Oath Of Iron And Fire

Chapter 9: Passion for running a school

Many rules in this world are always well enforced when they are first made, but they slowly change over time, just like when Field Marshal Ned Smith made the "Night Regulations" of the Army Officer Academy, he stipulated that all faculty members, regardless of rank or position, must take turns on night duty.

When Marshal Ned became the principal of Ned, this rule was implemented literally. Because Ned Smith was not the type of person who only talked about it. When he made the rule, he would actually bring a small quilt to the teacher's duty room to work the night shift. With him as an example, everyone worked honestly and no one dared to shirk their responsibilities.

But when Principal Ned retired, this rule gradually evolved into the current "rule": all those assigned to the night shift are new recruits, low-ranking bachelors living in the staff dormitory. Not only did the instructors' scheduling rules change, but the way students work night shifts is no longer the original design process.

The original design was that each person would stand guard for four hours, patrol for four hours, and then take a four-hour nap. But at some point it became something that allowed third-year trainees to go into the duty room and fall asleep, while the first- and second-year groups painfully stood guard for six hours and patrolled for six hours.

So before Winters was promoted to the third grade, he hated night duty the most. Winters's biggest hobby in life was sleeping. When he didn't get enough sleep, he would be particularly irritable and would have serious self-destructive tendencies.

So when Winters was promoted to the third grade, he would lie down on the bed in the student duty room every night and fall asleep. He slept very peacefully, because in his opinion, he had completed the duty in the previous two years, and now it was his turn to sleep.

This kind of human psychology is the reason why so many unreasonable rules with obvious bullying implications can exist and persist for a long time in this world.

Because these "bullying systems" all retain a channel for upward mobility and a little hope. They promise the oppressed people this: "As long as you endure the pain now, there will be a day when you will sit on someone else's head."

As the saying goes, as long as a daughter-in-law survives, she will eventually become a mother-in-law, junior bachelor teachers will eventually get promoted and marry, and junior officers will eventually become seniors. So everyone had some hope in their hearts, so they gritted their teeth and endured, waiting for the day when they could bully others.

But they often don’t realize that this “bullied/bully perpetual motion machine” design actually causes everyone to suffer more unnecessary pain.

Even the torture of working three night shifts of "eight hours on duty and four hours of sleep" is not as much as that of working one night shift of "enduring twelve hours and having to go to class the next day".

A Silk Country sage named Treeman commented on this deformed system: "It will take a generation of people who have endured the hard times of being bullied, but are noble enough to stop bullying others, in order to break this cycle."

This time, Winters did not go to the cadet duty room and fall asleep like he did before, but picked up his halberd and prepared to go on patrol. This was not because Winters was so conscious, he could not think of that level now. In fact, he was not supposed to be on duty today, he deliberately exchanged with someone else just to come and find Bud.

Bud was also from the United Provinces Republic. But unlike Ike, his home was not in Guitu City, but in a small village more than 100 kilometers away from the west gate of Guitu City.

The Confederate Army, or more precisely, the Confederate Republic Army, has a passion for "running schools." In theory, this passion should have been inherited from Marshal Ned, who "runs cram schools," but it seems a little different.

Although there was an "Army Officers Academy" to train junior officers, this obviously could not satisfy the enthusiasm of the Federal Republic Army to run schools, so they set up an "Army Officers Preparatory School" to train cadets of the Army Officers Academy;

Then the "Army Junior School" was established to train cadets for the Army Officers Preparatory School.

Winters entered the Army Cub School, Highland Branch, at the age of nine, and from then on embarked on a career path that he had no choice but to follow.

But do you think that's the end? Of course not. Although only kindergartens were established in other member states, in the territory of the Piedmont Republic, the fanatical school-building advocates opened the Army Enlightenment School to train students for the Army Kindergarten School.

If this trend of infinite nesting continues, one day we will surely see Army kindergartens, Army early education classes and Army prenatal education classes appearing on the land of the Federal Republic.

This strange idea of training officers from the womb led to a situation: although in theory there was never a requirement for "must be a graduate of the Army Preparatory School" in the admission requirements of the Army Officers Academy, and although the Army Officers Academy held an open-ended entrance examination every year to recruit students from the Allied countries, there were never many people who were not from the preparatory school who could get in. The interview barrier blocked most of the external candidates.

The interviewers believed that they had absolutely no prejudice, and that the external candidates were "too far inferior" and "did not have the military temperament at all". However, they did not think that the external candidates were not soldiers in the first place, so how could they compare the military temperament with the internal candidates who had been promoted all the way from kindergarten?

Anyway, no matter what the process is, the final result is that the vast majority of students in the military academy are internally admitted, and external admissions are rare.

People still don't know whether this phenomenon is good or bad, and they don't know what impact it will have on the future of the Forward Republic and the entire Gulf Alliance. Who can guess what will happen in the future? Let's get back to talking about Bud.

There are always some people in this world who can win your trust the first time you meet them, and Bud is one of them.

There is nothing aggressive about his appearance, with broad shoulders, big hands, a wide mouth and nose, and a slightly cross-eyed look that makes him look silly.

He spoke slowly, his voice was a little hoarse, and there was always a smile on his thick lips. He was mild-tempered, and his temper only turned bad when he was hungry.

When they entered school, the school gave each student a set of summer uniforms and a set of winter uniforms. Rich children would ask tailors to make more sets of clothes. Bud only had one set, but he washed it clean every day.

Among the young people who are keen on dressing up, he is wearing his washed white but clean clothes, and there is no shyness on his face. So when you see him for the first time, you will know that he is a reliable person.

An Eastern sage once said, "He who is content with what he has in his heart does not know that his food and drink are inferior to those of others." Winters did not know whether Bud had truly reached the level of the Eastern sage or was just trying to pretend to be calm and composed.

But Winters didn't want to guess or explore, because no matter the former or the latter, it meant that Bud was a person with a strong self-esteem. And Winters respected people with self-esteem.