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23 Chapter three what Is life’s Purpose? In the uproarious homecoming of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, it was obvious that the insidious question of Japanese American loyalty had been put to rest, even though many battles lay ahead. A large cadre of Japanese Americans had been subjected to a more or less shared experience by virtue of their segregation into ethnically defined units. To be sure, not all their experiences were the same. The combat activity of the 100th Battalion went on much longer than that of the 442nd. The infantry units of the 442nd faced much greater danger than the 522nd Artillery. Combat assignments yielded a much different experience than the service of Japanese-language speakers in the Military Intelligence Service in the Pacific. Nonetheless, all had seen a larger world, and all were returning to a changing Hawaii. Only several days after being discharged from the U.S. Army, Nakamura was back at the University of Hawaii for the spring semester, which was to be his fourth semester. He withdrew from the teachertraining program and concentrated on getting a broad education. While the theme of change was in the air, 1946 was also a time of impatience and turmoil. Among the war veterans, drinking and partying were at high tide. Many found it hard to settle down, sit in class, and study. Every Saturday night, Nakamura joined members of the 522nd, who would meet at Sandy Beach on the eastern tip of Oahu for a beer bust. During the week, Nakamura would telephone his former gunnery corporal Rocky Tanna, who was acutely aware of Nakamura’s quirk— that he did not and could not drive a motor vehicle. Nakamura would propose that they go drinking, and Tanna would drive him to meet Kats Miho at a bar. Their destinations for drinking with wartime friends were classic local places, such as the Kuhio Grill below the university in Moiliili and 24 Chapter 3 the Smile Café on Kapiolani Boulevard. The spot of spots was downtown , the Owl Café on Bethel Street. It had several pool tables on street level and a large poolroom upstairs, where some of Honolulu’s best pool players worked their sport. Miho remembered spending almost every day at the Owl Café, seldom going to class, and nearly failing the semester as a result. (Later he would shoot pool there with an alumnus of the Military Intelligence Service, George R. Ariyoshi, who eventually was to become the first nonwhite governor of an American state.) Nakamura liked to drink beer and talk. How much to make of the postwar drinking is a question. A doctor eventually warned Nakamura to stay away from alcohol to avoid developing liver disease. Rocky Tanna would remember that when Nakamura socialized with the veterans he always drank but never so much as to distort his speech or lose control. Drinking in bars was an even more pervasive social pastime than it is today. Many of the people most prominent in politics and labor either were active drinkers or reformed drinkers. The FBI agent Robert L. Shivers, who had played such a large role in minimizing the wartime internment in Hawaii, was a heavy drinker. John Burns, who entertained dreams of leading a political transformation, had nearly ruined his career in the police department with drinking and only then had sworn it off. Jack Hall, already the predominant figure of the labor movement, was a heavy drinker, as were various of his lieutenants. During this period, Nakamura was not only dealing with immediate memories of the war. It seems likely that problems from his mother ’s side of the family weighed on him during the early postwar period. Grandfather Tetsuzo not only walked everywhere but walked in the street with his head down, challenging motorists to watch out for him. One day, with his head determinedly down, he was hit by the car of a police officer. He was unable to grow his garden crops and became dependent on various children, and even grandchildren. As Grandmother Moto’s children had grown up and moved away, she sank into depression. Her son Tadashi partly blamed the U.S. immigration law that had kept her from becoming a naturalized citizen. As a result of being denied American citizenship, she always expected to return to Japan. The language barrier increasingly separated her from her children, who spoke less Japanese and more English as time passed. She could barely converse with her last three. She...

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