Chapter 2

[Reader's Note: Chapter 3 goes into a detailed description of how and why World War III and the campaign for the Pacific Northwest began. If you find Tom Clancy novels tedious and boring, read the synopsis below and skip on to Chapter 4. I will not be offended. For military buffs like me who want to know in more detail how the Chinese and American armies came to face each other near Sedro-Wooley, Washington, skip the synopsis (Chapter 2), and start at Chapter 3.]

Synopsis

While most of the world celebrated the coming New Year on December 31, 2012, the Chinese armed forces attacked north and east into post-Soviet Russia. Western intelligence agencies and the Russian KGB never noticed over the past few months as the massive Chinese armies crept north between satellite passes and positioned themselves along the northern border between Russia, China and Mongolia, the Chinese nation's secret ally.

The U. S. President countered by sending a carrier task force to the Yellow Sea to caution and deter the Chinese aggression. Chinese fighters and bombers, in far more strength than any Westerner imagined, attacked and sank all ships of the task force, killing 12,000 American sailors. The United States reacted with white hot anger at the dastardly attack of the Chinese. The new Congress was sworn into office the following morning. In an act of bipartisanship not seen in decades, the Congress declared war on the People's Republic of China the same afternoon. The President ordered our other Pacific carrier group to rendezvous with the rest of the Seventh Fleet off the eastern coast of Japan. The ships were positioned to support our Japanese allies in case the Chinese decided to go after Japan or Taiwan after they finished with the Russians.

While the world focused on China, Russia and the U. S. on January 4th, the Indian Army shocked the world by dropping a Para Commando regiment on Pakistan's nuclear weapons stockpile. The Indian army swarmed across the Pakistani border as soon as the nuclear bombs were secured.

The next shoe dropped three days later as the carrier met the Seventh Fleet ships about a hundred miles east of Hyuga, a port on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu. The ships should have been out of range of Chinese fighters, but ... the Japanese showed their true allegiance. Chinese fighters shuttled forward to Japanese airbases and then took out after the American combat air patrol [CAP]. Chinese bombers followed after the CAP went down. Five hours later, oil slicks and random flotsam was all that remained of this second USN carrier group. 13,500 more Americans were dead.

Americans reacted with righteous anger to the betrayal by their Japanese ally of six decades. The president called for Congress to bring the nation to war footing. All National Guard units were nationalized and ordered to undergo war training to prepare for the coming contest. The draft was re-established. The U. S. would need a truly massive army if the country was to take on the Chinese, the Japanese and possibly the Indians.