Japan's last imperial soldier dies

[thebluerider]

honey, please come home!

never! bonzai!

 

[Chinballs]

It is amazing the standards that people hold others to and exonerate themselves from , especially in this sloth like day in age when we could all benefit from a little objective self scrutiny.

Ask yourself, what if you were a young man, raised in a culture of loyalty, Bushido and honor in Imperial Japan? When would you leave Japan and if so, what age? 2? 12? 22? How would you get out? How would you go about obtaining your passport, where would you go and would you be willing to severe every relationship you had with everyone, including your family and friends for the rest of your life and be branded a coward, or, possibly even face a firing squad for cowardice?

It seems like many of you watch too many Hollywood movies and don't engage in thought from the other side of the fence. And those that are mentioning Nanking, HA, what is worse: The killing of another countries people in war OR the killing of your own countries people in times of peace as the communists so artfully did? How about the US and the extinction of the native Americans, or, the Japanese interment camps?? No group of people, no country, no person is perfect. Most of human history is a diaper stain with moments, with acts that make humanity as a whole worth saving. This man's loyalty, dedication and self preservation is one such act. Not the country he fought for, not what the nation stood for but the fact he was able to stand alone for such a long time with no help.

What this man was able to achieve is mind blowing and I thank TS for sharing. I doubt any cyber saturated modern man could last more than a month in such conditions. All that I am saying is every time you point the finger at someone else, you have three fingers pointing right back at you. Try putting yourself in someone else's shoes, judge yourself as you judge others and you may walk a little further than you think.

Great post, I agree.

 

[Jimmy Tuna**]

It is amazing the standards that people hold others to and exonerate themselves from , especially in this sloth like day in age when we could all benefit from a little objective self scrutiny.

Ask yourself, what if you were a young man, raised in a culture of loyalty, Bushido and honor in Imperial Japan? When would you leave Japan and if so, what age? 2? 12? 22? How would you get out? How would you go about obtaining your passport, where would you go and would you be willing to severe every relationship you had with everyone, including your family and friends for the rest of your life and be branded a coward, or, possibly even face a firing squad for cowardice?

It seems like many of you watch too many Hollywood movies and don't engage in thought from the other side of the fence. And those that are mentioning Nanking, HA, what is worse: The killing of another countries people in war OR the killing of your own countries people in times of peace as the communists so artfully did? How about the US and the extinction of the native Americans, or, the Japanese interment camps?? No group of people, no country, no person is perfect. Most of human history is a diaper stain with moments, with acts that make humanity as a whole worth saving. This man's loyalty, dedication and self preservation is one such act. Not the country he fought for, not what the nation stood for but the fact he was able to stand alone for such a long time with no help.

What this man was able to achieve is mind blowing and I thank TS for sharing. I doubt any cyber saturated modern man could last more than a month in such conditions. All that I am saying is every time you point the finger at someone else, you have three fingers pointing right back at you. Try putting yourself in someone else's shoes, judge yourself as you judge others and you may walk a little further than you think.

Many of the founding fathers were involved in either the Native American genocide or the transatlantic slave trade, which also killed millions. They get immortalized on currency. All this guy did was live into the next era of civilization.

 

[Kadafi]

 

[ElKarlo]

So Hiroo fought in North Africa/ southern Italy then?

 

[Halge]

Brutal training and massive indoctrination. These were draftees fighting to the death. That says a lot in how effective the indoctrination was.

Well, yes, I'm sure the japanese military state did a good job of brainwashing him during his childhood and adolescence. But then he spent 30 years completely left to his own devices. That is a damn long time to hold on to behaviour that completely contradicts natural urges, especially if you are separated from the propaganda apparatus when you are still too young to be set in your ways.

The idea that Onoda kept fighting virtually alone for three decades out of pure patriotism is very romantic, but sounds just a tad too good to be true. I read about another japanese holdout who kept refusing to surrender for many years mainly because he was afraid he'd be executed if he gave himself up to the local authorities (who by and large were not very happy with how they'd been treated by the japanese invaders during the war).
For some of the japanese soldiers who kept fighting, it might have been about waiting for guarantees they'd not be harmed more than anything else. Not that they'd ever admit it*.


*Onoda didn't know the war was over, the townspeople of Auschwitz didn't know there was an extermination camp next door, and so on...

 

[Zankou]

It is amazing the standards that people hold others to and exonerate themselves from , especially in this sloth like day in age when we could all benefit from a little objective self scrutiny.

Ask yourself, what if you were a young man, raised in a culture of loyalty, Bushido and honor in Imperial Japan? When would you leave Japan and if so, what age? 2? 12? 22? How would you get out? How would you go about obtaining your passport, where would you go and would you be willing to severe every relationship you had with everyone, including your family and friends for the rest of your life and be branded a coward, or, possibly even face a firing squad for cowardice?

It seems like many of you watch too many Hollywood movies and don't engage in thought from the other side of the fence. And those that are mentioning Nanking, HA, what is worse: The killing of another countries people in war OR the killing of your own countries people in times of peace as the communists so artfully did? How about the US and the extinction of the native Americans, or, the Japanese interment camps?? No group of people, no country, no person is perfect. Most of human history is a diaper stain with moments, with acts that make humanity as a whole worth saving. This man's loyalty, dedication and self preservation is one such act. Not the country he fought for, not what the nation stood for but the fact he was able to stand alone for such a long time with no help.

What this man was able to achieve is mind blowing and I thank TS for sharing. I doubt any cyber saturated modern man could last more than a month in such conditions. All that I am saying is every time you point the finger at someone else, you have three fingers pointing right back at you. Try putting yourself in someone else's shoes, judge yourself as you judge others and you may walk a little further than you think.

Incredible determination can't be admired in isolation. This guy was able to 'achieve' cowering in the Philipino mountains for 30 years, after the war had already ended, because he was brainwashed to such a radical extreme in his devotion to Imperial Japan. Is that 'achievement' via brainwashed subservience an admirable thing? Absolutely the opposite. The guy I admire is the guy who doesn't break down under Imperial brainwashing, who doesn't buy the sick bullshit they were fed and swear his life to serve a monstrous master.

Would I, as a young person in their shoes, have resisted Nazi/Japanese calls for absolute devotion to their insane cause? I would like to think so. Perhaps not. But if I did fall in line with the other devout minions of Imperial Japan, it would be a horrible tragedy for me, and the extremes I went to in that service would exemplify something gone horribly, horribly wrong with me -- not something to admire.

Reminds me of Japan's decision to surrender to the US. A substantial part of the Japanese government was adamantly opposed to the surrender, and attempted a military coup. They were 100% devoted to resistance regardless of the human cost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surren...coup_d.27.C3.A9tat_.28August_12.E2.80.9315.29

Were these guys the heroes? Still fighting after two atomic bombs and the Russians entered the war? No, they were sick fucks who had long since lost any sense of human decency or perspective, and because of that went to insane lengths in the service of a lost and morally repulsive cause. Unfortunately you can still find people in Japan and elsewhere who admire this fanaticism, pretending it was not the product of evil. The fact that such people exist is, in large part, how WWII was able to happen in the first place.

 

[seatea]

Ask yourself, what if you were a young man, raised in a culture of loyalty, Bushido and honor in Imperial Japan?

The only loyalty in Imperial Japan was to the state, the only honour in Imperial Japan was in serving the state, and bushido is two thirds bullshit at the best of time.

 

[closetfighter]

I know, ignorance. ^^

yeah, your ignorance unfortunately.

fuck this stupid asshole. what a dumb story.

 

[kidnic]

yeah, your ignorance unfortunately.

fuck this stupid asshole. what a dumb story.

"derp"

 

[closetfighter]

"derp"

now if this was about him being tried and convicted of his war crimes that he, no doubt, took part in ... that'd be cool.

 

[kidnic]

now if this was about him being tried and convicted of his war crimes that he, no doubt, took part in ... that'd be cool.

Source? Or are you just talking shit as usual?

 

[7A7]

I'm of German decent my Great grandfather fought for Germany in WW2, He was not fighting for the Nazis but rather for Germany and its people. Not every German was a Nazi.....

 

[closetfighter]

Source? Or are you just talking shit as usual?

im sure his hands are clean.

 

[kidnic]

im sure his hands are clean.

You know more about your own dirty hands than his...just sayin...

 

[closetfighter]

I'm of German decent my Great grandfather fought for Germany in WW2, He was not fighting for the Nazis but rather for Germany and its people. Not every German was a Nazi.....

every german has a conscience, though. id rather get my brains blown out for insubordination than take part in war crimes because it's what everyone else was doing.

like the citizens of Dachau that "didn't know" about the concentration camps on their front doors. give me a break.

 

[Zankou]

The only loyalty in Imperial Japan was to the state, the only honour in Imperial Japan was in serving the state, and bushido is two thirds bullshit at the best of time.

Truth. A lot of people are still unaware of how the fake and creepy "Bushido" ideology was formed, when, and why -- what purposes it served, and why it emerged and evolved as it did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushido

"Bushido, a modern term rather than a historical one, originates from the samurai moral values, most commonly stressing some combination of frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery, and honor unto death. Born from Neo-Confucianism during times of peace in Tokugawa Japan and following Confucian texts, Bushido was also influenced by Shinto and Zen Buddhism, allowing the violent existence of the samurai to be tempered by wisdom and serenity. Bushidō developed between the 16th and 20th centuries, debated by pundits who believed they were building on a legacy dating from the 10th century, although some scholars have noted "the term bushidō itself is rarely attested in premodern literature."[1]

Under the Tokugawa Shogunate, some aspects of warrior values became formalized into Japanese feudal law.[2]

The word was first used in Japan during the 17th century."

People going on about Bushido are often the same people who go on and on about the "sacred cult of the Emperor" in Japan, as if the Meiji Restoration wasn't an anachronistic imposition by modernizers in response to Western influence.

 

[seatea]

Truth. A lot of people are still unaware of how the fake and creepy "Bushido" ideology was formed, when, and why -- what purposes it served, and why it emerged and evolved as it did.

If there was a man that believed the chivalric code to have been real, claimed descent from the knights who allegedly practiced it, and tried to use it a basis of a way of life (and government) in the 21st century he'd be laughed at. Those people doing the laughing will treat with utmost seriousness and respect the Japanese man doing the same, despite the fact that bushido has far more harm than the chivalric code ever did.

 

[Chinballs]

^^ You should point out that the code of chivalry was pure fantasy and a vain attempt to change the attitude among medieval knights whose favorite hobbies were mainly maiming, plundering, raping, murdering, thieving, bribing, raping some more and so on and so forth.

 

[dirtypablo]

That's because you are a weeaboo. You are letting your love for Japan, bushido and anime could your judgment.

The Japanese soldiers were soulless animals. Inhuman scum. Monsters governed by animal instinct. Savage beasts. Fuck that soldier.

Agreed. They killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. Didnt the soldiers from some other country do the same in WWII though? I was thinking some country dropped a couple atomic bombs and killed a couple hundred thousand innocent civilians too. Might be mistaken.