What Could Dusty Have Said? *Spoiler*

To know what Dusty must have said to Ito rests on a bit of dialogue from earlier in the film; dialogue that apparently was too easy to miss. Takashi, the young, English-speaking officer, explained to Gordon that prison-camp assignments were not positions of honor in the Japanese Army. Ito, the brutal camp officer, had been posted to his position as a punishment that he voluntarily accepted on behalf of a superior who had screwed something up. In the Bushido code of honor, with all of its internal contradictions, it was considered honorable for a junior officer to take such a dishonor upon himself in lieu of his superior. Ito had such a profound sense of duty to his superiors that he was willing to do this -- to deprive himself of glory in battle and, instead, finish his career as a two-bit prison guard in the middle of nowhere. This was a critical piece of dialogue that, unfortunately, was not very prominent, so it would have been easy to overlook. (It would have come across more notably if Takashi's conversation with Gordon had taken place, say, as a stand-alone scene, with the two characters shot alone and in closeup against a quiet background, rather than a quick exchange in an extended scene amid a lot of background activity.)

The only plausible explanation, therefore, is that Dusty told Ito that he wanted to bear the punishment of Campbell, his superior officer, himself.

It's interesting to see Ito's expression of astonishment at this. His surprise parallels his confused reaction to an earlier event in the film, when he realized that Reardon had sacrificed himself to save the rest of the prisoners from being punished for a missing shovel. Those events together rocked Ito's world. He had been raised to believe that all other races were inferior to the Japanese; that none of them could measure up to the Japanese Bushido code of morality and honor. Again, it had been explained earlier in the film that the Japanese regarded the Allied prisoners to be weak and dishonorable, because they did not kill themselves when captured. So, the fact that Reardon and Dusty were willing to sacrifice themselves for their group or even a single comrade undermined Ito's conviction of the superiority of the Bushido culture and the Japanese race. On top of that, the supposedly inferior prisoners had taken it upon themselves to work hard and diligently at their assigned task, rather than finding ways to avoid working, as Ito expected dishonorable slaves to do. Something was wrong, and he didn't know how to make sense of it. The prisoners' worldview, which was supposed to be vastly inferior to Bushido, was looking dangerously close to being honorable and conducive to a culture of selfless loyalty to others, mutual cooperation and justice. How could this be?

Dusty knew that his sacrifice would have this effect on Ito. He also knew it would have a parallel effect on Campbell. Campbell had been consumed with bitterness and an obsession with vengeance for the murder of his beloved colonel; an obsession that could only destroy his humanity. Dusty, being a devout Christian, saw that he had perhaps the only opportunity he would ever have to die so that another man might live -- not only in this world, but forever. His decision reflects his earlier quotation of a metaphor that Jesus used to illustrate the benefits of self-sacrifice: "Unless a kernal of corn falls into the ground and dies, it lives alone to itself; but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit." (Or something to that effect.) Campbell did not deserve Dusty's sacrifice on his behalf. He was a selfish man who was willing to sacrifice all of the other prisoners in order to satisfy his own lust for vengeance. Dusty knew that, Campbell himself knew it, and Dusty knew that Campbell knew it. Dusty also knew that his sacrifice could have nothing but a profound impact on Campbell, possibly enough to motivate him to change his ways and become a humane, forgiving man himself. Campbell's erratic behavior had already revealed his conflicted conscience. Perhaps an act of undeserved kindness on Campbell's behalf -- and not just any act of kindness, but the supreme one -- would lead to his redemption.

One of the things that is so interesting about these three characters -- Dusty, Ito and Campbell -- is that they all choose to live consistently with their ideologies, even to their own detriment. They are all heroic in that regard, and Reardon also becomes heroic in the same vein. Contrast their conviction with, say, the spineless, wanton character of the Japanese camp commander. That character's actions are impotent to convey any principles of how to live a good life. Any viewer who is willing to submit his interest to the story, though, cannot help but be moved by the moral dedication of these three other men. The primary moral question of the story, then, is which character's understanding of duty and honor is best suited to living what philosophers call "the good life"? Which would best counter the ubiquitous injustice that Plato described in the second chapter of *The Republic*, which Gordon addressed in one of the "schoolroom" scenes? Which ideology would result in the most humane society: Campbell's ideology of honor in vengeance, other men be damned; Ito's ideology of honor in ruthlessness and racial superiority; or Dusty's ideology of honor in forgiveness and self-sacrifice for the good of others?