A 442nd Regimental Combat Team veteran, Kenji "George" Ego, now nearly 89, said he shied away from 442nd events for "a very long time because it brought back too many bad memories."
He was badly injured in Bruyeres, France, and spent half a year in the hospital.
But at least he survived.
His eyes welled with tears Saturday and his voice broke with emotion as he recalled "those who never returned."
Ego was among the 442nd RCT veterans who assembled at Fort DeRussy to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the 442nd’s formation.
About three-quarters of the 169 veterans in attendance had served in the 442nd. The others were from the 100th Infantry Battalion and the Military Intelligence Service. Joining them were family and community members.
"We had to prove that we were loyal Americans," Ego said. "There was lots of physical pain, mental pain, all kinds of emotions. I tried to forget many of those things, but …it is not fair for people like me to just forget because I have my children, my grandchildren. And maybe with what we did they can have a better life."
Stanley Izumigawa, 88, a retired Maui school principal, said when he joined up at age 18: "I was among the youngest."
At Saturday’s event, he said: "I’m thinking, ‘Where are all the guys I know? They’re just not around.’"
Fresh out of high school, Izumigawa said he "wanted to be a part of the war effort," adding, "So when the call came to organize the 442nd, many of us were waiting to become part of the war and to contribute directly to the cause of the Japanese-Americans. We weren’t what Americans seemed to think we were."
An infantryman, he was shot through the leg once and got caught in a mortar barrage on the way to rescue the so-called Lost Battalion, a Texas unit surrounded by German forces in the Vosges Mountains of France in 1944. He was hospitalized for three months.
"Times have changed," he said. "The way people think has changed. I think people realize Americans of all different races are basically the same."
Ronald Oba, 90, a 442nd veteran who wrote a book about the regiment, recalled how he and other recruits rode in trains and buses with the windows closed as they headed to Camp Shelby, Miss., for basic training.
"They didn’t want American people seeing Japanese people wearing American uniforms," he said, so they waited until night to drive into the town of Hattiesburg.
As the veterans’ numbers diminish, their children and grandchildren are trying to figure out how to keep their legacy alive and to underscore their battle against discrimination.
Seattle resident Bev Kashino, 56, flew to Honolulu with her daughter, 20, and mother, 86, for the events this weekend. The celebration continues today with a lunch at the Hilton Hawaiian Village.
Kashino’s father, 442nd veteran Shiro "Kash" Kashino, who died in 1997, was awarded six Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and Bronze Star, but never spoke much about his service and why he volunteered.
"My dad didn’t feel like he had a choice," she said. "He felt it was his obligation to go fight."
After the war, her parents returned to Seattle and had a tough time getting a job or housing, and veterans groups in Seattle shunned the Japanese-American veterans, who had to form their own nisei veterans group.
"We lived in a segregated society," she said, and the veterans’ hall became the hub of their social life.
"That’s why we’re so close," she said. "In the end, we want to carry on the legacy. Discrimination is alive and well. It’s just more subtle."
Willard Holck, 54, said he was never interested in the participation of his father, Wilbert, in the liberation of the town of Bruyeres.
"I said, ‘What’s the big deal?’"
He was just a toddler when his family returned to Bruyeres in 1960 and in 1961, when Honolulu became its sister city.
But in 2009, 10 years after his father died, Holck, at 49, returned for the 65th anniversary of the liberation. For him, it was "a chicken-skin moment to see what they did, where they fought."
Since then, he and his family continue to maintain ties with the 442nd veterans, as well as with a French family and the town of Bruyeres.
Gwen Fujie, 66, co-chairwoman of the weekend’s events, wears a photo of her then-youthful father, Toshio "Bulldog" Nishizawa, in uniform.
"He’s been my guiding light," she said. "I’m doing it for him."
She said it was important for the veterans of the MIS and 100th Infantry Battalion to take part in the celebration. And she invited Japanese-American organizations, which also participated.
"I felt the whole community should be saying thank you, ‘Okage sama de,’" she said.
