The American military had relearned a great deal about securing their bases due to the rash of random shooters and other anti-military violence that grabbed headlines in the decades before the Second Great Depression. So when the drug cartels overran San Antonio, they ran into Fort Sam Houston and the rest of the Joint Base San Antonio. The series of military reservations were fully capable of patrolling and defending their borders. Or they would have been, without the general desertions that affected all federal American military units at the time. The drug cartels, and the general gang and racial violence stirred up around them, managed to overrun parts of the sprawling base, but the military kept it mostly secure during the opening rounds of violence.