The Battle of Gwinnett County (3)
So just about dawn on July 8, our troop train pulled into Norcross station. I call it a troop train only because I love my Uncle Sam and am inclined to generosity. You have to realize, we’d been at peace officially since the end of that Spanish thing a quarter-century before, and even counting the walkers, it’d been a dozen years since any American saw organized combat. Even the Indian Wars were over, more or less. And the American people, they don’t generally spend money on military maybes. The Army didn’t have any real troop trains. We rode in converted cattle cars – and barely converted, at that. Two and a half days in a rolling coffin stinking of manure made a man mad enough to take on anything, even the Martians, rather than spend another day cooped up.
We got off that train to thunderous applause. About the whole population of greater Atlanta was in Norcross station, hoping to be elsewhere. A few of the boys stood a bit straighter once they saw them Southern belles watching ‘em. Master Sergeant Donovan moved back and forth along the train, screaming at us. “You think these people are glad to see you get off this G*d d*mned train? Well, grunts, you’re right – ‘cause that makes room for them to run the hell away from this sorry burg. Every second you spend dying here is one more second they can run to Washington, or New York, or wherever the hell they think is safe.”
Once he saw we were all off the train, he put us right back on, this time unloading the heavy equipment. People had been talking about the mechanized army for a while, but it didn’t happen until after Foothold, when we had no logistical choice. Back in Gwinnett County, we still did things the old fashion way, getting the zap cannon and Streiburg guns into wooden caissons and hitching ‘em to horses. The zap cannon were surprisingly light for artillery, but of course, you had to drag along their generators and condensers, so it all came out in the wash anyway. The Georgia heat was already rising and it was a dirty dusty few hours before the train was completely unloaded and we could take a half-hour to recuperate. I don’t mind saying, my best memory of Gwinnett County is of the daughters of Atlanta moving up and down the line with fresh cold lemonade. Makes me regret us not saving much of the city, but of course, that was still a bit in the future.