[chico20854]

April 10, 1998

Canon is silent on today. Unofficially,

In west-central Wisconsin, the members of the Ho-Chunk tribe close off the approaches to the town of Hatfield to all non-native people. They declare the area the core of their new tribal territory; the many vacation homes in the area offer housing for native people from throughout the area.

The Soviet drive out of the Yukon is reinforced when troops of the 62nd (my 245th) Motor-Rifle Division link up with Soviet troops advancing from Alaska; the 62nd has travelled inland from the rugged coast.

Opposite the Pact forces in southern Germany, NATO forces, under command of 4th US Army, complete repositioning after a complex series of moves to deploy the Danish Expeditionary Force into positions vacated in January when the Dutch I Corps was rapidly withdrawn to fight the Franco-Belgian invasion of their homeland. The Danes have had to reach deep into their well of personnel and equipment to find sufficient troops to hold their sector south of Ulm. All along the front NATO troops are unexpectedly provided with massive amounts of fencing and barbed wire to reinforce their defensive positions - materiel withdrawn to Germany from American bases in the occupied territory west of the Rhine. Some troops use the chain link fence to outfit their vehicles with anti-RPG cages, hoping that a screen of wire fencing might deflect or detonate Soviet HEAT warheads before they can contact a vehicle's armor.

The soviet aboard the Barrikada continues, growing more acrimonious. There is no single leader among the mutineers, and factions have arisen among the crew, based largely along ethnic lines (between Russians and Ukrainians, there being few Balts, Central Asians or Caucasians deemed politically reliable enough to serve aboard one of the Soviet Navy's most advanced boomers) and department (weapons, engineering, bridge and steward). All of the alternatives has serious drawbacks, and adding to the challenges the crew faces, one of the frigid storms that are common this time of year sweeps through.

In the Balkans, troops of the US 6th Special Forces Group are able to establish a communications link with the headquarters of the US 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean. Before the batteries on the long-range radio are depleted, the Green Berets relay the locations of six Soviet regimental and divisional command posts in Jugoslavia and Romania and receive an assurance that those targets will be struck between 24 and 48 hours in the future, giving the Green Berets and their local guerrilla allies time to clear the immediate vicinity of the Soviet garrisons.

Chaos reigns on the streets of Ethiopian cities as the military attempts to establish control of the shattered nation.