do payroll and handle the phones. You need to train her. You are going to be temporary upgraded to Assistant Director and I want you to be able devote all your energy to being in charge. Also, you will get a pay upgrade for the five days.”

“Leave your cell number as an emergency contact for the other shifts,” I added.

I changed the access level of her password to give her more access to the video controls and files if something happened. It was part of my plan to do this every time I left on an extended trip for the next few months. I completed the things that I needed to at KCC and left at noon.

The plane from the M&M colleges had already landed and the girls were already home when I got there. Vicky was packing for our five day Middle East trip. I stopped by her room to remind her that pant suits and scarves was the dress code for this trip. If we needed to go anywhere outside of the embassy or US bases, I did not want to create a political problem for the State department.

Ching Lee was in the room she shared with Marcy, so I stepped in to give her welcome home hugs and affection. I spent extra time with her as I was going to do with all the girls – especially Jenny – before we left for the airport.

The five days would seem like forever when I was away from my mates. I was getting worried about Jenny now. She was so huge from the twins and was having more back problems. The visits to the doctor and the test were always good and there was another one scheduled for next Wednesday when I returned. We were all counting down the days; the middle of February could not get here fast enough.

When I finished my rounds with the girls, I packed for my trip then did my business at the gym. At two we headed to Morton Field. I guessed that it would take Jake an hour to do all the programming on the armory door. There were eight sets of access codes to put in. Mine, Marcy, Lorrie, Ching Lee, Jenny’s, Vicky’s, Jason, and Jamie were going to be the ones with access to the vault. It would take any two of them to open the door. I was going to be the only one whose codes entered on both pads would open the door.

This would be my first look inside the vault since Dad and Jake had put in the shelves and racks and moved all the weapons from the shipping container. Yesterday we received Jamie’s first big order of ammo that would be used for practice and recertification. I wondered how long it would take to go through all that ammo.

My plan was to have Jamie do all the training in the super hangar with the bad weather coming except the shoot don’t shoot course that had to be done at the club.

Jake had already done some of the programming by the time Vicky and I walked in the pilots/mechanics office and had it down to a science. It took longer for each of us to go through the motions to make sure our codes worked than it did for Jake to program the thing.

Jake and Dad had done a great job with setting the armory up. The ammo and heavy weapons that had come from the State department was stacked on racks sorted by caliber on one side and across the back. There were two center racks holding the big things.

In front of the center racks were four rows of military style gun racks that Dad had built. All the M16 rifles shotguns, the 308 sniper rifles and the Barrett 50 cal sniper rifles had been unboxed and set in place.

All the JBG owned weapons were on a separate racks and shelves. We owned a lot more than I expected, but then Jamie was in charge of that. It was another thing that I had delegated to someone else who I trusted. Jamie was on a skiing vacation for the next two weeks. I was going to get the programming done for her when she came back.

Jamie and all of us were going to have a busy first week when she came back with the 20 man SWAT team from Rochester to get things started for the New Year.

I had a set of hand drawn plans for a portable backstop that I wanted to set up in the super hangar. I called Marcy, Lorrie, Jake and my Dad over to a desk and spread out my hand-drawn blueprints and then explained to them, why I thought we needed them and where I intended to use them.

“It will be eight by twelve foot of I inch hardox welded on four inch box tubing to keep it upright and allow the big forklift to be able to move it around. Then weld supports to hold six by six oak planks in front of the plate. That way it will be easy to replace the planks when they needed it.”

“On the back side is a three foot plate across the box tubing to act as a catch pan and angle half inch by twelve to direct anything that gets through into the pan,” I said.

Then I added. “The front supports and box tubing need to be spaced so three foot wide full sized targets will fit in between them. Four targets are on each backstop. Build 6 of them to handle 20 shooters on the firing line.”

We had a hardy discussion with Lorrie and Marcy before they finally agreed to the project.

Jake asked, “Why do you want one inch plate behind the lumber and the angle plate?”

“If we shoot the 50 cal, the round at a hundred yards will go through the lumber and most likely the one inch plate,” I replied.

“If we put holes in the end of Lorrie’s hanger, Lorrie will be very mad. Believe me, you do not want to be around Lorrie when she is mad; trust me on that,” I said.

“In that case we will use one inch for the angle plate too and triple thick box tubing. The limber needs to have a ship lap to eliminate gaps; we can cut the lumber as we stack it in place. We can have it finished before Jamie needs it. I will get the welding crew back and Bob’s construction to help with the wood work,” Jake said.

At that moment, Sabrina called from the terminal to tell me that Bob and Emily were waiting and that my G5 LR was in front of the terminal fully fueled and ready to go.

“Work out whatever details you need, Vicky and I will see you in five days. We need to get on the way,” I replied.

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Joe H.