Survive as a World War II Soldier - Chapter 72



Only Noblemtl

#072

“Aren’t you going home?”

“Ah, I have to go.”

I was curious to see my senior, who used to leave work as quickly as possible after telling me his wife was pregnant, hesitate for some reason, so I asked him again.

“What’s wrong?”

As if he had been waiting for my question, the senior continued to complain.

“You know, I’m a little scared.”

“yes?”

“My wife is now eight months pregnant. She still has a month left before the baby is due.”

“Oh, yes.”

“But I feel like my stomach is going to explode.”

“yes?”

The senior spoke with a serious face, but honestly, I had to struggle to keep from laughing.

No, it’s not like it’s a frog in a fairy tale, so why would a person’s stomach burst? And I’ve never heard of a story about a pregnant woman’s stomach bursting.

I tried my best to keep from laughing, but my senior sensed my reaction like a ghost. Fortunately, instead of harassing me, he sighed and said this.

“I know. I know I say ridiculous things. But every night my wife tells me to put my hand on my stomach so I can be calm with the baby…”

Every time I put my hand on my protruding stomach, something inside was moving…

“I also thought of that alien···.”

“Isn’t that a bit too much?”

I interrupted without realizing it. How dare you call your own child an alien.

“Sigh. That’s because you don’t know yet. You should get married and have children later. You’ll understand how I feel. Sigh.”

The senior, who had been sighing and complaining for a long time with a dark face, received a phone call from home and his face darkened.

“Uh, uh. A steamed bun? In this summer? Oh, no. Of course I can’t get it. Then who am I? I’ll go get it.”

In an instant, memories of seeing off my senior who had transferred to the Steamed Bun Expedition came flooding back to me.

And Anna is eight months pregnant.

I could completely understand what my senior had said at that time.

How can a person’s stomach grow so much?

I didn’t know that when I met other pregnant women, they were wearing baggy maternity clothes and I didn’t know what kind of body they had.

So I didn’t really realize how much my stomach was sticking out.

But Anna was different.

You know her body well. Anna, who was already skinny even in the later stages of pregnancy due to morning sickness, had a really bulging belly…

“It won’t explode, right?”

“Doug what did you say?”

“Oh, no. Anna, just lying down···.”

“It’s hard to even lie down.”

“Really? Then should I help you?”

“No. It’s annoying, so can you move over there a bit? It’s hot.”

“It’s hot? Should I turn down the air conditioner temperature?”

“···”

It was scary just watching Anna move.

But I’m a father, after all. I pushed my fears aside and did my best.

“What is this? You bought this before the baby was even born?”

“Huh? I’m going to read it to you from now on.”

Isn’t reading a storybook and telling a story while placing your hand on the baby’s stomach the most basic of prenatal education?

But Anna looked terrified at my words.

“Huh? You know what the baby in your stomach can do?”

“No. Look at it now. It moves when it hears my voice.”

“···”

Anna shook her head as if she had a lot to say but decided not to.

Well, the ultimate goal of prenatal education is to give birth to a healthy child, and for that, Anna’s comfort is the most important.

I’ve given up on reading storybooks to my baby for now.

But the ordeal didn’t end there.

I had no expectations of the brilliant ultrasound of 21st century South Korea that would tell me how many toes and fingers I had, and whether I should wear pink or blue at nose height.

But isn’t this too much?

“Where are you going with me?”

“How can you go alone with that body?”

“Oh my. Pregnancy isn’t a disease. Why is it like this?”

I couldn’t even set foot in the hospital. No, Anna was so frightened by my words that she said she would follow me that she abandoned me and left on her own in a manner reminiscent of a military operation.

After such a turbulent time passed.

One day in June 1931.

Anna’s labor pains began.

“Oh, you’re crazy. Sit down, Doug.”

I couldn’t stay still when I heard Anna’s moans from afar.

Looking at me like that, my mother, Mrs. Pinky, shook her head.

“No, how···”

“oh my.”

I heard it would take a long time because it was vinegar, but I never thought it would take this long.

After staying up all night, when the sun was just beginning to rise,

“Eww”

This was the birth of Mary Eleanor MacArthur, who would later be called the White House’s mischievous child.

By the way, my daughter’s name is named after my mother, Mrs. Pinky, Mary, and my mother-in-law, Eleanor.

Dada, bang.

“Oh, where are you coming from?”

“Anna?”

“Madam, are you okay? Please go out quickly.”

No, in the 21st century, we even cut the umbilical cord ourselves and everything. Can’t we live a little more forward-looking?

After being chased away by the terrified midwife and Mrs. Pinky’s yelling, I was finally able to meet Anna and my daughter after a long time.

“Please hug me.”

“uh···.”

As I was reaching out my arm at the midwife’s words, I stopped.

“Newborn babies are naturally a bit wrinkled.”

“No, that’s not it. It’s too small.”

Anna’s belly was so big it felt like it was going to burst, but why was the baby so small?

I was so worried that if I hugged it wrong, it might break somewhere.

I could hear people in the room giggling, but I was dead serious.

“Really. It’s scary to think that someone would see that. Doug.”

“No. It’s really small.”

I barely managed to pick up the child with trembling hands, but I was so overcome with emotion that I couldn’t say anything.

“You’re beautiful, my daughter. Anna, you’ve worked hard.”

Anna, who smiled brightly at my words, was really pretty.

##

A few weeks later.

“Hey, let’s hug our nephew.”

“Your hands? Did you wash your hands?”

“uh?”

“Go wash yourself thoroughly with soap. Why are you trying to hold a baby without washing your hands?”

Arthur looked at me with a face of bewilderment, but considering the astonishing state of medical care today, hygiene was of the utmost importance.

“Please understand. Doug is a bit picky about hygiene.”

Arthur III snorted at Anna’s words.

“Ha, when he was little, he would even eat dirt. He was really acting up. He was shaking.”

Arthur III continued to grumble, but he could not give up on washing his hands.

“Oh my. It’s really hard to welcome our nephew. Oh my, oh my. Did you laugh?”

Mary, who had fallen into Arthur III’s arms, whined as if she was unfamiliar with the situation and immediately began to cry.

But Arthur III, the father of five, stroked Mary’s skillful hand and soon began to laugh heartily.

“···”

“I’m going to kill this guy with just one look. So are you going to let him get married?”

“Are you going to tell me to live single?”

“What a surprise.”

After a while, Mary went into Anna’s arms to take care of her period.

“By the way, what happened all the way to Washington?”

“To see your nephew?”

“What a surprise.”

Arthur III frowned as he repeated what he had just said.

“Now, tell me what you want to say. This guy is the Army Chief of Staff, and not even the President can do anything he wants.”

“ha.”

The words that came out of Arthur III’s mouth as he sighed deeply were unexpected.

“You don’t know it’s a torpedo? So this is···.”

I hastily intervened as Arthur III was trying to explain about the torpedo while pulling out some documents one by one.

Because at first glance, it looked like it would be at least three hours long if you just let it start.

“A self-propelled ship-attacking mine?”

“uh?”

At my words, Arthur III blinked with a bewildered expression.

“Oh, okay.”

“What’s strange about a soldier knowing about weapons systems?”

“No, you’re a dog.”

“Ha. On the topic of bloody seals.”

“No, no. That’s not what I came here for.”

Arthur III waved his hand for a moment, then hesitated with a serious face and sighed several times.

Then, as if he had made up his mind, he opened his mouth.

“Give me some money.”

“what?”

“Miss, your budget didn’t get cut. Ours, damn it. We all got cut.”

So, the situation of the navy that Arthur III revealed was quite serious.

“So how much is it?”

“Fifty thousand dollars. That’s the total budget for the year. Damn it.”

Arthur III, who had been swearing as he spoke, seemed to have become heated and ruffled his hair.

“Hey, a torpedo costs ten thousand dollars, but they want to develop a new model for fifty thousand dollars. They want to make three types: one for submarines, one for torpedo bombers, and one for destroyers.”

I couldn’t help but nod my head at Arthur III’s words that this was complete madness.

“Can’t you even do a test launch?”

“Of course I can’t do it.”

And the story of Arthur III brought back a memory I had forgotten.

It was a dark history of the U.S. Navy during World War II, also known as the torpedo scandal.

The Mark 14 torpedo used by the U.S. Navy in the 1940s had a very serious problem.

It was so serious that then-President Roosevelt said this about the torpedoes:

‘One thing is certain about torpedoes: you can’t trust them.’

At this point, you should be able to understand what level it was.

Anyway, if we look at the problem with that damn torpedo in more detail, first of all, it sailed deeper than the designated depth.

So, instead of hitting the intended ship, it passes under it. In short, it means not hitting the target.

There is also a detonator there that malfunctions from time to time.

Some don’t explode when they collide with an enemy ship, some explode before they reach their target, and some explode much later.

It even moved on its own. There was even a submarine that sank after being hit by a torpedo it had fired.

But I never would have guessed that the starting point of the torpedo scandal was right now.

I thought it was because someone wasn’t doing their job properly in the middle…

“But for budgetary issues, you should go to the Chief of Naval Operations. Why are you coming to me and asking me this?”

“Why did I come here?”

Well, it’s not that I didn’t understand.

The demand for disarmament has persisted since immediately after the end of World War I.

In particular, the Navy was under more pressure than the Army, and I had some share in that.

“You’ve been playing the media so hard that the Army is still building tanks, and, uh, an air force in the Philippines.”

“That’s it···.”

“We’re a total mess, a total mess.”

When I became Chief of Staff, Hoover was quite generous with the budget because he was eager to capitalize on my celebrity.

Knowing there was a Great Depression, I pulled in the budget as much as I could.

The Bonus Army incident that followed was also a great boon to the Army.

Of course, it was thanks to my good organization.

‘The budget needed to pay the early participation bonus is over $3.6 billion, but our Army can do it for less.’

What the Bonus Army wanted was not a lot of money, but a long-term survival strategy.

I created reeducation camps for veterans in divisions all over the country, especially in the Engineer Corps.

In the morning, I did public service work to support the public, and in the afternoon, I did education.

I know some promising jobs for the future. Instructor? Equipment?

What doesn’t exist in the Corps of Engineers?

Starting with the job skills that were popular even during the Depression and could be affected by Roosevelt’s massive New Deal policies, and going as far as the small ones.

“If you get sick, you have to go to the hospital, right? Then you’ll lose a lot of money.”

“Yes.”

“Then wouldn’t you be making money just by not getting sick and being healthy?”

“Isn’t that obvious?”

“Yes. So, I’ll tell you some simple hygiene rules that can help you stay healthy from the very beginning. First, take care of your teeth…”

I taught them everything from brushing their teeth to those who, although I’m sure I taught them everything during World War I, couldn’t remember a single thing.

And finally, there was one educational content that was full of my selfish thoughts.

“Meter, those who came from the artillery will probably remember hearing about it.”

“Oh. It was so long ago.”

“No, it was only ten years ago. What do you mean it was a long time ago?”

It was none other than the metric system.

Salary? Paid in kind.

Even without that, the farmers were in chaos because the food prices had plummeted. They bought everything up, stored it in warehouses, and distributed it in lieu of wages.

If I could just intervene and throw in some Homel Spam that came out quicker, it’d be game over.

Those who were worried about starving to death were delighted with that alone.

Naturally, the price went down, but the farmers who had been sad because their products were not selling were happy. It was like killing two birds with one stone.

Anyway, for this reason, the army was doing pretty well compared to the navy.

But the Navy was a little different.

in result,

“And your mother said you were rich. She said the Rainbow Foundation or something was all your money.”

“No, not all of them.”

“Anyway, you’re rich. So Doug, invest in some torpedoes.”

I cheered inwardly at Arthur III’s plea.

I can’t help but think about beating up those Japanese guys with a proper Mark 14.

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