Arlington, Virginia–A main fiber optic communications cable was severed at the Pentagon, forcing the Department of Defense to shut down all critical functions and seal off its headquarters for emergency repairs. All 40,000 Pentagon personnel are being told to expect to stay home for as much as two weeks beginning April 1 until the damage can be fully assessed and service restored.

A groundhog is being blamed for incapacitating the command center and symbol of the world’s largest military.

Tech Sergeant Phil Robbins was on night watch when he heard chewing noises in the wall near a central passage. “I thought it was just a hungry security guard eating a pizza,” he said.

Then everything went dark.

“I heard him in there, but there was nothing we could do. The walls are thick, the walls are a special concrete. We just couldn’t get through to the groundhog in time to stop the damage,” TSGT Robbins said.

Eventually, intelligence specialists lured out the saboteur with corn and clover.

“Groundhogs love corn, so we thought that would do the trick. We told Alexa to send a bushel of organic corn,” said one specialist under condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of his work. “Amazon’s one-hour delivery really came through for us.”

“We set it out, and the groundhog went right for it. We threw in the clover just to be sure,” added TSGT Robbins.

Things got dicey when the groundhog, looking like he had the munchies, finally emerged. When TSGT Robbins made a grab for him, he was bitten on the finger and scratched.

“This groundhog’s a little fellow and I misjudged him. He came at me with a great big attitude. When I grabbed him he growled and bit me real hard,” he said, showing off his injuries.

Some are saying the furlough of personnel will be longer than two weeks—maybe more than a month. “It’s going to take two weeks just to pull all that wire out and another few weeks to replace it,” said a private contractor from Pitney Bose, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Pentagon spokesperson Patricia Marmet said the closure was necessary to repair the critical cable and clean up all the take-out containers and Snickers wrappers the groundhog left behind. The official would not say how the groundhog got into the facility but speculated that the Pentagon’s Market Basket might have had something to do with it.

She said she wanted to wanted reassure the public that the nation’s defenses are not threatened and the border will remain secure during the shutdown, nor were more occurrences likely to happen.

“We’ve built thick walls for this very purpose, big, thick walls–we have the best walls,” Marmet said.

She did acknowledge, however, that he had been in there a long time and could have gotten his teeth into other wires.

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The Joint Chiefs of Staff ordered the groundhog held without charge because he refused to answer questions.

Animal rights group PETA demanded the Joint Chiefs release the groundhog immediately and return him back to the wild where he belongs, but the Joint Chiefs would not comment on his whereabouts. PETA fears rendition.

But, sources tell DC Media Group he was in fact released in a cornfield near the Gettysburg Battlefield where he will be in his element.

Peace advocacy group Protest All World War (PAWW) declares that the groundhog should be celebrated as a war hero because he did what no anti-war protest has ever done before–shut down the Pentagon.

“The real perpetrator is the bloated budget. The fact that a hungry, bored rodent can bypass security tells you they’re spending a huge amount of money on the wrong things,” said Kevin Pease, Director of PAWW.

WMATA announced that trains will not stop at the Pentagon until a security sweep of the tunnels is completed. Military police are also checking Metro surveillance tapes for signs of more infiltration. And, inside sources say Amazon—soon to be installed in its new headquarters next to the Pentagon–will be tasked with expanding its facial recognition capabilities to include furred, whiskered faces.

Feature photo: “The Pentagon” by David B. Gleason is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0