“A dehumanized enemy is easy to kill, and Japanese soldiers were instructed that they were not dealing with humans at all but kichiku, or “devils.” The idea of treating the Chinese as beasts was not informal scuttlebutt but a command from officers whose directives had to be considered orders of the emperor” (pg 56).

Both sides played this word game because both sides would not have been able to fight, otherwise. The war and all that was needed demanded that they switch off their brains, their humanity, and simply destroy things that were not human.

“You see explosions all around you . . . these dark, threatening puffs of black smoke. You’re tense in your body, but you can’t do anything about it. You cannot take evasive action, so you get used to it. You think to yourself, ‘This is my duty and I have to do it’” (pg 194).

Kill or be killed. The same moral code all animals live by.

Yet, to see the war on film was to advertise an entirely different story.

Grade: B+

A difficult read, but an extremely important one as well. If ever you considered America to be above the rest decent in war, read again. We are terrible, just like the rest. And we’re better at it, which is why we’ve won so many times.

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