Fort Bliss, Holloman Air Force Base, and the other military reservations around White Sands housed some of the smartest and brightest of minds in the world, gathered from all over America. They were ambitious and capable, intelligent and relentless in the pursuit of their duty. They fought the enemies of America, researched new methods of doing so, and trained America’s allies in the furtherance of that goal. Those strengths made them one of the premiere American military bases in the Continental United States. And when the American federal government collapsed under the weight of its own debt, those strengths became weaknesses. The only thing the intelligent and ambitious soldiers who performed their jobs so well asked was that the government give them enough money to support their families. The federal government failed to do that.