Every soldier in the battalion stood a little taller in his presence, and not just because he was the sergeant major.

He was the last original still in service; the only one who was authorized to wear the beloved “liberty” shoulder patch on both sleeves: one to signify his current unit, the other to signify the unit in which he had served in war. In his case, it was the war our fathers fought some 70 years ago.

Command Sgt. Maj. Tommy Miyashiro, 100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry, died Wednesday at the age of 92.

He enlisted in the Army in 1942 and retired in 1984 — over four decades of soldiering — all of it served in the “Four-Four-Two.”

The story of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team has been told many times in many venues, as well it should be.

Every soldier that this state has ever produced knows that it was the combat team recruited from Americans of Japanese ancestry who were willing to give their lives to prove their loyalty.

It was the most decorated unit of its size in the history of the United States Army. It rescued the “lost battalion” and suffered 800 casualties to save 211 Texans cut off and trapped behind German lines.

It was the 442nd that Harry Truman was speaking of when he said, “You fought prejudice — and you won.”

Most of the 442nd was inactivated at the end of World War II, but its 100th Battalion was spared and lives on to this day in the Army Reserve.

In 1981, it was my first assignment as a rookie lieutenant.

In those days, every officer and enlisted soldier who reported to Farrant L. Turner Hall made a stop at the sergeant major’s office.

If you didn’t know it going in, you sure knew going out what an honor and responsibility it was to wear that shoulder patch.

You learned that you were joining the only battalion in the United States Army whose commanding officer at the time had been born in an internment camp. You heard about the men, 40 years before, who had fought to serve, and then paid for it in blood.

You learned that, in the 100th Battalion, “good enough” isn’t.

You understood that this infantry battalion was the finest that the United States Army had ever produced or ever would.

You owed that to the ones who went before.

You knew that you could never dishonor their memory.

The last original was watching.

Even though he retired in 1984 — and only because the Army wouldn’t let him stay any longer — the spirit of Tommy Miyashiro inspired the 100th Battalion for many years thereafter.

When I visited the battalion in Iraq in 2005, they were best in the country at finding terrorists’ supply caches and roadside bombs.

That distinction came with a price: In two deployments, six soldiers of the 100th Battalion gave their lives in the service of our country.

Tommy surely isn’t in ell, because he’s been there and came back to tell the tale.

Like all the thousands of soldiers who served with him over 42 years in the 100th and the 442nd, I hope to see him again when I cross over to the other side.

If I get there, he’ll be grinning and ask, as he always did, “Eh, lootenant, Wass da good word?”

There was and ever will be only one answer:

“Go For Broke, sergeant major! Go For Broke!”

Thomas D. Farrell is a Honolulu attorney who served as an Army intelligence officer for 30 years, including a tour in Iraq from 2005-2006.