A small conference room.
Our entire team was gathered there.
I had been heading out for morning training,
but today, instead of the training ground, we’d been told to assemble in the conference room.
So our team ended up gathering there.
We met every day for training, but it was almost unheard of for us to gather in a conference room.
It was strange.
The team leader spoke first.
“Everyone here?”
“Yes, sir. Everyone’s assembled.”
“Then I’ll get straight to the point. We’ve received deployment orders.”
“Sir?”
“What did you say?”
“Are you serious?”
“Sir? Now? We don’t have any deployment scheduled, do we?”
“There’s still some time left before the regular deployment, isn’t there?”
“One of the companies that was deployed had to return home urgently because they’re no longer able to carry out their mission, so we’re going in as their replacement.”
“Where are we going?”
“Congo. The Democratic Republic of the Congo.”
“Ahhh—”
“.....”
“Fuck, we drew a nasty one.”
At the word Congo, the team members’ faces twisted badly.
Was it that bad?
I didn’t even know where Congo was.
All I knew was that it was in Africa.
“Anyway, keep that in mind. Today, each of you will handle personal maintenance and prepare for deployment.”
“When do we leave?”
“In a month.”
I returned to my room and searched it up.
Congo... Congo...
Huh?
There were two Congos.
The Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The place we had to go was the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The second-largest country in Africa.
The eleventh-largest country in the world.
A country with an enormous landmass, twenty-three times the size of South Korea.
It straddled the equator, so the weather was extremely hot,
and it was a place where tropical rainforests and savanna plains spread out.
If that were all, it would be wonderful, but then there’d be no need for us to be deployed there, would there?
There had to be some danger. That was why we were going.
Congo had once had a dictator known internationally.
For more than thirty years, he ruled as a dictator, grasping all the nation’s power in his hands and wielding it however he pleased.
It was a country where corruption was taken for granted.
People who could no longer endure it formed anti-government organizations and attacked the government.
A civil war broke out.
The rebels won.
The person who came to power through the rebel victory.
He, too, became a dictator.
The new dictator was even worse.
Afraid they might interfere with his dictatorship, he cast out the comrades who had fought alongside him.
Those who were driven out were furious.
They formed organizations again and attacked the government.
And so civil war continued to break out again and again.
Rebel groups and terrorist organizations like the ADF, the Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, and M23 joined in.
Around ten African countries became involved.
It turned into total chaos.
At this point, there was no distinguishing who was right or wrong anymore.
They were simply fighting a war to seize power.
It was annoying enough that they were fighting among themselves to take control of the regime.
But there were also forces stirring things up.
Companies and nations coveting Congo’s overflowing underground resources supported the rebels,
and neighboring countries supported either rebels or government forces over religious and ethnic issues.
There were so many terrorist organizations and rebel groups operating in Congo that it was impossible to count them all.
It was a complete mess.
The ones who suffered the full brunt of it were women and children.
Children were dragged away and raised as child soldiers,
and as for women, they were often raped or killed on sight.
It was惨酷.
The functions of the state did not operate.
It did not even fulfill the most basic duty of a nation: to protect its people.
The leaders ruled as dictators,
and the country’s resources were all taken away by foreign companies.
Whether the people lived or died,
no matter how they survived, the state did not care.
That was Congo.
A country where guns were fired and belongings were stolen anytime, anywhere.
A country where kidnapping people and raping them was not considered a problem.
A country where public authority did not exist.
That was how dangerous it was.
I felt like I understood why the seniors’ faces had rotted the moment they heard the deployment site was Congo.
.
.
.
There wasn’t much time left before departure.
First, we got vaccinated.
Yellow fever, malaria, tetanus, measles, meningococcus, and more.
There were a lot of shots we had to get.
We needed passports too.
We had to renew our passports or make new ones,
and since I had never had anything called a passport, I made one from scratch.
Aside from that, we also had to prepare team equipment and personal supplies.
A list was made for people like me who had no idea what to prepare.
It was packed with items we had to bring by team and by individual.
We received education on the Congo region.
We familiarized ourselves with the history, size, and habits of the rebel groups in our mission area,
and we were also educated on the rules as UN peacekeeping forces.
We conducted training with the Congo region assumed as our area of operations.
We also received mental education.
The Law of Armed Conflict, civilian reporting regulations, even prevention of wartime sexual violence.
When they said there was a month until deployment,
I thought all we had to do was pack a bag like we were going on a trip.
I thought we only needed to bring our rifles, but there was an enormous amount to do.
At last, the day of departure came.
We boarded a transport plane and landed not in Congo, but in neighboring Burundi.
Ndadaye International Airport.
There was no airport in the part of Congo where our deployment site was.
Since the closest international airport was Ndadaye International Airport, we had no choice but to come here.
The moment we got off, a wave of hot air rushed over us.
As expected of somewhere near the equator, it was hot.
When we gathered our equipment and got off the transport plane, someone was there to meet us.
“Welcome~”
“Long time no see.”
The person who had come to meet us seemed to know Song Gyutae.
The two greeted each other warmly.
“Say hello. This is Captain Jeon Yeongho, the logistics officer at our deployment site. He’s from my class.”
“Unity.”
Our team saluted Logistics Officer Jeon Yeongho.
Officer Jeon Yeongho returned the greeting lightly as well.
“Unity. It’s hot, so let’s get in the vehicle first. I’ll explain while we move.”
We boarded a white armored vehicle.
The vehicle had UN written in large letters on it.
Captain Jeon Yeongho drove.
“It’ll take about an hour from here to the unit. Once we arrive, you’ll report to the commander. Anyone have any questions?”
“May I ask what the situation here is like?”
Captain Jeon Yeongho’s expression darkened at the question.
It seemed serious.
“To be honest, it’s not that good. The transportation here is convenient, and it borders the frontier, so rebel forces show up often. They also fight among themselves a lot. Still, if you act according to the guidelines, there shouldn’t be any major problems. No need to worry in advance.”
“Yes, sir. Understood.”
That meant we should worry.
In the military, you had to take everything the opposite way.
The road from the airport to the unit.
On the left, Lake Tanganyika spread out wide like the sea,
and on the right was a vast open field.
But it looked completely unmanaged.
Weeds grew thick everywhere,
and ruined buildings and half-built structures could be seen here and there.
It was far worse than I had imagined.
The condition of the roads and their maintenance were both poor.
I thought, “It’ll get better once we enter Uvira,”
but my thoughts were clearly wrong.
Once we entered Uvira,
the road turned into an unpaved one,
and the scenery around us looked even more desolate.
If I hadn’t seen people, I would have believed it was an abandoned city.
.
.
.
After passing through three heavy-looking barricades,
we were able to enter the unit.
As soon as we arrived, we reported to Colonel Son Taesik, commander of the Suho Unit.
“Reporting, sir. Captain Song Gyutae and eleven others have been ordered to transfer to the Congo Suho Unit. Reporting as ordered.”
“You’ve had a hard trip getting here. Rest today, take about a week to adjust starting tomorrow, and after that we’ll put you on missions.”
“Understood, sir.”
Only then did the deployed unit come into view.
It seemed containers were being used as quarters.
Containers were lined up in a row, and the spaces between them were covered like a roof.
It looked like they had built it that way to avoid sunlight and rain.
When I went inside a container, cool air-conditioning blew out.
Only now did I feel like I could live.
Six people were to live in this container.
I couldn’t say it was incredibly spacious,
but it didn’t seem like it would be uncomfortable to live in.
.
.
.
After a week of adjustment,
we went out on our first operation.
Calling it an operation was a bit much.
It was more like a patrol.
We would stand guard at routes the rebel bastards often used,
and if they came, send them back.
We must never attack first.
As defensively as possible.
We were not people who had come here to wipe out the rebels.
Ensuring that the citizens of Uvira could live safely.
That was our mission.
We set out for patrol.
The road was entirely bumpy, unpaved, and full of trash.
A country where throwing trash on the road was not a problem at all.
The situation was worse than I’d thought.
I had thought I’d lived like a beggar,
but after seeing this place, I realized I’d lived like a king.
I reflected on myself.
Here, whenever anyone saw a foreigner, they asked for money.
Why?
There was no reason.
They just asked for money.
Adults and children alike simply asked for money.
But none of us put a hand in our pockets.
We had been taught beforehand.
That we must not give money.
The driver today had also warned us several times.
“You absolutely must not give them money, sir. If you give money, there’s a higher chance that child will be harassed, sir.”
If a child received money,
it was common for others nearby to beat the child and take the money away.
So he said not giving money was the best way.
That was a relief. I saved money.
We arrived at our destination.
We slowly drove around the area near Lake Tanganyika.
Lake Tanganyika is the second-largest lake in the world.
Honestly, calling it a lake was just a formality.
In size, it was practically a sea.
Its maximum depth was 1,470 meters, incredibly deep.
Many people used this lake to enter the country illegally.
That was why the Suho Unit guarded this place.
We moved in an armored vehicle.
The UN armored vehicle was white.
The helmets were blue, close to sky blue.
Apparently, it was so they could be seen clearly even from far away.
I was in charge of the machine gun mounted on the roof.
I stuck half my body out through something like the vehicle’s sunroof and held the machine gun.
I kept watch over the surroundings.
The driver continued telling us about Congo like a guide.
“Congo is a really poor country, sir. Monthly wages are about 150,000 won, sir.”
“I saw on the news that most people live on less than two dollars a day.”
“Because they can’t manufacture goods, they rely mostly on imports, so prices are incredibly high too.”
“Some things are even more expensive than in Korea.”
“If you live in a brick house like that, you’re seriously rich. But even those can’t be finished all at once because bricks are expensive. They say the Congolese style is to buy a few bricks each time they get paid and complete it little by little, sir.”
“Usually, people live in houses made of sheet metal like that. It’s just sheet metal wrapped around them, sir.”
As we patrolled while listening to the guide’s explanations,
I felt a little confused as to whether we had come to Congo for tourism or for an operation,
but it seemed like useful information, so I liked it.
Just when I thought the first day would end without incident,
I caught sight of strange movement.
A scene entered my eyes: several people instantly hiding in the thicket connected to the river.
It happened so fast that I wondered if I had seen it wrong,
and even when I looked again, I couldn’t see anyone, so I could have just let it pass.
But letting it pass felt unsettling.
I radioed in.
“Team leader. At ten o’clock, I think unidentified personnel hid in the thicket. Please confirm.”
“Really? I didn’t see them.”
“I didn’t see them either, sir.”
“Let’s get out and check for a moment.”
We stopped the vehicle, and the team members got out.
I got out with them.
Our team of twelve was divided into Team One and Team Two.
Since twelve people couldn’t all ride in one armored vehicle, it was only natural to split into two squads.
I had been assigned to Team One with the team leader.
After passing an old, rusted sheet-metal house, the thicket appeared right away.
Maybe because it was a tropical rainforest, the grass grew a meter high.
Beyond that thicket, Lake Tanganyika spread out wide.
That really was the sea.
We spread out in a search formation
and looked for the people who had hidden in the grass.
But we saw no one,
and I wondered if I had seen something wrong.
I was sure they had been people.
Just as I briefly turned my body to radio an apology and say I must have been mistaken, I heard the sound of wind by my ear.
And a moment later.
Bang!
A gunshot rang out.
As soon as the gunshot rang out, we immediately dropped to the ground and returned fire at once.
“Fuck, what is this on the first day? Is this Congo?”