Survive as a World War II Soldier - Chapter 59



Only Noblemtl

#059

War of Independence against Britain.

Civil War.

Spanish War.

Conflict with Mexico.

Until the First World War.

The core of the large-scale military operations that the United States has carried out so far has always been the Army.

But after every war, the US Army became a headache and a leftover meal.

The reason was simple: The U.S. Army was of little use on American soil.

Because neither of the countries bordering us would invade us.

Because of the vast Atlantic and Pacific oceans, anyone who wanted to attack America directly had to come by ship.

Of course, it is a proposition that will be broken in less than ten years.

In any case, for that reason, unlike the seals whose necessity for national defense was recognized in both wartime and peacetime, the Army’s raison d’etre was always questioned whenever times seemed even a little peaceful.

‘Do you really need that many needles?’

‘You’ve gained a lot of weight and your food expenses are too high. Aren’t you going on a diet?’

What particularly troubled the army was the rise of ignorant isolationists who thought that if only they could eat well and live well, that would be the jackpot.

‘There is no need to maintain any troops other than those necessary to maintain a minimum level of security.’

‘An army that is too strong can actually be dangerous.’

Among them, there were some who made truly absurd claims and shouted that the Army only needed the bare minimum.

There were no dictators who led armies in rebellion or seized power, so what’s so scary about that?

So, Pershing, who became the Chief of Staff immediately after the end of World War I, worked hard on road construction.

He said that he would somehow earn money to feed his juniors who were crying pitifully while looking at him.

And the arduous duty of being the father is now mine.

Even I was more anxious because I knew not only the present but also the even darker future that lay ahead.

“The roads have already been paved as much as they can, and the airline industry is headed towards privatization···.”

“There is no particular project that would warrant mobilizing the military···.”

I chuckled at the adjutants’ words that there was no such thing.

Why isn’t it there? They’re looking at the 21st century Korean military as water.

How much public support can the military provide?

In South Korea, where the ceasefire has lasted for over half a century, and the atmosphere is tense due to occasional provocations from those on the border, it has not been easy to reduce the army.

It was a joke made because they didn’t know how much work the South Korean government did while hiring hundreds of thousands of soldiers every year through the conscription system for almost free wages.

Of course, there were significant differences between 21st century Korea and 20th century America. Still, it wasn’t like there was nothing to do.

While I was wondering what would be good, I decided to first do some research while reading the newspaper.

As I sat in my office looking through the pile of newspapers my aides had left behind, one article caught my eye.

‘Sandstorm?’

It was a news story that suddenly brought to mind a word I had forgotten.

Yellow dust.

Although it has somewhat lost its reputation due to fine dust, yellow dust was once a headache for Koreans in the spring.

Koreans in the late 20th century hated the yellow dust that originated from far away places like the Inner Mongolia Plateau and the Gobi Desert in China and crossed the West Sea on the westerly winds.

“I planted a tree in the desert.”

“Huh? I didn’t hear you correctly, President.”

At Eisenhower’s words, I realized that I had said out loud what I had been thinking inside.

“I read in the article that there’s been a sandstorm blowing through the Great Plains region these days.”

“Oh, that’s what you were talking about? If it’s dry, there might be some mud wind.”

Eisenhower shrugged it off, saying that the rain would soon subside.

They say there are always 300 signs and 29 warnings before a major accident.

This was also the case in the 20th century.

The model for the appearance of Earth in the beginning of Interstellar, a movie that took 21st century South Korea by storm, was none other than a climate disaster that actually occurred in the United States in the 1930s.

dust bowl

The sandstorm that swept across the American Midwest’s Great Plains was so severe that it even turned the skies of New York on the Atlantic coast cloudy.

It would probably be more, if not less, than the yellow dust or fine dust that plagued Koreans in the 21st century.

And there’s no way such a huge disaster could have appeared out of nowhere without any warning.

“What if it doesn’t rain?”

“Huh? How could that be? Uh···.”

“Mr. President?”

Eisenhower’s voice, which had been responding to my question as if it were nonsense, diminished.

And then Bradley, sensing my uneasiness, called me.

“They say that dust storms blow when there is no rain? But what if it doesn’t rain? A drought can come at any time, right?”

“I haven’t heard of any drought there recently.”

“Yes. Don’t they say that it rains after the plow?”

“That’s right. Would climatologists and agricultural experts talk nonsense?”

That’s nonsense. The plow brings rain.

The most absurd theory of the early 20th century is even more absurd than the Indian rain ritual that is said to be held until it rains.

“It’s not a big deal now because it’s raining. But isn’t it a problem that no one is preparing for the day when it doesn’t rain?”

“That’s true.”

“But why are you worried about that, President?”

Unlike Bradley, who did not understand English, Eisenhower was lost in thought.

And then,

“Shall I make an appointment with the Vice President?”

“also.”

Although he stepped down as a senator when he became vice president, his district was Kansas.

Kansas, the hometown of Dorothy, who went on an adventure to find the Wizard of Oz.

Kansas, which lived off of farming, was devastated a few years later when the Dust Bowl swept across the Great Plains.

“But, aside from the Vice President believing the President’s words, what does that have to do with us?”

Eisenhower also looked at me with a curious expression at Bradley’s question.

“I was thinking of planting some trees.”

“A tree?”

The dust ball wasn’t going to happen right away.

Because I said it was the 1930s.

The Great Depression was no different.

The story that this fall’s Black Tuesday, or Bloody Tuesday, began with a major stock market crash is a story that was settled long after the incident occurred.

Just as the eye in the middle of a typhoon is extremely calm, those at the starting point of a major incident find it difficult to understand what the events unfolding before their eyes mean.

“In 1914, the Austrian Archduke died in Sarajevo and Austria and Serbia started a war?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“No one knew at the time that the war would last for four years and that more than eight million people would die.”

Their faces hardened at my mention of the Great War.

“Panics and dust storms will be the same. People will think, “No way. Could something bigger happen?” and think nothing of it. Only much later will they realize that was the beginning.”

If you prepare only then, it is too late.

Even as the Great Depression began and people were in chaos, saying they could not live, Hoover was president and the Republican Party was in power until February 1932.

Roosevelt, a superman on horseback, appeared and came up with various measures to overcome the Great Depression, but it took time for those measures to be effective.

“So, we need to prepare in advance.”

I had to look beyond the Bonus Army and move forward.

No matter how much they cried out in frustration and caused chaos, there was no way out if they just laid down and said they had no money to give to the country.

What would we gain by joining in on the Hoover rip-off?

Wouldn’t it be more constructive to find a way to get food on the table?

“Do you mean planting trees in the desert?”

“Oh. But if we talk about it then, it will be too late. We need to sow the seeds now so that they will sprout and bloom then.”

“All right.”

##

“No, who is this? Aren’t you a friend of the Queen?”

“Ha, ha. It’s embarrassing when the Vice President says that.”

Eisenhower arranged for Curtis to attend several parties where he could meet him naturally.

“Oh, I see you here too.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

The Vice President of this period is a living totem.

If you don’t have good luck like Coolidge, you’re destined to live eight years like a shadow, seemingly absent.

Of course, Curtis was a little different.

Although he was a half-American with Indian blood, he was a vice president with no real power and only honor, but he considered the mere fact that he was in that position to be meaningful.

“This is the end for me, but can’t others challenge for higher positions by following the path I have paved?”

Curtis and I met several times at various parties and became close enough to share stories like this.

“By the way, is it really true that the president has no interest in politics?”

“Well, I’m still struggling with what I’m doing right now.”

Actually, it was a bit too early. It was good to become the Chief of Staff at a young age, but…

It was really impossible for him to sit in the position of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for more than a dozen years until retirement age.

However, the position of Secretary of War was not very attractive.

The ministerial positions created for civilian control were nothing more than figureheads.

Of course, if I were a minister, things might be a little different…

Anyway, for that reason, after becoming the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, there was more talk that he should enter politics.

“Haha. Well, it’s a bit early to be talking about this since you haven’t been president for very long.”

“That’s right. Oh, but I heard that there are a lot of dust storms in Kansas and other regions…”

“Oh, oh. That’s a seasonal problem. It goes away quickly when it rains.”

“Is that so?”

Curtis’s reaction to the sandstorm story I had casually brought up was exactly what I had expected. Like Eisenhower, he didn’t think much of it, saying that it would soon subside when the rain came.

“By the way, I’m worried because grain prices have fallen so much. Oh, by the way, when the president was in the Philippines, I heard that agriculture there was very developed…”

“Oh, it wasn’t me who did that, it was the immigrants from Joseon···.”

“Oh. Is that so? Are you saying that they are so good at farming? That’s amazing.”

After chatting with Curtis about farming for a while, I turned my attention back to the weather.

“But isn’t the weather fickle? We had a lot of trouble because of the weather during the last war.

Curtis looked at me with a serious face when I told him that the hardships were not easy because of the continuous rain that had poured down not only on D-Day but also before that.

“I understand what the president is saying. Yes, that could be the case. After all, extreme weather events like droughts don’t come with advance notice.”

I continued talking to him, because Curtis seemed to have a rough idea of ​​what I was trying to say.

“Yes. I want to···.”

“But no matter how much I think about it, I don’t think that’s something the president should worry about.”

However, before I could finish speaking, Curtis interrupted and questioned me with a sharp expression. As expected of a military man, I responded calmly to Curtis’s words telling me to just worry about the military.

“Why not? Food supply is of the utmost importance to security and to maintaining the military.”

“under.”

I also faced Curtis with a serious expression as he made a dumbfounded expression.

“An analysis of weather records from military bases stationed in the Great Plains over the past thirty years shows that just 10 years ago, it was a dry area.”

“President.”

“I am concerned. Yes. As the Vice President said, it is not my business. But it is our American business. Those who live there, in Kansas, are part of the United States. That is why I am telling you. That is all. As I said, the issue of food and shelter is the most important issue, whether in the military or anywhere else.”

Curtis still didn’t budge when I told him that I was just talking to him because he was the person I knew who knew the most about the place, and that I had no other intention.

“Isn’t it too early to prepare for the future?”

As expected, his conclusion was going in a different direction.

He seemed to think that my interest in fields beyond the military stemmed from my intention to enter politics.

Well, it didn’t matter.

Since there would be no sandstorms in the Great Plains any time soon, today’s conversation would be forgotten as just an incident. In his memory, it was more likely that the content of MacArthur preparing for what would happen after he took off his uniform than the sandstorm.

Perhaps in a few months, when stock prices are tumbling and the economy is in shambles, today’s events will be a distant memory.

But the seeds that are sown will grow slowly and bloom when needed.