Jack of Harts

Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base’s commander recognized the danger the Second Great Depression’s protests, riots, and gang violence held for his military base. And for those personnel who lived off base. Fort Worth JRB was a reserve base, so that was most of them. They had civilian jobs and careers throughout the Metroplex, their children attended nearly every school, and their families shopped at all of the most popular malls. The commander recalled every single serviceman assigned to the base, ordering them to bring their families with them. But even Fort Worth JRB was not large enough to accommodate that large an influx of people. So the commander activated numerous contracts to rent homes, rooms, and entire schools in nearby neighborhoods, and expanded the patrols to cover those areas. It was a technical violation of the law, but the police turned an official blind eye to that. Fort Worth JRB was a bastion of calm in the burning Metroplex, after all. Until the rioters and looters came for them.

Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base could legally do nothing about the civil chaos in the Dallas/Fort Worth/Arlington Metroplex surrounding them. They were professional military, not law enforcement, and even the Texas State Guard units on base could not help until the local authorities asked them. The local mayors were not asking for help. Then one night, Lieutenant Jacob Carter of VMFA-112, the Cowboys, caught a gang looting a family home on his way home. He killed them all, and the mayor of Dallas ordered his arrest. Dallas flooded the networks with well-groomed high school pictures, and broadcast stories of the coldhearted murder conducted by a bloodthirsty soldier while innocent children were exercising their First Amendment rights on a peaceful protest. Fort Worth JRB responded by recalling Carter, and the family he’d saved, to the base for protection. When the police came to arrest him, under mayoral orders, the base’s military police smiled and informed them that the base was on lockdown and could not receive visitors. Then the base denied any knowledge of the leaked surveillance video showing the gang looting, torturing, and raping their way through the family home. It finished with Jacob Carter crawling in through a broken window, sneaking up on, and killing each and every member of the gang until the home and family were safe and secure again.

The Second Great Depression hit the Dallas/Fort Worth/Arlington Metroplex harder than nearly any other city or group of cities in Texas and the rest of America. Demonstrations became protests and riots, and the civilian leadership actually encouraged them, ordering the police to stand down so the protestors could air their grievances in peace. Gangs and drug cartels fought in the streets. Business districts burned and common men and women on simple walks were shot and killed. It was beyond anything the region had seen in decades, eclipsing even the 2020 riots with their sheer lethality and property damage. The various rioters, gangs, and drug cartels even sought to burn down the Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base on numerous occasions. That proved to be a step too far for them. The mayors and town councils may have supported the looters, but the military base did not answer to them. And it did not cooperate when the riots and fighting came for them.