Japanese Veteran Hiroo Onoda dies at 91

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A great story of survival, many perished in the Jungles when only a few days away from a base after being shot down, to survive almost thirty years, Yip the story reached prime TV channels in New Zealand - I would have loved to have known what went thru his mind when he saw how the world had changed, even the flight home would have boggled his views and to think what he thought of Japan ... an amazing life story.
 


i dont know why, but that says it all in such an elegant way charles
 
In a sense, he was a walking dictionary of lost IJA and it was very interesting for me to listen to him on TV because he could answer any question clearly as if he had just come from the 1940s on the previous day. It was time-machine effects.

When asked by a young man "How should we understand or cope with the Yasukuni Shrine? ", he answered with his clear words "You don't have to be sorry for the dead soldiers. They were glad to die for the nation. You only have to say 'Thanks' and that is enough for them. Everything has beginning and ending. You know the Imperial Edict of the End of War well but the other Imperial Edict of War that was our very reason to fight. I recommend you to read it and you will understand our Emperor's passion at the time."

This will be enough as the war was over
Thanks.
 
This book came in this past Friday and I just finished reading it. This was really a fascinating book and gives you a better understanding about the man and the way he thought. He was specifically trained in Guerilla Warfare which at least to me explained a lot.

The only thing I wish it had included was him writing about his return to Japan.
 
I wonder if a Confederate soldier still fighting the Civil War 30 years after the war ended would be thought of as a hero.
 
Confederate General Joseph O. Shelby was so reluctant to surrender to Union forces that his unit earned the nickname "the Undefeated." Shelby had spent the Civil War commanding a bushwhacking band of cavalry on a series of raids through Missouri and Arkansas. By the end of the conflict, his "Iron Brigade"—so named for its legendary grit—had caused millions of dollars in damages to Union supplies and property.

Announcing that they chose "exile over surrender," Shelby and roughly 600 soldiers rode south to Mexico after the collapse of the Confederacy. Following a three-month journey through the desert, they offered their services to Maximilian I, an Austro-Hungarian who had been installed as emperor of Mexico in 1864. While the emperor balked at including rebel soldiers in his army, he allowed Shelby's émigrés to help found the Carlota Colony, a small settlement of Confederate expats. The upstart community enjoyed a brief period of prosperity but eventually dissolved after Emperor Maximilian was overthrown. Having never surrendered to federal forces, Shelby and most of his comrades returned to the United States in 1867 and resumed civilian life.
 

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