You're a US police officer, what are you thinking about going back to the East for?

Chapter 253 MacArthur's Past

MacArthur's finger stopped on the bottle cap medal.

After the person in the reflective vest finished speaking, the dance floor suddenly became unusually quiet.

The hum of the induction cooker seemed to be amplified several times over, the old welder's lighter stopped, and Walter's hand on his knee also stopped moving.

Everyone was watching him.

MacArthur looked at the medal, then lowered his hand from his chest and placed it on the armrest of the chair.

He didn't say anything.

The light bulbs above the dance floor were suspended by temporary power lines that Walter had brought over during the day, and the voltage was unstable, dimming every few tens of seconds.

The moment the lights went out, the light reflected in his eyes also went out for a moment.

Then he realized he was no longer on the dance floor.

I am in a windowless conference room on the second floor of the Pentagon, on the E ring.

The ballast of the fluorescent tube is broken, and it flickers every few seconds, just like it is now.

Across the long table sat a civilian employee from the Ministry of the Army, his cuffs buttoned up to the top. On the table lay a blue folder with a red stamp that read "For Internal Circulation."

The office worker was speaking, and his voice was that of a high-pitched, bureaucratic tone.

"Colonel McDonald, we have received your comments, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff believes you have overstepped your bounds."

He remembered that he was standing, even though there was a chair next to him that he could have sat down.

A lieutenant colonel from the Naval Intelligence Bureau sat next to him, his hair gray and his collar loose. Under the table, he tapped the man's calf with his leather shoe, signaling him to stop talking.

But he didn't listen.

"I did not cross the line."

"The deployment adjustments of the conventional missile brigades of the Eastern Rocket Force in the Central Plains region must be closely monitored."

"I've said it before, the weapons they display at the parade aren't just for show."

"Every page of this analysis report contains satellite imagery and timestamps."

"If you put it in a drawer now, you'll be facing an unexpected congressional inquiry in a few months or years."

The office worker closed the folder.

"Colonel, your job is to analyze the threat from the East, not to formulate policy."

"As for policy—"

The office worker pushed the folder to the opposite corner of the table, the furthest point from him.

"I think policies should be decided by the president."

The naval lieutenant commander kicked him again under the table.

He didn't say anything more.

As he walked out of the conference room that day, an army aviation lieutenant colonel brushed past him in the corridor, muttered "You're right," and walked away without stopping, turning the corner.

The lights in the dance floor flickered and then came back on.

MacArthur's fingers twitched on the armrest.

The old welder was still staring at him, his cigarette almost snapped in two.

No, I'm not in this dance floor.

I am in another conference room.

It was bigger than the previous one, and the table was covered with a dark green tablecloth.

A satellite map of the Korean Peninsula hangs on the wall, with the 38th parallel drawn in thick red marker.

All those present were high-ranking military officers; the stars on their shoulders combined could form a constellation.

He was still a colonel at that time; the next rank would be general: brigadier general, major general, lieutenant general, general.

He sat in the corner with a laptop that wasn't connected to the internet in front of him.

The meeting was about an ongoing crisis.

The defense minister is stating that the Second Fleet has moved into its designated positions, the Air Force's strategic bombers have been redeployed to Guam, and the Marine Corps ground forces can begin maneuvering upon notification. It seems like an exercise, not a real combat operation.

After the defense minister finished speaking, a three-star general took off his glasses, wiped them, and asked a question that silenced the entire room.

"Has the president told us what our objectives are besides the exercises?"

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No one answered.

The Minister of Defense looked at General Samsung, who in turn looked at the map on the table.

Someone in the corner flipped through a folder, making a rustling sound, and then stopped.

He remembered speaking.

"If our goal is to avoid misjudgment, then we should call Beijing now."

Everyone turned to look at him.

The defense minister's face was very tense.

"You are advising us to inform the enemy of our military deployments."

He glanced back.

"I have studied the East for many years, and I feel I can offer some advice."

"My advice is to not let an unexpected event escalate into a situation that we all regret."

"There is a fundamental difference between the East and the Soviet Union: they are not madmen."

"What I mean is that the Soviet Union often had a certain ideological fanaticism or unpredictability, while the East was usually rational in diplomatic and military games."

The call was made anyway.

It wasn't him who did it; it was someone from a higher level.

He didn't know what was said on the other end of the phone, only that the next morning, no conflict broke out between the East and the United States.

He did not receive any commendation.

Because he just happened to be in a certain corner of history, and handed over a fuse the night before a possible accidental clash.

Later, when the new government came to power, his personnel file was retrieved and reviewed again.

He was called into an office, smaller than the previous one, with no windows and no fluorescent lights.

A young man sat behind a desk, wearing a pink shirt and a Windsor knot tie. On the desk were his files and a stack of printed emails.

Those emails were internal discussions between him and several colleagues, one of which mentioned that he used the word "impressive" when discussing the mobilization capabilities of the Eastern army.

The young man held up the email printout.

"You admire them?"

He stared at the young man.

"Knowing your opponent and admiring your opponent are two completely different concepts."

The young man put down the printout and opened the file.

"You participated in an informal communication activity with the East during the Trump administration, and this is your record. Based on current vetting standards, your loyalty assessment needs to be redone."

Then the young man frowned.

"These old manuscripts of yours are too politically incorrect, they sound like they belong to the Communist Party. Find a time to destroy them."

He did not respond further.

The loyalty assessment lasted seven and a half weeks. On the seventh week and four days later, he received a termination notice. The email attachment did not explain the reason, only stating "personnel adjustment".

The email also said that his position would be handed over to someone researching the "Rainbow Project".

He was standing behind his desk and simply closed the email in silence.

He's not the kind of person who would throw his hat down and curse in the street.

He just found it absurd.

Absolutely, absolutely absurd.

It's like you spend your whole life learning how to draw a straight line, and then one day someone tells you that straight lines are illegal and from now on you have to draw rainbow flags.

He's not a politician; he's just an analyst.

He didn't take sides, had no powerful backers, and didn't even know how to print the Party emblem on his business card.

He spent twenty years studying the armies of the East, but he did not study them to admire them; he studied them to defeat them.

The stronger your enemy, the more you need to understand them.

But newcomers certainly wouldn't think that way.

Newcomers will definitely think that the enemy is just someone who shouts "they are a threat" a couple of times and then hurls a few insults on Twitter.

The next day, he went to his office to pack his things. He had been studying the East here for nearly twenty years, but he couldn't take any of the classified documents with him. The only thing that belonged to him was the cup on his desk that he had used for more than ten years, with the Army's star emblem printed on the cup.

He swiped his employee ID at the building entrance, and the access control light turned red.

The security guard walked over; he was in his forties, with a protruding belly, and wearing a tightly fitted uniform.

The security guard recognized him and used to greet him with "Good morning, Colonel" every morning when they met, but he didn't say good morning that day.

She simply lowered her head and asked him to hand over his identification.

He took the employee ID card out of the card holder and handed it over.

The security guard's fingers trembled slightly when he took it, and he didn't look up at him.

He said thank you and then walked out of the building.

That was the last time he stood in the Pentagon parking lot as an officer.

Later, his pension was stuck in the review process.

The savings were spent in the ninth month, and then it was time for the house.

When he was evicted, the landlord even called a taxi for him, probably because he had never been called a taxi by a landlord before, so he remembered it very clearly.

It started raining when he got off the bus, and the raindrops hit his shoulders.

He actually had some money at that time, enough to stay in a motel for a while, but he didn't. He spent his first night under a pedestrian bridge, using cardboard he found behind a trash can. Half of it was soaked and rotten from the rain, and the other half smelled of cat urine.

He squatted on the cardboard, watching the car lights blur by in the rain, one sentence kept running through his mind.

What did I get in return for all the things I've done, the words I've said, the analytical reports I've written about the development of Eastern strategies, the suggestions that were stuffed into drawers by clerks in meeting rooms, and that phone call that helped the country de-escalate its crisis?

He felt he hadn't received enough.

As he curled up under the overpass, he suddenly realized something even more distressing.

He will be forgotten.

He never fought a war, never went to the front lines, never commanded a division, and his name doesn't appear in any history book.

Every report he wrote was locked in a filing cabinet during the declassification period until his bones rotted away.

Nobody remembers him.

He cannot accept it.

He could starve to death under a bridge, he could be crushed to dust for his country, but he couldn't accept that he was just a discharged colonel whose name was written on a loyalty review report that no one would ever open again.

Therefore, he is MacArthur.

When he speaks, he should place this name within those grand historical narratives, within the Inchon Landing, within the Pacific War, within all those glories that originally did not belong to him but should have belonged to him.

Because if he didn't do that, all he would remember was that windowless office and that young man in the pink shirt.

The light bulbs on the dance floor flickered a few times.

MacArthur's eyelashes twitched.

He returned to the first floor of the psychedelic cat.

The induction cooker was still humming, the cigarette in the old welder's hand had been crushed in two, Walter was still sitting upright, and the short, fat black man's mouth was half open.

Everyone is waiting for him.

He lifted his hand from the armrest of the chair and touched the bottle cap medal on his chest; his fingers felt icy cold as they touched the serrated edge.

Then he rocked the rocking chair very gently, as if he were dreaming.

He lifted his seat, looked at the bare vest, and spoke.

"You ask who I am?"

The voice was a little hoarse than before, but the rhythm was steady.

"I remember saying that I am Douglas MacArthur."

Walter shifted in his chair, as if to say something, but MacArthur didn't look at him.

"General Shu Xing, Supreme Commander of the Southwest Pacific Theater and Supreme Commander of the Runner-up Army in Japan."

"In 1944 in the Philippines, I fulfilled my promise."

"In Incheon in 1950, I cut off their supply line in a place where everyone said it was impossible."

"Then I crossed the 38th parallel."

He paused, removed his fingers from the bottle cap medal, and rested them on his knees.

"I reported to Washington that they were not calling for war, and my intelligence analysis department gave me the wrong estimate, and I signed it off."

There was no sound in the dance floor.

"Changjin Lake." His jaw muscles tensed slightly when he said those three words.

"It was minus forty degrees Celsius. They rushed down the mountain in just a thin layer of clothing. When the 1st Marine Division was retreating from the reservoir, I was staring at that road on the map."

"I thought it was an infantry pursuit, but it turned out they were clearing mines with their bodies in front of our positions."

He raised his right hand and gestured in mid-air to resemble a map.

"Later I was relieved of command, because Truman felt that a general should not publicly argue with the president about how to fight a war."

""

He put his hands back on his knees.

"A member of parliament asked me if I could summarize my mistake in one sentence, and I said, 'I'm old.'"

"He didn't understand. My real point is that I'm not old in terms of age, but in terms of being the last general who is still using his brain to think about war."

"The people behind them don't rely on their brains anymore; they rely on party affiliation and emotions."

"Until I returned to the United States and delivered my farewell address to a joint session of both houses of Congress."

"I said, old soldiers never die, they just gradually retire. But I was lying."

He looked at Old Welder, then turned to Walter, and finally swept his gaze across everyone's faces.

MacArthur looked at the old welder first.

"You weren't a welder fired by Boeing; you were a gunner kicked out of the turret by a bunch of people who didn't even bother to pick up a welding torch."

.

He looked at Walter.

"You're not a sergeant discharged because of arthritis; you're a soldier executed on his service record."

He looked at the short, fat black man.

"You're not just an unlucky guy who got caught in the social security system's mistake; you're a survivor whose name was mistakenly printed on the death certificate."

He placed his hands on his knees.

"And I, like you, am a forgotten part of history."

His lips twitched, but it wasn't a smile; rather, it was more like some suppressed emotion finally bursting forth from the cracks in his skin.

"I told them that the enemy's army couldn't fight, but I was wrong."

"My mistake wasn't underestimating their equipment, it was underestimating their people."

"Their people don't fight for money; they know why they're on that front."

He looked at Walter.

"You just said your cousin lives in Trailer Park, and a Black man put up a poster that says 'Think of us'."

""

Walter took a seat.

That was their answer.

"They weren't thinking about themselves, they were thinking about 'us,' about everyone, which is why they were able to survive the Battle of Chosin Reservoir."

He paused.

"And what are we thinking?"

No one answered.

MacArthur adjusted his posture in the chair a little.

"Very good, we weren't thinking about anything."

"So here I am, sitting in a shut-down nightclub, with a group of people who have been kicked out by their own country."

"I no longer command a war zone; now I command a company."

He touched the bottle cap medal on his chest.

"But that's not the point. The point is that we're here."

He removed his hand from the medal, his gaze lingering on each person's face for a second.

"Those who drove us here had better pray that we never leave here."

"Like I've always said, this is a war!"

"One day, this war will be decided!"

"All traces of war will eventually disappear, but history will record the lives of a fraction of us, and the future will be filled with the stories of our lives!"

"Our battles, our lives, and our deaths!"

"When everything settles down and we've won, they'll remember us!"

"But until that day comes, we'll keep fighting!"

"We roar to face death! And fight to the very last moment!"

The dance floor remained silent for a long time.

Then Walter was the first to stand up. He moved slowly, first supporting himself on his knees with his hands, then slowly straightening up, the chair legs scraping against the concrete floor with a slight metallic scraping sound.

His knees seemed to be hurting, but he ignored it and stood there in front of MacArthur, his upper body straight and his arms hanging naturally at his sides.

Then he brought his right fingertips together and slowly raised them to his forehead.

The old welder put the broken cigarette into his pocket and stood up from the bench.

He didn't salute, but he closed the lid of his toolbox, wiped his hands with his sleeve, and then stood up straight.

The man in the tank top, the screwdriver guy, Louis, and Elton—they might still not quite understand what MacArthur was saying, but they understood the line, "Those who sent us here had better pray we never leave here."

They stood up one by one from the sofas and benches.

When the young construction worker in the corner helped Lao Xi, who was wearing work clothes, to his feet, Lao Xi's legs were trembling, but he still tried his best to stand up straight.

The short, stout black man hesitated for a moment, then finally stood up, took his hands off the latex tub, wiped them on his pants, and stood next to Walter.

MacArthur sat in his chair, watching as these people stood up one by one in front of him, like pieces of stone that were originally scattered on the ground being drawn together by something and then solidified into a shape.

He opened his mouth slightly, as if he wanted to say something, but then closed it again.