Invasion Day: An Oral History of the Veech War by Micah Gurley (good books for high schoolers .TXT) 📕

We tried to get on Interstate 240 to Southaven, but it was a death trap. Cars burning, mobs fighting, and congestion pushed us to Highway 78, which goes into Mississippi and a less crowded area. Thousands of scared people walked through the night, joining together to escape the danger. Everyone was frightened, crying, or freaking out. Older adults were being pushed in wheelchairs, moms carrying their crying babies, all with the sound of chaos on our heels. That was a night from hell.

We made it to the state line, then to a broad road that was roadblocked. It seemed the native Mississippi boys didn't want us in their state. You've never seen so many big trucks. 4x4s lined the road, blocking it completely. They had those hunting lights turned on, and it was hard to see.

Country boys with rifles and camo outfits stood relaxed in front of their trucks, just watching us, staying silent. I wanted to turn around right there – some did – but my mom pulled me forward. We got scared, thinking these white guys weren't going to let a bunch of poor blacks in, no way. However, there were several black guys in the group as well.

An older guy, dressed in khakis and a polo shirt, walked out and started asking us questions. I thought it was going to get ugly again, only this time with babies and kids. It didn't. It turns out, the guy was a preacher from a local church. He gave the woman he was talking to a pat on the shoulder, then turned around, whistled, picked up a kid, and walked over to the trucks.

All those big country boys slung their rifles, dropped down from their trucks, and started helping us across the roadblock. They pushed wheelchairs, helped mothers, hell, some of them even picked up grown men, and put them on their shoulders. They had the whole crowd behind the trucks in ten minutes, moving them to some school buses. I tell you, it was one of the most unexpected pieces of kindness that I've ever seen. It changed my thinking about a lot of things. Most of our group was taken away, but they couldn't take everyone, so some stayed, including me.

For the next two hours, the Mississippi folk helped people across the road, gave them food and water if they had it and generally just helped people out. Then, the gangs came.

They came down the road like some kind of Rwandan death squad, dragging machetes along the road, carrying guns over their shoulders, and pointing knives at us. They stopped a hundred yards from the barricade, yelling and threatening, promising what they were going to do to us. The pastor must have thought he was talking to a wild animal because he walked out front, hands raised in greetings. He walked halfway up to them, greeted them, asked them to drop their weapons, and offered help.

I couldn't believe it at the time. I wanted to warn the pastor, to tell him these guys weren't interested, but I could only watch.

I thought the preacher was asking to be killed. I know for a fact he was told some of the things that these guys did, but he still put himself out there. Anyway, the mob laughed at him, mocked his attempts at peace, and started moving forward.

Then a gun went off, a machine gun because the bullets were close together. I don't know who did it. Shots began to hit the pavement near the preacher, and for a moment, I thought God was protecting the pastor. He wasn't; the pastor fell to the ground, his leg almost cut in half. He fell with his arms up, still trying to get them to stop, but that was too much for the country boys.

Jeb takes a sip of coffee and nods his head to someone who walks by and calls out a greeting. He looks back at me and shakes his head slightly.

That first week was... well, it was hell on Earth. But what I saw next was something I'll never forget. Those cops getting killed was a thing of nightmares, but this surpassed that, though I don't know if I can say how.

The gang must have had over a thousand people in it, a lot of people. A lot of scary people, but they didn't stand a chance. I saw it and still don't believe how fast it happened. That gang, that mob of fools, died in minutes. Not all of them, you know, but the people in the front did. And quick. The rest started to run the other way or dropped their guns.

There were maybe fifty or sixty guys in their truck beds, but those were the only ones I ever saw. What I didn't know about were the ones on both sides of the road, flanking them. Who knows how many there were because I never saw them. But they had rifles, and they had scopes, and they were perfectly sighted in on the crowd. Those were easy shots for them, not even a dozen yards away. People just seemed to explode, one after another, their bodies sometimes thrown back like dolls. It happened so fast. The gang just collapsed. It was loud, I mean real loud. Even after it was over, I couldn't hear anything for thirty minutes. The silence that followed was more disturbing as a red mist seemed to flow in and out of the trucks' headlights like some kind of evil spirit. It was horrible. I don't know how to say it any better than that.

They were good shots, and their rifles held big, unforgiving bullets. They didn't chase the ones that got away, and they rounded up the ones who surrendered. I was surprised that they treated them okay. Not gentle, but decent.

I am grateful to those guys, I am. But after that, I just wanted to get out of there. My mom had gone on the first trip, and I