<div align="center"><em>Aboard USS Tulare, anchored in Barren Isle Gap, Maryland.  8 Miles NE of the mouth of the Patuxent River</em></div><br/>While landlubbers call it the smell of the sea, anyone who has spent three or so weeks aboard a troopship knows it's really the smell of the land.  For most of those aboard<em>Tulare</em>, it was also the smell of home, for the first time in years.  Currently,<em>Tulare</em>rode at anchor in one of the many dips of the Chesapeake coastline, in company with two other ships: USS<em>Fanning</em>, a three decade's old warhorse from the<em>Knox</em>class, streaked with rust and half the size of<em>Tulare</em>, and the massive<em>USNS Pollux</em>the size of an aircraft carrier and nearly as fast.<em>Pollux</em>carried nearly all the vehicles for the 3rd Division, and a great deal of the heavy equipment as well, and even a large chunk of the personnel, while<em>Tulare</em>rounded out the division.<br/><br/>A great deal had changed since the Rock of the Marne had pulled up stakes from the area around Bad Liebenwarda.  General Warton had gotten them to Bremerhaven nearly in one piece, and dropped dead- not from a gunshot, or even from complications from that Taubin attack outside Lvov in '97, but good old cancer.  Maybe it started with the radiation, or maybe it would have been his time all along.  Either way, it meant that General Kurtz came over from Vth Corps and took over the division- given that, out of four "brigades" in the division, only one was actually commanded by a Brigadier General, and that one a Canadian, promotion out of the ranks wasn't likely.  On the voyage over, Kurtz decided regularize the division, breaking up the ad-hoc fire brigades that had been a staple of the division since '98 or so, and reforming into something that could pass as standard units.  This meant reforming the 4/4th Cav, which had been broken up for a long time, and reinforcing its losses to a reinforced pre-war troop.<br/><br/>This also meant that, for the most part, wholly new teams were put together on the voyage over.  Most troopers from the old organization knew each other- by reputation if not by sight, but nearly every platoon of every troop was making a fresh start once they landed back in the US.  The lists had been published a few days ago, letting the new squadmates mingle with each other, if they wanted to, and all efforts were made to get them all to mess together, work details permitting.<br/><br/>At 0830, on November 14th, 2000, the ship's announcers crackled to life- the ship was one of the last places with electricity and hot water in the world- and announced. "Members of the 4th of the 4th will report to the following locations: Troop A: The Fantail.  Troop B: Enlisted Mess.  Troop C: Forward Cargo Hatch.  Troop D: Port Boat Deck, in one half an hour."