Auburn, Alabama (1983: Doomsday)

Auburn was a town in the eastern portion of the former U.S. state of Alabama.

It was home to Auburn University pre- and post-Doomsday. Auburn was also the capital of a provisional Alabama state government set up in late 1983 that soon fell apart due in part to the activities of racists who went on to found the city-state of New Montgomery. Survivors from Auburn fled to other parts of the former state, some to survivor communities in southern Alabama and Georgia.

In recent years, explorers and military from Hattiesburg examined the ruins of Auburn, including the university.

What follows is a history detailing events in and around the town, from Doomsday through early 1984, and highlights of activities by survivors through the present day.

Flight from Montgomery
The evening of September 25, 1983 was as chaotic in the Alabama state capital of Montgomery as anywhere else in the United States that was a likely target for a Soviet nuclear missile.

As soon as television began carrying the White House announcement of impending attack, aides of Governor George Wallace picked him up and rushed him to a hastily-organized motorcade. Wallace's third wife, Lisa, joined them as their hot-wired vehicle quickly rushed away from the Governor's Mansion. A separate vehicle carrying Lieutenant Governor Bill Baxley and his family quickly joined Governor Wallace's caravan. Time was of the essence -- the Governor's Mansion was a short distance away from the likely target, Maxwell Air Force Base.

Thanks in part to the Alabama State Police, the caravan sped out of town on Interstate 85, even as police blocked entrances ahead (and were instructed to move once the caravan had passed). With speeds reaching 120 miles per hour, the parties had just reached the outskirts of Tuskegee when they were rocked by blinding flashes from behind and ahead: near-instantaneous strikes on Maxwell AFB in the capital, and on Fort Benning outside Columbus, Georgia. The drivers of the vehicles slammed on the brakes and narrowly avoided wiping out in the median. Still, three of the State Police drivers accompanying the caravan were blinded by the flash, one driving off the side of the road and flipping over, a second hitting another patrol car and the third somehow avoiding everyone before skidding to a stop 200 yards up the interstate.

While checking on everyone, the ranking patrolman in charge - Captain Clyde Harness - ordered his lieutenants to check on their fellow officers, while he checked on the governor and lieutenant governor. Wallace, Baxley and their parties were fine, as their drivers had ducked just in time (and slammed down on the brakes). The one officer who flipped over was severely injured; the two who collided were moderately injured, though their cars were totaled.

Harness told everyone the officer who filpped over was dead - but in truth, the officer wasn't. It was later learned - before the evacuation of Auburn on New Year's Day 1984 - that Harness had slit the officer's throat with a hunting knife. Nuclear war, survival of the fittest, justified the act and everything since, and the poor bastard was so injured he was better off dead, Harness confessed to confidants (one of whom was a spy for acting Governor Baxley).

Harness was a captain in the Alabama State Police - and sympathetic to the Ku Klux Klan, a white male who was incensed at Governor Wallace and Lt. Governor Baxley for their anti-racist stances.

Harness would become one of the leaders in terrorist operations designed to take down the provisional state government in Auburn, a leader for the White Army of America in the Selma War, and one of the founding fathers of the professed successor to the Confederate States of America in the newly established town of New Montgomery.

The two injured officers were loaded in the back of still drivable patrol cars. The dead officer - Lieutenant Ricky Jones - was left, on Harness's orders.

Jones was a graduate of the University of Alabama, where Wallace had once resisted federal marshalls and national guardsmen ordered to enforce desegregation. The Huntsville native also was black.

Before the caravan left, Governor Wallace brought Harness over. After learning of Lt. Jones' fate and giving his condolescences, Wallace asked what Harness thought about finding shelter in Tuskegee in relation to Auburn (and its relative close proximity to Fort Benning). Harness said nothing was known about the situation in town - Baxley countered that nothing is known about Auburn, either - and Harness replied he would need to contact the Tuskegee Police to discern the situation.

Just then, a Tuskegee police cruiser came off the interstate onto the caravan. During the subsequent discussion it was learned that people in town were in a state of shock, not knowing exactly what was going on, and there were several injuries from people who were looking east or west when the strikes hit Montgomery and Columbus. The officer - Lt. John Pruitt - said the police was keeping order for the time being and that the mayor and city council were about to meet in emergency session.

Wallace requested that he and his caravan be taken to that session. Lt. Pruitt, driving one of the few still-operable police cruisers in town, led the caravan to the Municipal Complex on Fonville Street. The city councilpersons had arrived, waiting on the mayor, and were surprised and happy to see the Governor and Lieutenant Governor had escaped Montgomery. Harness asked Lt. Pruitt to arrange a meeting with the Tuskegee police chief and also to fetch an associate of his - Gene McDonald, a Vietnam veteran who lived in nearby Tallassee, on the grounds that McDonald's military experience would prove useful to the state in the days to come.

Pruitt raised his eyebrows. McDonald was famillar to the Tuskeegee police, as a member of the area chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. Harness told the young lieutenant to "trust me on this. I know his background. We need him. He will be under observation at all times."

He sure will, Lt. Pruitt thought to himself as he sped his hot-wired cruiser towards Tallassee, accompanied by four of the 17 state cruisers that escaped the destruction of Montgomery and accompanied the caravan to Tuskegee.

A short time later, as the mayor met Gov. Wallace on the steps of the Municipal Complex, Harness pulled out a cigarette. Awaiting the Tuskegee police chief, the captain made some mental notes to himself: ''ask the Governor to reinstate the state army. I'm the ranking officer, I should be the captain of the thing. I need to gain authority over the police, form an army, maintain order. Don't know if these people will go along...but it's not like I don't know how to fight...when Gene gets here he'll help formulate a plan. ''

"Captain Harness."

Standing in front of Harness was Tuskegee Police Chief Claude Higgins. Like him, Higgins was in his early-to-mid-40s and looked as if he could take care of a riot all by himself.

And as the two exchanged pleasantries, Harness finally began to consider the enormity of the situation he and everyone else still alive faced: how to survive.

Survival of the fittest would drive Harness's life and philosophy going forward.

Over the next few months, Harness's application of Charles Darwin's famous saying would provoke the community of Tuskegee to the brink of war and prove fatal to the battered college town of Auburn and to the remnants of the Alabama state government.

Auburn
On the night of September 25, 1983, the town of Auburn was settling in for the start of another week.

On campus, a few students were partying, the others getting ready for Monday's classes. The football team had just flown into Auburn University Regional Airport, fresh off a 37-14 victory against Southeastern Conference opponent Tennessee in Knoxville - the last official game the football team would ever compete in.

The Auburn Tigers football team disembarking their buses at 7:39 p.m. Central time at Jordan-Hare Stadium were considered one of the top collegiate football teams in the United States. A loss at home, to the University of Texas in Jordan-Hare just over a week before, ended Auburn's national title hopes. But an SEC title was still in reach.

At 7:50 p.m., many players had already left the stadium to go back to their dorm rooms. Some were milling around, getting tended to by trainers. Coaches were already thinking about the next week's scheduled game, in Jordan-Hare against Florida State. Student assistants had set up game film on FSU for coaches and players to look at over the next week. Pat Dye, the head coach and athletic director, had called his wife to tell her the team had arrived safely and that, after taking care of a few things, he would be soon be home.

Minutes later, the calm of the town and campus turned into a measured panic.

Three coaches and a student manager ran into Dye's office at 7:53, telling him to turn on his television set. They were soon joined by other coaches, players and managers as they watched White House deputy press secretary Larry Speakes announce the end of the world.

Everyone knew Auburn probably would not be a target, and that nearby Fort Benning probably would be hit.

Dye picked up his phone, called home and told his wife to get to the basement. He then called the university's police chief - and actually got through to him, astonishing considering the breaking circumstances - and extracted a promise from him to go by his home and check on his wife and if necessary bring her directly to the stadium (Dye would later remark he should have driven home right then to get her and bring her back).

From the stadium, coaches ordered players who were in their dorms to get to shelter immediately.

Outside, bewildered and scared students were either trying to get to shelter or wandering around in a daze. Some students were jumping in their cars, or breaking into others', to get out of campus. One hit a university police car rushing towards its intended destination, at 75 miles an hour.

As the Emergency Broadcasting System logo and tones replaced the feed from the local CBS affiliate, coaches were ordering team members in the stadium to a central room just in case the expected bomb over Columbus reached the Auburn campus.

Minutes later, the lights went out, all over campus and all across town. Dye rushed to the nearest phone, intending to call his wife. The phone was dead. He said a silent prayer that the police officer had made it to his house in time. In the central room, coaches, trainers, managers, players and students were setting up tables; coaches were ordering everyone under sturdy tables. Coach Dye lit a match and went back to his office, and used the match to find a bottle of whiskey he had been given by an Auburn booster.

He sit a glass down on his desk, unscrewed the cap, then said to himself the hell with the glass and drank every last drop of whiskey straight from the bottle.

Dye heard someone's voice, yelling "Coach! Coach!". It was one of the managers, running through the hallway with a flashlight.

At 8:39 p.m. local time, one Soviet missile exploded directly over Fort Benning, taking out most of the base and adjacent Columbus, Georgia.

In Auburn, dozens of students and locals still outside, including a few outside the stadium, were blinded by the flash from that strike. The noise from the bomb followed right on the heels of the flash, and was described as being simulataneously unforgettable and horrifying.

Coach Dye and the manager who found him both crawled out from under his office desk, and found their way through the dark corridors to the parking lot.

There, they joined others who had just left the stadium, attending to students and workers who were screaming, holding their faces. They had the misfortune of looking directly east at the moment the missile exploded over Fort Benning, and were permanently blinded by its flash. Trainers began attending to as many as they could, giving what little aid they were able to.

Dye noticed some of his coaches and players looking east, with what he later described as a "look of shock, unbelief (and) horror".

He and the nine football team members acting as his guards walked until they had a clear line of sight to the east...where they saw the mushroom cloud that everyone else saw.

The entire front of Dye's pants, he soon realized, was soaking wet. He wasn't the only one in that predicament, either.

Sunday night
Suddenly, the wind from the blast came through campus and anyone who was outside hit the ground.

After 15 seconds, Dye thought it would be a great idea to get inside, and quick.

"Everyone!" Dye shouted, hoping everyone would hear him over the wind. "Get in the stadium. NOW!" Everyone was looking his way, as if looking for guidance. Everyone took off for the stadium, football players helping ladies, or carrying the injured on their backs.

Around 10 p.m. local time, some ash was falling to the ground in Tuskegee and Auburn, presumably from the mushroom cloud over Montgomery.

In both towns, and in others in the vicinity, police were trying to keep the peace the best they could, often riding horseback, riding through their towns telling residents to stay inside for the time being. Some were driving vehicles hotwired to be operational after the EMP blast, officers like Lt. Pruitt, driving in a caravan to secure a man he wished one of the Soviet bombs had fallen on.

On the Auburn and Tuskegee university campuses, anyone with any knowledge of radiation and fallout was being gathered. Geiger counters were being secured by local police.

Most people in the region interacted well with one another regardless of race or economic status, and in the early days post-Doomsday the tragedy seemed to bring people together regardless of status. Johnny's Pub, the largest tavern in the Tuskegee region frequented mainly by whites, became an impromptu shelter for several Tuskegee students returning to campus after a weekend trip; some local regulars in fact gave food and clothing and, in one case, the shirt off their backs. Black churches opened their doors to white travelers stranded by the EMP blast and subsequent blasts, and white churches did the same.

This spirit of cooperation would serve the people well in the coming weeks and months, especially as things got their darkest around New Year's Day.

Hospitals went on call and began forming plans to get all of their staffers to work as soon as possible. Some doctors - with radiation threats looming in their minds - began making the journeys by foot. Some opted to stay with their families.

Throughout the region, looters and others intent on personal gain or causing mayhem were confronted with threats to shoot if they didn't stop, and stopped by bullets when they did not. Police did not intervene unless innocent, law-abiding parties were in danger.

No one knew for certain how bad things would get. Auburn professors were invoking scientist Carl Sagan and his projections of nuclear winter, during a meeting by candlelight; when a few of their colleagues dissented, student assistants had to break up the subsequent fight.

Everyone was trying to get through the moment. Tomorrow would be a separate day...but not another day. Not like any day anyone had known.

The grey dawn
Monday morning brought a reality to the people of Auburn and Tuskegee and the rest of southeastern Alabama.

Gene McDonald had arrived in a caravan in the middle of the night. He attempted to embrace Harness - a fact not unnoticed by the myriad of state and Tuskegee troopers watching McDonald like a hawk. After getting a few hours sleep, on Harness's orders McDonald was given a breakfast of scrambled eggs, four slices of bacon, two slices of bread and a pot of coffee - all luxuries in this new world.

That gesture did not go unnoticed by the police, either.

Governor Wallace's first official act, post-Doomsday, was to address those present in the Tuskegee City Hall. In his one minute, 27-second speech, Wallace lamented the apparent act of war by the Soviet Union, but vowed with the help of God to help Alabamans survive the cataclysm. He also enacted emergency powers that gave him virtual unlimited authority for the duration of the crisis, or at least until a provisional legislature could be convened.

In his first act exercising his new authority, Wallace established the state police as the State Army of Alabama, with Wallace as Commander-In-Chief and Harness as captain and ranking officer after Wallace - which caught Harness somewhat by surprise, as he wasn't expecting the directive to come so early.

He shouldn't have. Harness was recognized as a highly respected, by-the-book officer, if occasionally a bit rough on criminals and perpetrators. Unknown to him, Wallace had spoken to Chief Higgins overnight; Higgins was familar with Harness - or at least the image that Harness portrayed to the world - and recommended to Wallace that Harness lead the Alabama State Army.

Wallace then ordered sentries to be sent across the region, including the town of Auburn, to ascertain the fate of the immediate region. Several men volunteered, enough for teams of men to be sent out, four in each group, to points north, south, east and west.

The men performed their duties above and beyond the call of duty, and some of their actions would have positive ramifications that would not be known for years. In the meanwhile, the sentries would not return to the provisional capital of Tuskegee for several days. Hopefully, the radiation would not kill them and the foodstuffs and weapons they carried with them would keep them alive.

In Auburn, the calm was measured, and people were scared. All day Monday, town leaders argued over rationing and defense before finally hammering out provisional plans to ration out food and keep some semblance of order in town and on campus.

They left their emergency session to learn that church leaders, citizens and Auburn University students had organized their own efforts to collect food for rationing to the community. People may have been scared, but were also willing to help one another. They just needed to know how to do so.

By Thursday, that plan was in place. For the time being, everyone in town would be fed.

Auburn University professors and students helped engineers and technicians from the Alabama Power Company and the Water Board to restore the power grid and keep the water flowing. Professors were brought in to help determine the best course of action in regards to area farmland, and how to protect the farmland from radiation, fallout and other related sideaffects as much as possible.

Town leaders also wanted to know what had happened to the world. World War III was assumed; it was anyone's guess as to which side won, and whether it would be Americans or Russians coming into town on some random day.

It was known that a large mushroom cloud was seen in the direction of Fort Benning, Columbus and Phenix City, and also that a smaller cloud was seen in the opposite direction, presumably over Montgomery. More information would be needed, and leaders would start with their neighbors to the east.

One man, remarkably healthy for someone in the early stages of terminal cancer, volunteered to explore the area. Ronald Brennan, a retired engineer, teacher and former Korean War veteran, would be accompanied on horseback by police and other volunteers until geiger counters began picking up increased amounts of radiation. The party would then wait while Brennan biked into Fort Benning. His task was to do reconnaisance on the area and ascertain the damage done to the military base and the surrounding towns.

Mr. Brennan never had the chance to bike into the ruins of the base.

As the party approached the outskirts of Columbus, Georgia, they saw a stream of refugees, on foot, led by dozens of soldiers.

A caravan of Army vehicles carrying 117 men and women from Fort Benning had the good fortune to be traveling on Alabama state road 80 when the war broke out. Taking shelter near a building just off County Road 11, the company turned out to be the last survivors of one of the numerous military bases nuked out of existence.

The next day, one of their own hotwired a jeep and volunteered to go into town to take pictures, knowing what his likely fate would be. The ranking officer, Major Eddie Polson, consented. As Private Kenneth Muldoon approached the ruined city, he pointed panicked survivors down State Road 80 towards his colleagues, telling them to bring food, water, weapons and tools. He took pictures along the way, and then dared to go into town.

Somehow, he got into Columbus proper, even to the Chattahoochie River. Apparently, Pvt. Muldoon was able to operate the jeep in the blast zone, take his pictures, then drive it back towards Alabama. He ditched the jeep somewhere, jumped on a horse, and rode it until it dropped dead two miles from his colleagues' position.

Pvt. Muldoon was recovered by colleagues keeping watch on horseback. They dragged him back to camp, where Maj. Polson made the decision to head for the nearest town - Auburn.

The soldiers and locals who accompanied them had only gone 3.8 miles west before meeting up with Mr. Brennan's party.

Pvt. Muldoon was carried in the back of a horse-drawn wagon, looking deathly ill, guarded by colleagues who would not abandon him. His camera was guarded by another private, carried in a safe deposit box that Maj. Polson hoped offered adequate protection from any radiation the camera picked up.

The two parties became one and reached Auburn by nightfall. Pvt. Muldoon passed away hours before.

At Auburn University, the pictures were developed, under heavy guard, inside the photo room of the campus newspaper's offices.

The pictures were of the ruins of Phenix City, Columbus and Fort Benning. Pictures unlike anyone had ever seen, the closest analogies were made to photographs of the ruins and survivors of the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan at the end of World War II. Some were far, far worse than what the Japanese survivors had dealt with. Some looked like the barren face of the moon.

The 17 men and women who saw the negatives and pictures (including the mayor, the President of the university and Maj. Polson) could barely imagine the devastation that must have enveloped the rest of the country. There wasn't much time to contemplate it, as better news came a few hours later.

The sentry from Tuskegee representing the governor reached Auburn at midnight. The town mayor and university president, Maj. Polson and the Auburn town police chief - the four most important people in town for the time being - were awakened, per protocol established while they awaited the pictures from Fort Benning.

The sentry was given a sandwich and a warmed Pepsi, which he gratefully accepted. He left at 8 a.m. with some of the Fort Benning soldiers, and pictures for the governor's eyes only of the destruction of Fort Benning and Columbus.

Campus assembly
The Governor, Lt. Governor Baxley, the few surviving staffers that had accompanied them from Montgomery, Capt. Harness, Chief Higgins and the Tuskegee mayor stared at the photographs they had received at 9:24 p.m. Monday evening, in the interim "war room" set up at Tuskegee police HQ.

Harness walked over to the large map of Alabama hanging on the wall and drew red circles around Fort Benning, guessing at the extent of the destruction: the red circle represented ground zero, and a series of concentric rings represented degrees of destruction. Harness did the same with Montgomery. He then took a piece of chalk and drew rings around the areas of Birmingham, Huntsville and Mobile and the USAF bases outside Fort Walton Beach, Florida and Macon, Georgia. On that same map, Harness took a yellow piece of chalk and drew around the areas of Tuskegee and Auburn, as well as lines representing the directions the sentries had gone out to from Tuskegee in the past week.

More to come....

At 11 a.m. the morning of September 30, the president of Auburn University spoke to a packed house inside Memorial Coliseum, the second such crowd of the day. Candles were lit all over the arena, along with some flashlights people had been able to get operating. In his 30 minute speech, the president outlined the various plans the university had developed to help students get through the crisis. He discussed food and water rationing, and ongoing efforts to get electricity restored not just to campus but to the entire town. The President emphasized that everyone was to stay indoors as much as possible, but that help would be needed in the various efforts going on outside. The president announced two other assemblies for October 3 and October 5 - staggered, as to allow everyone on campus to attend, since the coliseum's capacity was 10,500 in the stands and the fire marshal would only allow 1,500 more on the floor and in other places that could be found for people to sit or stand.

Two pieces of news greeted the students, professors and workers of Auburn University and the few refugees who had found shelter on campus in the week since World War III. The first, of the survival of Governor Wallace and Lieutenant Governor Baxley, seemed to lift everyone's spirits. More than one person had the thought that ''if the governor could survive, so can we, and maybe in the end everything's going to be alright. ''The president informed everyone that Auburn the town and Auburn the campus was "still a part of the State of Alabama, and not just the State of Alabama but the United States of America!" That brought a standing, two-minute ovation, with dozens chanting ''USA! USA! USA! USA!''

The second bit of news was more disturbing to some, energizing to others.

Governor Wallace, under his emergency powers, had instituted a State Army of Alabama, and there would be a draft. Men and women, aged 18 to 45, would take part, and no one would be exempt. The draft would not necessarily mandate that people would see combat, and in fact would help provide a pool of workers to rebuild and maintain essential services in and around Auburn. But there would be a need for defense of the region, be it from criminals, survivalists or a full-blown invasion from Soviet and Cuban forces.

Some 151 students registered as conscientious objectors, and were drafted anyway, to serve in non-combat roles. Places were found for 11 of those objectors to assist professors charged with helping local farmers to grow and maintain crops, or to do research on the effects of fallout and radiation and how to prepare for the predicted nuclear winter.

The overwhelming majority of people, be they liberal or conservative, white, black or another race, rich, middle-class or poor, resident or refugee, Democrat, Republican or Independent, religious or non-religious, fully committed to serve their fellow citizens, their state and their country the best they could. The alternative was to give in and wait to die, and the people here were not the type to give in to something like this without a long fight.

By day's end, Pat Dye saw his student-athlete pool dwindle to near zero, as athlete after athlete joined other students in rushing to register for the State Army. After discussions with the president, Dye sent a note by messenger to the governor, volunteering the stadium, coliseum and all other athletic facilities for the Governor and state's use.

On Sunday, one week since the events of Doomsday, churches all over the Auburn and Tuskegee regions were packed.

Governor Wallace spoke to a packed house at the 11 a.m. service in Tuskegee's First Baptist Church, invoking his Christian faith and shattering the separation of church and state in the process. No one, not even the few federal employees alive in the region, cared how many IRS laws or court rulings were broken; this was a time for survival. The governor announced he would travel to Auburn sometime in the next week, and that reconstruction efforts would begin "immediately", six days a week, with Sundays off for rest and relaxation.

More to come....

Gene McDonald
On October 3, Auburn University officially suspended classes, pledging the use of "all available facilities on campus for the service of our nation, our state and the immediate region throughout the duration of the crisis." Given the need for laborers and volunteers, and given that many students were having to work through the grief of losing loved ones and friends on September 25 while doing whatever task was assigned to them, classes were deemed non-essential for the time being.

The next morning, Governor Wallace, his family, his chief of staff and a Secret Service platoon culled from Tuskegee police officers and Fort Benning soldiers arrived via horseback in Auburn. By that evening, engineers had successfully restored partial electricity to Memorial Coliseum, including the public address system, allowing the governor to easily speak to three packed houses in the arena on October 5.

Wallace was unsure if his speech would have any affect on what he expected to be the same type of confused, frightened, discouraged audience he spoke to at Tuskegee University's gymnasium on October 1. He needn't to have worried; Wallace pulled out every trick in the proverbial speakers' playbook to capture and spark his audience, and all three crowds responded with enthusiasm. Wallace's speeches were compared to the best revivalist preachers of the day, and people left the coliseum fired up and ready to work.

Given the enormity of the task that lay ahead, that enthusiasm would be sorely needed in the days to come, and tested.

Back in Tuskegee, Captain Harness was planning out logistics for his new Army. Headquarters; how many men and women he would have at his disposal; where to put them; how to feed them; and, one of his biggest concerns: how to arm them all.

Harness would make a request of the governor in the coming days to ban private ownership of guns and ammunition and mandate their turning over to the state. Survival was paramount right now, Harness thought, and the Constitution be damned.

Meanwhile, his soldiers would need to learn numerous ways to protect themselves and fight off attackers, and master weapons that didn't require bullets.

That is where Eugene Daniel McDonald came in.

McDonald, born in Selma, Alabama in 1941, had a violent streak to him from the time he was born. His father abandoned his mother, Emma Rae McDonald, before Gene was born, leaving Emma Rae to raise her son all alone.

They travelled from town to town throughout Alabama and Georgia, Emma Rae trying to make a living as a waitress, and Gene trying to stay out of trouble. A reputation as a ladies' man and a troublemaker followed him wherever he went, and he increasingly caused trouble for his long-suffering mother.

Finally, at age 17, McDonald was arrested after breaking into a liquor store in Eufaula at 4 a.m. one Sunday morning. The judge had sympathy for him, and suggested he find discipline in the military, perhaps the Marine Corps. At age 18, McDonald walked into an Army office in Macon, Georgia and signed up.

The discipline of the military seemed to work well for McDonald. Boot camp under a stern sergeant who also lost his father seemed to burn a lot of the rebellion out of the young man. The structure of the Army helped him through the sudden death of his mother in 1963 in an automobile crash. Having lost the only family he knew, and knowing nothing else than the Army, McDonald stayed on, eventually rising to the level of Captain.

He actually volunteered for tours of duty in the Vietnam conflict, wanting to fight in war instead of sitting in an office or standing guard over some demilitarized zone, having to resist the urge to shoot out the enemy's eye.

By all accounts, McDonald was a career military officer before going to 'Nam in 1968, happy to do his job for his country. There was nothing in his military record that would suggest the psychopathic, racist, paranoid, survivalist he became between the time he was released from military prison in 1978 to the day the bombs fell on America five years later.

Whatever changed McDonald, it happened in Vietnam. What is unclear is if it was the questionable characters he served with in his platoon in 1971 that influenced him...or if it was the torture his North Vietnamese captors put him through for 17 days in 1972...or the intense study he embarked on learning Vietcong and Communist fighting and torture tactics, trying to know his enemy more than it knew itself...or the increasing stress of a war the United States was slowly losing. Perhaps it was all of it.

In 1973, somewhere near Saigon, McDonald's platoon came across a village. The report on McDonald's arrest, trial and sentencing suggested only that McDonald perceived the peaceful village as some sort of threat and was willing to do anything to uncover the alleged threat.

Anything, including rape, amputation, and types of torture that rivaled anything the military had ever known. Eleven people were permanently injured by Captain McDonald's actions on January 9, including the grandmother of a major official in the South Vietnamese government.

The atrocity was uncovered only when three soldiers confessed to another platoon leader's captain of the deed, breaking the code of silence held by all of McDonald's men (mainly out of fear for their own lives). The American media got a hold of the story, which further damaged the Army's perception back home despite its spin of the situation as "an isolated act performed by a renegade officer."

McDonald was arrested, tried in military court, and judged to have been driven insane by the circumstances he was in. He was, somehow, released into the general population and over the next several years became an expert survivalist living in the western United States. He eventually connected with radical survivalist and racist groups, and began assisting them in various "activities". The one that got him put on the FBI's most wanted list was a bank robbery in Carson City, Nevada in 1981 that resulted in the death of two bank employees and two sheriff's deputies.

McDonald went into hiding, offering his services in exchange for food, clothing and shelter. The Alabama FBI and Alabama State Police became interested in McDonald after he was spotted near Talladega in August 1983. He was spotted near Tuskegee, living in a trailer under an assumed identity, and had been identified for arrest the morning of September 26 - hence, how Harness was aware of him.

No one knew that Harness knew many of the same racists on the most wanted list of the state police and every local police department in the state, and had met McDonald years before at a private White States of America rally outside Talladega. Then Lieutenant Harness was acting as a double agent - feeding information back to the state police and the FBI, while covertly making connections with the racist groups themselves.

So far, Harness's real loyalties to these groups had not been suspected by the authorities. He had done nothing to suggest his loyalties were anywhere other than to the state and to his country, and the people. The only advantage his status gave him was knowing who's who - and helping those under watch to find ways to slip away, while making sure that those who betrayed the groups got "caught" by the authorities.

Knowing who's who is how Clyde Harness knew of Gene McDonald, his past, and his services. What Harness had told anyone who asked and would continue to say was that Gene McDonald's military skills, background and services were essential and vital at the present time, no matter what crimes he had or had not committed. McDonald would be under Harness's personal watch and serve at Harness's discretion; in fact, he told Lt. Governor Baxley that "if McDonald gets out of line, I'll shoot him myself." Any objections to McDonald's status and service Harness replied to by saying "Trust me. We need his skills right now. He may have done these things, but he hasn't met someone like me. Someone who won't take his s**t (or, depending on whom he was speaking to, crap or garbage)."

Despite the Lieutenant Governor's misgivings, Governor Wallace approved McDonald for service in the State Army of Alabama on October 9. Harness promoted him to the rank of lieutenant major, two ranks below Harness's status of captain.

McDonald would rise to major and formally become Harness's right-hand man within the month.

Rebuilding
More to come....

The Army of Alabama
More to come....

Reconnaissance
On October 14, the first of the volunteer reconnaissance teams sent out, on horseback, returned. Tuskegee police lieutenant Marc Powers and his three-man team had been sent west, towards the state capitol of Montgomery. Over the next several days, most of the other teams returned. Seven team members were injured, three seriously; one of the three died of stomach wounds, the second recovered from a broken leg, gaining a pronounced limp in the process; the third died of radiation-related causes in November.

A report for Governor Wallace and Captain Harness was typed up once the individual scouts' reports had been compiled. This is a portion of that report:

WEST

''Montgomery destroyed by probable blasts over Maxwell and Gunter Air Force Bases. Situation around capitol chaotic. Some survivors indicated they were heading west towards Selma, some returned east with scouting parties to Tuskegee. Large group of survivors encountered around Jordan Lake. Scavenger found consuming human remains in home near Jordan Lake, shot on sight by scouts, attracting attention of military from Maxwell AFB who were in region when the bomb struck. Military laughed upon being told that the governor was alive in Tuskegee; entire region seemed to have had an air of fatalism, leading team captains to turn back to Tuskegee.''

NORTH

''Survivors encountered near Lake Martin. One claimed to have escaped the Birmingham area, confirmed seeing mushroom cloud in the city's vicinity; looked "shellshocked" to scouts. Another claimed to have come from a similar camp in Talladega National Forest, having heard stories of panic and chaos from the Anniston, Pelham and Montevallo areas. Lake Martin community seemed to be calm, but food was becoming a great concern. Interest in status of governor, and when region could expect state assistance; no commitment given, except to check back by the end of October.''

SOUTH

''Troy site of survivor camp, consisting mostly of panicked citizens from countryside put up at the local university. Teams split here.''

''One went west towards Eufaula, encountering large survivor community in town and along the Walter F. George Reservoir, including refugees from Dothan. Dothan is approximately 10-15 miles SE of Fort Rucker, which was confirmed to have been struck. Situation in Dothan described by survivors as "dire", necessitating evacuation to Eufaula.''

''A team made its way into Andalusa. Town government heading relief efforts for area, doing its best to maintain order and ration food and medicine. Refugees from Florida claim having seen two blasts over Elgin AFB near Fort Walton Beach.''

EAST

''Auburn is the largest functioning town encountered after Tuskegee. Relief efforts and rationing going as well as expected. Fort Benning already confirmed to have been destroyed, and Columbus, Georgia and Phenix City along with it. Military from Fort Benning suggests that Atlanta likely destroyed and Warner-Robins AFB south of Macon likely gone (will need to confirm).''

Harness was doing his own bit of reconnaissance work, on the town of Tuskegee.

Soft targets. Police. How many people were in the town. How much food was there. How much ammunition, and who had it.

Once he got his information, he conferred with McDonald.

Who survives?
More to come....

Tuskegee
More to come....

Rioting
More to come....

The death of a statesman
More to come....

The confrontation
More to come....

Governor Bill Baxley
More to come....

Thanksgiving
More to come....

Clyde Harness
More to come....

Conspiracy
More to come....

D-Day
More to come....

The flight from Auburn
More to come....

Postscript
The 7,149 men, women and children who left Auburn trekked their way through the growing wilderness of west Georgia, carefully rationing the food amongst them. The journey would be difficult, but time was of the essence - it was winter, after all, although not the nuclear winter that most of the Auburn professors had predicted. Rumors from the journeyman on the provisional government in Albany gave them hope...and hope and determination was all they had.

Meanwhile, Harness's troops picked the remnants of the town and university clean of anything and everything. While pleased over the tools, equipment and weapons left behind and still salvageable, Harness cursed the refugees for taking most of the food with them. That would make it harder.

Harness had hoped to quickly put to rest any notions by his lieutenants of going after the refugees: Georgia was surely irradiated and they would drop over dead any day now, he told them. In reality, he wanted to put the entire affair behind them and start over: no U.S., no Alabama, no Baxley, no liberal social notions to keep "his people" from building what he hoped would be a decent place to live for their grandchildren, their grandchildren's kind and only their kind.

Nevertheless, Harness was told by his lieutenants that food was a necessity - and that the Baxley-led party would likely be headed down to Eufaula, the town that had declared itself independent of the Alabama government in the wake of the Alabama Army's atrocities.

On January 9, mere days after Baxley's party left, Harness's party left Auburn, after having stripped it of every possible useful thing that the people could take. That included a vast array of weapons, including handmade items. Down through Hurtsboro, Midway and Clayton they went, implementing McDonald's strategy of taking useful people of "our kind", stripping the towns bare of food, ammo and anything else useful, and killing off "non-useful" whites and any non-whites.

The white army, and the population of the people, slowly grew. Those who could adapt and keep up with the group stayed alive; those who did not were discarded.

What Harness nor his lieutenants didn't know is that Baxley's party, and the Fort Benning troops guarding them, had crossed into Georgia through Jernigan, north of Eufaula.

When Harness's white army reached the outskirts of Eufaula, the Auburn refugees were walking into Lumpkin, surprising the locals there who had survived the past few months.

As McDonald was making connections with sympathizers in Eufaula, planning the stripping of that town, Baxley learned of the destruction of the town of Albany on September 25...and that the promised land, such as it was, he and his people were looking for was actually in Smithville and Plains.

Baxley decided to ground the caravan in Lumpkin for the time being; the refugees were put up in area churches, and those who could work put their skills to use helping the locals. Baxley learned of wild rumors of President Jimmy Carter being among the survivors, and sent emissaries on January 24th towards Plains and Smithville to confirm whether that was true and what provisional government was actually there.

On January 25, four months after Doomsday, Harness's army began what has long been called the Rape of Eufaula.

That day, four soldiers of the former United States Army met a man who was once their country's Commander-In-Chief.

By January 28, 400 men, women and children, all white, and young and able to work, were all that was left of the population of Eufaula. Harness's army had only lost 17 men and women.

On January 29, the White Army of America and the people it was charged with protecting began trekking west, into former Alabama, looking for their own promised land.

That day, Jimmy Carter met Bill Baxley in Smithville. After catching up on current events, both men began the task of figuring out where to put all of the Auburn refugees.

A few years later, after it was determined the White Army had left and was nowhere in the vicinity, the Smithville government, having relocated to Plains, decided to try reconnecting with some of the communities in southeast Alabama. First contact with Tuskegee was difficult - but a visit from former President Carter went a long way towards beginning the process of restoring ties and healing the wounds brought on by Harness's men.

The White Army raped and pillaged its way through Alabama, adding more "pure humans" - and food, livestock and weapons - to its ranks, eventually arriving in Selma. The pillage and abandon strategy would surely work against a people who seemed scared and weary, and after their relative success in fending off the police and volunteers of Tuskegee, the White Army felt confident of its strategy against Selma.

Instead, it found itself in a war that nearly destroyed everyone involved. Only a reluctant peace treaty, and agreement to leave, kept the war from going down to the last human being in the region. Harness took his weary tribe, which wandered some more until finding an abandoned state park. Harness planted a Confederate flag, proclaimed the start of a new Confederate America and deemed the abandoned part the new capital of their promised land. Like Moses, he had led his people through war and attrition to their Israel; but he didn't believe in God, and thought he was strong enough to help his people build their new utopia.

Throughout southern Georgia, and later southern Alabama, former President Carter made alliances with leaders of various towns, pulling them together into a union that formalized slowly over time. Eventually the people would come to call it the New South, then Neonotia.

Baxley served on Carter's cabinet and then in various capacities in the Neonotia government until passing away in 2008 of natural causes.

In 2007, one of the young men Baxley mentored, Charles Barkley - the former Auburn basketball player who volunteered for the Alabama Army, then courageously spoke out against its leaders actions - became the governor of Neonotia. A charismatic, funny and outspoken Democrat, Barkley became one of the most beloved figures throughout Neonotia.

Barkley, and Carter, received League of Nations, West Texan and Mexican officials in the fall of 2009 in Plains. The Vincent "Bo" Jackson Memorial was dedicated in Tuskegee that November. Jackson, Barkley's good friend from their post-Doomsday Auburn days, was posthumously awarded the LoN's Medal of Valor for his heroism and bravery.

Around that same time, a group of visitors from Hattiesburg dared to enter New Montgomery, encouraging it to enter the community of nations in the region. They dared to cross the invisible, unofficial border at the former Bladan Road, outside what was once Bladon Springs State Park and Choctaw National Wildlife Refuge. The visitors had been warned that crossing the road was asking to get killed. Others had previously been shot at.

This time they were received.

Clyde Harness was not seen, nor spoken of. It is thought he has likely passed away, the circumstances of his death known only to locals. If he was alive, if the Clyde Harness that showed his true face after Doomsday was around, it is likely the group would have been shot on sight before they even crossed the road.