My name is Julian. I am called Julian 5th. I come of an illustrious
family—my great-great-grandfather, Julian 1st, a major at twenty-two,
was killed in France early in The Great War. My great-grandfather,
Julian 2nd, was killed in battle in Turkey in 1938. My grandfather,
Julian 3rd, fought continuously from his sixteenth year until peace
was declared in his thirtieth year. He died in 1992 and during the
last twenty-five years of his life was an Admiral of the Air, being
transferred at the close of the war to command of the International
Peace Fleet, which patrolled and policed the world. He also was
killed in line of duty, as was my father who succeeded him in the
service.
At sixteen I graduated from the Air School and was detailed to the
International Peace Fleet, being the fifth generation of my line to
wear the uniform of my country. That was in 2016, and I recall that
it was a matter of pride to me that it rounded out the full century
since Julian 1st graduated from West Point, and that during that one
hundred years no adult male of my line had ever owned or worn
civilian clothes.
Of course there were no more wars, but there still was fighting. We
had the pirates of the air to contend with and occasionally some of
the uncivilized tribes of Russia, Africa and central Asia required
the attention of a punitive expedition. However, life seemed tame and
monotonous to us when we read of the heroic deeds of our ancestors
from 1914 to 1967, yet none of us wanted war. It had been too well
schooled into us that we must not think of war, and the International
Peace Fleet so effectively prevented all preparation for war that we
all knew there could never be another. There wasn’t a firearm in the
world other than those with which we were armed, and a few of ancient
design that were kept as heirlooms, or in museums, or that were owned
by savage tribes who could procure no ammunition for them, since we
permitted none to be manufactured. There was not a gas shell nor a
radio bomb, nor any engine to discharge or project one; and there
wasn’t a big gun of any calibre in the world. I veritably believed
that a thousand men equipped with the various engines of destruction
that had reached their highest efficiency at the close of the war in
1967 could have conquered the world; but there were not a thousand
men so armed—there never could be a thousand men so equipped anywhere
upon the face of the Earth. The International Peace Fleet was
equipped and manned to prevent just such a calamity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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