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

a day, but the crowds were getting restless. People were hungry, and there began to be gunfire all around us. Most of the people were from cities, but it was still Texas, after all. I heard later that the Army tried to organize the relief effort, but I never saw any of them.

Did you ever encounter the Veech?

No, the Army did a good job distracting them. From what I know, after the 1st battle of Houston, the Veech advanced to the Texas border with Oklahoma and then went east into Louisiana. Before retreating in front of the Veech, the Army sent enough troops to the camp to keep them away. I'm not sure that would have worked, but, as I said, the Veech were more concerned with the Army in front of them.

We did see and felt the dogfights above us, though. I was told later that no big air battle ever happened in Texas like other places, but it sure felt that way. Jets would scream over us at such low levels, and we had to clamp our ears down. We also saw dogfights in the air to the east, but it was too difficult to follow what was happening with them. Light, explosions, and noise. Lots of noise. It was terrifying but reassuring at the same time. Our boys still fought for us.

Where was I? Oh yeah. So, another day passed, and this one brought rain, which turned out to be a rose with thorns. It started in the morning, just a drizzle, but it soon got harder. People everywhere were screaming in joy, holding their hands up in the air like the Second Coming was upon us. We were no different. We were thirsty, and swallowing became difficult. We had tried to ration our water, but man… that's hard. So yeah, we danced liked little kids in that rain. Randal was calmer about it, like he always was. He quickly gathered anything that would collect water and put it out. He also rigged his tent into a giant funnel, and we all took turns laying under it, drinking as much as we could. It's hard to describe that feeling unless you've ever been without water, but it was the best thing I've ever tasted.

The rain lasted for about five hours, then stopped. We were wet but no longer thirsty, and the camp settled down in silence for a while. We were feeling up. A few hours later, people started moving around again, once again looking for food. By the time night fell, the camp had turned into a giant mud pool. That many people turned that field into a massive mud festival.

The next day, after talking it over with Randal, we decided to get out of there. All of us. People were thirsty again, many not having saved anything during the storm. The ground was wet and muddy, just adding to the misery. We had had enough. We were trapped in a sea of people, and the living conditions were getting worse every minute. The smell of sh… human waste was overpowering, and we reasoned there wasn't a good reason to stay any longer.

Gangs were also forming, moving through the crowd, taking whatever they wanted, which led to fights all over the place. A girl from a family near us got shot in the leg. The bullet could have come from any of the idiots around us or could have come from far away. Bullets don't just stop, and it was becoming all too common to get hit by the strays.

That night, my cousins, both a little younger than me, went out one last time to get some food from a recent drop. They were gone a few hours when only one came back, and he'd been stabbed. His shirt was covered in blood, and he stumbled, then fell into our camp. We laid him down and tried our best to close the wound, but it wasn't happening. He told me what happened to our other cousin as tears ran down his gaunt face. He finally gave me a small smile and fell unconscious. He never woke back up.

Carol grabs Joseph's hand and gives him a small smile.

Carol: My story was similar. I made it out of Austin with some girls I went to school with. I was a senior at the University of Texas. My family lived in Atlanta, so I knew they were gone. My friends were all I had, and we all left together. There were seven of us. We left a little earlier than Joseph, I think, because, by the time I got here, there were only a few thousand people. I got lucky in a lot of ways. I was a nursing student, and I was almost finished, ready to enter the workforce when the invasion happened.

My friends, who were also nursing students, and I ran into some soldiers setting up an aid tent in a field. After they found out we were nurses, they took us to their captain, who asked us to help. He told us we could have a place to stay and would be fed. Well, after the walk from Austin, it seemed like a dream job, and we gladly accepted. The crowds were kept away from us, and soldiers created a buffer.

The sick were brought to us and we did what we could for them, but there were just too many. We would patch them up the best we could and they were sent on their way. Some cases weren't too bad, but others were severe, and those were sent to another tent. There weren't enough doctors, nurses, or medicine to help everyone. It was long hours in extreme heat, but it was good work, and we were thankful to be there and alive.

Then one day, in walks this handsome, tall Black man...

Joseph: Yeah, sorry to cut in, babe, but I didn't walk in at all, I...

Carol: I'm telling this story, Joseph Sutton. Now, where was I?