People often don't realize that even soldiers "hiding out in foxholes" still receive regular resupply and communication from their commanding units. It's rare for individual soldiers to be completely isolated from their chain of command for more than a few days.

Even in World War 1, yeah, there would be trenches manned for years at a time, but individual soldiers might only spend a couple weeks or a month in the trenches before being pulled back to be replaced by fresh men.

The only way I could really think this might happen is with maybe an isolated island with troops on it that was simply forgotten about in the shuffle of paperwork at the end of a war, but that's still unlikely.

This sounds like a WWII reference to Japanese soldiers on Pacific islands. There are a few comments in these posts

• How long did it take until all of the Japanese soldiers on the various islands realized they had lost WWII, and were there any troops that held out for many years after the war?

• My history teacher told us today that in 2002, Japanese citizens were found alive in bunkers on an island of Japan and have been there since World War 2, unaware the war had ended. Is there any evidence of this?

... and just because I ran into these, a couple on soldiers in Europe

• Were there any German Holdouts after World War 2 ended in Europe, similar to the Japanese? Soldiers who didn't get the message and thought the war was still on?

• After the official end of WWII all across the world were there still tiny groups of soldiers who refused to surrender/give up? Were there any recorded casualties from such guerrilla forces against the allied forces after the end of the war?

No, it wouldn't be possible. It's definitely unheard of and wouldn't rationally make sense considering how the war was carried out of a VC perspective. Perhaps if you could provide me with some of the TV references (which I've never heard myself), I can break it down for you more easily?