May 19, 1998
President Munson suffers a nervous breakdown.
The newly-reformed 40th Infantry Division arrives at Camp Roberts, California and begins battling armed bands as the authorities struggle to maintain order. The unit had to take a long route from Oregon to avoid the quarantines of San Francisco and Sacramento.
Unofficially,
Mexican officials spread word among the masses of refugees huddled around Matamoros about the abuse of their compatriots inflicted by US Navy sailors over the border in Brownsville.
In Mexico City an armed standoff has settled in between the Presidential Guard, which has declared loyalty to the PARM party, a nascent militia composed of various military deserters and police that is loyal to the ruling PAN party, and a coalition of narco traffickers that are taking advantage of the disorder.
The bandit gang of US Army deserters in the former East Germany forms a subordinate gang. Led by a cousin of 5th Squad "Drill Private Major" Malcolm Green, 5th Squadron (led by "Vice Airman No Class" Aubrey Green) is composed largely of US Air Force deserters. 5th Squadron heads for territory to its south, hoping to prey on traffic transiting the roads between the ports on the former West German North Sea coast and the front lines east of the ruins of Berlin.
The German and Danish defence of Erbach an der Donau begins to crack. After the prior day's loss over the town, the Luftwaffe is unwilling to commit additional aircraft and artillery and mortar ammunition is running short; the defense's last reserves have been committed as Soviet forces threaten the routes out of the town to the north and west. The 62nd Tank Division tries a different approach from the full-scale frontal attacks it has tried for the past several days; instead the unit's obsolescent T-54 and T-34 tanks stand back under the cover of the burned-out forest and wrecked vehicles of previous attacks and pound NATO defensive positions with precision fire.
The small Estonian fishing boat carrying CIA officer David Hudson reaches the central Baltic and continues sailing west towards the Swedish coast.
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I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
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