small town. The only thing missing was the film crew and actors.

 

This had been his playground of sorts thirty years ago. He’d been in his

twenties, alone, confused, intimidated.

 

He was still alone. But he was no longer confused or intimidated.

 

He eyed the terreplein that ran around the fort. He had often run around this

strip of grass and knew that it was one point two miles in length. Constructed

over a sixteen-year period, the fort, also known as “the Gibraltar of the

Chesapeake,” had walls that extended over a mile and encompassed over sixty

acres of land. The old rusted gun mounts could still be seen. These were the

Endicott batteries that had replaced the cannon in the fort. Rifled barrels had

led to the fortress cannons being rendered obsolete. Ships could fire from a

long way away and the cannon could not match that range. The Endicott batteries

had been brought in to fix that problem. Then with the invention of the airplane

even the Endicotts became obsolete.

 

After that the strategic and operational attributes of the fort were pretty much

exhausted. It became more administrative and focused on “training and doctrine”

after that, and indeed became the Army’s center for those two intertwined

disciplines.

 

As he looked down at the water in the moat, Rogers could see that nearly two

hundred years of silt buildup had shortened the depth, already fairly shallow,