On this day 25 years ago (Commentary Thread)

[chico20854]

March 17, 1998

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

In Texas, the 3rd Texas Regiment is engaged in large-scale skirmishing with Mexican gangs inside five refugee camps in the area between Del Rio and Eagle Pass. The guardsmen (mainly former cadets at Texas A&M University) adopt a strategy of surrounding the camps, cutting off supplies of food, water and electricity while carefully screening any of the civilians that attempt to leave the cordon.

President Munson begins issuing orders to the Secretary of Transportation and Secretary of Housing, individuals that were killed in the attack on Washington in November; his staff gently try to direct him but he only grows enraged with their "insubordination".

The Canadian naval task force (three destroyers and two patrol craft) proceeds northwest across the Gulf of St. Lawrence, hoping that the Quebecois navy remains in harbor. 880 Squadron, the CP-121 Tracker squadron operating from Prince Edward Island, cannot launch a sortie today to verify the enemy position. The task force sights several small fishing craft but cannot identify them or determine if they are relaying news of the sighting to rebel authorities.

The command of the Western TVD, or what remains of it, succeeds in dispatching the first trainload of supplies to the front using the new route through Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Austria, following several days of manually transloading the cargo of ammunition (a mix of new-production from the few remaining operable factories and Second World War-vintage artillery, small arms and mortar ammunition of questionable reliablity), foodstuffs and an oddball collection of old armored vehicles and civilian trucks scraped up from all over the western USSR. While Western TVD would prefer the cargo go to the battered units in Poland, the efforts to restore rail links across the Carpathians between Poland and Czechoslovakia have not yet borne fruit.

After weeks of delay and frustration, the resupply convoy from Hampton Roads to AFRICOM departs. Besides the 30th Marines and a contingent of A-37 light attack aircraft, the fleet contains a small amount of fuel, supplies, spares and munitions.

The replica USS Constitution departs Cape Horn with 15 tons of electronic parts for Portugal and machinery for Port Harcourt, Nigeria.