[Adm.Lee]

It appears to have shipped to Europe (not REFORGER) in the spring of '97, joined the '97 offensive across Poland and got nuked badly. Pulled out of the line until '98.

We know in the summer of 2000, it's not on the line in the east, but in central Germany. I presume that means it's either holding down a rear-area cantonment, in the south facing down the Italians, or in the west facing the French. It did head for Bremerhaven in the fall.

As a leg infantry division, I'd find it hard to believe such a division would be doing much offensively in the '97 attack. I'd bet they were holding down the newly-occupied ("liberated?") areas of Poland behind Seventh Army lines, and the nuking may have been part of that-- transportation nodes in Polish cities?

Another thought may be that once the nukes started, and NATO began retreating from the Polish-Soviet border, the formerly rear-area forces would inevitably end up as rearguards for the front-line forces. That could certainly lead to (another) nuke strike, when the Soviet exploitation forces try to retain their momentum.

One of these days, I'm going to take a detailed walk through the OBs for NATO 1996-99, and see what I see.

IMO, it'd be one of the lead units for heading west after landing at Norfolk or New Jersey or wherever its transports land. Even if the majority of the survivors are draftees, not Pa. Guardsmen, there might be enough cadre to matter. If I had the clerical manpower, I'd work to transfer as many Pennsylvania natives to the 28th as possible, and scatter the division across the state for reconstruction & civil affairs duties. Ditto for other East Coast Guard formations under MilGov control.

I have some personal interest in this formation: when I ran the game in '85-'88, I was attending (or about to attend) college in northwestern Pennsylvania, and in ROTC (see my sig). I almost joined the local Guard unit, which would have been the weapons company of the 1-112th Infantry, IIRC.
Later, I found that my greatgreatgrandfather was apparently a sergeant in the 109th Infantry/10th Pennsylvania, perhaps in both 1898-99 and 1917-18-- records are sketchy.
And I've played a lot of Battle of the Bulge wargames, and the sacrifice of the 28th is a key part of the first stage of the southern half of that battle.