Chapter 36 35. Soldiers - physical weapons

(Before Kazuo Sone became a soldier, there was only one understanding of his own country's army, that is, the Japanese army was commanded by His Majesty the Emperor himself, and it was an unparalleled imperial army in the world. But why did they carry out brutal and violent punishment? Later He just understood.) The origin of this is that when the army was established in the early Meiji period, many of the officers were samurai, and they used violence to train the peasant soldiers and civilian soldiers who were drafted into the army.It is said that this has become a custom since then, and it continued until the Showa period like a message.This may not be all the reasons for violence, but it is listed here as one of the reasons.

I don't know about the previous Meiji and Taisho periods, but when I was a soldier, using violence was considered a means of cultivating brave soldiers.Those of us who are soldiers don't think that we become brave soldiers through violence, but the senior leaders seem to think that soldiers need to be beaten to become strong.Describing barbarism as a rough character, and taking a rough character as a martial spirit is the basis for educating soldiers.The use of violence to train soldiers seems to stem from this. There is a good example to illustrate this point.For a while after I was discharged from the army, I was entrusted by the county governor to teach at a youth school.The results of the school's military education are inspected by the officers of the Wing Command once a year.Once, the Major, who was an inspecting officer, commented on the results of the military training of the students and said: "The military training in the youth school has improved on the surface, but the inner spirit is not good enough. The military training you conduct is nothing more than imitating the army, it is simply an army game. If you want to master technology and military spirit at the same time, you must do the same thing as the army.” What the major wanted to say was that it would be impossible not to conduct thorough and rigorous training like the army.

Later, the Major and I had a conversation. Regarding military education, he said the following: "The purpose of military education in schools for young people is to acquire preparatory knowledge for the army, so it is impossible to require them to have military spirit. In school education, as long as performance Progress is enough, but military education must cultivate ordinary people into the soldiers expected by the army. For this, violent means are needed.” What follows is based on the words of the major, which I have processed and polished.The so-called soldiers expected by the army generally have three conditions.First, because the original task of the army is to fight, it must master better combat skills than the armies of belligerent countries.Second, cultivate the belief that no matter what hardships you face, you must overcome them and win.Third, be a soldier who absolutely obeys the orders of the commander.The above three points are the absolute conditions for soldiers expected by the army.The first and second points are learned through military training and exercises, and the third point is mainly to be kept in mind during the internal affairs education.

Next I want to talk about obedience, because violence is used most during the formation of the habit of obedience. The obedience required by the army may be better described as "blind obedience" rather than "obedience".Soldiers at the bottom of the army strictly follow the orders of their officers. When they are ordered to "turn right", they turn to the right, when they hear the command "forward", they move forward, and when they hear "stop", they stop.Just do it.Those who blindly follow the orders of their superiors and concentrate on doing what they tell them are considered good soldiers.

"For what purpose are you going forward?" "Why must you stop?" Those who want to know these reasons are not the good soldiers expected by the army. Let me say something later, when the war started, the lower-level officers and soldiers who went to the battlefield participated in the battle without knowing why the war was going on.The reason why they are able to act like robots faithfully following the orders of their superiors, "Go! Go! Fight!", and endure five or six years on the battlefield without seeing when the war will end, is because they were Trained soldiers who became the blind obedience required by the army.

Back to the original topic below.The purpose of requiring those who have passed Class A in the conscription inspection to serve as active soldiers for a certain period of time is to train soldiers that the army expects. People who are called soldiers are recruited from all citizens through conscription checks, so they engage in various occupations in the local area before enlisting in the army.National and local civil servants, ordinary wage earners, farmers and fishermen, businessmen, performers, day laborers, etc., have various occupations. According to the differences in local occupations and growth environments, the gap between rich and poor is very large, and the difference in education level is also huge, ranging from those who have studied at the highest institutions of higher learning to those who have not completed compulsory education.Not only that, each person is different, but their personalities are also different.Among them are extreme rebels, ideologically left-leaning people, and people with extremely eccentric personalities who are not suitable for the army.

Just like this, the army has concentrated the educated, the uneducated, the healthy or twisted, the meek and the unmeek, and so on.It is the job of the army to train all these people into soldiers required by the army. To achieve this, first of all, in the first stage, all the junior soldiers who enlisted in the army should be reduced to the lowest level, so that everyone is uniform.To this end, everyone must be deprived of the education, personality, etc. that they have acquired in society.On the contrary, for those who are not up to a certain level and have no motivation, the method of elevating them is adopted.Violence is most effective for this purpose.

As soon as the first-year soldiers enlist in the army, they are assigned to various internal affairs squads, and the internal affairs squad leaders carry out daily activities with the second-year soldiers.This internal affairs squad is a workshop for junior soldiers to reach a certain level in a uniform manner.The internal squad leader and the second-year soldiers stared wide-eyed at the daily attitude of the junior soldiers and supervised them.To those who put on airs with pride in their academic qualifications, they say: "Soldiers don't need too much knowledge. You bastard, what a madman!" Then they use violence to suppress them.When you see a rebel, strike him down with violence.For those who lag behind, they are driven up with violence.This kind of violence is the violent punishment and lynching carried out by the second-year soldiers mentioned above.Officers used it as a private punishment among soldiers, ostensibly forbidden, but secretly used.They believed it was necessary as a means of developing the soldiers the army demanded.

After joining the army, no matter who is in the first year, he will be punished violently as a junior soldier, and in the second year, he will be violently punished for the next batch of junior soldiers.This is done among soldiers as an annual practice.It may seem like pure revenge, but it is of great significance in cultivating soldiers that the army expects.Although this is cruel, after entering the army organization, there is only obedience.No matter how annoyed and dissatisfied the soldiers of the lower ranks were, they could not resist.If you defy the chief and superiors, you will sometimes be convicted of disobedience and punished.That would be a big accident.When soldiers enlisted in the army, they were greeted by many people, and they said in front of everyone that they "diligently devote themselves to military affairs and do excellent work."Now that he has said such things, he must be discharged from the military without incident.For this reason, you can only become a confused soldier.Therefore, most people think that this is a helpless matter during active service and consider how to behave in the world. No matter how wronged they encounter, they think it is best to swallow their anger and not show their edge.Once this idea is formed, the soldier acts like a mindless robot, under the control of the commander.On this basis, if you learn combat skills and have the spirit of a soldier, you will grow into a soldier expected by the army.

The barracks where soldiers are trained are physical weapon factories that transform ordinary people into weapons of war.It takes two years to manufacture, and the average finished product is designated as the first-class product (private first class), and the finished product that is better than the average is designated as the first-class product (private class). Here I want to talk about the ranks of soldiers. When I was a soldier, soldiers were divided into three ranks: private, private, and private.In the course of the China Incident, the rank of corporal commander was established, which was above the first class soldier, so we will omit it here.When we joined the army, we were all designated as private soldiers.Afterwards, those with good grades were selected sequentially and promoted to first-class soldiers. Most of them became first-class soldiers within a year.Among them, those with particularly outstanding grades were promoted to first class soldiers.Because corporals are the highest rank for soldiers, only a few percent of soldiers can become corporals.Not only must the grades be excellent, but also the integrity must be firm, and his daily attitude is also a model for the soldiers.So it was an honor to be a corporal at the time.Because no matter which soldier wants to rise to the rank of corporal, it is a bait for the leadership to tame the soldiers.As a soldier, the reason why he was able to endure humiliation during his junior year was also because he had the desire to be selected as a senior soldier.Most soldiers can bear the pain of their early years in the military, but some of them can't bear it and desert and commit suicide.A junior soldier who enlisted with me and was assigned to the same squadron, because he could not bear the pain of violent punishment, deserted, then knew that he could not escape, and finally committed suicide.Let's call him A here.

A was one of the few intellectuals who had attended university at that time.He is not only smart, but also has a serious attitude, so he is considered the top among the junior soldiers.The officer also has a good impression of him, so if he continues like this, he can become a cadre candidate and be appointed as a reserve second lieutenant.Although it can't be said to be a shortcoming, because he is an intellectual, his manner of speaking is a bit different from that of ordinary soldiers.Generally speaking, this is fine in society, but in the army, it is hated by uneducated second-year soldiers.Just because of this, A is hated by some second-year soldiers. No matter what he does, he will be called "arrogant", and the slaps he receives are several times that of ordinary first-year soldiers.If it was a person who grew up like a weed, he could bear it, but because A grew up in a better environment, he was a bit cowardly, so he couldn't bear it and decided to desert.Even for an intellectual like A, the idea is too naive.Although he managed to escape from the barracks after the lights were turned off, there were gendarmerie and police nets everywhere he was going, and there was nowhere to escape.After finally escaping from the net, he came to the village of his hometown, but there was a tighter net waiting for him.So A understood that even if he escaped, there would be no place for him to live in Japan, so he hanged himself in the hut where the fisherman lived by the sea, escaping by death.After being discovered, his body was transported back to the military camp, and it was not handed over to his family until it was turned into bones.At that time, I saw the figure of his father who came to receive the remains, and I knew the ruthlessness of the army. Even if A turned into bones, the crime of desertion and suicide has not disappeared.The sight of his father walking away with his shoulders slumped as if he was carrying the crime, made people feel particularly miserable...