Shigeru Mizuki(1922-2015)

While in a Japanese field hospital on Rabaul, he was befriended by the local Tolai tribespeople, who offered him land, a home, and citizenship via marriage to one of their women. Mizuki considered remaining behind, but was shamed by a military doctor into returning home to Japan first to face his parents, which he did reluctantly. He returned to Rabaul in 2003 and rekindled his friendship with the natives, who had named a road after him in his honor.

In Tottori, where I was first posted, my job was to play the trumpet. I couldn't play it, so I was forced to run around the grounds all the time. It was so tough. I asked my trumpet unit boss how I could be released from the assignment, and he told me to ask the head of the personnel unit. So I went to the personnel unit, and the officer there asked me: "Which would you prefer, South or North?" When I said South, I was sent to Rabaul [then a major Japanese wartime garrison]. If I had played the trumpet without complaining, I could have stayed on in Japan. Because I was a whiner, I was sent overseas.