March 31rst - April 7th: Hiroo Onoda

Some may think his life choices were stupid, but I think they're pretty badass.

Hiroo Onoda was a Japanese Army officer in WWII. He was part of an elite group of soldiers trained in guerilla warfare dedicated to gathering enemy intelligence. Onoda was stationed in the Phillipines, where he and his company of three other soldiers attempted to piss off the locals and the Americans. In October 1945 the war came to an end, but not for Hiroo and his homies. Leaflets from the Japanese Army telling Hiroo and his men that the war had ended were constantly dropped in the dense jungle they were hiding in, but to no avail. The foursome deemed the leaflets to be a trick by the Americans, and decided to continue kick it in the jungle. One of the three footmen caught on to the reality of the situation, and slipped off and made his way back to Japan after 5 years of keeping up that crazy charade. In 1954 another was shot and killed by a stray bullet, ironically enough from a search party looking for the three Japanese men. In 1972 the last of the footmen was killed in a shootout with the local police. So then it was one. Hiroo stayed in jungle, and continued to throw pebbles at the farmers and fight bravely for the glory of Japan. In 1974, a Japanese college drop out traveled to the small Phillipino island to find Hiroo, which he did. The two had a nice bit of convo, but Hiroo was not convinced that the war had ended and would only believe so until his commanding officer told him so. So the Japanese college drop out snapped a couple pictures of the two of them, and made his way back to the homeland to get the only man who could convince Hiroo of the truth. After his meeting with the young Japanese traveler, Hiroo Oronda's commanding officer flew to the Phillipines, and Hiroo officially became a veteran. However, it is important to notice that until that moment in time Hiroo had spent TWENTY NINE years hiding and fighting his way through the jungle.

Rock on Hiroo.