World War Three, as told in Left Behind

[Originally posted at Slacktivist (page 6).]

The story of Left Behind includes World War III. This is simple and straightforward enough. The deposed governments of three countries, along with local militias, will go to war with the One World Government in the mistaken belief they can win. It gets somewhat more screwy after that. Was the (former) President of the United States really planning on using nuclear weapons against New York City and Washington D.C.? Did a bomb just drop on Chicago? What's this about an old Nike base?

Some answers were found. The Nike missile instillation was a real military base at one time. Vermic did some driving and found that much of the base in question had been converted into a golf course. The resistance did threaten to go to nuclear war with New York City. By which I mean Kennedy International Airport. Because when I think, "Nuclear War," I think about targeting a specific airport.

Also, our heroes, and I use that term extremely loosely, are inconvenienced because World War III disrupts traffic in Chicago (as a result of the attack on the old Nike site that the militia had taken over to store weapons.)

Putting it all together what I think happened is this:

The militia had been hiding weapons at a golf course in Chicago.

In DC the militia attempted to take over the city.

In Chicago someone said, "Oh my God/Lucifer/Nicolae! We're at war! If it could happen there it could happen here. Quick, has anyone seen anything suspicious?"

To which someone else responded, "Well I did notice some bazookas and ICBMs at the golf course, now that you mention it."

And there was a whole back and forth about, "Ok, I see how you might not feel the need to mention bazookas, but how could you not bring up the ICBMs before now?" and the other person saying that they assumed it was just decorative.

The GC forces bravely recaptured the golf course and vanquished the militia. Someone said that that it didn't sound so impressive when you put it like that, so they said, "Well it used to be a Nike base, right? Say we vanquished them from the Nike Base."

At this point traffic was disrupted because they didn't want anyone seeing that they allowed contraband weapons to be stockpiled in plain sight on a golf course, so they declared the area too dangerous to civilians, or something.

Then the militia threatened to nuke an airport in New York, around which point the book ends, but next book Nicolae responds with, "An airport? Really? *snort* I'll take out the whole city and nine others in North America I've had my eye on. And what's all this about threats? I've already nuked London. If you're going to go nuclear, you go nuclear, you don't threaten to do it."

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I was originally thinking that it was an old Nike site used to store weapons. As in the GC was using it and then then the the militia took it over to get the weapons. I see now that what it actually says is they took over the site to store the contraband weapons. No "used". The takeover was for the purpose of storing the weapons, the GC was not involved in the choice. So this doesn't fit at all:

There were a lot of weapons that needed to be shipped off to be stored or destroyed. Too many to ship all at once. The conversation on where to house those weapons went like this:

"I want to play golf. Do you want to play golf? I want to play golf."

"I wouldn't mind playing golf, but we've got these weapons to guard."

"Well why not keep them at the golf course?"

"I... that's... what? Are you serious?"

"Why not?"

"It doesn't sound right to say we're keeping a stockpile of weapons at a golf course." Thinks for a moment. "That golf course is an old military base right?"

"I think I heard something about that. An old Nike site or some such?"

"So we'll say we're storing the weapons in an old Nike base."

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A note in closing. I have been told that Nicolae doesn't actually use nuclear weapons on the 10 cities in North America he said he was going to use nuclear weapons on. So, yeah. He definitely said he was going to. (And, in true Jerry Jenkins style, made it seem boring.)

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