A state of disobedience

Beaumont, Texas

The Trinity River flowed generally north to south, passing between Houston and Beaumont before spilling itself into the Gulf of Mexico. East of that river, east also of Beaumont, ran a series of creeks, rivers, and bayous. Most of these were too swift, too deep, too muddy, or had too insubstantial a set of banks for easy fording.

A LAV would float and even, after a fashion, swim. It took some preparation and, even so, water was not precisely the LAVs optimum environment. The Marines of the 2^nd Division had LAVs, of course, as did the Army's 3^rd Infantry Division, both moving quickly westward towards their final objective, Houston.

But the Marines had more than LAVs; they had AMTRACs, Amphibious Tractors. And the AMTRACs' optimum environment was the water.

Thus, while a mixed company of Texas Guard infantry and tanks, reinforced by some air defense, was enough to prevent a helicopter insertion to seize a bridge—as it had been up north—it was not enough to stop the reinforced battalion of Marines, swimming their AMTRACs, that crossed Cypress Creek between Deweyville and Orange, then fanned out to seize—without a shot being fired—not one but four bridges, along with their engineer defenders. The engineers, like the rest, had been under orders not to shoot.

In panic and despair, the covering force raced back toward Beaumont and even farther westward. Sadly, they did so without so much as a single detonator to blow the bridge over the Trinity River where it was crossed by I-10.

The road to Houston was open . . . and in less than a day.

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