[chico20854]

I'm sorry if I gave the impression that I didn't think there would be soldiers that would voluntarily "miss the boat" to stay with family in Europe. In fact, I could quite easily see it happening.

While the dependents in Germany would be sent home at the outbreak of the war, by 2000 there would be a new group of dependents. Keep in mind that the soldiers in the US Army in Europe have been effectively cut off from communications (physical and telecom) from CONUS for three years by the time of Omega. (High command might have some operable long-range communications capability, but it certainly isn't available to Joe to call his sweetie back home, if she's still alive, at her pre-TDM home and has a functioning phone, and the odd resupply flight or ship isn't going to carry much mail as the postal service on both ends is in pretty bad shape.) In those three years a cantonment system arose and the Army went pretty static, setting up farms and semi-permanent abode (the note in Death of A Division about the offensive having to wait until the crops were in). So all those single soldiers, and a scandalously large number of married ones, might end up with local mates. After 2-3 years with the locals and no communications back home (plus word of specific or general nuclear strikes on the US), its quite likely that some soldiers would decide that they didn't want to leave the places/people they'd worked so hard to survive with and decide to stay there. (ISTR Going Home mentioning that foreigners accompanying US troops would also be offered a ride, and if necessary, US citizenship.)