Chapter 106
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 106
Chapter Title: The Magician of Leavenworth (10)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
After getting pretty tipsy, King and I left the study and took in some cool evening air in the garden.
"In my current position running the Naval War College, my core responsibilities actually lean more toward developing curricula for future naval officers than crafting Asia-Pacific strategies."
"That's tremendously important work."
"You've proven your abilities by forming a division of... well, black soldiers, training them up, and leading them to battlefield glory. Any insights I might borrow?"
No, come on—even if they were churning them out like factory buns, the Army and Navy aren't the same.
Hell, even that damned 'Miracle of the Thirty Days' was honestly terrifying in retrospect. Truth be told, I had trained those guys myself, but I still couldn't fully trust the capabilities of those mass-produced junior officers, so I leaned heavily on the West Point grads.
"Wars where you can crank out officers like that won't be around much longer."
"I get the gist, but I'm not sure I follow exactly."
"Future officers will need far higher levels of training. Take this war: we rushed infantry officers through crash courses and threw them into the fray, but you can't do that with aviators."
"Meaning the skills they need to learn are only getting more complex."
"I'd say the Navy feels it even worse."
"Couldn't agree more. The U.S. Navy in this war was a total rush job. Disastrous. If we keep fumbling like this, I seriously doubt how well we'll hold up against those island pirate bastards and the Oriental monkeys... er, my apologies. The Japs."
We couldn't bring ourselves to say another word about the Philippines.
That was politics.
To get involved there, you'd have to go full Leonard Wood—former Army Chief of Staff and a top Republican presidential contender—and dive headfirst into the political arena. And it sucked that Wood was the loudest voice pushing to hold the Philippines at all costs.
King didn't say it outright in front of me, but I could vaguely guess at his and the Navy's thinking.
If the Philippines held out, they'd swoop in to save them. But the odds of them lasting over a year were slim to none.
So better to plan assuming they'd fall.
Call it 'Plan B for a Philippine fallback,' but in reality, that was the real plan, and the rescue operation was just a grand paper tiger.
And the Army?
Getting involved there was a real gray area too.
The Philippines had their own quasi-military Philippine Scouts and a dedicated Philippine Department. Why stick my neck out for unasked-for trouble and eat shit for it? Why me?
If they tossed me in as commander of the Philippine Department, I'd confidently kick off a Korean-style Imjin War prelude with my own hands. But short of that, no need to bell the cat.
Still twenty years out.
Not my playground as a mere captain.
Damn King bowed low to sweet little Henry, who greeted him with a polite "Goodbye, sir," and left him with cursed words like, "Our brave little boy, make sure you come to Annapolis when you grow up." He capped it off with blessings about visiting once the new baby arrived, then took off. Another salt-scattering occasion.
After dealing with all sorts under the sun to claw my way here, that King bastard had to be the most devilish of the lot. Like hell I'd send my son into that slimy seal den of a place.
But King's departure didn't magically whisk away my worries, of course.
Let's think positive.
The U.S. military in the original history hadn't solved it by 1941, when the Pacific went up in flames. Unless I'm some miracle strategist or administrative genius, it'd be weirder if I suddenly had brilliant ideas.
Besides, this mess was tangled up tight with America's core political issues.
Like I always say, this United States runs on the motto of "Don't wanna, but have to."
Americans were already dizzy just scraping by on this vast continent, but a tiny clique of capitalists, interventionists, soldiers, and hawkish politicians got hot and bothered, yelling about grabbing colonies too—leading straight to the Philippines fiasco.
To Americans busy mocking the Brits and French as "hypocrites preaching freedom and equality while exploiting colonies," and the Germans and Russians as "stinky autocrats who wouldn't know freedom if it bit them," the idea of America building an empire must've sounded absurd.
So even conquering the Philippines came with a barrage of agitation and fabrications.
"Liberate the Philippines from Spanish imperialists! It's America's mission as the land of the free!"—and just like that, they gobbled it up. Once settled in, it became, "These poor natives need more protection and guidance. It's our Christian duty for the United States to civilize them temporarily—not a colony, of course. We're not like those imperialistic Brits and French; why would we want one? Heh."
But now those justifications were biting them in the ass.
Dump the Philippines to hasty independence? They'd just fall into another power's colony—no question. With their wrecked economy, they'd rack up debts, and per this era's playbook, economic dependence leads straight to recolonization.
Abandon the defense outright? All that lofty propaganda goes in the trash, and the Philippines hawks get torn apart as traitors of the century.
It felt like leaving a crossword puzzle with just one stubborn clue unsolved after breezing through the rest. But this was a nuclear bomb among bombs.
Not some movie bomb where clipping one wire defuses it—no, cut the wrong one, and boom. Weak little Eugene Kim vanishes in a mushroom cloud like Chernobyl.
And with that, my business with King wrapped up 1920.
The massive chaos of war was fading into memory.
The Harding administration's era dawned, filling folks with hope that everything would work out fine.
Everyone brimmed with optimism for the future, believing the American Dream was forever if you had two fists and grit.
Business was booming with big changes too.
The Dodge brothers, who'd been nipping at Ford's heels, finally folded under Henry Ford's onslaught, dumping all their Ford shares. They planned new ventures with the cash but both dropped dead unexpectedly from illness.
Edsel Ford and I jumped at the chance, badgering Henry to snap up Dodge. I danced a fierce temptation tango with "Black Lotus effects are still lingering—let's offload some military trucks," and the chairman relented, handing the acquisition talks to his son.
The school for employees' kids broke ground after site selection, and for the college, we negotiated with several schools, footing the bill for the "Eugene Kim Scholarship" payouts and "Eugene Kim Hall" construction.
I begged them over and over to change those godforsaken names, but no one listened—not even a pinky twitch. The fallen family man's authority crumbles so sadly.
The Sun too.
Hollywood push too.
Everything was falling into place perfectly; we just had to wait for the harvest.
Watching all my plans click smoothly into gear, I was joyfully ringing in 1921 with family when a telegram arrived.
- To Eugene.
Daoud is dead.
Daoud Dwight Eisenhower.
Born September 24, 1917.
Died January 2, 1921.
On a snowy day, I reunited with Ike for the first time since the war.
Ike was completely out of it.
"Thanks for coming."
"Had to."
He'd cried so hard his eyelids were swollen raw.
"Scarlet fever."
They'd used a neighbor girl as a babysitter. Common enough.
Scarlet fever wasn't rare in this era either. Edison lost his hearing to its aftereffects, and America's richest man, Rockefeller, lost a grandson to it.
But hiring a sitter who'd just had scarlet fever—and her passing it on to instant death? That was anything but common.
"This damn job kept me away when he needed me most."
"Ike."
"Why? Why does the Army keep ripping things from me? It stole my knee, and now even my last moments with Daoud. Eugene, what the hell do I do now?"
If Henry died suddenly, I'd shatter worse than that.
As a parent myself, I knew no words would reach him right now.
"I regret it. Shouldn't have gone to Europe."
"..."
"I know, I know—not blaming you. Training camp kept me from the boy anyway. But at night, closing my eyes... it drives me mad. If I hadn't gone, could I have made more memories with Daoud? I want to blow my brains out over it."
His voice was shot to hell, but Ike wouldn't stop.
"I want to get out. Discharge."
"Ike."
"You said I had real talent. Still think so? Look at me now."
"Of course."
If Eisenhower lacked talent, who the hell stays in the Army?
"You'll get through this."
"Get through? Forget this pain?"
"No, you'll never forget. The Ike I know isn't the type to shake off losing a child. But you are the type to pour everything into making sure no other American parent suffers the same."
MacArthur lost a brother at three or four.
Pershing lost his wife and three daughters in a house fire overnight, then got thrown into the Mexican expedition and World War I right after.
And now Ike had lost his son.
"More silver-tongued bullshit to chain me to this cursed Army? What the hell makes me so special?"
"When have I ever lied to you?"
"Plenty. Weren't you West Point's biggest con artist, Eugene Kim?"
"That was a bet, so let it slide. Your friendly West Point Cassandra guarantees it: you're general material. Hell, five-star general material."
"You bastard. Hearing that kills my discharge nerve."
"Others couldn't make it, but I can drink enough for all of them."
No matter how hard I flapped my gums.
Even if I'd blown away a president, kneaded future bigshots like dough, launched businesses left and right, flaunting my vast future knowledge across Army, Navy, and Air Force.
Before death, words and deeds meant nothing.
All I could do was sit beside Ike as he wept again.
While others kicked off 1921 with laughs, joy, and high hopes, we just kept pouring drinks, praying little Daoud was happy in heaven.