The Officer and the Princess: The Flames Of War

Chapter 31

The day was a clear one, a warm sea breeze moved over the beach as the sun shined down overhead. The roar of the ocean waves echoed, but something else echoed as well, shouts and explosions. Sung stood on a hill over looking the vast beach that made up the Capital Island Northern most point. His arms crossed as he watched the drills being preformed, around him were Officers that made up the command corps of the twelfth Field Army, one Major General, two Lieutenant Generals, five Brigadier General's, twelve Colonels one of which was June, twelve Lieutenant Colonels, eight Majors, and in Sung's opinion one very salty Sergeant Major. Down below him on the beach three Tundra tanks sat as lines of men and women waited for their turn to run the gauntlet.

This was a training exercise but Sung had attempted to make it as realistic as possible. Explosives were buried in the ground around the tanks and connected to random lengths of fuse, the explosion wouldn't be strong enough to kill but it would kick dirt up into the air and make a loud noise. The point of the training was to get Soldiers ready to take on tanks with nothing but will power and a few hand held explosives while there was chaos going on around them.

The explosives they were training with however were nothing more than smoke bombs but they had the same weight and feel as the shrapnel charges that they would soon use in the future. Soldiers would be told to go and once they started they were to get to the tank in front of them as fast as they could and throw their explosives into the Gunner hatch, it wouldn't be accurate to the battle conditions they would be facing when they landed on the beach but this was the best Sung could come up with on short notice without having one of the new tanks here and since he didn't have that he fell back on a soldiers best friend, making do with what was on hand.

In theory having and explosion go off inside the Tank this would knock it out of the fight, and if it didn't it would certainly kill those who had been inside. Either way they would have one less tank to worry about.

A whistle was blown and the next three took off. As they ran the explosives in the ground began to go off around them. Loud bangs that threw sand several feet into the air. As the three ran, the Tundra Tank gunners would shoot short bursts of fire, Sung had specifically picked firebenders who could Control how much fire they used. Anyone hit by it would feel the heat but they wouldn't be burned...at least not too badly. He wasn't here to injure his soldiers but he needed them to learn that actions had consequences, they would remember getting burned and they would work twice as hard not to get hit again.

In the left outmost lane on the gauntlet the soldier running it misstepped and tripped landing face first in the sand on the side lines a man stood even from this distance Sung could hear the man shouting at the Soldier who had fallen to get up and keep moving, though he used more colorful language, no doubt an experienced Non Commissioned Officer who was overseeing the training. "What's that Soldiers name?" Sung asked looking to his Sergeant Major. The man's name was Shio, standing at exactly six feet tall, the man seemed to have muscles on muscles, his armor looking almost tight around his form. His black hair pulled back into s military style top knot like all of the Officers around him. He had served in the Army for most of his adult life serving as the twelfth most senior non commissioned officer for almost half of that time, and from what Sung had seen in his interactions with the troops he was...not an easy man to get along with it seemed.

Sergeant major Shio narrowed his eyes at the beach. "That would be Private Hirawa sir." Shio said instantly, Sung had always been of the opinion that Senior Non Commissioned Officers couldn't call themselves such if they didn't know every Junior Non Com and enlisted men under their command. In the week since the twelfth had been stationed on the coast to prepare for the invasion every time Sung asked Shio about a Soldier who wasn't one of the ones he had brought with him Shio knew who they were almost instantly. Though clearly a man who was tough on his troops Shio seemed to genuinely care for them as if they were his own children though he wasn't above using the proverbial rod.  But the troops seems to like him so he couldn't be all bad.