Nathan Lin is a 21-year-old young American, he is a third-generation Chinese immigrant, his grandfather came to the United States before the Anti-Japanese War during the Republic of China, and the Lin family has been poor, until his father's generation has worked hard to live a middle-class life.

Nathan was born with a deep concept of his Chinese attributes, he grew up in the era, the trend of racial discrimination in the United States has subsided, discrimination began to become a secretive word in North America, although more or less feel some cold eyes from others, but like to eat hamburgers, Nathan, who doesn't know how to use chopsticks, feels that he is an American, and has nothing to do with China.

In order to obtain a scholarship from the U.S. military to retired soldiers, Nathan, who has no idea about the military, joins the U.S. Marine Corps, but he hasn't trained for long before war breaks out. At the beginning of the war, he was scared, he hated the war, and he was at the bottom of the team in terms of combat skills, and he was also afraid of death, but after some time, his unit was not sent overseas to carry out missions, and it was not until the summer and autumn of 2002 that he was sent to Libya in North Africa, working with the French, Italian, and Western armies in an attempt to overthrow Gaddafi.

Nathan was still very frightened when he first stepped onto the battlefield, but the fierceness of the North African battlefield was not high, and the two sides were just engaged in simple repeated battles, and they did not have the idea of fighting a tough battle, so neither side had any particularly big losses. Nathan is on the battlefield just sitting in an armored car and rushing, coming out and putting some guns indiscriminately, and finally the people above see if the limelight continues to rush or retreat, and the cycle repeats.

In this way, Nathan was generally calmed down, but the panic passed, the barracks gradually relaxed, and some other things began to bother Nathan again.

At noon, during the barracks meal, Nathan came to the American sergeant serving the meal with a plate, this is a fat black man who is more than six feet tall, he glanced at the skinny Nathan, and said with a joke: "Little thing, are you sure you should eat here?" You should probably go to Benghazi to eat! ”

The SCO coalition's base camp in Libya is in Benghazi, and NATO's main stronghold is in Tripoli, and the black man sarcastically said that Nathan should go to Benghazi, meaning that Nathan is ethnically Chinese, not something that the United States should trust.

Nathan's face turned red, but none of his comrades next to him stood up to speak for him, but instead ate and laughed, taking Nathan as a laughing stock. Not far from the cafeteria was a supervising American officer, but the officer didn't have the slightest intention of stopping what was happening here, but watched the qiē as if he were watching a circus.

"I am not Chinese, I was born in the United States, my nationality is American, I have been taught to love the United States since I was a child, and I have no relationship with China!" Nathan yelled, but didn't stop anyone else.

His comrades laughed at him and said, "If we encounter difficulties on the battlefield, who knows if you will directly abandon us, pretend to be a Chinese army, and turn around to attack us?" This argument is obviously illogical and unreasonable, but it is a portrayal of Nathan Lin's distrust and discrimination by many people.

Nathan said tremblingly, "I barely speak Chinese, and I don't look like Chinese!" "A lot of Chinese immigrants who have migrated to North America for several generations will have some changes in their physical appearance, their skin will become darker, and their eyes will become smaller, as is the case with Nathan Lin.

The black sergeant scoffed: "To us, you look like Chinese!" "For the appearance of foreigners, most people have a slight face blindness, just like Chinese are not so easy to distinguish between foreigners, unless they are more accustomed to looking at the appearance characteristics of foreigners to remember."

Nathan angrily threw the empty tray on the floor and ran out of the cafeteria, not stopping him, and returned to the dormitory alone. Sitting on his bed and nibbling on the military rations distributed by the U.S. military as a snack, Nathan couldn't calm down and extinguish the fire for a long time, he could feel his distrust of himself, and if this distrust was brought to the battlefield, it might lead to his own death.

"Maybe to be good in the war, to be able to impress them and prove myself!" Nathan quickly turned his negative feelings into his own positive psychological thoughts, and he secretly determined to become a combat hero, to teach the Chinese a hard lesson on the battlefield, and to prove that he was a patriotic American, not an untrustworthy guy.

At this time, a Japanese-American soldier named Isuzu came to his dormitory, a guy with the same yellow Asian face as him. Because both of them are Asian, they are usually closer, and Isuzu went over and patted Nathan on the shoulder and said, "Don't be angry, you can't deny that there is some truth in their words." ”

Nathan angrily patted his bed and said, "What's the truth, we are no different from them, and even in terms of patriotism, they are not necessarily stronger than me." ”

Isuzu said with some annoyance, "I'm obviously Japanese, but I'm still affected, and they call me Chink over and over again, oh man, no offense." ”

Nathan rubbed his hair vigorously in frustration and said, "I don't think that's going to happen in China." ”

Isuzu smiled: "What, do you really want to surrender to China?" ”

Nathan exclaimed, "How is this possible, I am a dedicated American soldier, I am loyal to the Stars and Stripes and the American people, and China has nothing to do with me." ”

Isuzu said again: "Then do you know how to speak Chinese?" ”

Nathan whispered a little at this time: "A little bit, the basic ones will be said." ”

Isuzu patted him on the shoulder and said in a semi-serious tone: "Then man, you have to teach me, 'I'm Chinese, don't shoot' how to say, I heard that during the Korean War, there was a Chinese veteran who did this on the battlefield, and then escaped with his life, maybe it can finally become a magic weapon for us to save our lives!" ”

"You ......," Nathan didn't know what to say about his comrade, "do you think we're going to lose?" ”

Isuzu said pessimistically: "The possibility of losing is not small, in India, in South Africa, in the Solomon Islands, where do we win?" North Africa looks like we're playing well right now, but who knows how it will end. This is full of depression, but it is also a kind of indifference, and the Asian community has always had a certain phenomenon of detachment from mainstream North American society. It's not like blacks have basically become an integral part of American culture, and Asians are a lot different, of course, this has to do with the fact that the number of Asians is far less than that of blacks, but in addition, many Asian-American residents are strict about their traditional culture, especially the first and second generation immigrants, which also makes it difficult for them to truly integrate into American society, and the fate of the United States is not particularly worrying about it, and it is a big deal to finally immigrate to other countries again.

In fact, not only Isuzu, many Americans have more extreme and pessimistic ideas, but in Nathan Lin's heart, the strength of the United States is deep-rooted, and he has been taught since childhood that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, and the yearning for justice and upholding democracy and freedom, he never imagined that the grandeur of the United States would eventually fade and be replaced and crushed by another country.

"How can the United States be knocked down by China? What kind of country is China, dictatorial, backward, ignorant, and ignorant, it is because of these that my family left there and came to the United States, a country like China is not worth saving in the world! Nathan said aggressively.

Isuzu shrugged and said: "If China is really the kind of poor and backward country, then how to explain that the powerful and rich United States is now being beaten by China, is the United States poorer and more backward than China?" ”

"This ......," Nathan Lim suddenly didn't know how to respond.

In the end, he could only resignedly say: "In short, America will not be defeated, I will gamble my life and honor to protect her!" ”

Isuzu said helplessly: "Do you really regard you as a patriotic hero?" Those Uncle Sam's propaganda are all lies, you have been brainwashed, you have detached yourself from reality, let's be realistic. I really don't understand why you should feel humbled by your race and origin, and hate China more than anyone else. ”

Nathan was speechless for a moment, and he couldn't tell where his hatred of China came from. Although he was not proud of his Chinese ancestry, he was not ashamed of it. Today's incident hit him very hard, he felt that the words "China" and "China" hurt him, and if he was not Chinese, maybe he would not have been subjected to these criticisms and discrimination, and even he would have a bad feeling for China.

Another sentiment that Nathan is not very clear is that his family has always had a sense of contempt for those who live in China, and believes that living in the United States is extremely happy and satisfying, while China is living in dire straits. But now it has been confirmed that the standard of living of Chinese is not lower than that of Americans, and that China's strength is obvious to all, which makes the contempt and condescension they have always had all along, very ridiculous, and also superficial. Only by trying to belittle China and highlight the good of the United States can we get some balance in the psychology of these Chinese immigrants.

No matter what Nathan thinks, he can't change the tide. As the war unfolded and expanded, and China's power was constantly revealed, at a time when the U.S. military could not quickly break through North Africa into the Middle East, with the support of China, the Kurdish and Babylonian armies marched into Turkey, and the door to Europe was knocked again.