GO FOR BROKE

I am what I am today in part due to the heroes of Go For Broke, a term Nisei soldiers used during World War II, describing their fighting attitude.  Here was a group dedicated to proving themselves as citizens of their country after their family and friends got tossed into concentration camps.  Well, they were called internment camps.  If not for this "opportunity"--33,000 Japanese Americans served and 800 died--life in Hawaii could well still be infused with a plantation mentality.  

The 100th/442nd Infantry Regiment became the most decorated unit in U.S. military history.  As much as I revered them, I got to admit that my military service was less than exemplary.  After I graduated from college, I became vulnerable to the draft.  So I joined the Army Reserves, and after infantry training for six months, returned to Naalehu on the Big Island of Hawaii and was placed in the same 442 unit that was so famous.  This town was sufficiently far away that I did not need to attend the weekly gatherings in Hilo.  I was placed in something called a control group, which has an ominous ring.  

In 1969 I went off to graduate school, where I did have to participate in weekly sessions.  However, soon thereafter, all those in the national control group were activated (I did not know this could have happened) and most of them were sent to Viet Nam (Did you know, while Vietnam is the common usage, the legal term still used in that country is Viet Nam?)  But that has been the story of my life.  I somehow always seem to luck out.  I could add that the time I spent in the control group doing nothing counted in the six years of reserve service, which ended in my first year of graduate school.

When I moved into 15 Craigside 40+ years later, I sat on dinner tables with several of those 100th/442nd veterans who actually served in European combat.  The youngest of them today getting close to 100 years old is Minoru Tamashiro, now on our hospital second floor.  He was a colleague at the University of Hawaii as an entomologist and became known as the Termite Man.  He and his students did all the work so that we today in Hawaii don't have those swarms of termites that came out on hot summer nights.  Here are Minoru (left) and Sam Fujii.  Sam has some interesting stories, for he was captured by the Germans.

Six decades before the Green Book on black-white racial relations, Go For Broke in 1951 was a lesson is racism.  Rotten Tomatoes audiences gave it a 76 rating.  One reviewer said:

Excellent War Movie and shows you a part of American History that has been buried. If you're a veteran you need to see this, shows our US Japanese citizens during WWII, a great showing.

The whole film was of course on the trials and tribulations of the 100th/442nd.  If you're old enough from Hawaii, you are familiar with this production.  Never saw the movie?  Here it is in entirety, all hour and a half long.  This is possible because in 1979 the claimants did not renew its copyright registration.

In the film Van Johnson as their commander learns that Go for broke was a pidgin phrase used in Hawaii, meaning to gamble everything or shoot the works.  He also became familiar with another term, Baka tare, meaning very stupid.  The screenplay was nominated for an Oscar.

There were four more Go For Broke films not related to this battle group.  In 2017 came another movie, Go For Broke:  an Origin Story.  Rotten Tomatoes did not rate it, but Jen Yamato of the Los Angeles Times said, there are undeniably powerful moments.  Kyle Kosaki plays Sen. Daniel Inouye and Jake Shimabukuro makes a cameo, also contributing to the score.  Here is a KITV report on the making of this production.

Finally, these warriors were recently recognized on a forever stamp.  I am just running out, so will ask for it when I next go to the Post Office.  The individual on the stamp is Shiroku "Whitey" Yamamoto from a 1944 photo.  He survived the war and was influential in collecting much of the data about the 442nd.  He would have been 100 in 2023.

Jake Shimabukuro honored them last month with his Go For Broke song  He has of course been playing this tribute for more than a decade.  Here is another performance to commemorate Pearl Harbor Day 2010.  

Having lived in various spots throughout the USA, I've noticed that those of Japanese ethnicity not associated with Hawaii had a deeper feeling about citizenship.  The Japanese American Citizens League had chapters in many states and it took me a while to recognize why they had this dedication.  They still have a chip on their shoulder because of discrimination.  We don't have that feeling in Hawaii because there are so many of Japanese descent  This percentage was up to 43% in the 1920's.  Today, only 14%.

Here is another homage from a Sacramento taiko group.  The Minidoka Swing Band presents a musical tribute.  Congressman Adam Schiff of California on his congressional effort to make the stamp reality.  It took 10 years, 15 when you go back to when the effort began.

There is a Go For Broke Monument in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles:

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