Hal is a Japanese volunteer soldier with a unique background as a former gang member. The interview took place in the southern part of Zaporizhzhia.
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My father was a gang leader and was in and out of jail. Because of that, I was bullied or discriminated against by the people around me. I was lonely, too, so I started playing with other kids in the same situation, and I followed the flow and became a member of the gang.
Haru’s desire to surpass his father led him to the same path. However, after joining the gang, he had a difficult time.
If you join a good gang, you can get a good position, but I was unlucky and worked as a bodyguard for the gang leader,” he said. I had to deal with some life-threatening situations, but nothing compared to the battlefield. However, I was always in need of money because I had no job.
Mr. Hull was convicted of violent protests against a religious organization and related groups and served 10 years in a prison in western Japan.
After his release from prison, he repented his lifestyle and engaged in forestry work in Shikoku, but in his second year, he damaged the meniscus in his knee due to overwork.
While looking for a job, he was shocked to see the news of the Russian military invasion of Ukraine. When he heard President Zelensky’s call to the world for volunteer soldiers, he reflected on his life to date and thought that if he continued to turn a blind eye, he would regret it at the moment of his death.
He said, “It was also a way to atone for the sins I had committed, so I decided to act first rather than regret not doing so.”
He was a Catholic Christian himself, which was probably one of the reasons. He obtained a passport for the first time in his life and left Japan on March 29, 2011. This was the first time in his life that he had been abroad.