Kamikaze! Banzai! Tora! Tora! Tora!

People do a lot of wild things, and who knows why? We could just ask, like Kid Rock, what ever happened to just plain old crazy?

Throw in religion and salt with wartime desperation, and you might see something truly different from the "usual" social norms.

Or, ever-lasting fame. When King Leonidas marched to the pass of Thermopylae in 480 BCE, he and his men knew they were on a suicide mission. Sure, there was a pragmatic reason: hold off a massive Persian invasion for a few days, long enough for Athens to be evacuated and a strategy developed to save the rest of the Greeks from the onslaught. But was bravery, honor, discipline and death worth the posthumous fame and glory? Who knows, but the Spartan story continues to be told. I loved The 300 Spartans (1962) as a kid and even today, find it interesting. I used to watch it about as much as I did The Wizard of Oz, and probably for the same reasons. Others must find it just as compelling, since next year we'll see the tale retold in 300, featuring Dominic West of HBO's The Wire as Xerxes.

At Masada in 73 CE, near the Dead Sea, an entire Jewish garrison, including their families, committed mass suicide rather than be captured alive by the Romans besieging them.

Fast forward to the Texas Revolution. Remember the "Come and Take It" cannon? Even that phrase came from King Leonidas, who when asked to give up the Spartans' weapons, told the Persian envoy, "Come and take them." The Texas Revolution had its moment of triumphant disaster at the Alamo (1836). Like Thermopylae, it bought time for the other rebels to face the enemy, in this case the Mexcian army coming to reclaim Mexican territory.

Back to the Japanese. By the time 1945 came around, the Asia-Pacific War was in full-fledged killing mode, and Japan was losing and desperate to stave off the end. Cities burning, most of their merchant fleet destroyed, the end was inevitable, even before Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Suicide missions like the kamikaze death squadrons aiming planes and themselves at Allied warships seemed to be a good idea at the time, anyway. And they did do significant damage, after all. Still didn't change the overall outcome.

Today's world: Islamic suicide bombers, the jumbo-sized variation of Kamikaze attacks on 9/11/01, what next?

As for other religious groups, war is not even necessary for extreme final acts, though something triggers the end. Jonestown (1978), under attack ("White Nights!") from the outside; MOVE, Philadelphia (1985) -- attacked; Branch Davidians near Waco -- attacked (1993); Heaven's Gate (1997) -- arrival of the Hale-Bopp Comet. In each of these strange cases, the attackers cited provocations by those attacked to justify their own actions.

"Everyone has to die sooner or later, whether they be killed by germs, crushed by a collapsing house, or blown to smithereens by an atom bomb. Anyway, one way or another everyone ends up dead." -- Chairman Mao. So is it better to die a hero or a saint? Or quietly slip away into the night? If Werner Herzog is right, it's every man for himself and God against all.

But who else believes that? Go ask the Spartans.