Susie Parks was 20, five months pregnant, and asleep in the back of the Columbus Courier News Office with her baby when, in the early morning hours on March 9, 1916, Pancho Villa attacked Columbus, New Mexico. The two-hour battle began just after 4:00 am but it seemed like an eternity to the vulnerable folks of that little border town. Susie held her baby in one arm and her .32 rifle in the other, as bullets perforated the thin walls. She and the baby were covered in flying glass and grappling in the dark to avoid gunshots, but she had an advantage that Villa’s spies had not counted on. Due to a fire at the telephone office several months before, the telephone switchboard was with Susie that night in the Courier Office. Though Villistas had cut communications to El Paso, Susie put the call into Captain Brock of the 1st National Guard and was able to alert them of the attack.