WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 336: Sunlit Shade (3)

──────

He did not look like a man blinded by greed. Thirst was affecting him, yes, but it was not the deciding factor. Nor was his answer a careless one, based on some vague belief that their fears were unlikely to come true. This was about preparing for the worst. Gyeoul shifted his posture.

“Then I’ll ask one more thing.”

“Please do.”

“If, in that situation, a soldier refuses to kill the enemy, how do you think you’ll feel?”

“……”

“I don’t know if Lieutenant Park Jin-seok received that education. I’ve heard about it, so I’ll tell you. In actual combat against people, the proportion of combatants who really kill the enemy is very low. Most of them deliberately aim off target, apparently... Beside the head, in front of the feet, places like that. They shoot to miss on purpose.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. It’s taught in the regular officer education course.”

Jin-seok looked as if this was the first he had heard of it. That made sense. In the shortened officer education course for the quarantine war, there was little reason to teach the burden of killing. Soldiers fighting mutants tended to suffer mental injury at a clearly lower rate than soldiers in ordinary wars. That remained true even after Shangjiang Yang Yongbin’s nuclear attack. Thanks to that, they could stay deployed on the front for much longer.

By the standards of wars before the plague, combat deployments were supposed to be kept under sixty days whenever possible. Any longer than that, and cases where soldiers were mentally destroyed became common.

Gyeoul went on.

“It isn’t because they lack courage, or because they’re cowards avoiding a fight. They can run across a field under artillery fire, but they can’t bring themselves to kill a person. It’s an instinctive rejection the mind can’t overcome. Before training was professionally designed to overcome that resistance, they say the proportion of soldiers like that was at least eighty-five percent. In other words, even in an environment where they were ordered to kill, and where they would die if they didn’t, only fifteen percent of soldiers, at best, properly aimed and fired at the enemy. It could have been lower.”

That was one reason the U.S. military had spent tens of thousands of live rounds to kill a single enemy during the Vietnam War. It was not because the battlefield was a jungle full of obstacles, or because the soldiers were poor shots. Reasons like that were flimsy. There had simply been that much fire poured into threatening lines of fire, lines that were only threatening, in the hope that the enemy would withdraw.

Jin-seok sighed.

“One in ten is far too low.”

“I don’t know...”

When Gyeoul had first heard it, he had actually wondered if even that was too high.

“Then, Sir, are you telling me this because you think our kids need that... training to prepare them for killing too?”

Gyeoul shook his head.

“No. They’ll need training, of course. Mainly urban tactical training. But at this point, there’s no need to practice killing people separately. They’ve already had enough of that.”

“...What do you mean?”

“They’ve killed countless mutants so far.”

A crease formed between Jin-seok’s brows.

“I don’t understand. Mutants aren’t human. I never once felt as if I were committing murder when I killed them. If I had to say, I did get chills now and then. There were moments when they looked similar to people, if only briefly. But they were literally only brief moments.”

“I see.”

“I believe the same would be true for the other personnel in the unit. If there’s a chance we’ll fight people from now on, then of course we should undergo additional training.”

Gyeoul gave a faint smile.

“Then let me ask it this way. Lieutenant, what kind of training do you think would make soldiers kill people more easily? What would make killing a little smoother?”

Jin-seok looked troubled.

“You just said... there was a professionally designed process, didn’t you?”

“Yes. So I’m asking what you think that process is specifically like.”

“...I’m sorry, but I don’t know.”

“That training is actually nothing special. It’s practice shooting something as close to a person as possible, under specific conditions. Those conditions are things like carrying out a lawful mission, rules of engagement, orders from a superior, and situations where they have to defend themselves or their comrades. Killing people however you want doesn’t make you a soldier. It makes you a psychopathic murderer.”

A unit formed by gathering murderers would have less killing ability than a group of recruits fresh out of boot camp. The larger the scale, the truer that became. Harming others for one’s own sake was selfishness taken to its extreme, and the organizational ability of selfish individuals only dragged down the abilities of the members.

“Our unit’s discipline is close to perfect in terms of conditioning.”

Gyeoul said.

“It’s embarrassing to say this myself, but I think the soldiers trust me quite a bit as their commander. The same goes for Lieutenant Park and Lieutenant Lee. The other officers and soldiers are on very good terms too. In a way, it’s obvious, but the manual says that the stronger a soldier’s bond with the officer giving orders, and the closer the members of a unit are to one another, the higher the rate at which soldiers kill the enemy.”

“……”

“Next is practice shooting something that resembles a person. They say it’s enough to print life-size pictures of hostage-takers or terrorists and use them as close-range targets.”

“Isn’t that just basic training?”

Disbelief could be heard in the upward turn of his voice. Gyeoul agreed.

“That’s right. Basic training. But they say even that alone produced results where more than half the soldiers aimed directly at the enemy and fired. Strange, isn’t it?”

“...It’s too simple.”

“Simple or not, what can you do if those are the results? What matters is repetition imprinted together with the conditions. When soldiers receive an order, it makes them numb to the act of shooting something human-like. First, it gets them to cross the line. Put simply, huh? That was a person... and I shot them. What did I just do? Did I really shoot? Without even realizing it?... Like that.”

Hearing that, Jin-seok’s face darkened with unease.

“So all it does is delay the shock.”

“Exactly.”

Gyeoul gave a deep nod. This was what he had wanted to say from the beginning.

“Our unit is ready to kill people. As targets resembling humans, what could be better than living, moving mutants? They’ve probably even shot and killed infected U.S. soldiers many times. Even if the opponent is human, I doubt the fighting itself will be much of a problem.”

“……”

“The real problem comes after they kill someone that way. That’s where the commander’s role becomes important. You have to let them say they accomplished the mission rather than killed the enemy, give them certainty that they did the right thing, comfort them by saying it couldn’t be helped because they had to save their comrades and the families waiting for them... And more than that, you have to look after the soldiers who couldn’t take part in the killing, the ones who couldn’t kill people. The fewer of them there are, the more attention they need. It’s easy for them to blame themselves and think they’re the ones who are wrong.”

“You mean I must not get angry?”

“Absolutely not. You can’t treat them like cowards or show disappointment either. Even without that, if they’re normal soldiers, they’ll already be feeling ashamed of themselves.”

Once Gyeoul had decided to make Park Jin-seok the next Company Commander, he had asked Captain Singh, who was about to be promoted to Major, and First Sergeant Merriweather for advice on the subject. He wanted to check and supplement what he already knew. Of course, instead of laying out the circumstances as they were, he only asked about the proper mindset when the enemy was human.

Captain Singh had been a great help when it came to a commander’s attitude, but Merriweather was the one who gave him more stories from actual cases. Merriweather had served longer, had more combat experience, and above all, as a noncommissioned officer, had more often been in direct engagements than officers had.

“Lieutenant. The First Sergeant told me this. Soldiers who had experienced combat feared disappointing their comrades more than the enemies trying to kill them, more than the shells falling around them. On a battlefield where they had nowhere else to rely on, they were afraid there would be no place left for them among their comrades.”

And the sergeant added this.

‘Watching it happen, I learned that relationships are what make people, and relationships are what make people kill too...’

The reflections of a veteran hardened on the battlefield held insight into human beings.

Gyeoul continued.

“At the medal ceremony before, General Schroeder said he sensed a lot of ambition in your platoon management. But the fact that, as a commander, you could be ambitious and still have almost no casualties means you know exactly how far the abilities of the platoon members under your command go. Right?”

“……”

“In a fight where they have to kill people, that can become more of a problem precisely because you know them that well. I think you understand what I mean.”

A mission entrusted to them because he believed they could do it well enough might fail. Or they might fail to suppress the enemy early, leading to additional casualties. Or they might be firing into empty air right in front of him...

A commander who knew the limits of ability and pushed exactly that far was inevitably a burden from the soldier’s perspective too. That might work in fights against mutants, but not against people. At least, not before the soldiers grew used to killing.

After staring at the floor for a long time, Jin-seok asked a question stripped of confidence.

“Why me?”

His complicated gaze brushed over the insignia.

“I understand what you were worried about. In that case, shouldn’t you have called Lieutenant Lee Yura first instead?”

“Even so, if I wanted to prepare for the worst, I decided combat power had priority.”

“Are you saying Lieutenant Lee Yura’s command ability is inferior to mine...?”

“No. But your styles are very different. Even if they’re rebels, when the enemy is the same U.S. military, I find it hard to imagine Lieutenant Lee Yura using troops aggressively. It’d be fine if I could command them myself... Unfortunately, I’m scheduled to be dragged around to all sorts of events. There’s a high chance I won’t be there when trouble breaks out.”

“I see...”

If the only goal was the survival of the unit members, Yura’s steady command would also be useful defensively. Depending on the situation, however, they might have to carry out a mission as suppression forces.

Perhaps because he did not want to seem too driven by ambition, Jin-seok spoke in a joking tone that was rare for him.

“After preparing this much, it might be embarrassing if we actually go there and nothing happens.”

“That’s how insurance usually is. When you’re only paying the premiums, it feels like you’re taking a loss, and even when you receive the payout, it doesn’t feel like pure profit... Anyway, will you decide now? If you’re confident you can keep in mind what I asked, accept it. If not, we’ll put it off until next time.”

“I’ll accept.”

It was an immediate answer, without hesitation, as if the ambition he had been suppressing because of the mood had poured out all at once. Gyeoul nodded once and put away the set of insignia.

“I look forward to working with you, Captain. We’ll hold the appointment ceremony tomorrow. I’ll pin the insignia on you in front of everyone. The exact date when the promotion processing is complete will be a little later, but what does it matter? Here, it should be fine for you to be treated as a Captain. The battalion staff is already doing that.”

“Is this really all right?”

“What is?”

“You know how much I wanted this rank. Even so, letting me decide for myself is no different from putting the fox in charge of the henhouse, isn’t it?”

“I called you first with that in mind too. And unless you lose your mind, Captain, you won’t be able to ignore everything I asked. That’s enough as insurance.”

Gyeoul would also watch over the soldiers as the Battalion Commander, and there was always the option of replacing the Company Commander later. Even without a specific warning, Jin-seok would probably expect roughly that much. He was perceptive enough for that. Gyeoul was not acting purely out of goodwill right now. Wanting to wrap up the interview, Gyeoul changed the subject.

“I should pass this along before you leave. The urban tactical training plan for First Company has already been drawn up. Captain Foster will give you the details. It’s your first mission as Company Commander, so I trust you’ll do your best.”

“I’ll try not to disappoint you. The kids who were happy about leave are going to look miserable.”

“You can tell them a white lie.”

“What lie?”

“The company members don’t know yet that the trip to D.C. is confirmed, right? If you say you’ll take them on the eastern trip depending on the training results, won’t everyone train very hard?”

Jin-seok gave a bitter smile. It was an expression Gyeoul had hardly ever seen from him until now.

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried