Jack of Harts

Fort Sam Houston served as the headquarters of the Fifth and Sixth United States Armies, the Army Medical Command, and a Criminal Investigation Command when the Second Great Depression began. They had the best military police, the best doctors, and commanded units deployed all over the Homeland and throughout the rest of the Americas. When Fort Sam stopped following the new President’s orders, it had a profound effect on military units throughout the Western Hemisphere. And though it suffered from the same desertions as other military bases did, it managed to maintain an operational core for all of its missions. The military police were especially effective, with most of their personnel refusing to go home, and the hulking major in charge of their special investigations group led an investigation that eventually uncovered the federal influence behind the gang, race, and drug cartel violence that washed over San Antonio. That news would have a profound effect on the future of Fort Sam and all of Texas.

The American military had relearned a great deal about securing their bases due to the rash of random shooters and other anti-military violence that grabbed headlines in the decades before the Second Great Depression. So when the drug cartels overran San Antonio, they ran into Fort Sam Houston and the rest of the Joint Base San Antonio. The series of military reservations were fully capable of patrolling and defending their borders. Or they would have been, without the general desertions that affected all federal American military units at the time. The drug cartels, and the general gang and racial violence stirred up around them, managed to overrun parts of the sprawling base, but the military kept it mostly secure during the opening rounds of violence.

San Antonio was the oldest city in Texas, having been founded by the Spanish Empire itself, and Greater San Antonio boasted millions of residents when the Second Great Depression began. It was home to the Alamo, Fort Sam Houston, the Tower of the Americas, SeaWorld, one of the largest rodeos in the world, major sports franchises, multiple Fortune 500 companies, and the largest medical research center in South Texas. You could do anything in San Antonio, from high-class museums, to backroom bars. It was one of the largest cities in America, and had led us out of one recession after another for decades. It was one of the greatest economic engines in America, and the Second Great Depression nearly destroyed it.