"Stop!" A massive loudspeaker atop a tall utility pole blared.

Captain Dan, along with the other American prisoners of war, halted in the snow-covered corridor. Looking forward, there were endless columns of uniforms; looking back, the line of American POWs seemed just as infinite.

Beside them, the Chinese soldiers, armed and alert, were clearly tense. Their numbers were insignificant compared to the mass of prisoners. Standing amidst the crowds, some Chinese soldiers simply pulled off their thick cotton gloves and gripped their assault rifles, ready to respond to any incident.

Soon, several large trucks drove up. Chinese soldiers leaped out and began unloading devices that consisted of a large drum base topped with a massive metallic umbrella-like structure. As each was unloaded, the soldiers climbed back on the truck and moved forward, while those arriving in jeeps began setting up the equipment.

Before long, these devices were lit. The massive metal umbrellas reflected heat downward, allowing the surrounding American POWs to feel a sliver of warmth. Naturally, the prisoners in the freezing cold crowded toward the heating equipment.

The Chinese soldiers from the jeeps pushed through the crowd of prisoners, leaped back onto the trucks, and headed for the next location. No American prisoners caused trouble; they huddled around the radiant heaters, stretching out frozen palms to catch the fire.

The winter in the northern United States was brutal. Standing for long periods in such extreme cold could easily prove fatal.

Several hours later, shivering and teeth chattering, Captain Dan arrived at the exchange point with his unit. Beneath a long row of hundreds of radiant heaters sat personnel from both the Chinese and American militaries. Beside them were many workers under various national flags.

Coming from a family of career soldiers, Dan recognized the Mexican flag among them at a glance. Upon closer inspection, he also identified the flags of Brazil, Argentina, and other South American nations.

Representatives from these South American countries worked alongside the Chinese and American personnel, checking and questioning based on the registers. Once identities were confirmed and records made, the exchange of American prisoners was completed.

When it was Dan's turn, the process encountered some friction. Many American officers and men could write their own names but lacked the ability to write the required statement on the release documents: "I, [Name], was released at [Time] on December 18, 1944, and have entered United States territory."

This did not surprise Captain Dan. Half of the men in the company he led suffered from dyslexia; they could speak English but were unable to read or write fluently.

Fortunately, the exchange teams had prepared for this. They brought out large boards for the American prisoners to copy fixed content, then guided them in filling in the specific details.

Ultimately, a large number of American prisoners, including Captain Dan, completed the procedures and returned alive to US soil.

Seeing that he was no longer surrounded by Chinese soldiers but by American troops, hot tears welled up in Dan’s eyes, leaving a cold trail on his cheeks.

He was not alone; many American soldiers were weeping. But this emotion was immediately cut short by the shouts of the domestic US troops before them: "Officers to the left, soldiers to the right! Move out immediately, don't block the way!"

Half an hour later, Captain Dan and about twenty other officers marched into the cold wind toward their next destination: the US military receiving camp.

The greatest difference between the American and Chinese sides was that the Chinese military had cleared the snow and prepared the roads. On the American side, the roads were left as slick, trampled corridors created by the released soldiers themselves. Dan nearly slipped several times, yet no one paid them the slightest mind.

After walking an unknown distance and arriving in a near-catatonic state at a concentration camp, Dan and the other officers were herded into a freezing room.

The room had no stove, something Dan found unfamiliar. Although China was the enemy, they had been meticulous in such details. The places where prisoners lived had heating equipment; even if the temperature wasn't high, at least they didn't freeze.

Despite the cold, Dan felt a sense of relief. With twenty or thirty people in the room, the collective body heat made the interior somewhat more tolerable.

There were no beds in the room. The officers thought perhaps they wouldn't be staying long. But one officer remarked, "Maybe they just forgot to give us beds."

No one dared to contradict him. That they had been captured was, of course, due to the formidable combat strength of the Chinese military. Yet these officers all felt that if they had received sufficient supplies, they could have certainly fought on.

They knew well that supplies for both sides were limited by the control of the front and rear lines. The Chinese military possessed a superior long-range deployment capability, allowing them to cut off American logistics. This was why, whenever a campaign reached a critical moment, the US military would find itself unable to continue due to a lack of supplies.

But this was the American mainland; surely they wouldn't be made to sleep on the floor?

Yet America was a strange place where whatever one feared most was exactly what would happen. By nightfall, no beds had been delivered to the officers, and they hadn't even been fed.

Some officers demanded that the guards outside let them out, but the American guards only looked at them coldly without responding. Furthermore, the doors were locked from the outside. Consequently, the American officers had no food, no place to sleep, and were forced to relieve themselves in the corner.

After being confined for an entire day, someone finally came to lead the officers out. These men were fierce in demeanor, showing no trace of fellow-feeling. After being taken into a freezing room, Captain Dan asked for a drink of water. The men told him to sit, confirmed his identity, and then asked: "Captain, we hear that some in your unit converted to communism!"

Dan was stunned. China had indeed given the American prisoners some lectures, covering anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism. As for communist propaganda, Dan had no recollection of it. However, he had heard rumors that some American POWs had apparently engaged in communist promotion within the camps.

Faced with such a severe accusation, Dan shook his head quickly. But the interrogators across from him had no intention of letting him go; a series of harsh questions followed. Why had Captain Dan surrendered? So many of his comrades had died in battle; how did he survive? How exactly did he surrender?

Listening to these questions, Dan initially tried to defend himself. But after a period of mental torment, he could no longer endure it. He suddenly asked, "Have you ever been to the battlefield?"

The interrogators were taken aback. Dan continued, "Has anyone among you ever been to the battlefield?"

Seeing that Dan actually wanted to reason with them, the lead interrogator barked, "What do you mean by that?"

Dan came from a military family and knew how to destroy an opponent’s mental state. When he was an officer, the first thing he did upon receiving new recruits was to break them, making them too afraid to resist so that obedience could be hammered into their minds.

Now that these people were using the same tactic on him, Dan had no intention of letting them manipulate him. He had to draw the line of the order he would accept; even if he was being interrogated, if the other side accepted even one of his demands, it would be enough to break their psychological offensive.

The interrogators were furious. One of them stood up as if to strike him. Dan remained unmoved. He had been captured during combat with the Chinese military, not like those who surrendered after being surrounded.

Adopting the same attitude he had held when facing a Chinese offensive, Dan said loudly, "I demand to be interrogated by someone who has been to the battlefield. If you have never been there, you have no right to ask me these questions!"

During several battles, Chinese shells had fallen like rain, and bullets had swept over the American positions like a storm. Every minute, every second, Dan could have been killed. He had survived by pure chance. Ultimately, it was a shell exploding nearby that had knocked him unconscious, leading to his capture.

Compared to the combat with China, the interrogators before him were laughable. Dan knew he would likely be beaten, yet he felt no fear. The Chinese soldiers had charged through a hail of American bullets to defeat them. Those Chinese soldiers did not fear death, nor had they mistreated Dan and the other prisoners.

The American interrogators before him, on the other hand, were merely a group of people who acted like petty tyrants because they had the backing of the US government's violence. Without the government behind them, they were nothing. In a one-on-one fight, Dan was confident he could easily handle these fools.

Seeing they couldn't intimidate him, the interrogators roared for a while longer before having him thrown into solitary confinement. The cell was small, dark, and freezing, the air thick with dampness.

Dan wrapped his uniform tightly around himself and huddled in the corner. China had issued the American prisoners cotton-padded clothes of decent quality. By huddling in the corner, he could wrap his entire body.

After an unknown amount of time, during which people in adjacent cells were dragged in and out, Dan listened to the guards' fierce rebukes and the prisoners' retorts or pleas. The more he thought, the more aggrieved he felt.

Being captured was not honorable, but the Chinese military had not mistreated the American prisoners; they had provided them with sufficiently humane treatment. He never expected that upon returning to America, he would be treated like a traitor.

In the weakness brought on by hunger and cold, Dan muttered to himself, "You were the ones who sent me to fight; I didn't ask you to go to war!"

But in the pitch-black cell, no one heard his voice.

Before he could starve to death, Dan was finally dragged out of solitary. The soldiers took him to the infirmary and gave him a bowl of mashed potatoes. After just two bites, he felt the urge to vomit. It wasn't because he wasn't hungry, but because he was *too* hungry; his stomach had almost no capacity for food.

After forcing down the bowl of potatoes, a wave of exhaustion hit him, and he fell asleep on a bed in the infirmary, which was equipped with a fireplace. When he woke the next day, he was sent in a daze to a receiving station—a proper one, where the people were kind and friendly to the released personnel.

Soon, Captain Dan and the other released officers and men were categorized by their home states. They were then put on trains arranged by the military to return to their hometowns. For Dan, it was Montgomery, Alabama.

Alabama, in the southeastern United States, was much warmer than the north. When Dan stepped off the train at the Montgomery station, he saw few people on the streets. Most of the houses on either side of the road were shuttered, and there were few people at the shopfronts. The city, which should have been vibrant, was shrouded in an atmosphere of desolation.

Dan's home was not in the state capital but in a nearby town called Williamton. The original founder of this town was a man named William, Dan's great-great-grandfather. Thus, the town was named Williamton.

Williamton was over two hundred miles from Montgomery. Like the other released American soldiers, Dan had received no back pay. The federal government that sent them home had only given each soldier twenty dollars and arranged for the train; they washed their hands of everything else.

Dan went to a shop he had visited before. The owner was an old man whom Dan vaguely remembered. Before the war broke out, Dan had shopped there and chatted with him. The old man had expressed disappointment at not being able to join the army, saying he was 58 and the government didn't think he was fit to serve. Now, the old man was probably 62.

Entering the shop, he saw the old man was still there, wearing an old uniform without rank insignia. Upon seeing Dan, the old man instinctively made as if to stand at attention.

Dan was surprised. After a brief chat, the old man recalled him and said, "When I was drafted, I often thought of you."

"...You were drafted?" Dan was greatly surprised.

The shopkeeper sighed. "It was last Christmas. The draft officers were grabbing people everywhere. If you were a man, you were taken." I was minding the shop when they grabbed me.

Dan was momentarily speechless; he had never imagined a 60-year-old man would be drafted. Seeing that the old man had survived, he assumed he hadn't been sent to the front.

But the old man continued, "Thank God, when I was sent to the front, the regiment next to us was the Madman Regiment..."

Dan initially thought "Madman Regiment" referred to a unit of people like the "Texas Mad Dogs," but to his surprise, the old man’s story revealed that the regiment was literally composed of psychiatric patients.

Since late last year, the US had been conscripting people indiscriminately. Even a 60-year-old man wasn't spared, and mental hospitals—full of living people—certainly wouldn't be overlooked. Those patients who appeared somewhat normal were drafted to make up the numbers, but because of the shortage of troops at the front, they were sent directly into battle.

Under the Chinese offensive, the psychiatric patients had episodes, running and screaming without regard for their lives. This instantly created gaps in the line, allowing the Chinese military to break through. The entire front collapsed in a moment.

The old man’s unit had retreated quickly, which had saved his life.

After hearing this, Captain Dan didn't know what to say. He simply managed, "God bless you."

Seeing that Dan did not mock him, the old man sighed and whispered, "Captain, if you want to go home, please don't wear that uniform—or at least take off the rank insignia. It's not safe lately; some people are killing federal officers."