Nisei Soldiers Break Their Silence: Coming Home to Hood River

16. No “Ordinary Soldiers” : The Patriot Test

2 5 0 S i x t e e n No “Ordinary Soldiers” The Patriot Test I t was almost as if serving their country tested their courage, their resolve, even their Americanism. Pacific war hero Frank Hachiya had written a former teacher, “Although I hate war more than anyone can, I think it is a very good place to test oneself—one is either a man or a mouse—as the saying goes. If I come out of the war, I shall know for sure.” For Sagie Nishioka, the determining factor was allegiance to his country. “That’s where the test was, I believe, whether we’re loyal or not.” As a quiet young adult who suffered all his life from a war injury and successfully challenged the state to gain his job, he recalled the words of his Second Battalion officer: “You’ve got to be a little better than the whites.” Nishioka internalized that advice. “We had to do something to turn this notion that we were second-grade citizens. . . . There were no choices but do what we did.” Nisei GIs’ sense of mission compelled them toward “conspicuous gallantry ” that would “counteract conclusively the ridiculous charges” against them, according to sociologist Tamotsu Shibutani. Historian James Hirabayashi , too, affirmed what the veterans were saying, namely, that these Nisei, in their zeal to be accepted, put themselves in the position of proving their right to citizenship. Sadly, of course, that should have been theirs by birthright.1 Other Hood River Nisei veterans voiced similar needs to demonstrate their mettle. “It seems silly to say that as American citizens we have to prove ourselves,” admitted Sab Akiyama. For him, the turning point in Th e P at r i o t T e s t 2 5 1 overcoming prejudice was the return of all the wartime GIs. “Caucasian servicemen really respected the 100th and the 442nd and the MIS. That’s where most of the hate was melted,” he added. Older brother George used his regiment’s motto to convey his feelings. “The spirit of the 442nd and the 100th was ‘Go for Broke.’ We just went up there and did the job.” The alternative would have been detrimental. “What if we had refused to go?” he wondered. “Things could have been much worse. . . . The family got put in the camp, and my dad was in prison for being head of the Japanese society. Most of us were mad at the government for doing that, so we just wanted to prove once and without a doubt that we were good, loyal Americans. Now we could have said ‘to heck with that’ and just said we’re not gonna fight. All the people back here would have been in a lot worse situation, don’t you think? The 442nd really helped wipe out discrimination . . . . We changed a lot of people’s minds.” For Mam Noji, there was no doubt. “This was where we belonged,” he affirmed. “We earned our right to stay here.” The “spirit of seishin” (overcoming fate), the same resilience that Issei demonstrated during their early days in the United States,2 propelled Nisei forward. The battlefield became a trial. “Yeah, it was scary,” admitted George Akiyama, “but you’ve still got your group behind you. It was not like you were way out by yourself. . . . It’s like this old Chinese proverb: You have a bunch of toothpicks, or chopsticks. It’s hard to break. Just one, two, or three of them, you could snap it pretty easily. It was not just a single person being brave. There were a lot of others.” Standing up for their rights counted as another way in which Nisei GIs proved themselves. “We stayed back here and fought for justice,” said Fred Sumoge, a discipline barrack boy who was court-martialed and imprisoned for insubordination. “Fighting for justice over here may be harder than going overseas,” he continued, reflecting on the thirty-seven-year process Sagie Nishioka (Linda Tamura, 2002) 2 5 2 C h a p t e r S i x t e e n that eventually nullified his dishonorable discharge. “I didn’t refuse basic training. This all began when they started to discriminate. . . . If I’d been in the camp, I’d have done the same thing.” Fellow DB boy Kenjiro Hayakawa agreed, quietly adding, “You do what you think is right.” General Mark Clark...