Chapter 8: The Long Journey

Chapter 8: The Long Journey

I ate breakfast for a long time, and I don't know if it was because there was too much food and too much wine, or if the soldiers hoped that the meal would not end, and after more than an hour, the soldiers were still shouting and drinking big bowls of wine. The sound of wine orders, shouts, and clinking glasses filled every corner of the cafeteria. Even Li Shui 'Bo', who has never been good at 'communicating' with others, frequently toasted the soldiers with wine. However, he was obviously not strong enough to drink, and after a while his face was flushed, and he could not walk steadily.

There are only three people in our company, me, my hometown, and Yang Songjian, who rarely drink alcohol, because we know that the soldiers can be "presumptuous" at this time, but we, as platoon commanders, cannot. We must always be sober to carry out the next tasks, otherwise, if we go to the battlefield, we will be carried by others, and this face will be lost.

......The sound of the car's brakes quieted down the soldiers in the cafeteria, and they all looked at the square outside the window. I saw one after another camouflaged Jiefang military vehicles neatly parked in the square, as if waiting for the soldiers to review.

But the fighters knew that they were not waiting for their review, but to pick them up.

With the order of "assemble", the soldiers threw down their dishes and chopsticks and ran towards the dormitory. Then, as fast as possible, he carried the equipment that had been prepared and concentrated in the square.

"Stand upright, look to the right...... Look forward and report the number ......" The hometown people stood in front of the team and gave a password as usual. It's just that this time, the voice that shouted out seemed to be a little different, and his eyes were constantly aimed at everything around him, which seemed to be full of nostalgia and reluctance. I later learned that he had been here for five years

"Get on the bus" With the order, the soldiers got on the bus in a neat formation in platoons. The fighters quietly got into the car, and no one said a word.

With a roar, the cars kicked up a cloud of smoke and dust, and in the light of the morning sun, one after another, they drove towards the barracks. When the car drove out of the barracks, the soldiers standing guard at the 'gate' gave us a standard military salute. The soldiers also raised their hands in unison, and without exception, they all looked at the barracks that were gradually moving away behind the carriage, and their eyes were full of reluctance.

Although the soldiers have only been here for two months, it feels like life and death parting from here to the battlefield where life and death are uncertain.

The fighters still sat in one car per row as usual, divided into four columns, two with their backs to the carriages and two backs to sit in the middle. Backpacks were placed under the trunk, and the fighters sat on the backpacks with their weapons. I sat in the middle row, and because there was no place to support it, my whole body involuntarily swayed from side to side with the 'waves' of the car.

But I don't care about that, although I rarely ride in a car on the battlefield in Korea, but after a few years of battlefield training, I can't even bear this little bit of suffering.

The car staggered all the way to the train station, and as soon as the car stopped, the soldiers jumped off the car one after another as if they were on the battlefield.

I jumped out of the car and looked around, stunned. The train station was full of soldiers in military uniforms, and the crowd was so crowded that there was no end in sight. Some are queuing, some are carrying equipment and ammunition to the train, and some are drilling into the carriages in rows. Whistles and passwords were everywhere, and there were even a few troops singing military songs loudly and heroically. Separated by two trains, there is a wagon, carrying tanks, artillery, and cars......

Seeing this scene, the soldiers were all stunned, from the time they were soldiers to the present, they had only stayed in the new barracks, and they had seen no more than a thousand soldiers, and the equipment they saw was at most rifles, submachine guns and machine guns in their hands, how could they have seen so many soldiers, such a "powerful" heavy weapon.

Perhaps it was from the fact that the strength of the troops was felt in the tanks, artillery and the train station, so the atmosphere of the soldiers quickly became lively.

"Hey, you see we have so many cannons and tanks" The first to open his mouth was Junko, who couldn't hide his words: "Look at the barrels, they are thicker than 'legs'." And those tanks, with these things, we don't need to be afraid of the Vietnamese devils."

"I look at it, too" Wu Haiguo next to him answered: "What kind of skills can Vietnamese devils have, we have so many troops, so many weapons, what are you afraid of them doing?" ”

"That's right, let's teach those devils a lesson."

……

The warriors discussed left and right, and their tones were more or less full of optimism.

Hearing this, I couldn't help but glance at the people from my hometown, and they all shook their heads secretly. The warriors think this way only because they have not seen the world. I and the people in my hometown know very well that the Vietnamese army is much higher than ours in terms of weaponry and personnel quality. If it were just this person and this equipment in front of you, then there would be no need to fight this battle at all.

However, I have a tacit understanding with the people in my hometown. It is better to give the soldiers a little courage first, at least to a certain extent, to reduce the fear in their hearts and build their confidence in the enemy. If you really want to break it, let's wait until we get to the border

Collections

The order came down quickly, and we waited quietly outside the cordon on the platform in two columns, in two columns. After more than ten minutes, an old-fashioned train stopped in front of us with a "fluttering" like an old cow. The steam was comparable to the smoke bombs of the U.S. military, enveloping us all.

"Get in the car"

At the sound of the order, the soldiers pulled their ranks and headed for the train. As soon as I boarded the train, I smelled a strong smell of disinfectant 'medicine' water, which had obviously been disinfected just now. Look at it again...... Oh my God, it's also called a train, there is nothing empty, there are dozens of straw mats on both sides, and what can be seen is a horse lamp hanging in the middle and a wooden barrel at the bottom of the carriage. At first I didn't know what the barrel was for, but soon I knew what it was used for—it was the side

I just found a window seat and sat down, and the train started slowly. One by one, the fighters also found their proper positions and put down their knots and rifles. Although the carriage is much more airtight than the car, the mood of the soldiers is much better than when they are in the car. There are many people who still gather on the few car windows to look out the window, and from time to time they will let out a few exclamations:

"Look, it's another train full of cannons"

"There are a lot of tanks, I think it's better to have more tanks, even if we can't drive tanks, we can hide behind tanks and fight."

……

Maybe the soldiers are not unaware of the situation of the Vietnamese army, in the past few decades, our China has not been less than aiding Vietnam to resist France and the United States, so many people know that the Vietnamese army has fought the Japanese, the French, and the Americans. They are the 'fine' soldiers of a hundred battles that have been fought for decades, and what about us? It's just a recruit who has only been training for more than two months...... From this point of view, I really don't have much confidence in the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam that I have seen in textbooks and documentaries before, and it seems that our army has captured Lang Son, a major place of the Vietnamese army, but now when I really stand in this position, I realize that maybe the truth is not so simple.

"Instructor" Junko leaned over to me with a gun.

"Still called a teacher? Called the platoon commander," another fighter 'interjected'.

"Yes, yes...... The platoon commander hasn't changed his words now......" Junko smiled: "Platoon commander, speaking of which...... We have to thank you."

"Thank me for what?" I'm a little confused by Junko's words.

"Thank you for training us during this time," Junko replied, "If this makes the people of my hometown so ......"

Speaking of this, Junzi couldn't help but stop, secretly glanced around, and after making sure that the hometown people were not nearby, he continued: "If this is allowed to be trained by the hometown people like that, we will only walk right and fold the quilt when we go to the battlefield, and we don't know how to die."

"Junko is right," Al Ziri interjected, "I talked to my fellow countrymen for a long time last night, and when it comes to our training during this time, they envy us. We still have some confidence, they have nothing, and they have a good chance of survival."

"To be honest, I blamed the platoon commander at the beginning," some soldiers 'interjected': "At that time, I was thinking about whether the platoon commander had a grudge against us, and tried his best to rectify us, but now I understand."

……

I smiled noncommittally, to be honest, sometimes I really don't know whether to train them or not, Junzi is right, after training, it will indeed make them more qualified, and they have a better chance of surviving on a single battlefield. But what he didn't expect was that if he performed well on the battlefield, there would soon be more and more dangerous missions. Having fought in the Korean War, I know this very well.

"Let's sleep" I spread the quilt on the straw mat and lay down, and said coldly: "There is still a long time before I reach the goal, and the comrades didn't sleep well last night, and now I have enough 'spirit' to nourish my spirit."

"Yes," the warriors answered, and dispersed.

The soldiers hadn't slept all night last night, and they had drunk a lot of wine just now, so maybe they were really sleepy, but after a while, they lay down and snored on the ground. I, the first person to cry to sleep, couldn't sleep. I kept hearing the "clang" sound of the wheels of the military train coming into contact with the railroad tracks, but the comrades who died beside me once again appeared in my mind.

My original intention was to save them, to get them out of the battlefield alive, but it turned out to be the opposite. Eventually, they fell to my side one by one.

Maybe I didn't save their lives

Objectively speaking, I am sacrificing after making them suffer more and struggle more. In exchange for these, more other warriors were killed. If they recognize this, they don't know if they will thank me or hate me more

And now, the same thing is happening to me again, should I do it the way I used to?

There was clearly nothing wrong with what I did, trading fewer sacrifices for more lives, which is an addition and subtraction that even elementary school students would do. But...... Is it fair to them? Is it fair to me? They may not be willing to trade their lives for the lives of others, and I don't want to watch my comrades-in-arms and watch those familiar faces fall one by one. And in a sense, it was I who pushed them to their deaths......

The train stops and stops all the way to the south. In fact, for me, who is road blind, I don't know which direction the train is going, I don't know which route it takes, and which towns it passes through, I only know that the train is bound for Vietnam, so I know that it is going south.

Stopping on the road, sometimes because it's time to eat, the train stops at the military station for a few minutes to give us time to get off the train and serve food, and also gives us the opportunity to carry out the 'urine' bucket that is about to be full and empty it...... Sometimes it's because you have to wait for other military columns to pass. Just as modern trains have fast and slow trains, I think military trains also have priorities, and our new recruits are slow trains. Because at one point, we even spent two hours by a stinking manure pit.

What's even more infuriating is that the 'door' of the car will not be opened, (I guess this is because I am worried that someone will be deserting on the road) only smoked the soldiers in these cars near us who were miserable.

Finally, just before dawn the next day, we got off at another train station. At that time, the sun had not yet come out, and the surroundings were still shrouded in a hazy 'fog', and it was unknown whether it was the steam of the train or the moisture in the air. Before we could take a quick look at what this place was, we were once again loaded into the car and drove into the unknown.

To be honest, I don't like this kind of march that knows nothing. My habit is to be clear and clear in everything I do, and even if I lose, I have to know where I am losing. It felt like I was fighting a battle that I didn't know what was going on.

But I will soon find out that this fear of mine will soon become a reality. Because as a platoon commander, especially a recruit platoon leader, I simply don't have the authority to know so much about high-level strategies.

Amid the roar of the car's motor, the sky gradually brightened. Looking behind the carriage, you can see a few grass huts and farmers working in the fields on the side of the road at first, but gradually there are no more people to be seen. It was quiet everywhere, there were no pedestrians on the road except for our cars, and the farmland on both sides was barren and overgrown with weeds half a man high. Occasionally, a few dirty, ugly wild dogs would run by the side of the road and bark at our convoy.

"Did you get to the border?" Someone asked. But no one answered, and everyone felt the tension, but no one knew the answer.

Some of the soldiers were still nervously clutching their guns and sticking out their heads to look out of the car, as if they were worried about whether Vietnamese would suddenly come out of the way from both sides of the road and attack us. But I knew they didn't have to worry at all, because they didn't even give us bullets at this time, and even if the superiors didn't pay attention to our recruits, they wouldn't put the convoy in such a dangerous situation

And I also knew that the destination should be almost there, because we hadn't had breakfast until now. Obviously, the superiors wanted us to get to our destination to have breakfast again.

Sure enough, more than half an hour later, the convoy drove into a military camp, which was also a red brick house, but those houses looked like they were newly built, which could be seen from the color on the bricks. As soon as the car in front stopped, the soldiers in the car consciously jumped out of the car and lined up in the square. So when the car we were in arrived, we didn't know how many rows we had already reached, and there was a black hat in front of us, and there was a wooden podium in front of us

Just as I was sneaking 'touching' my hungry rumbling belly, wondering why I hadn't eaten yet. Several cadres with four pockets in their military uniforms stepped up to the podium. The soldiers of this era wore 78-style military uniforms, and there were only three pockets on the uniforms of ordinary soldiers, that is, two at the armed belt and one at the left 'chest'. The cadres from the company commander to the commander are all four pockets, that is, there is one more on the right 'chest'. Therefore, when we saw those cadres coming to power, we didn't know what their identities were, we only knew that they were cadres, and later we learned that the leader was the commander of our division.

"Comrades," the division commander shouted into the microphone in front of him in a sonorous and powerful voice: "You are about to go to the front, the time has come for you to shed blood and sacrifice for the motherland, the time has come for the motherland to test you, the time has come for the motherland to watch you make meritorious contributions, and the time for the people to watch you defend your homeland."

The division commander's words set off a terrifying 'wave' in the ranks of recruits like a bomb, and although the soldiers had already guessed that this trip was to go to the front line and go to the battlefield, they were still a little unacceptable now that they finally received confirmation from the mouth of the division commander.

The reactions of the recruits and soldiers were mixed, some stood like a 'chicken' and did not respond, some looked left and right as if they wanted to find a place to go out, and some desperately squatted on the ground and cried: "Mother, children are not filial"

The cadres were also understanding, and walked down from the podium to pat the soldiers who were crying bitterly and said: "Comrades, cry as much as you want, now you can cry enough, and there will be less blood on the battlefield."

With the encouragement of the cadres, the soldiers cried even more. But only our company was okay, I 'took the time' to look to the side, only a few of them were secretly wiping their tears, and the others were still standing 'upright' with guns and pens in their hands.

I think this may be the reason why we have cried enough in the boot camp, a man cries once, it is true 'sex', and a second cry is a coward

This made our company stand firmly in the center of the team like a flock of 'chickens', which naturally attracted the attention of those cadres. But what made me strange was that I thought the teacher would come over and ask, but he didn't. Just looked in the direction of the hometown people, nodded slightly in approval.

Does the division know the people from his hometown? Could it be that the relationship between the people in the hometown is the teacher?

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Since this war is very close to us, and there are many soldiers and chiefs who are still alive today, I think it is inconvenient to use the real number and real name of the troops, after all, there are many contents that are fictitious, and sometimes there are some fictitious negative contents, which can easily cause dissatisfaction and disputes. This is a question I've been struggling with tonight, and I also feel that when I write an article, I feel that I am tied up, and I will give you an idea...... For example, using a non-existent unit number, or using a pseudonym or something......