Japan: A Dose of Boot Camp

Kiotsuke! The Japanese drill sergeant called his platoon to attention so earnestly that his voice broke and the whole outfit burst into laughter. There was nothing for the sergeant to do but grin and bear it. For this was no ordinary bunch of boots, supposed to tremble at a drill instructor's every whim. The 70 young men in ill-fitting fatigues who stumbled through close-order drill at an army camp near Tokyo were all employees of the Tokyo Mutual Life Insurance Co. Their Taiken Nyu-tai (draft experience) was scheduled to last exactly three days.

Such short doses of military life, offered...