Ninja instructional poem ONODA’S STORY OF SURVIVAL IS EXTRAORDINARY ENOUGH. Anyone able to live alone for thirty years, close to civilization but apart from it, deserves admiration. But in what follows perhaps the most extraordinary thing, not so much admirable as simply astonishing, is his motivation, his mind-set, his determination to cling to his mission, a commitment based on his unshakable belief that World War II was not over. That belief derived from his training not just as a shadow warrior but as the product of a society in which loyalty had been the very stuff of life for centuries—loyalty to one’s lord and to the semidivine emperor, loyalty so powerful that it suggests evolutionary or IT metaphors: “inbred,” “hardwired,” “part of the DNA.” “Programmed” is a better analogy. Onoda’s loyalty was to his division commander. Once he was programmed with his mission, only his commander could deactivate him with new orders. For thirty years, no new orders arrived.
