Chapter 108
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 108
Chapter Title: Beaming US Army Maker (2)
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One spring day in 1921.
I finally got to hear the cry of new life being born.
"How's Dorothy? Is Dorothy okay?"
"Both mother and child are healthy. It's a beautiful baby girl."
"Phew."
I collapsed right there on the spot.
My back was soaked with sweat, and my hands were dripping like rain.
I'd rather have gone wild one more time at Cambrai. This feeling of utter helplessness was truly the worst.
"What kind of nonsense is that from a grown man? A war hero like you should be holding it together properly. Tch."
"You were even worse when Eugene was born."
"Why drag up the past like that?!"
"Where do you get off yelling like that right now?"
Somehow, not only my parents but even my father-in-law and mother-in-law had all gathered here.
We rarely got to see each other's faces properly anyway, and with Yushin's marriage coming up, the whole family had somehow agreed to meet up all together.
"Wahhh, Daddy?"
"Did Henry wake up?"
"Yeah. It's noisy..."
"Your little sister Henry just got born. You can see her soon if you wait a bit."
"Little sister? A real little sister?? Now I can play ball with her?"
"You'll have to wait a little for that. She's still a baby. They say she's a pretty little princess."
"Little sister...!"
Henry's eyes sparkled brightly.
Yeah, a little sister. An amazing word that never existed in my life.
Little brothers are all worthless types who dismiss their big brother's words as gorilla grunts without force or tyranny. Henry must be thrilled to have a little sister. I'm jealous, so jealous.
"Little sisters are even more annoying, though? If she's like Dorothy... Ugh, gives me chills."
"No way. Now that Henry's a big brother, he'll act all mature, right?"
"That's exactly what our dad used to say."
How sweet Dorothy is. My brother-in-law is such a whiner. That's why blessed people don't realize how blessed they are.
Unfortunately, Charles Curtis Jr., my eldest brother-in-law, couldn't make it, but my second brother-in-law, Henry King Curtis, was here. It was possible because Leavenworth was in Kansas.
"Have you decided on a name for the baby?"
"How about Charlotte?"
The first daughter's name should definitely be Charlotte.
Charlotte in American style. Charlotte in French. Sharlotte in notoriously hard-to-pronounce Japanese style.
Yes. Now was the time to realize my grand plan.
Name my daughter Charlotte and start a company using her name. Naturally, take the last five letters for the company name: LOTTE.
Then grow that company diligently and run a baseball team under the company name. My century-long plan, dominating MLB with the strongest Lotte, would come true.
Heh, heh heh heh. The time had finally come.
The time had arrived for Eugene Kim, the genius team owner blaspheming even the gods, to dominate Major League Baseball.
War hero! Future cheat! Endless funds! This proved no one could surpass me, Eugene Kim. Pitiful bat-swingers! I shall rule you! Kneel before my 'Strongest Lotte'—
"Charlotte's a bit much."
"Yeah... Kinda."
"Looks like you didn't think too hard about the first kid's name."
Father-in-law. And even mother-in-law. Why, why are you so ruthlessly rejecting this perfect name?! Why!!
"How about Margaret?"
"Mildred's pretty modern these days."
"Mary's safe, isn't it?"
"Mary's what every goat grazing by the roadside is named. It's not safe; it's way too common."
"Then Alice?"
I was discarded.
After getting scolded for being good at making tanks but unable to name my own daughter properly, I ended up relegated to playing with Henry. And why the hell did tanks come up?
The authority of the head of the household was plummeting by the day. Truly a tragic era.
As I brooded over my humiliation outside while playing ball with Henry, someone got out of a car and walked toward me.
"General Kim. Congratulations on the birth of your daughter."
"Mr. Miller, you came too! I'm not a general anymore, so please drop the 'general' title."
"Haha. To me, you'll always be General. How could I miss the chance to see you when your whole family is together? I drove here myself."
"How's your son doing?"
As we exchanged pleasantries, Henry came toddling over.
"Hewwo!!"
"My goodness, Henry's grown so much."
"Mister know me?!"
"Of course. We met when you were a baby."
"This is John Miller. He helps with our family affairs."
"Then mister has gun too?"
No, no, that's not it.
Henry must think that because all the 'black guys helping with house stuff' he's seen so far were bodyguards. Hmm, I thought our house was pretty multicultural, but maybe I need stricter education.
I had something to tell Mr. Miller anyway, so I handed Henry back to his mom for a moment and spoke up.
"Mr. Miller. You need to move to a different job."
"General Kim? Could you say that again? You're joking, right?"
"No joke. You're fired."
Miller dropped to his knees as if the sky had fallen.
"General! Did I make some huge mistake? Please, tell me, and I'll fix it. So please—"
"Hm. You did make a mistake. A big one. The mistake was that your talents are too great to waste on our household chores."
"...Pardon?"
"I secured a few spots in the American Legion and US MILK. Go to one of them and protect the rights of colored veterans as their representative."
.
The veterans' group Patton and I had formed merged with the American Legion, finally reborn as the American Legion of the United States, and the Legion established a company called US MILK, beginning to rebuild the nation's milk distribution network.
This was the bountiful fruit of my bet on Harding. MILK something... Anyway, it was some acronym, but I didn't care about the details.
Middlemen distributors desperately tried to block US MILK's formation, but their accumulated karma was too great.
"Suppressing freedom in the land of the free!"
"We're not selling, so there's no milk supply!"
"Your delivery boy might be a nigger! Isn't it safer to buy our milk?"
"Once the government controls milk distribution, they'll jack up prices however they want! Can't you see a future where a gallon costs $10?!"
But they underestimated the people's anger.
Especially the anger of women, who after Prohibition and suffrage had even elected their first president.
"You bastards shoving chalk in my kids' mouths talk about freedom?!"
"I have the freedom to shoot you too!"
"Even if an Indian delivers it instead of a nigger, it won't kill you!!"
How fearsome, woman power.
Thugs and gangsters, clearly bought off, showed up everywhere to sabotage US MILK's operations across the country, but oddly enough, the warehouses and homes of existing milk distributors burned down just as often, and hundreds of housewives grabbing shotguns from home to lynch them was equally commonplace.
At my words to go to US MILK, he was confused at first, then bewildered, and soon tears streamed down his face.
If a black guy cries here with a sob-sob sound, he'll get hit, right?
"Hey, why are you crying?"
"Thank you! Even if it kills me, I'll burn my life for the noble mission you've entrusted me with!"
"Why say something so grim? You need to live long. You've got a kid now."
"If not for you, General, I'd be a corpse back home already. I will repay you, no matter what."
Yeah, yeah.
Just work even harder for me and my family's interests from now on. I'll support you plenty.
Excellent. This is the model boss-subordinate relationship. I'll take good care of the kids too, so stay loyal for generations.
1921. What was the first thing the newly inaugurated Harding administration did?
The answer is obvious.
"Drink up! Drink!"
"This is dynamite juice! Come on, bottoms up!"
"Interior Secretary! Bet already!"
What else? White House night.
They'd moved from the wake-like U-boat to the White House since they couldn't exactly bring women to a funeral parlor, but would women be absent?
A mad party.
This—women on laps, guzzling booze, puffing cigars amid thick smoke, playing poker—was the taste of normalcy Americans craved so badly.
Ignorance is bliss. Ignorance is bliss.
As long as they don't get caught, it's all good, right? Good thing I couldn't join that crowd.
President Harding apparently regretted not having a fun 'discussion' at the White House with his talented future star Eugene Kim, but if a mere major like me crashed that, I'd get flattened like in a printing press.
I was appalled hearing how the top of this country operated, but soon gained enlightenment and inner peace.
Yes. At least Harding could walk on two legs and talk! A huge improvement over Wilson. Americans made a wise choice.
I thought I'd grabbed everything I could, but once I dipped into politics, it wouldn't let me go.
"Son-in-law."
"Yes, father-in-law."
"Not following D.C. news much these days?"
"Of course I am. But a brand-new major getting too close to political games is just begging to end up like Icarus."
How many cases of flying too close to the sun and going poof?
The White House was blatantly the sun.
Wilson... was an exception. That sun didn't stay put in the sky; it charged straight at me. Gotta survive first.
And seeing Harding and his crew's wild partying, getting closer to this administration felt like I'd end up charged with corruption too. Honestly, I didn't want more entanglement.
"Then you know nothing about the defense bill up for passage now?"
"Defense bill?"
"With Wilson gone, the government was paralyzed. Now with a new president, Congress wants to rush a new defense bill and 'normalize' the army."
Damn. Obvious without asking. Disarmament.
"...Really heard nothing?"
"First I've heard."
"The lead on this defense bill is California Congressman Julius Kahn. Strange no word reached you."
Something's up. I grew more suspicious.
"The 500,000 standing army proposal failed. Instead, they'll expand the National Guard and shrink the army to 280,000."
"280,000? Who're they gonna stick that on?"
"I agree, but... taxpayers don't want a bigger army."
"Can't be helped."
Father-in-law glanced around, then whispered quickly.
"Under the new law, existing tank corps will disband, and tanks treated as infantry support."
"What the... Ha!"
I had no idea what Kahn or whatever thought, but I saw the shadow of my boss—politics-lover, tank-hater—in this bill.
The guy who lit a fire under Marshall was here.