The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang,
1997, Excerpts
To establish this sublimation of individuality to the common
good, superior officers or older soldiers slapped recruits for almost no reason
at all or beat them severely with heavy wooden rods. Officers often justified
unauthorized punishment by saying, “I do not beat you because I hate you. I
beat you because I care for you.”
Vicious hazing and a relentless pecking order usually
squelched any residual spirit of individualism in him. Obedience was touted as
a supreme virtue, and a sense of individual self-worth was replaced by a sense
of value as a small cog in the larger scheme of things. Some youths died under
such brutal physical conditions; others committed suicide; the majority became
tempered vessels into which the military could pour a new set of life goals.
The Japanese soldier was not simply hardened for battle in
China; he was hardened for the task of murdering Chinese combatants and
noncombatants alike. Indeed, various games and exercise were set up by the
Japanese military to numb its men to the human instinct against killing people
who are not attacking.
New officers required desensitization and underwent
intensive training to stiffen their endurance for war. Instructors taught them
how to cut off heads and bayonet living prisoners. They learned to kill and
grew more adept at it. Atrocities became routine, almost banal. One soldier
wrote, “We made them like this. Good sons, good daddies, good elder brothers at
home were brought to the front to kill each other. Human beings turned into
murdering demons. Everyone became a demon within three months.”
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