A war is not over even after the fighting ends and a declaration is made about the cessation of hostilities. 

The physical and psychological scars caused by fierce devastation and violence continue to distress people and society over the generations.

The heartbreak is plainly evident in the reports by family members after the war about returning soldiers who were ridiculed by society and not considered normal or beat other family members.

An exhibition began in July at the Shokei-Kan in Tokyo about the psychological scars that Imperial Japanese Army soldiers carried from the wars with China and the United States.

The facility is also known as the "Historical Materials Hall for the Wounded and Sick Retired Soldiers.”

For a long time, the Imperial Japanese military covered up the existence of soldiers with psychological disorders. In the postwar period, there remained a deep sense of shame about such problems, which only made it more difficult to uncover any damage.

But in recent years, children and grandchildren have begun talking about the abnormal words and deeds of their fathers and grandfathers who fought in the war. After returning to Japan, those veterans physically abused family members or became lethargic.

In fiscal 2024, the government finally began the first study based on medical records.

Over the final four years of the war, the Imperial Japanese Army had 7.85 million injured soldiers, of whom 8 percent, or about 670,000, were found to have some form of psychiatric disorder.

STUDY NEEDED ON EXTENT OF PSYCHOLOGICAL SCARS

Some experts believe that number is only the tip of the iceberg because the study was limited to those soldiers whom the government certified as being wounded during fighting.

There were many more soldiers who were never examined by specialists.

For Yasuko Kurokawa, 74, her father was the epitome of a heartless and ruthless individual.

He was enlisted by the military in the former Manchuria in northeastern China. Kurokawa’s mother fled to Japan, but two small children died along the way.

When her father returned to civilian life, he would repeatedly castigate his wife for allowing the children to die. Yasuko was born after the war, but her father never showed any signs of kindness toward her.

She became convinced that the war changed her father because her mother told her that he loved children in the past.

In the United States, returning veterans from the Vietnam War exhibited similar psychological problems, which developed into social issues such as homelessness and drug abuse.

The progress in research about trauma triggered by war led to the diagnostic term of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

In Japan, an association of families who had veterans with psychological disorders was formed seven years ago and families have begun providing testimony about their experiences in various parts of Japan.

Testimony was provided of what could be termed a chain of trauma with family members being physically abused by their father who as a child was abused by his father, who was a veteran.

Those families want a more wide-ranging investigation to determine the cause of such disorders by, for example, questioning family members.

Some wartime medical records show signs of the fear felt during fighting, violence within the military unit as well as acts of aggression, including murder, directed at local civilians.

Government officials said it would be difficult to grasp if various symptoms are directly linked to the war given that 80 years have passed since it ended.

But the pain that continued after the war and the difficulties faced by family members are nothing but the reality of war.

There is major significance in striving to find out what actually occurred by interviewing family members or providing research support.

UNCOVERING THE PAIN OF THE VICTIMS

The scars from the invasions and aggression also do not simply fade away with the passage of time.

Tomoyo Nakao, an associate professor of cultural anthropology at Okayama University, has for many years interviewed Allied veterans from Britain, the United States and the Netherlands who were Japanese POWs.

But this summer an association of British POWs and their families that organized a war memorial service did not allow Nakao to participate.

She was told that the presence of a Japanese would bring back bitter memories.

The Tokyo war crimes tribunal brought to light the cruel treatment by the Imperial Japanese military of POWs and civilian detainees who were forced into labor, tortured and executed.

Many former POWs suffered from PTSD after the war and took out their pain on their families.

Some ex-POWs vowed never to use any Japanese products. But there were others who held much more conflicted emotions because they could not simply direct hatred toward Japan, which had subjected them to duress to their breaking points.

Many have since died and campaigns demanding an apology or compensation from Japan have weakened.

But there is the possibility that a purer form of a preconceived notion of a “cruel Japan” has been passed down to the postwar generations.

Examining the situation in Asia, Eugen Koh, a psychiatrist working in Australia, is knowledgeable about war trauma.

Growing up in Malaysia during the 1960s, he often heard about the cruel atrocities inflicted by the Imperial Japanese military from family members.

But since the 1970s and beyond he has found that such experiences are no longer spoken about as loudly.

He believes that is due to the consideration for the economic power that Japan has become.

But he added that does not mean the trauma has sunk to the depths of Asian society and disappeared.

Koh holds expectations for the greater interest in Japan about war trauma because he believes that knowing one’s own pain will help understand the pain of others.

BREAKING THE NEGATIVE CHAIN 

Even at this instant, there are people being hurt physically and psychologically by war.

Sakiko Motokawa, a nurse with Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), a nongovernmental organization that provides medical care in conflict zones, has worked in Gaza on two occasions since 2024.

A boy who saw his father killed by a bombing attack right in front of his eyes and who himself had his leg amputated stopped talking.

Motokawa said local residents lost all expression on their faces as a cease-fire slipped away.

The aggressors also experience pain.

One study found that 12 percent of Israeli reserve soldiers who took part in the fighting in Gaza suffered from PTSD.

There have also been reports of soldiers taking their own lives.

A humanitarian crisis has deepened in Yemen due to a civil war that has lasted for 10 years.

One in three children cannot attend school.

Mioh Nemoto of the UNICEF Yemen office said school is a place not only for learning but also to foster social skills and acquire the skills to earn a living.

“If children cannot attend for a long period, I am worried that in the future the chain of poverty will accelerate,” he said.

War also robs the futures of those who survived it.

That is why there is a need to assess past wars and immediately end current fighting.

It goes without saying that no new war should ever be started.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Aug. 18