Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #18 September 2015 | Page 12

Captain
Takashi’s
Big Day
By Jeffrey
Durkin
Captain Jiro Takashi of the Japanese Self
Defense Force, was a career soldier in a country that,
officially, didn’t have a military. He felt comfortable
only in uniform, loved the company of his men and
experienced an almost unseemly thrill when he would
take his position as commander of his Type 61 main
battle tank.
His father had served in the Imperial Army
during the war. He had fought the Americans across
the Pacific and ended the war in a prison camp in the
Philippines. When his father had left home to serve
the Emperor, Jiro was eleven and he remembered his
father as a strong, quiet man. After