Fiction - First Night As A Korean Soldier

I am on night guard duty at the Army Training Center in the 18^th Infantry Division in Korea.

Just a few days ago, I could fall asleep in a warm room under a warm blanket. Now, inside a barracks built of concrete, about twenty young men are sleeping shoulder to shoulder, under olive drab military blankets.

Wearing an unfamiliar military uniform with a numbered name tag like a prisoner, I slowly walk back and forth across the barracks during my one-hour shift. All of this was incredibly unfamiliar to me. The standard term was thirty months; mine was cut to twenty-seven because I held a bachelor's degree.

A day at the recruit training center repeats itself in a way that is simpler, yet more brutal, than I expected. Even before the wake-up bugle sounds, the body is already awake. Will I wake up late? Will my bed-making be a mess? Will I become the target of meaningless punishment? My mind always jumps to the worst-case scenarios first. From the moment my eyes open, individuality evaporates and a day begins in which I exist only as a number and a part.

Morning roll call was always a suffocating time. To recruits who could barely stand in a straight line, the words “fall in” sounded like an abstract phrase. If the shoulder line did not match, we got punished. If the angle of our toes was off, we had to do it again.

Eating was an extension of training rather than an act to satisfy hunger. We had to eat within a very short time, in a fixed posture, without speaking. There was no time to feel the warmth of the soup or the taste of the side dishes. In a situation where even the speed of lifting a spoon was controlled, eating became a minimal ritual—just enough to confirm that we were still alive. And yet, strangely, the food I ate there has stayed in my memory longer than any meal I ever had at home, even though it never tasted particularly good. Perhaps it was because hunger and tension had become the seasoning.

* The top image was created by Nano Banana 2

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