Hiroo Onoda

 Another Omnibus episode I found profoundly interesting that aired recently was the one on Hiroo Onoda, the Japanese second lieutenant who spent 29 years on Lubang Island in the Phillippines after World War II was over not believing that the Japanese had surrendered. Imagine living 9 years with another army officer after the war was over, then another 20 years alone, just by yourself on an island with other people looking for you trying to kill you (Onoda was not welcome on the island and often caused problems for people there), and just seeing your life pass by all in dedication of a cause that was instilled by you by other people. That seems like blind faith. I wouldn't have lasted 3 days, and not just because I don't do well in the outdoors, just the fact that I'd be too skeptical and too self-serving: the whole idea of war is for old men posing as leaders of a country or movement to force ,many young men to sacrifice their lives for the cause of something that isn't all that clear. Following the chain of command is a lot like religion: believing in something bigger than yourself that you can't really prove is really valid or justified, you just have to believe it. I'm too cynical now to believe in any of it, which might be why I've never really absorbed any religion, although I understand its usefulness and believe in most religions' moral standards; I just don't need to pledge allegiance to one true deity to follow those moral standards. 

Also, I just don't do well on islands; I'd feel trapped. I once interviewed a job 5 years ago to work at a law firm in Saipan, in the Mariana Islands. I didn't know much about the position except that I saw it on Craigslist and it was a chance to get away to an exotic locale; the job required a one-year commitment. I now kind of get why that commitment was required: people probably left before the one year was up. Lot of these Pacific Islands are REALLY far away, like twice the distance to Hawaii kind of far away, like you might as well travel to New Zealand or Australia kind of far away (I wasn't that big on my geography back then) and places like the Mariana Islands don't have all the cool stuff that Australia does; it's just an island, and everyone on the island kind of know each other and know that YOU don't belong to the island (kind of like Moana, except without tricksters like Maui and fishhooks that can turn into anything). To put it in context, Saipan is an island of 43,000 or so, and the city of Camarillo, CA, where my parents live, is 70,000 people. So I'd be trapped on an island thousands of miles away from everything to be on an island smaller than Camarillo where gossip is everywhere, and I'd be expected to practice law there. In hindsight, a good decision not to pursue that opportunity. Also interestingly, the Battle of Saipan was fought there in 1944 and gave the name to some geographical features called "Banzai Cliff" and "Suicide Cliff" where Japanese civilians were forced to jump off a cliff by the Japanese soldiers (according to the Americans) because they would not be captured by the "evil Americans." Yes, the Americans did wrong by imprisoning the Japanese Americans during WWII in internment camps like Manzanar, and they also probably erred by dropping the nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but the Japanese regime during that time was really brutal and bullheaded (again, these are Japanese leaders we're talking about, not the general populace, I don't bear a grudge against the Japanese people in general) by forcing their own people to jump off cliffs and indoctrinating them so much as to stay loyal to the cause 29 years later. Crazy. 

Makes you kind of wonder what it takes to be a leader of a country or a leader of an army, having to make decisions like that or be so arrogant and wrongheaded as to force ordinary people to suffer like that. Truly makes you question who gets to make decisions like that and why they get to decide, and why certain people have power over others (not trying to be an anarchist here, I've often tried to argue for a benign dictator theory of government........which doesn't work because the benign dictator would just be overthrown by a power-hungry or brutal dictator. It's like the ultimate paradox; those in power by definition cannot be good and moral people; once they become good and moral people they're no longer good leaders. Catch-22.)