BeachRed16

Chapter 10

As it is written, there is none righteous, not one.

(Here is a young Jap who had his sennimbari on —

sash of a thousand stitches — guaranteed to give its wearer

luck, courage, long life and complete immunity from American bullets.

Japanese Patriotic Women's Association members stand

mmmon busy street corners

and ask everyone who passes to make a single stitch

so that a thousand persons help to make one belt.)

They are all gone out of the way. (In the

beginning, everything was as nothing. And then in the Plain

of High Heaven there were gods who lived in quietness

for long years. One day there came a male god

called Izanagi, and he dipped his spear into the deeps,

and when he withdrew it the great drops that fell

from his jeweled weapon formed the sacred Islands of Japan.)

They are together become unprofitable. (Then were his eyes cast

upon Izanimi, a female goddess, who greeted him with favor,

and in the August Presence they became man and wife.

However, their children were not good, and by celestial divination

it was found that there had been a grave error

in the wedding ceremony; the male, and not the female,

should have been the first to speak to the other.

So the marriage was repeated, with Izanagi opening the conversation,

thus assuring the superiority of the male for all time.)

There is none that doeth good. (Among their numerous progeny,

born when Izanagi washed his honorable nose, was one Susano-O,

who was called the God of Swift Impetuous Male Augustness.

He was rough and uncontrollable, of violent and irrepressible spirits,

and it is from him that the manhood of Japan

is said to have derived its individual and racial character.)

Their throat is an open sepulchre. (This chunk of youth

whose erupted mouth slops its spittle into the torn sand,

was he not taught in early boyhood that his life

had only one purpose above all others: to identify itself

with the personality and the behavior of his native land

and thus to live forever with an eternal Japanese soul?)

With their tongues they have used deceit. (They gave him

a military uniform at twelve, and he learned to recite,

"If I fight at sea my body will be embalmed

by the salt waves. If I fight in the hills

my body will be changed into moss. But only one

thing matters — to die a hero's death for the Emperor.")

The poison of asps is under their lips whose mouth

is full of cursing. (Later on, at his training center,

he was issue a rifle — a "Meiji 38th Year" model —

with the whole company drawn up on the parade grounds

and the commanding officer addressing it on the honor bestowed.

As his name was called, he came forward, bowed low,

accepted the gun and raised it ritualistically to his forehead.

Then he stepped back, presented arms, and resumed his place.)

And the ways of peace have they not known. (From

then on he lived in accordance with a strict code

covering many pages of very involved logic in fine print.

This reminded him that duty was heavier than a mountain

while death was lighter than a feather, and that loyalty

and devotion were standard equipment wherever

mmmhe might find himself.

It urged him to be severe in observing due propriety,

demanding that he make simplicity his aim, avoiding frivolous luxuries,

and informed him that the orders of a superior officer

were to be construed as emanating from the Emperor himself.)

And before he left home he conducted his own funeral.

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