Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
A MATTER OF HONOR (part 11) A continuation of an unfinished story started by Hammerlock in 2011.
Wednesday, July 21st 2021. The courtyard of the former penitentiary building, Old Arsenal Barracks, Washington D.C., 09:55 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time.
Captain Linda Gallo was laying naked, strapped on her cross. She just had been prepared for her execution, her self-chosen crucifixion, the only opt-out for avoiding dishonor. Now she was waiting. The execution team was waiting too. The execution had been scheduled at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time.
Waiting…! Like waiting on the battlefield, until the moment to go over the top. Inside her, the fear raged intensely. She tried to keep it inside by controlling her breath. Curiously, her straps gave her no claustrophobic feelings. It felt as if they helped to contain her fear.
She was not alone to be executed. In the courtyard of the Old Arsenal Barracks, four crosses were arranged on a slightly arcuate line, so that they could see each other. Left from her, Lieutenant Fortuna, next Major Norman Dean Bard, the judge who had condemned Karyn Greylocke last year, and the far end, Lieutenant William Maltz. Gallo was on the extreme right. The place of honor.
They were all four here for the same reason. About a year earlier. Despite her disgust after what Fortuna had told her that evening, about General Prescotte, his doctrine and how it had affected her life, she had continued her duties in the 513th. But it was not difficult for Fortuna to convince her to join the conspiracy against General Prescotte, set up by judge Bard.
Unfortunately, the judge, one of the key members of the conspiracy, turned out to be the weakest link of it. As Peter had always feared (from the day the judge had unexpectedly disclosed it (even more, in the presence of Karyn Greylocke), the judge was too incautious. One day, he had talked about the conspiracy to the wrong person. Meanwhile, they had gone already far with it. They had accessed classified information. A lot of it had been provided by Lieutenant Maltz.
The disclosure of the conspiracy coincided with a worsening of the situation in Afghanistan. In the Kunduz area, fierce fighting had broken out. Rebels had infiltrated from Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, tempting the US Army to pursuit across the border. The impossibility to wage war on such unequal terms, forced the Army to abandon Kunduz and to retreat on Kabul.
Being a dangerous man, General Prescotte, the target of the conspiracy, seized the opportunity. He pulled strings to have the network against him turned into the scapegoat of the loss of Kunduz. Not the brave US soldier far away from home was to blame, even not the Pentagon, but just a bunch of traitors, stabbing the brave US soldier in the back. General Prescotte demanded and obtained a merciless action against the traitors. The conspirators were rounded up. And obviously the Pentagon and the Department of Defense firmly denied the rumors about documents allowing deliberate friendly fire.
For Linda Gallo, a life full of inconveniences of being government property began. Her mind, her body, her life, her time, all were confiscated. It was a life of jumpsuits and shackles, of strip searches, ruthless guards, harsh regulations, solitary confinement, corporal punishments. Not to mention the long interrogations, with forced sleepless nights, or standing hours upright, face to the wall. Often all naked.
A mass court-martial trial was held for thirty-three conspirators, on war terms : no jury, no possibility to appeal the verdict. On Wednesday the 7th of July 2021, the verdict was pronounced. One by one they heard their sentence.
“The defendant Linda Gallo will rise!”
“On the charge of getting unlawful access to classified documents and deliberately disclosing their content : guilty as charged!”
“On the charge of endangering the security of the homeland : guilty as charged”
"On the charge of aiding and abetting the enemy : guilty as charged!”
“On the charge of high treason to the commander-in-chief : guilty as charged!”
“On the charge of conspiracy : guilty as charged!”
“Captain Gallo, this court-martial has determined that you have committed offenses detrimental to your status as a Captain in the United States Army. The conspiracy in which you took part, placed the United States Army in serious danger and is a serious crime, worthy of the most severe sentence this court can impose. Regardless of your motif, your conduct represents a serious breach of honor. You are not worthy to continue in your present role as an officer in the United States Army. It is with this in mind that the court imposes the following sentence. You are to be stripped of your rank as Captain, dishonorably discharged from the United States Army, and sentenced to be executed by firing squad in one month's time!”
The gavel came down smartly, and the judge passed to the next verdict. Seventeen more members of the armed forces got the same sentence as her. The twelve others were convicted to life without parole. Three civilian participants were sentenced to hanging.
Gallo had listened to her verdict, apparently apathetic. Afterwards, when she took her seat again between the other defendants, she maintained a quiet, absent look, her hands supporting her head. But deep inside, her stomach turned, as she knew she would very soon, within days, have to make a gruesome choice…
Two weeks later… on 21st of July 2012.
The clock struck ten.
“Sergeant-major! Execution!” Lieutenant Warren ordered.
“Yes, Sir!”
“Time, Captain!”
“Just do it, Buckley!” She had confidence that Buckley and his team would at least do the job properly.
“Here, Captain! Your ID tag, as you demanded. Just have a look.. yes, this is yours. Lift your head please!”
“Thanks!”
Buckley’s team would nail her and next the judge. Buckley put a rubber rod in her mouth, took a nail and a washer and put them on her wrist.
“Joe! Hold her arm down!”
Gallo had numerous condemned advised not to look at the nailing. But they all looked. And so she did too. Anxiously, she stared at the terrifying steel nail, standing ready to pierce her wrist. Then her fear broke loose. Her breathing became difficult, she felt oppressed. She was about to hyperventilate. She spat out the bit, to the surprise of Buckley.
“This thing suffocates me!” She shouted with a high voice.
“Captain! Try not to look! Please!”
Knowing Buckley, she felt that he had never been so nervous before. She forced herself to look upward, at the blue sky, to make it both Buckley and herself easier. She lay, trembling with fear, trying to get her breath under control. Between the inside of her thighs she felt a warm liquid dripping down…
Then her lower right arm got crushed. In a flash, the blue sky over Washington D.C. turned red-hot. Fierce, intense pain! Her long, loud, intense, uninterrupted cry, filled the air. DC. Through the immense pain, she felt the cross under her tremble and buckle violently against her back and head, on each of Buckley’s blows, as if it tried to take possession of her.
Then she looked. She saw the nail, and she saw blood. She knew that crucifixion methods used by the Army, deliberately intended to minimize blood loss. She had told it to so many people. But as she saw her own wrist nailed, it looked as if a huge fountain of blood was pouring out of it.
She heard Buckley give instructions from behind her. She felt a grip on her left arm and wrist.
While the cross buckled again, The sky over Washington DC turned once more red-hot….
The wrists were done. With disbelief, while uninterruptedly groaning with pain, she saw her wrists, held down by a protruding head of a nail. And blood rushing everywhere! Meanwhile, Buckley’s men prepared her ankles. She felt the men moving and bending her right leg. She knew what to expect now. Buckley stood behind her, put his hands on her shoulders and pressed them against the cross.
“Hang on, Captain!”
“Oh Buckley, why are doing this?” but in fact, his presence gave her confidence.
“Go ahead! Waters!”
The sky over Washington turned white-hot….
After Gallo’s nailing was finished, her straps were removed. Buckley’s section had moved to the judge. For a moment, Gallo was lying alone, recovering from the excruciating nailing of her ankles, that had nearly made her pass out. Being freed from the straps initially felt as a relief, but she wasn’t free no more. With growing disbelief and despair, she became aware of her real situation. She saw the nails in her wrist which restrained her arms to the cross. She saw her bended knees, under which two more nails, invisible to her, held her ankles to the cross. She was free of straps, but nevertheless, she could not move anymore. The cross had taken possession of her.
It kept going through her head “I am nailed to a cross! I am nailed to a cross…..”
She watched how Fortuna, Bard and Maltz were nailed to their cross. She saw and heard their pain, their cries. Then it was all over. The truck arrived.
“Waters, Podolsky, guide her!”
A few minutes later. She was hanging to her cross, and soon found out that hanging to a cross is not just hanging. It means constant heavy labor. And she could not breathe. She had to rise up, against the forces of gravity, by pulling up nearly directly on her bones. Her hands and feet having become useless. The effort made her deeply and loudly moan. Her moan turned into a loud and prolonged cry of pain, when she managed to rise up slowly. As she rose, she was suddenly overwhelmed by something else. The shrapnel in her body, all these minute particles of steel, they turned against her too. From her upper arms, over her shoulder, her back, her bottom and her thighs, it was as if her body was tormented by a thousand knife cuts.
Finally she had reached high enough to be able to breathe. But she had to keep pulling on the nails. She tried to grab to support, but in vain, her hands being almost paralyzed by the severing of nerves. She tilted her head backward, laying her neck on the horizontal beam, but that did not provide any support neither. Ultimately she had to let herself go down, meanwhile braking her fall by pushing her back to the vertical beam as firmly as she could.
Once down, she was exhausted. She had seen many people on the cross, making these moves, but never, never, she had imagined that the crux dance was so terribly hard and painful. This had been only the first cycle of many to come, and already she had made up her mind to let herself suffocate. But her survival instinct was stronger than her mind, and so she started a next gruesome cycle.
After some time, a section of soldiers, commanded by Captain Prescotte, arrived at Gallo’s cross. They carried two ammunition cases. Prescotte apparently had valid orders, signed by Major General Arlton Prescotte for a job to be done. One ammunition case contained carpentry tools. The other one contained four braces and four blunt horn like objects, a few inches long. Warren understood what they were to be used for, and protested heavily. Until Gallo intervened, urging Warren to obey the orders, whatever they were, otherwise, Prescotte would bring him into trouble for insubordination
While Gallo was hanging low, on her outstretched arms, the men put a brace around the vertical beam and secured it into the wood with screws. The frontal part of the brace carried a thread. The carpenters screwed the horn like object on the tread. Then they passed to Peter Fortuna’s cross.
First, Gallo refused to surrender to the horn. But the next time she pulled up, the horn turned out to be a serious obstacle. She had to work herself around it, which needed even a harder effort than before. But particularly during her descent, she had to take care to avoid the upward pointing object. One wrong move and it would impale her. After the third cycle she felt she would have to give up.
She pulled up, this time to sit on it, carefully descending to have her rectum straight above it! Gallo first felt embarrassed about her surrender (specifically while Prescotte was watching her moves). But on the other hand she was relieved that she could have at least a brief rest and that she could breathe rather normally. It made her aware again, of her surroundings, of the onlookers, of her companions, who soon also gave up their resistance. And aware of the events soon to come.
Wednesday, July 21th 2021 was doomsday for the so-called Holden-Bard conspiracy, named after its two leaders. Some of the conspirators had shot themselves in order to avoid court-martial : General Holden of the OCG, Colonel VanSant and Colonel (ret.) Michael Greylocke. Some had managed to flee the country. On Wednesday, July 21th 2021, the fourteen condemned to death that had not chosen for crucifixion, were executed by the firing squad in the courtyard of the former penitentiary of the Old Arsenal Barracks. The executions took place between 11:30 and 12:30 a.m. Nine men and five women were executed in groups of five. A whole infantry platoon, fifty men strong, had been called up as firing squad. It happened all very swift and efficient. The condemned had to march in front of the four crosses, guarded by six MP’s each. No time was lost. They were torn off their jumpsuit and then shackled naked to the poles. The verdict was read, and then : blindfold, ready, aim, fire, coup de grace. The executed were put into their coffins while the next group was already marching along the four crosses. At 01:00 p.m., three civilian participants of the conspiracy were hanged for spying. Their naked bodies were left hanging until 06:00 p.m.
Wednesday, July 21st 2021. The courtyard of the former penitentiary building, Old Arsenal Barracks, Washington D.C., 09:55 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time.
Captain Linda Gallo was laying naked, strapped on her cross. She just had been prepared for her execution, her self-chosen crucifixion, the only opt-out for avoiding dishonor. Now she was waiting. The execution team was waiting too. The execution had been scheduled at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time.
Waiting…! Like waiting on the battlefield, until the moment to go over the top. Inside her, the fear raged intensely. She tried to keep it inside by controlling her breath. Curiously, her straps gave her no claustrophobic feelings. It felt as if they helped to contain her fear.
She was not alone to be executed. In the courtyard of the Old Arsenal Barracks, four crosses were arranged on a slightly arcuate line, so that they could see each other. Left from her, Lieutenant Fortuna, next Major Norman Dean Bard, the judge who had condemned Karyn Greylocke last year, and the far end, Lieutenant William Maltz. Gallo was on the extreme right. The place of honor.
They were all four here for the same reason. About a year earlier. Despite her disgust after what Fortuna had told her that evening, about General Prescotte, his doctrine and how it had affected her life, she had continued her duties in the 513th. But it was not difficult for Fortuna to convince her to join the conspiracy against General Prescotte, set up by judge Bard.
Unfortunately, the judge, one of the key members of the conspiracy, turned out to be the weakest link of it. As Peter had always feared (from the day the judge had unexpectedly disclosed it (even more, in the presence of Karyn Greylocke), the judge was too incautious. One day, he had talked about the conspiracy to the wrong person. Meanwhile, they had gone already far with it. They had accessed classified information. A lot of it had been provided by Lieutenant Maltz.
The disclosure of the conspiracy coincided with a worsening of the situation in Afghanistan. In the Kunduz area, fierce fighting had broken out. Rebels had infiltrated from Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, tempting the US Army to pursuit across the border. The impossibility to wage war on such unequal terms, forced the Army to abandon Kunduz and to retreat on Kabul.
Being a dangerous man, General Prescotte, the target of the conspiracy, seized the opportunity. He pulled strings to have the network against him turned into the scapegoat of the loss of Kunduz. Not the brave US soldier far away from home was to blame, even not the Pentagon, but just a bunch of traitors, stabbing the brave US soldier in the back. General Prescotte demanded and obtained a merciless action against the traitors. The conspirators were rounded up. And obviously the Pentagon and the Department of Defense firmly denied the rumors about documents allowing deliberate friendly fire.
For Linda Gallo, a life full of inconveniences of being government property began. Her mind, her body, her life, her time, all were confiscated. It was a life of jumpsuits and shackles, of strip searches, ruthless guards, harsh regulations, solitary confinement, corporal punishments. Not to mention the long interrogations, with forced sleepless nights, or standing hours upright, face to the wall. Often all naked.
A mass court-martial trial was held for thirty-three conspirators, on war terms : no jury, no possibility to appeal the verdict. On Wednesday the 7th of July 2021, the verdict was pronounced. One by one they heard their sentence.
“The defendant Linda Gallo will rise!”
“On the charge of getting unlawful access to classified documents and deliberately disclosing their content : guilty as charged!”
“On the charge of endangering the security of the homeland : guilty as charged”
"On the charge of aiding and abetting the enemy : guilty as charged!”
“On the charge of high treason to the commander-in-chief : guilty as charged!”
“On the charge of conspiracy : guilty as charged!”
“Captain Gallo, this court-martial has determined that you have committed offenses detrimental to your status as a Captain in the United States Army. The conspiracy in which you took part, placed the United States Army in serious danger and is a serious crime, worthy of the most severe sentence this court can impose. Regardless of your motif, your conduct represents a serious breach of honor. You are not worthy to continue in your present role as an officer in the United States Army. It is with this in mind that the court imposes the following sentence. You are to be stripped of your rank as Captain, dishonorably discharged from the United States Army, and sentenced to be executed by firing squad in one month's time!”
The gavel came down smartly, and the judge passed to the next verdict. Seventeen more members of the armed forces got the same sentence as her. The twelve others were convicted to life without parole. Three civilian participants were sentenced to hanging.
Gallo had listened to her verdict, apparently apathetic. Afterwards, when she took her seat again between the other defendants, she maintained a quiet, absent look, her hands supporting her head. But deep inside, her stomach turned, as she knew she would very soon, within days, have to make a gruesome choice…
Two weeks later… on 21st of July 2012.
The clock struck ten.
“Sergeant-major! Execution!” Lieutenant Warren ordered.
“Yes, Sir!”
“Time, Captain!”
“Just do it, Buckley!” She had confidence that Buckley and his team would at least do the job properly.
“Here, Captain! Your ID tag, as you demanded. Just have a look.. yes, this is yours. Lift your head please!”
“Thanks!”
Buckley’s team would nail her and next the judge. Buckley put a rubber rod in her mouth, took a nail and a washer and put them on her wrist.
“Joe! Hold her arm down!”
Gallo had numerous condemned advised not to look at the nailing. But they all looked. And so she did too. Anxiously, she stared at the terrifying steel nail, standing ready to pierce her wrist. Then her fear broke loose. Her breathing became difficult, she felt oppressed. She was about to hyperventilate. She spat out the bit, to the surprise of Buckley.
“This thing suffocates me!” She shouted with a high voice.
“Captain! Try not to look! Please!”
Knowing Buckley, she felt that he had never been so nervous before. She forced herself to look upward, at the blue sky, to make it both Buckley and herself easier. She lay, trembling with fear, trying to get her breath under control. Between the inside of her thighs she felt a warm liquid dripping down…
Then her lower right arm got crushed. In a flash, the blue sky over Washington D.C. turned red-hot. Fierce, intense pain! Her long, loud, intense, uninterrupted cry, filled the air. DC. Through the immense pain, she felt the cross under her tremble and buckle violently against her back and head, on each of Buckley’s blows, as if it tried to take possession of her.
Then she looked. She saw the nail, and she saw blood. She knew that crucifixion methods used by the Army, deliberately intended to minimize blood loss. She had told it to so many people. But as she saw her own wrist nailed, it looked as if a huge fountain of blood was pouring out of it.
She heard Buckley give instructions from behind her. She felt a grip on her left arm and wrist.
While the cross buckled again, The sky over Washington DC turned once more red-hot….
The wrists were done. With disbelief, while uninterruptedly groaning with pain, she saw her wrists, held down by a protruding head of a nail. And blood rushing everywhere! Meanwhile, Buckley’s men prepared her ankles. She felt the men moving and bending her right leg. She knew what to expect now. Buckley stood behind her, put his hands on her shoulders and pressed them against the cross.
“Hang on, Captain!”
“Oh Buckley, why are doing this?” but in fact, his presence gave her confidence.
“Go ahead! Waters!”
The sky over Washington turned white-hot….
After Gallo’s nailing was finished, her straps were removed. Buckley’s section had moved to the judge. For a moment, Gallo was lying alone, recovering from the excruciating nailing of her ankles, that had nearly made her pass out. Being freed from the straps initially felt as a relief, but she wasn’t free no more. With growing disbelief and despair, she became aware of her real situation. She saw the nails in her wrist which restrained her arms to the cross. She saw her bended knees, under which two more nails, invisible to her, held her ankles to the cross. She was free of straps, but nevertheless, she could not move anymore. The cross had taken possession of her.
It kept going through her head “I am nailed to a cross! I am nailed to a cross…..”
She watched how Fortuna, Bard and Maltz were nailed to their cross. She saw and heard their pain, their cries. Then it was all over. The truck arrived.
“Waters, Podolsky, guide her!”
A few minutes later. She was hanging to her cross, and soon found out that hanging to a cross is not just hanging. It means constant heavy labor. And she could not breathe. She had to rise up, against the forces of gravity, by pulling up nearly directly on her bones. Her hands and feet having become useless. The effort made her deeply and loudly moan. Her moan turned into a loud and prolonged cry of pain, when she managed to rise up slowly. As she rose, she was suddenly overwhelmed by something else. The shrapnel in her body, all these minute particles of steel, they turned against her too. From her upper arms, over her shoulder, her back, her bottom and her thighs, it was as if her body was tormented by a thousand knife cuts.
Finally she had reached high enough to be able to breathe. But she had to keep pulling on the nails. She tried to grab to support, but in vain, her hands being almost paralyzed by the severing of nerves. She tilted her head backward, laying her neck on the horizontal beam, but that did not provide any support neither. Ultimately she had to let herself go down, meanwhile braking her fall by pushing her back to the vertical beam as firmly as she could.
Once down, she was exhausted. She had seen many people on the cross, making these moves, but never, never, she had imagined that the crux dance was so terribly hard and painful. This had been only the first cycle of many to come, and already she had made up her mind to let herself suffocate. But her survival instinct was stronger than her mind, and so she started a next gruesome cycle.
After some time, a section of soldiers, commanded by Captain Prescotte, arrived at Gallo’s cross. They carried two ammunition cases. Prescotte apparently had valid orders, signed by Major General Arlton Prescotte for a job to be done. One ammunition case contained carpentry tools. The other one contained four braces and four blunt horn like objects, a few inches long. Warren understood what they were to be used for, and protested heavily. Until Gallo intervened, urging Warren to obey the orders, whatever they were, otherwise, Prescotte would bring him into trouble for insubordination
While Gallo was hanging low, on her outstretched arms, the men put a brace around the vertical beam and secured it into the wood with screws. The frontal part of the brace carried a thread. The carpenters screwed the horn like object on the tread. Then they passed to Peter Fortuna’s cross.
First, Gallo refused to surrender to the horn. But the next time she pulled up, the horn turned out to be a serious obstacle. She had to work herself around it, which needed even a harder effort than before. But particularly during her descent, she had to take care to avoid the upward pointing object. One wrong move and it would impale her. After the third cycle she felt she would have to give up.
She pulled up, this time to sit on it, carefully descending to have her rectum straight above it! Gallo first felt embarrassed about her surrender (specifically while Prescotte was watching her moves). But on the other hand she was relieved that she could have at least a brief rest and that she could breathe rather normally. It made her aware again, of her surroundings, of the onlookers, of her companions, who soon also gave up their resistance. And aware of the events soon to come.
Wednesday, July 21th 2021 was doomsday for the so-called Holden-Bard conspiracy, named after its two leaders. Some of the conspirators had shot themselves in order to avoid court-martial : General Holden of the OCG, Colonel VanSant and Colonel (ret.) Michael Greylocke. Some had managed to flee the country. On Wednesday, July 21th 2021, the fourteen condemned to death that had not chosen for crucifixion, were executed by the firing squad in the courtyard of the former penitentiary of the Old Arsenal Barracks. The executions took place between 11:30 and 12:30 a.m. Nine men and five women were executed in groups of five. A whole infantry platoon, fifty men strong, had been called up as firing squad. It happened all very swift and efficient. The condemned had to march in front of the four crosses, guarded by six MP’s each. No time was lost. They were torn off their jumpsuit and then shackled naked to the poles. The verdict was read, and then : blindfold, ready, aim, fire, coup de grace. The executed were put into their coffins while the next group was already marching along the four crosses. At 01:00 p.m., three civilian participants of the conspiracy were hanged for spying. Their naked bodies were left hanging until 06:00 p.m.