Lt. Col. Danny Cruz is among the throngs of veterans and visiting the nation’s capital on Memorial Day. Commemorating the 10-year-annevesary of Victory in America, and his first time back to DC since the end of the war. Our meeting is accidental, like me, he hoped to find some quiet at a cafe in L'Enfant Plaza away from the revelers on the National Mall. He does not object to being recorded.

I was a weekend warrior, joined up to pay for college and graduated just before the Crash. I only went to OCS² because I couldn’t get hired as an engineer. My first two tours were pretty standard for the Guard in those days. Mostly just standing around federal buildings while occasionally getting yelled at by the hippies… sorry, but that’s how I thought of them back then. It didn’t help for PR that occasionally we’d have to pull crowd control duty, but after Lafayette the White House didn’t even want us doing that anymore.

Were you deployed during the Lafayette Park Protest?

Nope. But a friend of mine was, along with a few familiar faces in my platoon. They were relocated after the new Congress voted to hold the President in contempt for not answering a subpoena. This was a few weeks after the White House had gone dark, so I don’t know what they were hoping to do other than maybe flush him out.

My buddy, Ash Jackson, we’d gone through OCS together and even shared a few classes at AJC. She was assigned to the White House when the House Sergeant at Arms showed up. She was the one ordered to arrest him. Of course, as usual, whatever civilian twerp they had relaying the orders didn’t use the right protocols, she ignored the order and held position like she was supposed to. Secret Service didn’t let him, but after Ash spent the next 5 months going through a bullshit court martial before she finally just resigned her commission. That happened a lot back then.

Anyway, I guess Lafayette was the last straw. There’d been other incidents of the military refusing to follow poorly executed orders, but after that the White House moved us into an even more pointless role than before. These were just presence patrols, a stationary parade to scare people and look good for the cameras. From then on, if the government needed help with protests or even riots, they’d just deputize a bunch of Feds and local cops. I think they were afraid of us.

Afraid?

Yeah, like they thought we were gonna pick sides. I know there was a lot of speculation about that, back then and even now. People on both sides got it in their heads that we would just forget our oaths and overthrow the government. It was the same failed logic that led to the White House constantly issuing unlawful orders.

How do you mean?

Every soldier, from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the lowliest grunt is required by law to only follow a lawfully given order, and only orders given through the proper channels. This isn’t just out of idealism. Its a practical safeguard to reduce the risk to the individual soldier and to ensure the chain of command is never in doubt. In the case of illegal orders, even if they came straight from the President’s mouth, you as an individual will be held criminally liable for carrying them out. It is your duty and in your own best interest to question and if need be, disregard these orders. But to that White House, were in open mutiny.

Do you think that’s why the military was kept so far from the Capital on January 3rd?

Yup. About a week before the new Congress was sworn in, they moved my unit to D Street, specifically the old parking lot for Capital South Station. Orders were for a minimal loadout, and just to keep an eye out for anything suspicious. My Captain had been reassigned earlier in the week, leaving a 1st Lieutenant who was maybe 3 months older than me in charge of 100 soldiers.

That week, we saw more federal cops than at any time in the last 4 years. They were taking up position on Independence and Constitution, and even relieved us of patrolling Capital South. A couple of dozen were posted up around the RNC headquarters. To the average civilian, we all must have looked about the same. LESO³ had been transferring a lot of gear to them over the last four years: uniforms, rifles, ammunition, and the like. That was the first time I saw DHS goons with armor. They were moving Bradleys from JBMHH⁴ to Capital Hill. I remember thinking “This is gonna get bad.”

Well it did. As expected, when Congress was getting ready to be sworn in’ the city was flooded with demonstrators.

You expected it?

Who didn’t? Junior had been crowing for months about how he wouldn’t let the new Congress take power, barely even dressing up his language anymore. They didn’t even bother with using that AI sock puppet of the President. Remember when they had him address the country directly from the Oval? We must have had 30 desertions that week from my unit alone, all from guys who figured none of their orders were legitimate.

What about you? Why did you stay?

I was a 2nd Looie, I didn’t want to leave my guys in the wind. More than, I guess I thought there should be at least someone in that city who was loyal to more than a political party in case things got ugly. I was expecting another riot, like the one from when I was in High School. I could have never predicted things would have went the way they did.

While Junior was hosting a rally, in Lafayette Park ironically, my company commander got a call. I was watching him from the cab of my Humvee and he looked confused. He turned and flagged me down. I remember thinking, “oh great, they probably didn’t use the right protocols again.”

When I got to him, he tells me, “We have orders to move us to up to C street.”

I told him, “Yes sir. What formation do you want us in?”

He waved me off, “But I was just ordered a minute ago to hold position.”

I was about to tell him that it was probably just another White House staffer, and that we should hold position until we got real orders when I, and every other person in the Maryland National Guard heard over our own coms, “Hitman this is Overlord, reposition your unit along the MSR immediately north of you.”

Overlord was the call sign for our Battalion CO. Then, just a few seconds later, another, much less composed voice barks, "Hold your positions! Disregard all incoming orders not directed from the White House! Those who fail to comply will be branded as traitors and summarily executed!”

I looked back to my guys, they all looked as confused as the LT. I turned back to him and suggested he ask for confirmation.

He did, along with every other company commander in DC I guess, because the second voice barked back, “YOU WILL OBEY THE PRESIDENT’S ORDERS! HOLD YOUR POSITION!”

Then came the first voice again, just as calm, this time providing both the confirmation codes and requesting we switch to a new channel.

“NO, STAY ON THIS…” click. The LT switched us down to a new channel and we all held our breath. The second voice didn’t come back. The LT relaxed, like me I guess he figured the second voice didn’t know our codes or coms procedures. I was still wound tight. Overlord was still issuing orders directly to our company on a wide channel when we moved up the road to C street. That was unusual to say the least.

They put us along the corner of C and New Jersey up to the corner with Independence, providing security between the Longworth and Cannon House Office Buildings. I was standing near Independence with my platoon and actthe crowd. They’d broken through the barricade and I could hear gunfire coming from the Hill. Before I could say “interrogative,” I saw the first people get out of the HOBs. They were all members of Congress, and what I assume were a few of their staffers.

They were all piling into civilian vehicles and we were ordered to escort them out of the city. I remember thinking that we got lucky. This is just gonna be another tantrum from a bunch of right-wing losers, but it looks like nobody’s gonna get hurt.

[He chuckles.]

Boy did I call that play. I figured we’d head down to Fort McNair and babysit these geezers until the mob got bored and went home. I was about to give the order to head that way when the LT says over our coms, “Head down to Reagan International, stay South of the Mall.”

This wasn’t just an evac to a South. My Humvee was posted near the rear of the convoy with a JLTV⁵ just behind me and another Humvee in front. As we rounded onto C-street, I heard gunfire again. Not small small arms like the ARs or civilian handguns coming from the Capital, these were 3 round bursts fired from M-16s. The JLTV’s squad leader started barking, “Hitman 1, this is Hitman 1-3 Actual, I’m receiving fire from civilian law enforcement. Do we engage?”

Rules of engagement were to only fire on hostile civilians, and to leave the feds and the cops alone. But this was unprovoked fire with no warning. I wanted to tell my guys to return fire, but things were already so confused that I ran it up to the LT, “Hitman this is Hitman 1 Actual, Hitman 1-3 is receiving fire from possible foot mobiles. We think its local law enforcement. Are we cleared to engage?”

I heard the ping from our LT transmitting at the same time as me, “…ot engage! Say again, do not engage!”

Wasn’t your Lieutenant worried about the people under you?

Sure, but he was also worried about starting a firefight with a city full of armed hostiles while we escorted VIPs to safety. The JLTV was in no serous danger from small arms fire, they just had to button up and ride it out. Meanwhile the cops on the corner only had unarmored civilian vehicles, and didn’t attempt pursuit.

As we rounded Route 1 toward the Francis Scott Key Bridge, we saw a bunch of other Guard units posted up providing a clear route for us to get out of the city. I saw a few guys from the Wisconsin National Guard getting into it with the Virginia NG. By the time my Humvee was about to get on the bridge I saw a guy on foot take a shot at our VIPs. Coms went nuts as a firefight between Guard units erupted behind us. “We have a civilian KIA! Proceed to the route! Do not stop!”

I could hear chatter from my own platoon. Requests for clarification about our orders. I just told my teams to relax, hold their fire, and get to the airport.

Were you worried that they’d…

Mutiny? Oh yeah. Wouldn’t take much. All they had to do was hold up one vehicle to stop the convoy, and put everyone’s lives in danger. Thankfully that didn’t happen, but when we got to the airport, one guy a few vehicles up from me was restrained. His own squad leader knocked him out with the butt of his rifle. He broke three of his teeth.

The civilian KIA was a short, whip thin old woman five cars up from me. She was a pretty high profile Dem, and her death really freaked out the others. I found out later she was supposed to be the next Labor Secretary.

We loaded her body and all the VIPs onto two Air National Guard C-40Cs, basically just a Boeing 737. Sure enough, the plane was crewed with DC National Guard and everything seemed legit. But I had to know. I asked my LT, “Sir, where are these people going?”

He didn’t answer. His radio started squawking and just shrugged.

I went back to my Humvee and checked in with my guys. I needed to get a full report on the mutineer anyway. That’s when I saw the vehicles rolling up to the tarmac. There were a dozen of them, and these guys weren’t National Guard, they weren’t even military. They were flying… well let’s just say it was a lot of non-regulation flags. When they were 200 meters away, they opened fire.

I dove into my Humvee and ordered my guys to get in their trucks and lay down suppressing fire. I couldn’t see the LT, and couldn’t raise him on coms. We were in the open, positioned as a half formed wall between the attackers and the aircraft that had just started to taxi. Normally, if your unit is caught in the open like that, your primary objective is to get out of the kill zone as quickly as possible. We couldn’t do that while the VIPs were still getting airborne.

Without our LT, I was acting company commander. I ordered my guys to hold their positions and lay down fire until the C-40s were in the air. This was my first firefight. I think there was maybe one sergeant in the whole company who’d served in Afghanistan before the pullout. I remember thinking how much I wished he was in my vehicle.

Thankfully the enemy was even less experienced than us.

How so?

They had no operational discipline to speak of. They weren’t coordinating overlapping fields of fire, they were firing at random. One JLTV was getting absolutely peppered, but a couple vehicles, unfortunately not mine, were receiving hardly any fire. That gave us a distinct advantage, but nothing could compare to their lack of personal discipline.

It took a minute, but once we got our fire organized, their vehicles started pulling away. Not as a group mind you, a couple of trucks would just randomly peel out, or try to find a better position. A better position where, I don’t know, we were on an open tarmac. That only made our fire more effective, which made them panic more, and after maybe a 5 minute fight they were driving away at speed.

My troops were hooting and hollering on coms. I was looking back to make sure the planes had gotten airborne. The second C-40 had just gotten in the air, banking hard to one side to avoid a 757 that was pulling into their take off path. I let out a sigh of relief and asked the company to report any fatalities or injuries.

11 dead, including our LT who caught multiple rounds in the chest. 45 people wounded, including our mutineer who had been peppered with asphalt and shrapnel while he was on the ground.

Afterward, I was ordered to establish a roadblock along the 14th Street Bridge. A few other Guard units were already or positioned along U.S. Route 1 to our left. I could see burning vehicles on the opposite side of the Potomac, civilian and what were probably the guard units from when we crossed earlier in the day. Through my binoculars, I saw what looked like other guard units, and paramilitaries like the ones that fired on us. I figured we’d be in another fight soon.

When did you learn about the Philadelphia Congress?

Maybe ten minutes after I arrived on the bridge, I pulled out my phone to call my dad. Kindof a breach in protocol, but after the day I had, I needed him to know I was ok. I saw a push notification from one of those old news apps. Some of the NCOs must have done the same, because before long we were all talking about it.

The Democrats had held a swearing in ceremony outside of Independence Hall. The Joint Chiefs had apparently been working with the Speaker and the Vice President to provide additional security for Congress, that was us.

Then it got weird. The VP had gone missing right as we were exfiltrating the stragglers from Congress. The mob entered the Capital with Junior at its head, and by the time we were over the bridge into Virginia, the Republicans had voted to recognize Junior as the victor of the 2028 elections. We all watched his speech from the House floor before a Lt. Colonel from the Pentagon broke us up. That was right around when he branded any soldier that aided or assisted the Democrats as traitors.

[He stops, looking out in the direction of the noise of this now, relatively peaceful city.]

Lot of those people called us, “heroes,” after that day. Well we weren’t. We had no idea what was happening, all we knew was that we were being given one set of illegitimate orders, and a set of legitimate ones. We followed the legitimate ones. A lot of people didn’t. That’s how the war really started. It wasn’t the election, the riots, or anything political historians love to talk about. It was a disagreement over orders.

[Lt. Col. Cruz’s wife and son have returned. He rises and shakes my hand.']

Only reason we’re here is because enough people followed legitimate orders.

² Officer Candidate School

³ The Law Enforcement Support Office was a division of the Defense Department responsible for transferring military equipment to law enforcement agencies.

⁴Joint Base Myer–Henderson Hall

⁵Joint Light Tactical Vehicle