re: #104 The Nightmare of the five Orders of Beggars

A soldier is a soldier.

…and a solider is usually a poor young bastard with little connection to the larger “cause” that moves governments to war.

Kamikaze were mentioned above—when I actually started reading about the propaganda and political education the Japanese implemented in the Meiji (and intensified after the military coup during the Showa Era), it really was painful to understand how those inhuman Japanese troops were moulded.

Tragic and frustrating—also sickly amazing how fast you can bend a culture into a new shape. The things we know to be “true” about Japan—bushido, the divine Emperor, etc—were modern imaginings…vaguely evoking “tradition” but actually invented whole-cloth in their specifics…that were just drilled into the nation’s youth.