7. While Lauded in Japan, Onoda Was Reviled in His Philippine Stomping Ground
Hiroo Onoda returned to adulation in Japan. However, back in Lubang, the locals did not see him as an honorable man devoted to duty, but as a bloody-minded idiot who had plagued them throughout his 29-year holdout. He had stolen, destroyed, and sabotaged their property, and killed about 30 local farmers and cops while “requisitioning” food and supplies to fight a war that had ended decades earlier. And a war that he knew or should have known was over, making the subsequent deaths little more than criminal homicides by a maniac. He was pardoned by the Philippines’ president.