CHAPTER 1
Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, Tuesday, July 6, 2010, 11:30 a.m.
Colonel Barton Stauffer, his wife, Gwen, and the five Stauffer children walked up the hill from the youth soccer field adjacent to the Carlisle Barracks bowling alley. Their youngest daughter, Corbie, was breathing hard, drenched in sweat. Corbie played on one of the three girls' peewee soccer teams from post and her team had just finished playing one of the Carlisle YMCA teams in a summer practice match. Gwen, Cameron, Crystal, Colin and Carlee had stood on the sidelines and yelled and cheered the team on. Stauffer had managed to break away early from his War College seminar class in Root Hall to hurry over to the field and catch the second half of the game. He arrived just in time to see Corbie kick in one of her team's two goals but it hadn't been enough. After Corbie's goal, the game had not gone well and towards the closing moments of the game, the YMCA team had put in four goals in rapid succession, handing Corbie's team a loss of 2 to 6.
As they walked back to the parking lot, Corbie was in a bad mood and her brothers and sisters were laughing and joking and otherwise trying to cheer her up. They reached the stone foot bridge over the Letort Stream in a gaggle and crossed over to the roadway. Gwen belatedly remembered that she had left her water bottle down by the field and started to turn around to go back and retrieve it. Stauffer stopped her and said, "Nah, you go ahead with the kids and I'll go get the bottle. Get the kids loaded up in the van and let's go get a taco or a burger or something. Maybe it will help Corbie to cheer up. I'll be right back."
Stauffer turned and ran back to the field in a half trot to get the water bottle. He found it beside the team bench, policed it up, and headed back to the foot bridge. As he hurried along the grass, he glanced to the right and saw a large yellow rental truck barreling down the lane toward him at high speed. He looked back to his left and saw that Gwen and the children were just getting to the parking lot next to the bowling alley and were in the direct path of the truck. He broke into a dead run to try to warn the driver to slow down. He raced across the foot bridge and out onto the roadway, waving his hands and trying to alert the driver to the danger ahead.
But the truck didn't slow down and instead seemed to pick up additional speed as it approached. At the last second, Stauffer jumped to the side to avoid being hit. The truck's side mirror clipped him on the shoulder as it went by, knocking Stauffer to the ground and sending his body tumbling off to the side of the roadway. Dazed, Stauffer struggled to his knees and yelled to Gwen and the children to get out of the way, but to no avail. As Gwen turned to see what Stauffer was shouting about, the truck hit her and the girls, knocking them into a row of parked cars. Gwen's body slammed against the family's minivan. The girls were scattered across the tarmac in bloody disarray. Cameron and Colin who raced ahead of the group, managed to jump clear of the truck.
Cameron and Colin ran to their mother and sisters who lay prostrate on the parking lot. Gwen was bleeding from the cuts and abrasions on her head, arms and legs, and was barely breathing. Crystal was lying on her side moaning softly.
Carlee and Corbie weren't breathing at all. They apparently had been killed instantly by the impact. The boys moved anxiously from their mother to their sisters to see if they could help as Stauffer arrived, limping painfully from his injuries from being sideswiped by the passing truck. He knelt at Gwen's side and spilled some of the water from the water bottle onto her face to see if he could revive her. She didn't respond. She lay there unconscious, her face contorted in pain.
Stauffer looked around him in desperation for someone to help. He needed to see to the injuries of his children as well. Time seemed to stand still, frozen by pain and death.
CHAPTER 2
Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, Tuesday, July 6, 2010, 11:35 a.m.
The truck hadn't slowed after it struck the Stauffer family but kept on going. It careened around the corner in front of the post bowling alley and then began to slow down as it came up adjacent to the back of Collins Hall. Abruptly, with tires screeching, it made a hard right turn into the loading dock area and crashed into the dock barrier. After a brief pause, it exploded with a thunderous roar and burst into a wall of flames tearing through the Collins Hall façade and into the sky. Pieces of brick, masonry, steel, computers and office furniture came raining down over the entire area.
Stauffer crouched over Gwen, trying to shield her from the falling debris with his own body. Colin and Cameron tried to protect Crystal but a shower of rubble cascaded down on them from above. Colin and Crystal were struck by large pieces of masonry, and a metal filing cabinet drawer hit Cameron squarely in the back. Masonry and bricks came crashing down where Stauffer and Gwen lay, and Stauffer was hit in the back by several small pieces of brick and mortar. Gwen suffered much greater damage when a large block of bricks fell on her exposed legs, crushing her bones into the pavement.
A deafening roar filled the air as successive floors of Collins Hall gave way and collapsed down on each other. After a few moments, the movement of the building ceased and an eerie silence hung over the scene, punctuated only by an occasional scream of pain from victims who had been standing in the parking lot at the time of the explosion or from people tossed from their offices in Collins Hall onto the tarmac below. In the stillness of the aftermath of the explosions, paper fluttered in the breeze like snow on a wintry day.
Stauffer rose painfully up to his knees to attend to Gwen's injuries. He could see that her legs were crushed. Still unconscious, she moaned and breathed with great difficulty. Stauffer tried to clear the heavy bricks and pieces of mortar from Gwen's body, but the movement only seemed to cause her greater distress. With his injured shoulder, he was clumsy at best in lifting the heavy material. Stauffer looked around for someone who could help. As his eyes scanned the parking lot, he saw Colonel Garner Stuart Wilson IV emerge from the entrance to the bowling alley. The entrance was partially caved in and Wilson had to push the twisted door frame to the side to get out. Wilson didn't see Stauffer hunched over Gwen and continued to his right, high-stepping over the rubble-strewn roadway up the hill toward Collins Hall. A few minutes later, his old War College teaching partner, Bob Zazworsky, emerged from the bowling alley as well and followed Wilson up the hill on the run.
Stauffer turned his attention back to Gwen. Sweat poured down his face. He wiped his brow with his uninjured hand and managed to get blood in his eyes, blurring his vision. Stauffer looked around for something to wipe his eyes and grabbed a piece of paper that floated by him on the breeze. He glanced quickly at what was printed on the page. It was a training exercise scenario document marked SECRET for Training. He shrugged.... anything will do in a storm.... and wiped his eyes clear with the document. After a few minutes, a young woman came running up carrying a bag. It was one of the EMTs from the post fire station. She knelt down beside Gwen and Stauffer and asked in an urgent voice, "What have we got...
