The Japanese Soldier

There I was in my Warthog combat vehicle, driving toward the rendezvous point. My best friend, Jim, was behind the wheel. He looked back and gave me the “be alert” look. Then I heard a BOOM! After that I couldn’t hear a thing.

When my senses finally came back, I heard my best friend say in a struggling voice, “John, come over here.”

I made my way out of the vehicle, which had flipped over from the explosion. I could see a motionless Japanese soldier lying a few feet from our wreckage. When I got out, I called, “Jim, where are you?”

His reply came from the edge of the road we had been driving on, which turned out to be a steep cliff. As I came to the edge, I could see Jim was hanging on to a rock. I hurried over and now I could see what had happened. A Japanese plane had bombed us and left its soldier to die. I looked over the ledge and grabbed my best friend’s hand and pulled him up.

Then I heard a faint “Help.”

Where did that come from? I pulled out my knife and noticed that the Japanese soldier was alive and bleeding from a large leg wound. The next thing I did was insane. I grabbed his hand, dragged him to a bush, patched up the large gash in his leg, and left him there to rest.

 Jim looked at me and said, “What are you doing?”

I looked at him and said, “I am being human.”

We didn’t talk as we made our way down the road toward our rendezvous point. However, I learned an important lesson. Even though we were fighting on different sides, inside we are all just the same.