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Show Future Japanese Soldiers Early Learn to Hope "to Die for Beloved Emperor" You cannot assess the Japanese army numerically. Japanese officers have often protested pro-tested to me with a smile that the Japanese soldier is not a whit superior su-perior mentally, morally or physically physi-cally to the soldier of the West Yet they insist that he is, in fact, "a better soldier," because, unlike other oth-er soldiers, he courts death as his greatest honor, writes Willard Price in the London Spectator. The training of men who will go to their doom with the unswerving directness of robots is a weird and unworldly process. It begins 2,000 years before the soldier is born. Bushido has taught the Japanese race to think well of itself, and the Japanese individual to regard himself as nothing but the dirt to be ground under the chariot wheels of the progress of his race. The One must give himself him-self for the All. What better racial tradition could there be for the making of die-easy soldiers? Active military training begins at the age of six. Eoys in the first year of primary school are taught to march, drill, do the goose-step, sing war songs and marshal platoons pla-toons of wooden soldiers. "Morals" is a required subject in every primary and middle school. From six to seventeen the future soldier is drilled, not in morals as we would understand the subject, but in "Morals" with an imperial M loyalty to the immediate fami- ; ly, the larger family which is called i the nation, and the emperor who is the father of all. This goes on until many students when asked "What is your dearest wish?" will sincerely enough set I down this answer: "To die for my beloved emperor." i i |
