Diary+Entry+-+Dec.+21st+1938

Weather: chilly, rainy.

Dear Diary, I didn't have time to write an entry until now because I was busy. After graduation, I was busy trying-out for college sport teams, then I realized that colleges don't want me. I guess I am not good enough to be a professional athlete. Nevertheless, there was one college that tried to take me, but the college was at Missouri and I didn't want to go all the way there to play sports. After all, it was after I decided my mind not to be an athlete when they contacted me. My father was rather happy, because he was always against me becoming a mere ballplayer; he wanted me to have a more stable job.

So then I turned to my other option, finding a factory job. My plan was to get into any position in any factory and make my way up. So I tried almost every factories near my house, and I realized that thousands of other high school grads were applying for the same job. I even met Alex Morrison -a super nerd who would always get A's- at a factory office. He said he couldn't go to college because of financial issue and that he needs to earn money for his family by all means. Then I thought to myself, "wow, it would be almost impossible to get a job here." After getting rejected 12 times, I was frustrated and I when I thought I hit the bottom, a sudden flash of memory came to my mind; "there is strong, and there is army strong!" I quickly called Jay. His mom picked up. "Hello, Ms. Brown. This is Jay's friend Dennis! May I talk to Jay, please?" she replied, "oh hi Dennis, Jay is now gone for the army. I thought you would be with him by now?"

Next day, I packed my stuff, and I left my big old house, weeping mom, and my dog behind. I told my mom to say goodbye to my father and brother. I took the train to the recruit camp, and signed in. Then I realized that there were many people. I started to doubt that all of us would be needed. Few days later, I was sent to the training camp in Arizona. When we started the training, I felt confident because I was sure I could do better job than others. An officer who was in charge of my group shouted, "recently, we have been reported that the United States of America needs a strong army in Pacific to stop those Japanese guys from taking over the sea. They are getting way too strong, and all the nations are warned by this. So right there, a background information of where you guys would be getting trained for!" Pacific? Asia? It didn't sound so exciting. Well, after all, they are Asians; they maybe good sword fighters or archers, but probably won't even know how to shoot a gun haha! Then I felt, well! This military duty is going to be over real soon, and I will be sent home soon!

Then I was redistributed to an airborne division. I don't know why I was, but I guess my physical ability gave them a strong impression. There, I got to meet a cool person, called Jimmy. He is a pilot of a scouter, but he says he will soon get a fighter for himself. He told me about what is happening in the Pacific. The Japanese are now invading small islands in the Pacific, and Japan slowly expanding. I said, "well, after all, they are behind us in terms of technology and war strategy aren't they?" but Jimmy said no. He said that the Japanese are way more sophisticated than we think. They already possess great aircraft carriers and planes. He told me the Zeros, a type of fighter plane the Japanese use, are currently faster and more mobile than the American counterpart. He also talked about the morale and sprits of Japanese soldiers. They are very nationalistic, and they would fight to death or occasionally commit suicide for their country. As he said, the Japanese beat Russians, Chinese, and became a threat to the U.S and the European powers. One example he gave as the Rape of Nanking. The Japanese military killed tens of thousands of civilians by shooting and stabbing them. Mothers and babies were shot and killed, and girls were raped and kidnapped to be comfort women. After hearing this, a sense of enragement as well as fear filled my heart. I was enraged by how cruel they can be. Why would they do such an immoral thing? Why would they kill babies? After all, there were not much reaction, from what I heard, then why did they have to treat them so harshly? Then I was intimidated by the fact that these Japanese people are ruthless. The soldiers would not give up, and they would not feel sorry or remorseful after raping and killing bunch of people.