The Japanese Home Front

The air was thick and damp. It grasps my skin like a second layer of clothing. We march through relentless jungle territory, smacking away clouds of mosquitos as we go on. We lost some of our officers and some went missing through the night. The next morning the heat was too much to bear. Most of us are suffering from exhaustion, dysentery and dying of hunger, but we kept moving. We only had a little bit of food left, which was mainly rice and sometimes dry fish. Water was found from a nearby river or lake, which was dirty and had insects. I have seen many of our men and other men from a different nation collapse and never come back up. The jungle was alive, but it felt like a battlefield and not friendly here. Snakes, birds, leeches, and insects are unshaken allies, but we haven't seen any predators which I was happy about. Many of our soldiers had fallen but not from a bullet but from two diseases, malaria and dengue fever. There was no doctor here but only medics with limited supplies. We slept in dugouts, barracks, and sometimes in damp foxholes filled with insects. Rain poured every night, soaking our gear and overflowing our dugout. My Arisaka rifle was jammed but I managed to unjam it since I used to fixed and in the morning some soldiers were missing or found their heads were off there body. Yesterday, we engaged near the British force near the river bend. We launched a surprise attack when the sun came down. "BANZAIL" we roared, running towards their positions and his ups. Some of our men stood back using machine guns to shoot them down from a distance and from there position. The British fried back, but they were caught off guard and quickly attacked. I stood my Wharncliffe in stab a man and quickly grabbed my weapon to shoot back. We lost eight men that day. We carried their bodies in hiding them so we could come back from them and bury them where they belong. My friend Kenji, who grew up together, whispered to me after we hid the bodies "Do you think we will survive this war or come to peace". I looked at him, but couldn't answer his question as the silence said enough. I looked around as we walked in silence after we lost against Britain but luckily, we escaped there and now we're on high alert because now we just made a new enemy. Back at home I though to myself what happen if the war didn't happen? Will we ever make peace in this world we live in?