Saving America's Citizens: Exercising our Oath for our Country

By Tod Gohl

Part memoir and part fiction, Saving America's Citizens follows Tod Gohl through his real life in the US Air Force and into a hypothetical future that offers the United States of America a light at the end

• Language: English
• Publisher: Koehler Books
• Release date: Mar 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9781646639328

Tod Gohl

Tod Gohl is a twenty-year veteran of the US Air Force. As an inventory management specialist, he supported the SR71, U2, RC135, B1, B52, and RC135 aircraft. Tod also spent six years of his career as a missile alert facility manager at Grand Forks AFB. He is a Desert Storm and Kosovo veteran, and among his honors he received two Meritorious Service Medals, three Air Force Commendation Medal, and the Southwest Asia Medal. His love for his country and his despair at seeing what it's going through gave him the inspiration to write Saving America's Citizens.

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Praise for Saving America’s Citizens

"There are many of us who despair of the direction our nation is headed. This despair is accompanied by a high degree of frustration at the inability and unwillingness of our political process to resolve, and at times, to even address the issues and chaos leading to this decline. We see obvious solutions neither tried nor even considered by the elite governing class. This situation tortures our consciences, and deep down, many of us begin to fantasize how this scenario can be changed and corrected. Tod Gohl, veteran and retired from an honorable Air Force career, has turned to fantasy and fiction to salve his conscience. Tod captures his fantasy in Saving America’s Citizens, a semi-fictional book that puts forward his solutions to our nation’s issues based on his military background and experience. Critics of his fantasy/fictional approach to providing military like solutions may well dismiss them as highly improbable or unlikely, but his end goal leaves those of us still frustrated and disenchanted with a ray of hope of being saved."

—Joseph Tedeschi, Award-Winning Military Author at Koehler Books, Inc.

"The most novel literature of fact and fiction ever written, Saving America’s Citizens is the heart of every virtuous American who sees the problem and knows the solution. What is a man to do when he sees his nation falling apart? When he sees child trafficking and Americans left in Afghanistan? When he sees the invasion at the southern border and the deadly cartels [running] rampant? When he has made an oath to defend and protect his country? . . . He does what he has to do. He keeps his oath. Read Saving America’s Citizens not for a hypothetical future, not for mere entertainment, but [as] a real blueprint of what must be done to save America. . . . Honor is in the works, and the dirt is in the details. Veteran Tod Gohl has cracked open the mind of every virtuous American . . . [and] given [them] a future to fight for. If you only read one book in 2023, you must read Saving America’s Citizens."

—Aaron Michael Grant, Staff NCO, US Marine Corps, Author of Taking Baghdad, Teacher, Master of Military History; Commandant, James R. Moore Marines; Past Commander, VFW; Certified Peer Supporter in Combat Trauma (NYCPS-P)

Tod Gohl takes its readers on a journey of dangerous and exciting heroic, military-style missions in our country and abroad to save American citizens and take our country back from a failed government. I was engulfed in its description of fiction and nonfiction of his and many others’ patriotism. My favorite parts were getting to know the author, learning of his military days, and [his] sticking it to our government by doing the job they refused to do by saving Americans’ here at home from violence, trafficking, domestic terrorism, etc., and from being abandoned in Afghanistan.

—Irene Tercovich

A Note from President Trump

notetit

Saving America's Citizens: Exercising our Oath for our Country

by Tod Gohl

© Copyright 2023 Tod Gohl

ISBN 978-1-64663-932-8

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The names, incidents, dialogue, and opinions expressed are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

Published by

3705 Shore Drive

Virginia Beach, VA 23455

800-435-4811

www.koehlerbooks.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Author’s Note

Prologue

Part I: Reality

Gaining My Experience in Special Ops

Small-Town Living

New Life after School

Off to Basic Training

Tech School

Tours of Duty

Civilian Life

Part II: Fiction

Time to Form the Task Force

Operational Results for US Missions

Operation Rescue

The Push to Bagram

Additional US Task Added

The Crusade Begins

Push to Kandahar

Push to Bagram Air Base

Taking Back Bagram Air Base

Going to Kabul

Back to Bagram and Then Home

Home Sweet Home . . . Now What?

Stateside Missions

Setting Up the New Border Task Force

Heading Home for Good

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Part I: Reality is a true account of my life. This depicts my sincere feeling for the military; whether living it or not, it was always with me. I took this appreciation for the military and this country and segued into an aspiration.

In Part II: Fiction, a fictional version of me channels my military experience and knowledge into creating a task force to try to do something about the chaos erupting in this country. Though the events are fictional, this is something that I do believe I or someone else could accomplish.

PROLOGUE

As a kid, I frequently played what we called combat, running around town with fake guns, killing the fake enemy.

As I got older, my affinity for the military never went away. For some odd reason, I wanted to go to war. Sounds like Patton, doesn’t it? When I finally got out of school and got my first real job, life was too mundane for me. It had no meaning. I got married young and was happy with that, but I wanted to travel or do something more than the nine-to-five thing.

I checked out the different branches of the military and finally decided on joining the Air Force. The Air Force had the easiest boot camp of all the services, but it still had the requisite shock value for a kid from a very small town. Once I got out to the real military, every day was different. I enjoyed the discipline and the camaraderie. I grew up very fast and got my street smarts in check.

Then, one day, I had the opportunity to fulfill my childhood dream. I volunteered to participate in Desert Storm. The war started out great; there was some action, even though I wasn’t on the front lines. And just like that, it was over, and the excitement went away.

It was a sad day for me when I retired two months after 9/11. I felt I should have stayed in to do whatever I could to help defeat the enemy trying to take down our country. But my job was mundane, and I didn’t think I could spend another week, much less another year, wasting my time at a task that didn’t directly help anyone.

So, I went on with my life as a civilian, but the military remained in my blood. I went through several jobs before I found one that I stayed with for a while. It was okay, but they didn’t do things the military way, and it was frustrating.

Meanwhile, the country I thought I knew and had served for twenty years was changing, and not for the good: violence in our cities; children being killed and trafficked; riots, and no regard for human life or respect for property; the border being overrun by illegal immigrants mixed with terrorists; lawlessness everywhere.

Most politicians on the right and left in general had forgotten the oath they took and couldn’t care less about their constituents until it came to fundraising or election time. Their concerns did not reflect what the American people needed and wanted.

The world was burning up and in utter chaos, and the terrorists were coming to this country to destroy us. Where was our country’s breaking point? When would the people rise together and say that they’d had enough?

Elections changed nothing besides the party in office. Maybe this country needed a team to make it safe and get it headed in the right direction once again. I and many others took an oath to protect this country, and I couldn’t sit around any longer. Something had to be done.

I found the money, and there was no problem finding the volunteers. We picked our priorities, strategized our operations, and carried them out.

PART I: REALITY

CHAPTER ONE

Gaining My Experience in Special Ops

Look out, Sean. Someone is coming. Get down quick! The enemy was approaching fast from the east, and if we were sighted, our team would be compromised and attacked. We were hiding in three-foot-tall grass, which would usually conceal our location perfectly, but the enemy’s approach would bring them within a hundred feet of our location. We hugged the ground as tight as we could.

All clear, I whispered as the enemy went by without stopping. That was another close one. We couldn’t afford to lose anyone on our team today or any other day. There was more enemy movement than usual disrupting our operation today. It was time to move to a more secure location in the local gravel pit, about a quarter mile away. There we could collect ourselves and come up with another plan.

The gravel pit was a dugout location about one-eighth of a mile long and 300 yards wide at its widest point—ideal for hiding out until the enemy settled down for the day. A gravel road passed by, but it had minimal enemy traffic, so it wasn’t much of a concern.

We worked our way along the ditch line, making sure to stay concealed in the tall grass. Once we drew near the mouth of the gravel pit, we cautiously crossed the gravel road and headed for our secure location: a grassy mound with trees spread out on top of it. A ridgeline rose behind us on one side, but it didn’t pose any danger of a possible attack. From our grassy mound, we had a clear view of the gravel pit. There we would rest and decide on our next plan of action.

Sean and I had at least four years’ experience in providing reconnaissance in this area of the enemy’s stronghold. We’d killed about six dozen in those four years, all without compromising our location or our mission of intelligence gathering.

Sean, what’s next? Do you want to check out what’s going on at the headquarters and then head for the armory?

Sounds like a plan, Sean remarked.

We packed up our gear and headed back the way we came, except this time we descended into the gravel pit and stayed there until we got to the mouth of it, which was next to an enemy fuel depot. Once at the fuel depot, we had to be very careful. The enemy could pop out anywhere, and ground cover was sparse between locations.

From the fuel depot, we had to cross a small road that would bring us to our next location, the equipment repair depot.

The repair depot was a great transitional hiding spot as it was lined with tanks all the way to the equipment garage. Once there, we could follow the tanks behind the garage where there were no windows. There was, however, a large service door that could open at any time as we crossed the backside of the building. On rare occasions, this door would be wide open and occupied with enemy mechanics working on their field equipment. We’d then have to adjust our approach to further west in the gravel pit. Today it was closed, so we easily moved past it.

Once we got to the corner of the building, we surveyed the area; our next movement would leave us with no concealment opportunities for at least 200 feet. For some reason, activities in the camp today were making it difficult to go our normal route. We had to backtrack around the building to the tanks and weave to the front of the first line of the massive vehicles. There was more concealment for us here, but this spot also brought us within thirty feet of the main supply road going through the encampment.

Get down. Someone’s coming to the repair depot. The light field truck moved past us slowly, so close we could smell the exhaust fumes. It pulled into the equipment repair depot, stopped, and one soldier went inside.

We better move quickly because we may not get another chance.

Sean nodded, and after looking both ways to ensure there was no enemy movement, we ran across the main road and in between two buildings.

One of the buildings had an open foundation system, allowing us to hide in the shadows in the event we had been followed. There was no need to hide today, but with each step, chances of compromise grew.

The two buildings we ran between were right next to the enemy encampment’s headquarters, which also served as their main resource facility. For a headquarters, it was not guarded that well, and the only windows were at the front of the building. This made it easier for us to get as close as we wanted to.

We stopped at the end of the alley to ensure that no one was out back near the fuel depot. Occasionally, someone would come through the back door where the used oil from vehicles was stored. Fortunately for us, two additional buildings provided cover as we approached the fence line of the headquarters compound. The first building we leapfrogged to was only fifty feet away. The next one was a bit further, about seventy-five feet, and this one had a small gravel road that wound around the back of the buildings to the fuel depot. Once we made it to that building, a group of bushes provided cover from any vehicle coming down that road.

Our next objective put us in full view of the enemy for a long period of time: the compound fence. It was only forty to fifty feet from the building, but it was twelve feet high. We could have easily cut a hole in the fence, but that would take more time, and a hole would raise suspicion.

Sean watched both ends of the road and the compound as I ran across the road and climbed that fence, jumping down on the other side, directly into the compound. From there I could hide behind materials stored nearby. I gave the whistle after scouting for enemy movement, and Sean made his way across the road and over the fence. We were in!

The headquarters building was narrow—about 300 feet long and 80 feet wide—with large doors at both ends for the enemy to drive through and unload supplies. Usually both doors were open, which meant the enemy might drive around the corner at any moment. But these large doors also allowed us to enter the building at the back. Entry at the front was virtually impossible.

We leapfrogged behind piles of materials until we reached the back corner of the building. Sean went first to the large open door, making sure no one was walking around inside the facility. He hand-signaled the all clear, and I came up next to him. Once in, we split up, him taking the left side of the complex and me the right side. We had to work slowly to the front of the building, to the offices, in order to gather what intel we could. I could tell exactly where Sean was from the sounds he made going under and over the materials. He was louder than usual, and I thought for sure today was the day we would be caught.

One of the office doors opened, and a soldier emerged and headed down the long dirt floor to the back of the building. Sean and I stopped in our tracks. I caught Sean’s eye, pointed to the front, and put my finger over my lips. He replied with a thumbs-up, and we both hid under the materials we had been climbing through.

The enemy soldier continued through the building and climbed into a truck, then drove away. Sean and I crept from our hiding spots and edged forward once again.

Approximately fifty feet from the front of the building, Sean reached the first office door. I continued on until I had a direct line of sight into the offices, ascertaining troop strength. It seemed quiet today, with just a few individuals. Maybe there is a meeting going on? I thought. I would have to move fast to Sean’s location to reach our vantage point above the office. I backtracked approximately fifty feet and then moved across the drive-through area. Seeing no one around, I made a mad dash for the other side of the complex and quickly joined Sean.

A permanently attached wooden ladder led to the second floor of the office area. We climbed slowly and quietly moved just above the room in question. The ceiling wasn’t insulated very well. All we had to do was put our ears to the floorboards and listen. After about five minutes, we determined that there was no meeting at this time. Where was everybody?

We’d been in this building way too long, and it was time to move on. Moving quickly but quietly, we descended the ladder and retraced Sean’s steps. We’d made it halfway through when the truck the soldier had taken earlier returned to the compound.

Sean and I hugged the dirt and climbed under the nearest materials to conceal ourselves. The door to the truck closed, and the soldier came back through the building, towards the offices. For some reason, he stopped. I wondered if he’d heard us, but we had left no clues that we were here, so what was he doing?

A couple minutes felt like an hour. He finally resumed walking to the offices. We’d only had to take out one soldier before in that drive-through. The key to our mission was to be as covert as possible in every way.

Once we heard the office door close, I signaled to Sean that we needed to get out of there. I didn’t like any reason that soldier might have had for stopping. Crouching, we picked up the pace, making a bit more noise than we should have. We stopped at the large door and surveyed the locations we had passed earlier. The quickest way to the armory was by another route, which at one point would leave us more exposed than we’d been at any time before.

From the back entrance, a hundred feet lay between us and another security fence behind the building. The problem was that the area was known to have booby traps, and the fence itself was about twenty feet high. We quickly worked our way to the fence, avoiding the traps. Here we had to move speedily to cover, which was another thirty to forty feet away; in that span we were completely out in the open. We watched alertly for about five minutes before I whispered, Go! We scaled the fence in unison and made it to the next covered area.

Our last leg of the journey was an eighth-mile stretch to the armory. This was a quiet part of the encampment with two roads, one intersecting the other. We had plenty of bushes and other cover from here until we reached our destination. We waited for about fifteen minutes this time to analyze the traffic situation, and when it seemed quiet, we sprinted for the armory, hugging the covered areas in case we had to use one along the way.

We made it. A full day of gathering intel, and we’d remained unseen by the enemy. Tomorrow would be another day with another plan.

CHAPTER TWO

Small-Town Living

No, Sean and I weren’t from Seal Team Six, and we weren’t Special Ops, even though we idolized those groups and wanted to be part of a team. We were just two kids from a small town who were fortunate enough to have this adventure.

We grew up in north central South Dakota in a place called Long Lake. The population of our town in the mid-’60s was probably around a hundred. If you were one of the lucky families, you had a color television.

Our town was one that any parent would want to raise their kids in. Everyone looked after everyone and could always be counted on to help each other when needed. Kids could play outside and away from their homes all day long if they wanted to, with no fear of being abducted by some crazy SOB. Kids used their imaginations to entertain themselves. Your parents’ friends would come over to visit and spent a weekend evening playing cards or just sitting and conversing. It wasn’t a thriving town, but it had its appeal. People worked hard for their wages , and food stamps were nonexistent.

Our days outside of school were spent riding banana bikes around, sometimes with the baseball cards clothespinned to the spokes of the wheels to make that cool clicking sound as we rode. Some days we rounded up enough kids for a game of baseball or soccer; some days we would pack a lunch and just go on a long bike ride adventure out of town.

The highlight of the week was always Saturday night when the farm kids came into town with their parents. We would muster up a great game of one-man tackle football. Afterwards, our moms had grass-stained clothes and the odd cuts and bruises to tend to, but that was okay. We were having fun being kids, and kids were tougher back then. We didn’t get taken to the clinic for every cold or bump or bruise. If parents could fix the problem at home, then all the better.

Sean’s and my favorite pastime was playing combat. This game didn’t make us violent people, even though we did kill a lot of the imaginary enemy. We knew when to get Seal Team serious and when to shut it off.

The town was the enemy encampment, and, of course, our enemies were anyone therein. Our objective was to move around the town without anyone seeing us. If we were compromised, we would quit for about a half hour and start all over again in a different location. Usually, being compromised entailed someone cheerfully yelling, Hi or a vehicle honking their horn in greeting as they went by.

There was no money to buy anything that resembled a real gun, but our imaginary weapons came with limitless ammunition. We never had to carry gun belts with clips, and we never had to reload. Sometimes we would throw in an imaginary gun jam, but it was fixed quickly. We never got killed. Occasionally, we did get wounded, but that was quickly repaired by slapping on an imaginary Band Aid. One year, we saved up enough change to buy ourselves web belts with canteens.

The ditch we used during our mission was a real ditch next to the main road coming into town from the east. There was long grass there, but the thought of ticks or snakes never crossed our minds. Anyway, the only snakes we had around there were garter snakes.

The gravel pit was a real gravel pit where many battles were fought. The fuel depot comprised the big fuel storage tanks for the one and only gas station in town. The equipment repair facility was the International Harvester tractor shop