Special Guest Blogger: Hiroo Onoda

Look, hindsight is fine but when your commanding officer tells you explicitly, Under no circumstances are you to surrender, you take that seriously. You don't just put your rifle down because someone tosses a flyer from a plane that claims the war is over. I mean, honestly, who am I to trust a piece of paper dropped from the sky? If I’m a solider, I’m a soldier. I’m not a quitter but I didn’t realize I’d be soldiering on Lubang Island for nearly three decades let me tell you.
When Major Taniguchi gave me my orders before we deployed, he didn’t add a footnote saying, Oh, and by the way, if you don't hear from us for a while, maybe just check the local newsstand. He told me to hold the line at all costs.
For 29 years, I held that line. I held it so hard that I eventually became the most stubborn man in history. My initial squad was great, though the conversation got a little stale after the first decade. One of my guys surrendered in 1950 bless his heart, he clearly didn't have the stomach for a long-term guerrilla lifestyle. Another two were lost over the years and by the time I reached the 1970s, it was just me, the jungle, my Arisaka rifle, and a very deep, abiding confusion about why the locals kept getting upset when I borrowed their cattle.
Do you know what a diet of coconuts, wild bananas, and stolen rice does to a man’s digestion? Let’s just say it keeps you light on your feet. For nearly 30 years, I lived like a professional survivalist long before it was a trendy.
I’d engage in the occasional shootout with the local police, mostly because I assumed they were the enemy, i killed 30 of them and I’m sorry about that, by the way. 
Then came 1974. A Japanese adventurer named Norio Suzuki shows up in my jungle. He was a nice kid. He told me the war was over and I basically laughed in his face and told him I’d only leave if my former commanding officer, Major Taniguchi, came out here and told me my shift was over but wouldn't you know it, Taniguchi actually showed up and read me the orders, and suddenly, the 29-year war was over. Just like that.
After the whole Lubang Island fiasco, I decided I’d had enough of fighting so I figured, if I’m going to be a cattle farmer, I might as well do it somewhere where I actually own the cattle. So, I moved to Brazil briefly and became a cattle farmer which after spending years stealing other people’s cows, it felt like I was finally doing it the honest way.
I’d like to think I was just a man who kept his word. Sure, I missed the invention of the television, the moon landing and the rise of disco and stayed in 1945 while the rest of the world zoomed ahead into the future but when I passed away in 2014, I wasn't just a soldier anymore. I was a man who had seen the world change from the inside of a hut, fighting a war that had ceased to exist, all because I was afraid of breaking a promise.
If there’s a lesson here, it’s if your boss gives you a task, do it well but if the world changes for three decades and you’re still hiding in a bush, maybe it’s time to ask for a status update.