MARCH 9th - Know When to Fold 'Em



Did you know the real Rambo was Japanese? No? I don’t know that either, but I do know that Hiroo Onada was a Japanese Soldier who didn’t surrender until this day in 1974. For WWII. 29 years after it was over. Japan formally surrendered on September 2, 1945, but Onada and three fellow soldiers did not believe the leaflets they found in the Philippines notifying of this development. They thought it Allied propaganda. Over the course of the next 29 years the other soldiers either surrendered or were killed due to their guerilla actions, But Hiroo Onada continued to wage war. I’m having a difficult time deciding exactly what I think about Onada’s 29-year holdout. One the one hand you have to respect his resolve to never give up. But on the other hand--29 years? Dude was fighting a war that had been over for 29 years? Not to trivialize war by comparing it sports, but I always find it admirable when a team doesn’t give up despite the game being out of reach. However, once the game ends you don’t usually see a team stay out on the court or field and keep playing. That’s crazy. Because it’s over. The Fat Lady has sung. The chickens have come home. The credits are rolling. Fin. Granted, Onada didn’t have the luxury of hearing a buzzer go off, but I have to imagine that at some point over the next 29 years that he might have seen signals that pointed to the war being over. You can still admire his fight to never surrender, and perhaps even emulate it, but I wouldn’t go so far as to keep fighting a war that had been over for 29 years. As the great Kenny Rogers says, “You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away…” And everybody knows to listen to The Gambler. Even Geico.



This day has been Marked.

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