96-Year-Old Japanese Soldier Found Behind Butch’s Beach Burritos
by Jerome Lawrence, News Editor • May 14, 2014 • 44 Comments

Owners and employees at Butch’s Beach Burritos in Grand Haven were as surprised as anyone else in town to discover a 96-year-old Japanese soldier from World War II living behind their popular establishment. When part-time burrito-wrapper Jason Sunderson took a bag of trash to the dumpster behind the restaurant, he saw an elderly man trapped under one of the heavy metal dumpster lids, struggling to get free. By the time he got close enough to see a bayonet, and a holstered pistol at the old man’s side, Jason ran back to the restaurant for help. “I only make minimum wage”, said Sunderson, age 18, “I wasn’t going near that freaky dude by myself.”

Police arrived on the scene five minutes after Sunderson’s 911 call, cleared the restaurant and adjoining parking lots of civilians, and slowly approached the trapped man with guns drawn. Officers quickly discovered they were dealing with a very old and frail-looking man screaming at them in a foreign language, and pinned by the dumpster lid in a position which prohibited him from reaching his pistol or bayonet. With the threat of imminent danger passed, Police disarmed the man and arranged for his transport to North Ottawa Community Hospital, where the still unidentified man is listed in good condition.

According to initial reports, the old, but indefatigable soldier had a knapsack filled with what appear to be detailed logs and journals covering nearly 70 years of spying and information gathering. Initially, Investigators knew only that the man was speaking “something Asian”, but analysis of his uniform and possessions quickly led Detectives to conclude the man was a Japanese Soldier, hiding in Grand Haven since the early 1940s. While Police and local authorities now await the arrival of a Japanese-Translator from Los Angeles, staff librarians at Loutit District Library have been put to work using Google-Translate in an effort to decipher the confiscated notes and journals. Early results show the soldier’s mission was primarily focused on the local American Legion post, as the notebooks appear to include detailed descriptions of every major function, event, fish-fry and all-you-can-eat buffet held at the Legion for more than fifty years.

Police expect to have more answers once they can properly communicate with the man, and a task-force is being formed to review all of the Department’s cold-case files, as they suspect a great number of unsolved petty thefts, campsite robberies and other local crime-mysteries may be attributable to the Japanese soldier who managed to avoid capture for more than half a century. Most significantly, Authorities are reviewing a 1968 police report filed by teenagers alleging they had been abducted and water-boarded by “some Asian-looking military dude”; a report that was dismissed by Police at the time as “ridiculous”, and coming from “long-haired hippy-types who smelled of reefer”.

By mid-afternoon, Butch’s had added a commemorative Banzai Burrito to its menu, and early indications provide indicators which indicate the Banzai Burrito is proving immediately popular with Butch’s customers.

This would be a conversation I would love to be a fly-on-the-wall to.

Imagine (if it's true) the culture shock for this old soldier!

He must be healthy as an ox without the daily excess diet of GMOs and fluoride in his system, but the reality of the world today and the decline of culture, morals and honor will probably be the death of him!

whats wrong with water boarding

Gee..... I don't know. Why don't you find out

Of course one would need a functioning brain for it to work on them

Nothing, it got us Osama Bin Laden and that is straight from CIA Director Leon Panetta's mouth. Nothing wrong with the Gitmo Bath.

Having been in Nam, a radio operator with engineer units along the DMZ running road sweeps, LP and FO duties, I have worked with units from many different nations other than our own, ROKS, Turks, RVNs and even an Aussie unit.

Some were not so particular to the Geneva codes, and while I was never "involved" I have heard and seen the results of "enhanced" interrogations.

Those who believe it to be acceptable, I pity.

War is bad enough, but to inflict such abuses on another human being, even someone considered an enemy, destroys any humanity one might hope to find in a terrible situation.

My unit, on occasion, would find the bodies of villagers, soldiers (even our own) who were the victims of those thinking such techniques acceptable sources of information.

One could argue water boarding is a minor incursion of abuse to obtaining needful information.... they would be WRONG! Water boarding is like the term many once (and still) liked to choose about the use of "pot"..... it's a "gateway" abuse. If you condone it as a non-harmful tool why not pulling finger nails or teeth, smashing fingers and toes, electric shock, conscience amputation.... none are life threatening unless carried to an extreme.... or an "accident" occurs in the process. But they're the enemy.....right?

How do we justify our actions, claim a moral high ground, when they are no different than those of our enemy?

Many I'm sure would like to boast how "brave" they would be confronted by such actions. Many of our brave POWs have endured great pain and suffering at the hands of our enemies, they have also lied hoping to end the pain and suffering.

The statement "it got us Osama Bin Laden" is a falsehood!

We tortured prisoners for over 10 years and never found OBL until a doctor (still being held in a Pakistan prison our noble leaders are doing little to free) gave us this info WITHOUT torture. It was he who finally gave us Bin Laden, NOT TORTURE!

It is a matter of record, and congressional/panel studies, that our "enhanced" techniques actually gave us little if anything at all that has been useful in the war on terror! If it had, a dying man on dialysis, hiding in caves, couldn't have evaded the most massive and advanced surveillance systems known to man for over 10 years! One of our "prisoners" at GITMO would have given him up long ago, and not a simple Dr tending his medical needs!