I couldn’t find the earlier thread on this column so I’m starting another one: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/000310.html
A guy named Roberto wrote in to Cecil and asked me to post his letter on the MB:
It made me sad that you did not do Hiroo (hero?) Onoda justice. You mentioned
him as if he were another one of those who survived after the WW II when in
fact this guy stood far, far apart from not only his peers but from every known
soldier in known history.
On the one hand a number of Japanese soldiers survived in their isolated spots,
but their feat, not glory, was that they simply survived, but not their soldier
spirits. Onoda, on the other hand, managed to stay intact, that is, as a
soldier first and a human second, after nearly thirty years! If you were to
leave stuff out, at least you could have said how he was found!
Onoda didn’t just dismissed “every attempt to coax him out as a ruse,” it were
the voices of his own family he dismissed thinking that the American had gotten
a hold of them to cheat him out of his duty to his emperor. In other words, the
idea of having his own aging mother killed or tortured did not weaken him after
decades of life in the jungle, nor the sound of her voice offering ohagi,
begging him to come out of the jungle, again, after thirty years!
Also, your mentioned that Onoda came out “in his dress uniform and sword, with
his rifle still in operating condition;” but you failed to convey the full awe
that such action must had. For Onoda didn’t just come out of the jungle wearing
his uniform with his sword and his rifle; Onoda came out and saluted announcing
his name and rank dressed exactly as he should have been dressed: that’s far
more impressive than that he kept his rifle and sword. Steel and even wood
don’t wear out that quickly. Pig fat can prevent a rifle from getting rusty.
How he managed to keep his uniform intact after living in a harsh tropical
jungle for thirty years is what is truly amazing! Onoda was peerless, not just
as a soldier for Japan but a soldier (period!). How many other soldiers are
known to the world that kept their clothes and flag intact after decades of
isolation? In Onoda’s mind, those things he had had been given to him by the
Emperor himself. They were not his and it was his duty to return them one day
in a dignified condition. His country let him use his gear; that gear was never
his, so he had to return it some day. How he did it is unthinkable!
Onoda’s was more than a show of discipline and determination–his was a show of
deep-rooted constancy and of love seldom found in humans in such degree. Had
any American soldier done what Onoda did, s/he would be held as a hero no less
grand that Grant or Washington.
When Onoda returned to Japan he was held as a hero and stirred up the national
ethos. But had it not been for Onoda’s brother, who was a doctor, Onoda may
have never been found. His brother took care of not only his health when he was
recovered, but also took care of his philosophy so that he could appear in
public without shaming either Japan, the Emperor, on his own self and kind.
Naturally he could not adjust and even more naturally it was felt in the
interest of everyone that he be shipped out of the country, to South America
(Brazil, I believe). Clearly he was more Japanese than the whole lot left of
them and could no longer live in Japan. But before that, Onoda’s family found
him a suitable mate and had him married off. His remaining days working the
soil together with his wife were successful (I should hope for no less for such
a man!).
Most clearly Onoda was not one of those freak Japanese soldiers who simply made
it out alive; if the expression ‘with flying colors’ ever applied to one, such
a one was Onoda san. He was a man who showed what commitment really means,
never mind the cause or on what side he fought. Forget about valor that lasts
one brave moment delivering or ending life. Onoda’s constancy and immobile will
power to fulfill his task and honor what he believed in after so long a time
and under so harsh conditions is something that should be known and remembered
by all as collectively shared for-all-time inspiration. Can anyone imagine how
long it took for Onoda to have his own soul/spirit too to make it out the
jungle alive?
I must be honest with you, Cecil. I feel that you give credit where credit is
due in all the articles I have read for the last few years, but here, you have
overlooked a huge, huge example of humanity’s best and portrayed him as a mere
war oddity. Please be fair to Onoda san. I am sure I have not done him justice
either, but you have the resources and the means to do it. I am neither
Japanese nor a sympathizer to war. I just can’t help wanting to be fair to the
memory of such a person as Onoda was. He’s an inspiration to anyone who’s ever
wondered about the strength of human will power and the nobility of the human
heart. He was a heck of a lot more than just a Japanese soldier and certainly
more than a curiosity of war time! His motivation was not patriotic fanaticism
but rather true nobility, fighting mosquitoes and disease, not to mention
loneliness and heaven known what else. While the rest or the world moved on to
new music and new ice cream flavors, Onoda stood pure and resolute to his duty
in a Philippine jungle. Surely his case in your column deserves more than a
handful of lines…