3. A Lionized Hero Who In Reality Was a Murderous Jerk
Although Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda was lauded as a paragon of honor and devotion to duty, what he had done in Lubang Island was anything but honorable. Onoda had indulged in a decades-long violent tantrum, in which the only devotion he exhibited was a devotion to his ego and to a warped sense of honor that was actually quite dishonorable. In a nutshell, the famous Japanese holdout had his feelings hurt. He was upset that he and his country had been thoroughly defeated in war.
Onoda knew or should have known that the war had ended in 1945. Ample evidence, including orders from his chain of command, plus photos and letters from his and his men’s families, had been airdropped in the jungles and mountains of Lubang and picked up by the holdouts. However, in a violent jerk fashion, he decided to dismiss reality as “fake news”. He took out his frustration and the perceived humiliation of his and his country’s defeat on poor Filipino civilians in an isolated island, whom he terrorized and murdered by the dozen.
