Last Soldier Standing

A friend of mine stopped by the house yesterday afternoon. He was just coming from an auction where he bought a couple WW II items which he then resells on Ebay. "And did you know we have a new celebrity here in Charles Town?" he says. Evidently, Ken Burns' new epic series on WWII features an interview with Charles Town's Russell Roper. I watched the first installment last night, but no Roper. The next installment is tonight, but I really don't have time to block out 3 hour chunks every night to watch the whole thing.

So back to our porch conversation on WWII. My friend specializes in combat uniforms. He says they're much more valuable than the dress uniforms. As he explained, "Every Tom, Dick and Harry came back from the war and threw away their dirty, disgusting, blood stained fatigues, but kept their nice and pretty dress uniforms that their wives and girlfriends thought they looked so good in. It's a supply and demand thing. Old dirty combat stuff is more valuable."

He's interested in not only American stuff but also Japanese and German items. "In fact" he says, "...did you know that the last Japanese soldier didn't surrender till 1974!"

"No way." I didn't believe him. He couldn't remember the name. He couldn't remember the island where this guy was hiding out.

He was right. An easy search reveals the story of Hiroo Onoda. It's truly fascinating.