George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 286

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***

A bird flies in the sky. An artificial bird, constructed from manufactured materials, soars. It greedily consumes what might be the Earth’s corpse, leaving a faint contrail as it chases its own tail.

A one-year-old stray cat on a wall, seemingly indifferent, slowly wags its tail and stares blankly at the perfectly oval-shaped cavity of a destroyed building. Startled by a sound it’s never heard before, it instinctively flees.

Indeed, the instinct of the wild. Though dulled by city life, an animal’s sixth sense is truly unpredictable. Just seconds later, a massive tank crushes the wall, leaving no trace of it.

Everywhere the tank treads, a foul, dark red blood flows, the result of civilians crushed under the tracks without resistance. This was less a war crime and more an unavoidable accident during the operation.

You can’t redraw tactics because civilians are in the operation area. This was true for both armies. The fighting was so intense that bombs exploded one after another, preventing access for war correspondents. This situation remained a secret, known only to those involved, never to be reported.

“Wow, damn it. I’m definitely going to die if I go out there.”

In South Korea, one of the world’s safest countries, war is a boring, stale documentary. For Kim Yong-dae, whose only experience was mandatory military service, a fierce and desperate war felt completely alien.

The closest thing to war he’d experienced was a minor conflict during the merging of South and North Korea.

Even then, he watched from the south as a reservist. War crimes like this didn’t happen in that war. Back then, he had a gun; now, he clutched a cell phone, desperately seeking a signal. The only similarity between his K-2 rifle [South Korean assault rifle] and his cell phone was their price.

‘Damn it! I want to live!’

*I* want to live. I will survive, no matter what. With that resolve, he hid deeper in the shadows. He should have refused the offer to start a new business in a foreign land where he couldn’t even communicate, especially not in the North. He’d envisioned himself as a young CEO in his 30s, but now he was about to become an unidentified corpse in his 30s because of an unexpected war.

‘God. Buddha. No. Is it Allah?’

Then, as if God hadn’t completely abandoned Kim Yong-dae, people who clearly weren’t from the West Iraq Army appeared.

“Oh, oh! Don’t go! Help me! Help! Help…! Me…?”

He was about to shout when he saw a group that looked different from the West Iraq Army, but his voice trailed off. He wasn’t sure if they would help him.

It was a gamble. They could be the European Integrated Forces or Middle Eastern bandits. They had standardized firearms, but their uniforms were mismatched, covered in bandages. The apparent leader, a squad or platoon leader, even wore a sword on his waist. Not a bayonet, but a medieval sword fit for a game or movie.

Frankly, they looked like a ragtag militia. Someone with military expertise might see differently, but Yong-dae’s military discipline had faded, and he only remembered how to forge administrative documents. He guessed they’d requisitioned or looted weapons locally due to their lack of resources, simply because they were Westerners.

“Another civilian. And a foreigner this time.”

This was Raymont, who had been running around blowing up the Third Armory, creating small and large mushroom clouds. With a half-crippled squad, he was shifting the war’s momentum. This proved their skill, but also that they were fighting in a way that deviated from established doctrine.

‘Damn it. Too many civilians haven’t evacuated. The SAS [Special Air Service, British special forces] were wandering around like defeated soldiers, searching for something. This war is a quagmire.’

If Yong-dae hadn’t been Asian, the situation would have been tense. He could have been a suicide bomber. If he hadn’t shouted when he emerged from the shadows, they would have opened fire.

Raymont’s squad operated independently, but they were trapped. They couldn’t help an Asian in this situation. Raymont suspected even the SAS couldn’t escape and were lost on the battlefield.

‘But I can’t just leave him.’

They needed to return to their unit or continue their sabotage. He considered targeting the air defense system, but it was too heavily guarded.

So, he was trying to escape eastward, but it wasn’t easy. With fireballs raining from the sky and flames rising from the ground, what could he do? He was simply heading east.

And he was almost there. He could see his allies’ front line. They’d nearly made contact several times, but enemy tanks had almost killed some of his comrades with sore feet, so they were lying in ambush. He expected the front line to be pushed west, allowing them to rejoin naturally.

The Asian man was babbling his personal information in broken English. Dae-yong Kim. A strange pronunciation. Raymont repeated his name clumsily.

“Hey. Mr. Kim.”

“W, what is this?”

Kim Dae-yong asked, surprised by the red pistol in Raymont’s hand. Why would they give a gun to a civilian? It was a flare gun, not for military use, and Raymont had picked it up.

“Later, when it gets dark, shoot that into the sky.”

He repeated the words, but Yong-dae seemed to understand only half. But it was enough if he understood not to shoot it carelessly. It was a kind of insurance. The West Iraq Army and the European Integrated Forces treated prisoners and civilians the same.

He would survive if either side found him. The signal gun was to prevent a repeat of the current situation.

The civilian looked at Raymont with the expression of an abandoned puppy, but there was nothing he could do. Raymont’s only skill was destroying West Iraq’s facilities. Destruction, not rescue, was his specialty.

As Raymont moved east, creating mushroom clouds at various armories, he became certain of one thing: the front line was more fixed than it should be. They were pushing it back slowly, but that was all.

Around this time, anti-war voices began to emerge in various European countries.

***

“Do you think the war will drag on?”

President Bush desperately tried to ignore the Middle East, focusing on managing East Asia. He struggled to protect the world’s largest powder keg.

Though described as struggling, the President of the United States’ struggles shake the Earth. There was a war of nerves with Congress, but the newly created carrier strike group was assigned to East Asia.

Ironically, Bush’s solution to the carrier strike group’s weak anti-submarine capabilities was simply more carrier strike groups.

“No, Mr. President. I think we’ll reach a conclusion soon. Citizens are protesting the war, and anti-war sentiment is spreading. It’s like watching the Vietnam War all over again.”

The president, the key to the civil war, remained missing, and the front line was strangely static. This wasn’t due to the European Integrated Forces’ weakness, but because Europe had deliberately created an impregnable fortress.

“I’m glad the Federal Army doesn’t have to be deployed. Congress and the Pentagon were very enthusiastic about this war intervention.”

The Department of Defense was eager to test new weapons, and Congress continued its usual behavior.

The reason those who should oppose war were eager to start one was that military spending would increase. They planned to cut the budget by exploiting this. Not all members of Congress agreed, but those who actively supported intervention did.

Even Bush thought the defense budget was excessive, but necessary. Of course, Bush knew what could be done with that money: save more poor people, improve the economy.

“Will you intervene?”

“No, I don’t want to fall into a quagmire.”

Bush sneered, annoyed. When would this damn West Iraq war end? Every day felt like walking on thin ice. Then, a newspaper headline about Bush being a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize caught his eye.

Ah, the Nobel Peace Prize. Bush’s only source of unadulterated pride. Shale development was a gamble on the future, but the Nobel Peace Prize felt like his inherent ability.

“By the way, things don’t seem to be going well for West Iraq.”

He skimmed the report: West Iraq’s armories and supply depots were exploding for unknown reasons, and most of the SAS from the presidential rescue operation had returned, except for those escorting the president.

“Congress and the Pentagon will be satisfied collecting data from new drones and showering them with Tomahawk missiles [American long-range, all-weather, jet-powered, subsonic cruise missile].”

Bush thought of the Aegis ships [American integrated naval weapons system] he’d acquired by sacrificing missile battleships. The only difference from other countries was the sheer number of them. He planned to move the carrier strike group to push the front line. He didn’t know how effective it would be, but wondered how long they could hold out against sheer quantity, regardless of their air defense system.

“Make sure to clearly state that this is support, not participation. This is all we are helping with.”

In fact, even if that weren’t the case, history had shown that American-made drones lacked combat experience, a fatal flaw. He considered intervening to some extent, but gauging the extent was difficult.

“I hope nothing happens.”

And that day, as if cursed, something happened on the other side of the world.