BGM Title: A Lifetime of War by Sabaton (Orchestral Cover)

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My name is Paulus Hamonangan Hutapea.

I was born to see our world the earlier generation used to know had changed at a rapid pace, for good, and for bad.

A little history lesson will be needed here. Post COVID-19 world saw Islamic fundamentalism compounded by illegal immigration caused Europe to be embroiled in a civil war in late 2020s. Things went worse by the general economic downturn of Arab oil-exporters, resulting in an open Saudi-Iranian War. Despite that, Indonesia's economy was booming despite a lot of trouble stemming from our government's radical approach on remedying the nation's lack of progress in the past, allowing us a higher standing equal to major Asia-Pacific countries thanks to the rapid advancement of technology that gradually reduced the demand for oil. We were catching up with China, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, or Korea.

We're having a good time.

But the effect was felt by us with political clashes between Islamist far-right and resurgent far-left movement are common and often deadly. A consequence of increased political, religious, and economic freedom espoused by the Tanudjaja administration which turned out to be the last Indonesian leader to lead within the Presidential System, in return for extensive repression of violent part of these so-called "political extremists", both left and right.

It was the era I grown up in a loving family, currently living in Pangkalan Bun, Central Kalimantan. And we are economically well-off too.

War.

Most Indonesians had a relatively positive image of our military despite its past and believe war is acceptable only as a final solution if everything fails and our sovereignty is at stake, thanks to our own bloody history.

For me, I never concerned myself with it. As far as it not affect our country, it means life goes on as usual.

Ever since I was a little boy in Medan. I literally can't live without spending time gazing at the skies especially at night, at stars above, the birds and airplanes flying through them. I imagine the freedom within it. What was it like to fly? I want to know.

As I grow up, I spend my free time reading things related to aviation. Not for long, I feel it will be my life. Not just simply flying an airplane. I want to go further.

That begins my love of fighter aircraft and flying it.

I watched videos and reading books about it and even played combat simulator games such as the Digital Combat Simulator or Ace Combat. But one moment when I saw those things, a group of F-16s directly above my house for a training sortie one day as a junior high student brought everything to a higher level. The way it flies, the way it dances, it won't ever be forgotten. The pilots are Eagles, deterring everyone who wants to enter our airspace uninvited, just like the said bird of prey dominating the skies above.

Along with flying, I found myself loving the water. While I took swimming partially for sake of my flying dreams, it also keeps me active outside the world of virtual.

Before living in the land of Borneo, I spend my uneventful and happy childhood in Medan, then when my father got a new job in Makassar, we moved there and in the largest metropolitan area in Eastern Indonesia I finished my junior and senior high, but with an extra amount of struggle compared to normal kids.

The reason?

I was born with High Functioning Autism. You are right, a special needs kid like me wants to be in the military.

It was detected and diagnosed when I was four.

People might laugh on me, but I learned to ignore such voice and carry on.

One of its manifestations is an impaired social skill, and often have a specific and narrow interest that gobbled up my attention, in this case; aircraft, which explained my deep love of flying and anything aviation.

Feeling empathy is one of another challenge of kids with it. Moreover, clumsiness of movement resulted from motor delays.

Thankfully, supported by my family along with therapy and my love of swimming with I even obtained a gold medal in provincial student competitions I managed to be physically fit and my clumsiness decreased. The inclusive school environment where I was educated was also the reason for me to be grateful. Especially my favorite teacher in high school by the name of Mr. Johannes Paressa, which taught Math and then became my homeroom teacher in the 12th level. Then my Physical Education one, Mr. Akbar Mulyadi, the latter passed away on the day of my commissioning.

Outside school, I am grateful for my youth pastor in church, Mr. Benedictus Angkawijaya, and last but not least; my therapist Mrs. Yulianti.

Makassar was the city in which one of my uncles from my mother's side, Abraham, served as a fighter pilot in the Indonesian Air Force. Inspired by his service I decided to follow his step by entering the Indonesian Air Force Academy in Yogyakarta. In light of my condition, I required a waiver despite my high scores in academics and athletics.

In the basic military training in Magelang Military Academy, also called Tidar Valley, prior to my service education in Yogyakarta, a girl entered my life.

Her name is Evelyn Hardikusumo.

She's quite a typical soon-to-be cadet, but why she stood out from the other? I asked myself at chow time.

I'm struggling in social stuff as well as neatness, but I want to know her more, and soon I found myself drawn into her. And she is the primary motivator of me just after I have the first weekend outside the academy, or Pesiar, if I use the service academies' parlance, together.

With her on my side as the one who understands my condition, I soared into the sky. In training, I sometimes got yelled at by my instructors for flying out of formation, but the head instructor which also once a fighter jock and squadron leader himself recognized my talent and on a few occasions let me have a bit of fun, of course within the safety margin!

I am lucky to complete my training and peacetime service as with a reasonable flying hour just in time when the resurgent Islamic State of Indonesia and far-left National Democratic Front of Indonesia launched two separate insurrections, almost two years after being commissioned directly by the President, in 2033, sparking the Civil War. My first squadron, in which she also served, the 14th Squadron, flying IF-21s, wasn't spared from the ensuing purge with two pilots and three technicians, along with three clerical personnel were removed (and shot) after their involvement with the terrorists were exposed. Thankfully no planes and ordnances got sabotaged by those miscreants.

My baptism of fire was a ground mission, an airstrike against a large convoy near the Riau-West Sumatera border that was partially occupied by Islamic State of Indonesia (NII) fighters using GPS-guided bombs.

The second, and most notable mission in my own career, is my first air-to-air kill and the first one in the entire IDAF since Ignatius Dewanto in the fifties.

"Parrot 3 you are cleared hot, shoot down the suspect" Two KAI/IAE IF-21s, with me as the wingman, forward deployed in Joint Base Natuna in Riau Island Province were intercepting two Lockheed L-100 cargo plane from Iran suspected of smuggling arms to the NII near the coast of rebel-occupied Aceh. Evy was assigned in another element patrolling another sector in the same area also looking for smugglers.

"3-2, take the first shot" My leader ordered.

I put my jet behind the first Hercules, focused its sight on its engines, and pressed the trigger. 25mm Equalizers hammered the left wing Number 2 engine which than burst to flames, the resulting shrapnel damaged it's Number 1 engine and part of the fuselage. It also destroyed the control surface. Soon I saw the freighter tumbled down, clearly doomed. No survivors.

"Target destroyed" I called on the mike, no regrets, Instead, it's a satisfaction after the kill. For sake of the Motherland!

The second Hercules, frightened of a prospect of being shot down, decided to signal its compliance to our instruction and followed us for a landing in Kuala Namu International Airport, Medan.

To make it short; the civil war was over in early 2035 when the NII's leader, Abdul Rosyid Ba'asyir, was killed in an American kinetic rod strike in his bunker over Barisan Mountain Range, Aceh as part of a scheme that many people called as a "Deal with the Devil" with America's history of warfare.

Fast forward to current time. The year is 2040 and Indonesia had fully recovered. In 2036, as part of the new constitution in 2025, our country completed it's switch to a Parliamentary Federal system akin to the short-lived Republic of United States of Indonesia in 1950. But that name was not reused, instead we use the offical name of often called simply as Negara Perserikatan (Union State) in daily discourses.

The first Prime Minister of the new Federal era was an Ambonese academic named Barnabas Latuperissa, the first Ambonese and Eastern Indonesians to take office as the Head of Government. Meanwhile the largely ceremonial head of state, President Ahmad Handono was chosen by an indirect, electoral college in the People's Consultative Assembly akin to the old pre-Reformasi system.

The resulting peace allowed a relatively quick recovery, economically, socially, culturally, and demographically, with the new "baby boomer" and increasing return of diasporas to the Motherland, along with former foreign fighters from Europe and Asia that decided by their own volition to settle in Indonesia and integrated themselves into our society as naturalized Indonesian citizens.

A little change of gene pool (which means improved IQ) of this nation might be a good remedy.

We progressed into prosperity while the world geopolitical makeup undergoes radical change with the new round of economic and demographic renaissance in Europe, Korea, Japan, and North America, particularly in light of the conclusion of wars against Islamist gangs in Europe, a.k.a European Civil War on 17 June 2035 after one of its last leader, hiding in Sweden, has been killed and the country was the last to be liberated by NATO supported by non-aligned Finland, Russian Federation, and a Japanese-Korean expeditionary force.

Generally, a good times will follow the hard one. And it seems it will last for one hundred years. Especially worth celebrating was a successful universal nuclear disarmament - including those owned by the Israelis - after two nuclear explosions during the Middle East World War.

A breakthrough of nanotechnology resulted in the invention of special nano-machines, simply called "fallout cleaners" capable for removing nuclear fallout both from nuclear weapons or in peacetime, cleanup of decommissioned nuclear reactors was the key for the initiative. Such machine was invented separately in Japan, United States, and Russia. Those countries soon released the technology worldwide, sounding the death knell of era of strategic nuclear weapons. Furthermore, since the European Civil War began, a new Detente helped defuse perennial tensions between United States/NATO, Russia, and China.

However the peace itself was shaky at best as immediately after the war, with the United States had essentially abandoned the Middle East, the Five Pillar organization re-grouped and executed a sweeping take over of the entire Middle East in a swift coup d'etat and other trickery.

The recently restored Iranian monarchy and government together were forced to an exile in Singapore while the remnants of its armed forces were regrouped in Russia or as far as Finland. Pakistan, Turkey, Somalia, Mauritania, and Mali also joined the newly created super state, named simply as "Daulah al-Islam" internationally called as the United Caliphate Confederation or shortened as United Caliphate, and designated Riyadh which used to be the capital of Saudi Arabia, as their capital.

The end of nuclear warfare in general gives way for a militarization of space with non-nuclear space-based weapons such as orbital lasers and kinetic bombardment satellites with mass-destructive capability deployed by major powers as the new deterrent. But, the countries with this capability, including us, had developed a much more stringent procedure and safeguards for such weapon to be used compared to nukes, allowing a large scale, attrition, conventional war akin to World War II to become once more a reality.

The opening salvo of the war is an attempted invasion of Israel, in January 7th, 2039. Paraphrasing their own rationale; there will be no peace in the Middle East as long as the country exist and it's destruction will entail the weakening of "western imperialism" and at the same time, secularism as well as nationalism. The Jewish state was holding by the thread but then pulled off another "miracle of 1973", this time with US and NATO space bombardments in assistance.

As the result of their failure to knock out Israel, their military went northward and incur the wrath of the Russians and it's fellow Shanghai Cooperation Organization members especially China by subjugating four CIS states; Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan along with invasion of Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, and Balkan States via Turkey which dragged the rebuilt NATO into the war.

Along with reduction of it's presence in the Middle East, the Americans had also reduced its scope in the Pacific after the reunification of Korea by totally withdrawing forces from Korea and later Japan. Alongside of renewed focus on European reconstruction and military presence, the Americans continued their effort to rejuvenate their internal economy and divided society alongside its military capacities including the completion of their sixth generation fighter programs and new aircraft carriers such as Ford-class USS Saratoga (CVN-84) and USS Yorktown (CVN-83).

The reduction of US presence and a concern of the ensuing vacuum of power, causes Korea, Japan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam, which got rid of their communist government in 2030 peacefully and embraced democracy, PNG, Nepal, Australia and New Zealand, to form a military alliance and cooperation named Pan-Pacific Defence Unionin 2037, an evolution of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, often called Quad Alliance. The alliance was later broadened include the United States and Taiwan. Soon three other NATO countries with interest in the Indo-Pacific region announced their back-seat support to the PPDU as special partners; Canada, France, and the United Kingdom.

I remember the main point of the Prime Ministerial speech concerning the matter upon we officially signed the Treaty of Manila, the accession treaty of PPDU.

Supporting peaceful co-existence doesn't mean to never take side in conflicts. And we should be ready for such occurrence."

This is the brand new evolution of the Global War of Terrorism, and such term were soon superseded with a new one, World War III, or the Middle East War in Indonesia.

Older generations had imagined the said war are going to and is involving the established, while fading, maritime-minded/thallasocratic, western and western-aligned power led by the USA and NATO in one side, and the rising Eurasian land power/tellurocracy fronted by China and Russia as allies in the other, and ultimately resulted in Armageddon, the end of the world as we know it, while one of it's phases had already happened with extensive information warfare from all sides.

However, all of their imaginations went bust thanks to the global nuclear disarmament, but the main reason is the Caliphate.

In this war with uneasy cooperation between the "good guys", one thing is certain. Caliphate supporters are everywhere and the home front will also need a strong force to protect itself as well as supporting the front line forces in South Asia, Central Asia, South and South-East Europe, North Africa, and finally the origin of this global conflict, Middle East.

Maybe, history indeed repeat itself.