{"id":39369,"date":"2014-01-18T18:14:49","date_gmt":"2014-01-18T23:14:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=39369"},"modified":"2014-01-18T18:19:55","modified_gmt":"2014-01-18T23:19:55","slug":"hiroo-onoda-passes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=39369","title":{"rendered":"Hiroo Onoda Passes"},"content":{"rendered":"

A story from CNN<\/a> tells of the passing of Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who followed his last orders and held out in the jungles of the Philippines for nearly three decades until convinced the war was in fact over. Even after he was initially found, he refused to believe the war was in fact over, relenting only when his former commanding officer returned to inform Lt. Onoda that he was no longer subject to the orders he had been given 30 years before.<\/p>\n

In 1944, Onoda was sent to the small island of Lubang in the western Philippines to spy on U.S. forces in the area. Allied forces defeated the Japanese imperial army in the Philippines in the latter stages of the war, but Onoda, a lieutenant, evaded capture. While most of the Japanese troops on the island withdrew or surrendered in the face of oncoming American forces, Onoda and a few fellow holdouts hid in the jungles, dismissing messages saying the war was over.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While extreme, his case was certainly not unique. Sergeant Shoichi Yokoi<\/a> held out on Guam until 1972–28 years after the battle which liberated that island. Private Teruo Nakamura held out for even longer. I remember seeing pictures of Sergeant Yokoi after he was found, and wondered how an island like Guam could allow him to hide for as long as he did, or how he could have lasted as long as he did.<\/p>\n

And while they were all (former) enemies of our country, one can’t help but either admire, or at least give grudging respect, to a man whose dedication and tenacity enabled them to last in the face of impossible conditions. It’s folks like these who held out on islands across the Pacific and in isolated pockets for years after the end of the war.<\/p>\n

He returned to a hero’s welcome in Japan, but even after a pardon from then-president Ferdinand Marcos, the citizens of Lubang were not so eager to forgive, even to the point of demanding reparations when he returned in the mid-1990’s. But despite all of this, he never thought that he was doing the wrong thing, once saying, “I became an officer and I received an order. If I could not carry it out, I would feel shame. I am very competitive.”<\/p>\n

RIP, Lieutenant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A story from CNN tells of the passing of Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who … Hiroo Onoda Passes<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blue-skies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39369\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}