The expert on the podium spoke in such an incomprehensible way that even Mann, who considered himself quite a seasoned soldier, felt utterly bewildered.

Firstly, Horizon Corporation’s army, compared to other armed companies, has an additional institution at the company level named the Military Committee, which helps Horizon Corporation manage the army.

This institution is responsible for countering bullying within the army, ensuring equality among officers and soldiers, maintaining military discipline, managing military expenditure, evaluating honors and awards, overseeing military entertainment, and even supervising officers.

Representatives are elected from the bottom up, with each squad electing one person, and officers above platoon level jointly electing one person.

This institution confused not only the new recruits but even Mann was at a loss; such a thing doesn’t exist in the New America army. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Furthermore, the expert said things like officers and soldiers eating and living together, prohibiting punishment without reason, and even soldiers being able to proactively complain about officers through the committee, were simply absurd.

The New America wouldn’t allow it, and even in the 2025 United States, officers bullying new recruits didn’t need concealing — forcing you to eat slop, running a hundred laps on the parade ground, stripping naked and being whipped with belts, inciting other soldiers to shame you, or forcing you to "taste the bitterness" — in short, they have a hundred ways to torment you, and no one would pursue them.

Eating and living together is also impossible because officers rarely appear in front of soldiers; they maintain their mystique this way.

This is the Western style for officers to establish authority in the military.

Even generals like Eisenhower, in some supposedly people-friendly actions like inspecting the army, the so-called dining with soldiers, is just setting up a plate for a photo-op and then eating wherever they originally planned.

As for elections, no one believes in such things anymore.

"What does Boss Lin mean by this? What’s going on?"

He couldn’t help but nudge David, eager to hear what this suspected insider thought; besides, over the past two months, Mann noticed David seemed to have matured a lot. As for David’s prosthetic right hand, Mann never inquired about it.

"I’ve heard the head instructor mention this."

After pondering for a moment, David said,

"This is called military democratization, an institution unfolding from economic, military, and political aspects."

Of course, externally, Lin Miao marketed it as an internal affairs monitoring organization convenient for company management.

Other foreigners might not understand, but when it comes to internal affairs, they understand very well; from the FBI onwards, various internal monitoring institutions have spawned regularly. Isn’t it all for that same purpose?

They’re all staunch capitalists; they get it.

"Democratization? What’s that?"

Mann wanted to scoff, but realizing it was Horizon Corporation and not some other company, he let it slide. He was curious to see how this committee would eventually develop.

The second rule is the army prohibits all gambling involving money, drug use, and sexual assault; every individual must install a neural regulator.

Maybe other companies use drugs to relieve mental stress and boost combat morale.

But sorry, that’s not practiced here.

A soldier who truly understands why they fight doesn’t need drugs for assistance.

Besides, if you aren’t doing things against your conscience or indulging, why would you need drugs to numb yourself?

The recruits collectively voiced their misery, and many immediately wanted out.

Among those mixed in gangs, seven or eight out of ten are drug users, while the remaining two aren’t much better, mostly addicted to painkillers like fentanyl.

If you don’t let them smoke, it’s better to kill them.

But some matters are more frightening than death because they’ve already signed enlistment contracts; regretting now means compensating twenty times the breach penalty, so they’ll at least have to wait until the three-month training completes to decide whether to stay or leave.

Therefore, no matter how painful, they have to endure these three months.

Thirdly, beyond the normal military organization, the army will have an additional ideological management department, specifically managing soldiers’ political thoughts.

Just listening to it made the recruits feel sinister, resembling those urban legends of mind control circulating around Night City.

Those mysterious people were like hackers, capable of fascinating you with a few sentences, and making you obediently hand over all your money.

Many felt they might have come to the wrong place, sensing this was a demonic pit they couldn’t escape from, and couldn’t help but want out.

Regarding the most critical point — why they were off to fight in Cuba — the expert chose not to divulge at this time.

Because it’s useless to say; telling them about liberating Cuba or eliminating drugs won’t work, as they haven’t even liberated their thoughts, how could they care about people thousands of kilometers away?

The expert talked a lot during the new recruit enlistment ceremony but knew the audience had limited capacity to understand. Many things require a combination of practice and theory for gradual comprehension.

Therefore, he didn’t waste much time on rhetoric, and after roughly covering those matters, had someone lead them to the dormitory to find a bed.

"The situation doesn’t look promising."

The expert looked at the report from the recruitment department, sighing deeply.

"Among 800 men, 617 have histories of drug use, 479 with criminal records, 297 who’ve been in jail, 112 with past murder charges, plus a group of debt-escaping blacklisted individuals. This isn’t a legit army; it’s practically an army made of thieves, and their records couldn’t be blacker; would never pass preliminary screening back in the day.

This kind of army composition, forget the United States, even in Somalia’s most disorderly regions, you wouldn’t find such an absurd make-up."