Chapter 31

Opening (2)

Second Lieutenant George Marshall has a habit of keeping a diary.
It helps a great deal—both for organizing the day and for later reflecting on what happened.

And lately, Marshall realized that the amount he wrote in it had been steadily increasing.

[Second Lieutenant Yujin Kim has been newly assigned. Contrary to how those idiots in the War Department described him, he is in fact an intelligent and perceptive officer—not some bloodthirsty headhunter. It’s remarkable that this country promotes someone to lieutenant within a year, but setting aside all racial prejudice, Lieutenant Kim appears to be someone worthy of it.]

[Together with Lieutenant Kim, I prepared the training curriculum for officer candidates. Given the limitations of our circumstances, we decided that Kim would handle the physical training of the troops, while I would focus on their education as officers. Thirty days… no matter how I think about it, this feels unreasonable.]

[I observed Lieutenant Kim’s first training session. He showed up wearing a bright red baseball cap with a skull emblazoned on the front—his taste is highly questionable.
At first glance, his training methods seemed bizarre, yet they strangely stayed within certain limits. Though he constantly hurled personal insults, he refrained from indiscriminate violence. Instead, he put the candidates through grotesque exercises that seemed designed from a study of how the human body twists and experiences pain, testing their endurance.
Most insidiously, he cleverly bound them with collective responsibility, distributing the resentment and hatred that should have been directed at him among the candidates themselves.
After the session, I asked him what the purpose of those strange exercises was. He replied, “I can’t be the only one suffering… and I figured there’d be at least a few who look down on me as an Asian, so I got ahead of it.”
Judging by his tone, the first part seemed to be his true intention. Is West Point teaching things like this nowadays? The world is truly going to ruin.]

[That damned whistle echoed throughout the entire drill—beep, beep, beep, beep-beep-beep. The sound still rings in my ears. Thanks to that cursed exercise and the added collective punishment, by sunset the candidates had finally started marching in step. I feel as though my educational philosophy is collapsing.]

[Lieutenant Kim’s eyes have grown as red as the cap he always wears. During crawling drills, the candidates collectively protested that the ground was too full of gravel. Only after Kim fired a machine gun over their heads did they finally start crawling properly.]

[A disciplinary committee was convened for Lieutenant Kim.
Yet absurdly, it ended in less than thirty minutes. Reports came in from other training camps that “firing a machine gun over their heads” was producing excellent results in crawling drills, and the candidates themselves expressed satisfaction, saying it felt “thrilling, just like real combat.”
The decision was a unanimous verbal reprimand. General Bell even commended Kim for immediately implementing realistic combat training.
Afterward, several hours were wasted arguing between the logistics department—complaining about ammunition shortages—and those emphasizing the effectiveness of the training. This country is insane. I feel like my common sense is breaking apart.]

[That sly bastard. He pretends to be composed, but once the switch flips, he turns into a mad dog. I’m a soldier, not a beast tamer.]

Looking back over what he had written, Marshall realized there were quite a lot of entries about that man.

He held his head for a moment in thought, then began writing today’s entry on a new page.

[I think I’ve more or less figured out what kind of man Lieutenant Yujin Kim is. He is undoubtedly capable, but he always seems to use about thirty percent of his ability to hide the fact that he’s insane.
When given a task that seems utterly impossible, he initially looks completely at a loss, his eyes darting around. But in the end, he reverts to his true nature—a crazed dog with wild eyes—and somehow gets it done.
In the process, all common sense and conventions of human society are swept away like trees uprooted by a storm. Those watching are left exasperated, yet the results are somehow satisfactory, leaving no room for complaint.
I don’t know whether this peculiar habit stems from a cultural inclination toward humility among Asians, or from being cautious as a minority. But…]

Marshall paused for a moment.

What kind of man was Yujin Kim, the soldier he had observed up close?

The answer was simple.

[…if placed in an environment where he can fully exercise his abilities without concern for others’ opinions, that young officer will surely grow into a pillar supporting the United States and its Army.]

Marshall, about to put down his pen, added one final sentence.

[Though the subordinates under him will probably lose their minds in the process.]

Lately, the way Marshall looks at me has been… strange.

Honestly, it feels unfair.
No matter how difficult or painful the circumstances, I’ve truly done my best.

Of course, some Southern bumpkins—raised on cotton fields and taught things like how to properly use whips on Black laborers—did act up. But as a senior officer-to-be, shouldn’t I at least offer them a bit of guidance?

It couldn’t be helped. In an army that would only grow more racially diverse, they were already challenging a superior just because he was “yellow.”
I implemented a Patton-style customized education program and ended up “harvesting” two of a poor candidate’s teeth—but hey, I probably saved him from a future court-martial. A valuable life lesson.

Admittedly, the red cap and sunglasses had a tiny influence too. Just a little.
After all, they say the uniform makes the man. Once I had this outfit on, I couldn’t resist the urge to run them through eight rounds of PT.

To be fair, PT was only really intense on the first day, and I even skipped some movements. It makes no sense to put trench warfare trainees through full-on guerrilla training anyway. I just used it to warm them up and establish dominance.

“Left foot! Left foot! Left foot! That’s it! Good job, you maggots! Finally marching in step! First time since you weaned off your mother’s milk! Cadence! While marching! Start singing!”

Collective punishment really is the best.

The exquisite art of squeezing every ounce out of a human through PT. Add collective responsibility. And top it off with that uniquely American mindset—“our state is the best.”

If you scratch at that just a little—

“Is that all you Midwestern idiots can do? Those New Yorkers were sharp from day one! Do they not teach numbers in your cornfields?!”
“As expected, the West Coast boys can shoot! The Great Lakes idiots have only ever touched conveyor belts—they’ve probably never even seen a gun! Why don’t you quit and go back so I can build you a Model T?”
“You call yourselves college graduates? Don’t lie, you chicken-brained morons! Even a militia from the Civil War would fight better than you! Basic infantry skills, close combat, even dick size—you’d lose in everything!”

The performance graph keeps trending upward day by day.

At first, I was half-afraid I’d end up like Sergeant Hartman—shot dead by a trainee for pushing them too hard.
But fortunately, the candidates burned with competitive spirit and trained with remarkable enthusiasm.

Totally perfect. I’m extremely satisfied.

And Marshall was a true genius.

From early morning, I’d grind these guys into exhaustion. Then Marshall would collect the worn-out trainees like some seasoned NCO and relentlessly stuff their heads with the knowledge every officer must know.

Honestly, I doubted it would work—but somehow, Marshall made it happen. Truly someone destined to design the future of this great nation.

And at night, we’d review and summarize the day’s training.

But as time went on, those sessions gradually turned into more and more casual conversation rather than actual work.

“So you’re saying that whole incident was completely a setup?”
“Exactly. I mean, good grief—Second Lieutenant Patton, or I suppose he’s a First Lieutenant now. Anyway, that senior of mine picked up that damn taco-head and caused all that chaos. When I saw General Pershing’s look of utter contempt, my heart sank. I really did try to stop him.”
“…I see. You tried to stop him. Of course you did. What an unfortunate situation.”

Despite his cold and meticulous appearance, Lieutenant Marshall was actually quite reasonable, easy to talk to, and even had a sense of humor.

Still, lately he’d occasionally say things that left me feeling uneasy afterward.
I couldn’t help but worry—what if he was thinking something like, “As expected, you can’t trust a yellow.” I should put his name in my blacklist.

If you get on this man’s bad side, you ask? Our friend James Van Fleet is living proof of those tears.

He was clearly a capable man, but Marshall somehow mistook James for another officer with a similar name—a certain drunkard.
Because of that, James kept getting dropped from every promotion review. Only much later, after the misunderstanding was cleared up, was he hurriedly promoted. Which is why, while his peers Eisenhower and Bradley were soaring during World War II, he himself ended up going to the Korean War.

That’s the kind of authority Marshall holds—where even a simple misunderstanding can block the path of a talented officer. And you’re saying he might outright write in his mental ledger, “This one is incompetent. Do not use”?
Yeah… I’d really prefer to avoid that.

So in this situation, I had no choice but to embrace the virtues of social survival—loyalty and flattery.

“Sir.”
“What is it?”
“My military career has been quite short, but I’ve never met a superior I’ve felt such a genuine desire to follow as you.”
“You’ve been laying it on rather thick lately with the pointless flattery. Is something going on?”
“No, sir!”
“Good, then. Stop wasting time with empty praise and tell me more about that weapon—the tank. I’m interested in your opinion.”

Marshall is interested in tanks? That’s not a bad thing.
It’s not quite going the way I intended, but it wouldn’t hurt to start establishing myself as a tank expert early on.

“Then first, regarding the core of tank warfare—”

Avoiding Marshall’s piercing gaze, I slowly began to speak.

Colonel John Biddle, newly appointed as Superintendent of West Point following Clarence Tinsley, felt rather uneasy about the orders that had come down from Washington immediately after he took office.

“So, you’re telling me to find a report written by a cadet?”

A single report, buried somewhere among the cabinets filling the superintendent’s office.
For someone who had just assumed the position, it was a rather tedious task.

In the end, he decided to call in an instructor.

“The War Department has ordered me to retrieve a document written by a cadet.”
“What exactly should we be looking for, sir?”
“They say it’s a report written by Second Lieutenant Yujin Kim, who graduated from West Point in ’15. Supposedly it contains his personal predictions about future warfare—…why that expression?”

Biddle was taken aback when he saw the instructor’s face twist as if he had just eaten rotten meat.

“You mean the report Yujin Kim submitted at West Point?”
“That’s right.”
“Then you’re probably referring to the ‘Armageddon Report.’”

…What? Since when does a mere cadet’s report get such an absurdly grand name?
Biddle grew more incredulous by the second. What on earth had happened at West Point? And why was the War Department looking for it?

“The previous superintendent personally collected and stored that report, so we don’t know where it is either.”
“I see.”

“…What are you waiting for? Find it.”

A soldier is supposed to move mountains when ordered—yet here they were, whining about not being able to find a single piece of paper.

After a thorough search of the superintendent’s office cabinets—joined by several cadets—they finally managed to uncover the report, now yellowed and tattered with age.

“With it in this condition, it’s embarrassing to send it up as is. Make a copy and send that, then return the original to me later. What on earth did he even write to cause such a fuss?”
“Yes, sir.”

That night, Colonel Biddle received the original copy of
.

“…What… what is this? Satan… is this Satan? Did Satan whisper this into his ear and he just wrote it down? This isn’t some ‘Armageddon Report’—this isn’t even just a report! How is this the work of a mere cadet?! That madman Tinsley hid something like this away?!”

Not long after, similar cries of despair began echoing through the War Department in Washington, D.C.

Author’s Note

Was Patton a second lieutenant for six years? → Historically accurate.
Did the U.S. Army dislike trucks? → Historically accurate.
Does a 30-day officer training course even make sense? → Also historically accurate.