Ito-san was only 19 years old, and most of the senior class was only a year or two younger than he. The war had deeply affected all of them. The children of Japan were well acquainted with suffering and pain as families were wrenched apart - literally at the seams, and expected to hold themselves together by the honor that their sacrifices represented. They hardened, out of neces- sity, in order to survive and make it through the next day, the next week; and so they knew much about the war. Since so many of the men had gone to war, women and children ran the country. 10 and 11 year old students from the schools worked as phone opera- tors. It was an honorable cause, and everyone contributed; it was only fitting. Their fathers and loved ones were fighting self- lessly and winning the war. Many of the children's fathers had gone to war, valiantly, and many had not come home. Many came home in pieces, many others, unrecognizable. And when some fathers had gone off to war, both they and their families knew that would never return. They were making the Supreme Sacrifice for their country, and more impor- tantly, a contribution to their honorable way of life. The sons and daughters of kamikazes were treated with near rever- ence. It was widely believed that their father's honor was handed down to their offspring as soon as word had been received the mission had been successful. Albeit a suicide mission. Taki Homosoto was one 17 year old boy so revered for his father's sacrifice. Taki spoke confidently about such matters, about the war, about American atrocities, and how Japan would soon defeat the round faced enemy. Taki had understood, on his 17th birthday that his father would leave . . .and assuredly die as was the goal of the kamikaze. He pretended to understand that it made sense to him. In the last 6 months since his father had left, Taki assumed, at his father's request, the patriarchal role in the immediate family. The personal anguish had been excruciating. While friends and family and officials praised Taki's father and fami- ly, inside Taki did not accept that a man could willingly leave his family, his children, him . . .Taki, never to return. Didn't his father love him? Or his sister and brother? Or his mother? Taki's mother got a good job at one of the defense plants that permeated Hiroshima, while Taki and his brother and sister con- tinued their schooling. But the praise, the respect didn't make up for not having a father to talk to, to play with and to study with. He loved his mother, but she wasn't a father.