[chico20854]

May 25, 1998

Canon is silent on today. Unofficially,

First Maritime Defense District commander MacDowell presents his plan to the new President. He provides Flaherty with specific language that enables him to escape control by any authority short of the Joint Chiefs, if he so chooses. Flaherty's staff write the orders, and already completely overwhelmed by the enormity of the job, she signs off on MacDowell's scheme after a few cursory questions and without consulting the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Specialist Cutler, in Germany, is reassigned from his comfortable duties attempting to repair and maintain HMMWVs and other vehicles assigned to 1st Battalion, 188th Air Defense Artillery, part of the 36th Infantry Division to one of the division's front-line battalions, the 2nd Battalion, 127th Infantry. Upon arrival he is quickly disavowed of any notion that he is there to maintain vehicles - he is put on duty overnight in a listening post 500 meters beyond the battalion's front line.

David Hudson, the CIA agent who was recently exfiltrated from northeast of Moscow, accompanied by a plainclothes Swedish official, is given a train and bus ticket to the small port town of Klädesholmen on Sweden's west coast.

In Jugoslavia, the reformed JSA force in the center of the country overruns Soviet positions in the town of Bosanska Dubica, sweeping down the valley of the Una River that forms the border between the republics of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The cruiser USS Virginia calls in Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands, where it takes on fresh water and trades some of its store of frozen fish (which the crew is more than tired of eating) for some fresh mutton. The ship's captain consults with the commander of the Falklands Defense Force on the situation in the region, and obtains permission to remain for a few days to allow the crew some time ashore and to make some minor repairs to the ship. The British are unable to provide any ammunition to replenish the cruiser's depleted magazines.