This one is a little personal; my father in law was a Japanese-American GI in WW2 and there are a lot of echoes of my family in Doc M's family.
The Battle of the Lost Brigade happened in October 1944. Like the Light Brigade at Balaclava, the 442d was ordered by incompetent generals to do a militarily impossible task and did it on sheer courage, at great loss to themselves. For this and many similar feats the all Japanese-American 442d became the most decorated unit in the US Army, including twenty one Medals of Honor.
I used to think that my country had outgrown the attitudes that led to the internment of the Japanese-Americans. After 9/11 I'm not so sure. I've heard way too many allegedly responsible people call for all Muslim Americans to be classified as "the enemy". I'm proud that the Japanese American Citizens League has led the resistance to such stupidity.
There's probably no way to write about racial/ethnic issues without offending someone. I've done my best, so I won't apologize. I do hope my respect for all ethnic groups came through.
I have great respect for veterans, but am not one myself. I don't want recognition I didn't earn.
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I grew up looking at the picture of Uncle Ed on the mantelpiece in our living room. There he stood in that old-fashioned GI uniform, surrounded by his identically dressed buddies, grinning and aping for the camera somewhere in England. It wasn't until I was in fifth grade or so that I realized what the flag with the gold star next to the picture meant. In college I figured out that Uncle Ed was only a couple years older than I was then when he and eight hundred comrades in the 442d Regimental Combat Team died in an ultimately successful struggle to rescue two hundred and fifty American soldiers cut off behind German lines. I was never allowed to forget the lesson, usually delivered by Grandma:
"You have a good life in America? People treat you like a real American? All we Japanese have in this country, we owe to your uncle and the 442! After what they did, nobody say that we're not as American as anyone else! Never forget!"
It wasn't until high school, though, that I heard the other half of the story. I came home in shock and asked Grandma if she had ever heard of a "relocation camp". It was like I had struck her. She sat heavily at the kitchen table and motioned me to the other side, and for the first time in my life I saw tears in her eyes.
"Yeah...yeah... I was at the camp when they sent me that Gold Star for your Uncle Ed."
"What camp? Where?"
"Don't ask me about that. It was a bad time. Shikata ga nai."
I knew what that meant: don't complain about things that can't be changed. It also meant that she had said all she would ever say on the subject. Just to be sure Mom warned me that night, in no uncertain terms, that I was never to bring up the internment again. The way their country had treated them, and the loss of everything they had worked for, was just too painful for my proud grandparents to talk about.
When the money ran out after two years of college, I was faced with a bit of a dilemma. The military was the obvious next step, especially for someone who had been raised to idolize the Nisei soldiers who had paid in blood for my generation's opportunities. On the other hand, I had a Buddhist's deep seated revulsion for killing and couldn't see myself as a machine gunner. After talking to a recruiter and a couple of 442d veterans, I joined the Navy as a medical corpsman.
Being a corpsman turned out to be a good fit with my interests. Fitting in with the other guys was a little harder. Let's be honest here: I'm kind of small, Asian, wear glasses, refused to carry a weapon, and wasn't interested in drinking and chasing floozies off duty. It's not exactly the image of your average Seabee. The guys treated me well enough, especially since I was always willing to quietly fix up injuries and infections they didn't want to explain to the chain of command, but I got more than my share of practical jokes pulled on me too.
Then came 9/11, and the whole focus of military life changed. We had never even seen a map of Afghanistan before then, assuming that a landlocked country was irrelevant to the Navy, but when they needed bases built quickly they hollered for all the construction experts they could find. Within a few months we were in Afghanistan and hard at work.
The guys treated me differently over there. I guess when people are actually getting wounded a corpsman gets more respect. They seemed to think it was a big deal that we had to go to where the wounded fell to help them, which I never understood. A wounded soldier isn't going to get up and run to cover while the corpsman waits for him, so going to him is part of the job if you want to be effective. Sure, it can be dangerous, but the monks had taught me that life's not permanent and it's a waste of time and effort to pretend that it is. Besides, as a Japanese-American serviceman I would rather die than disgrace the proud tradition I had inherited. I had a job to do and I did it.
I wasn't doing anything special when the odds caught up with me. We were on our way to run a sick call in one of the local villages when an IED went off under our Humvee. Must have been a small one, because all it did was break my leg in a few places and tear up our driver with some fragments. Getting her bleeding stopped was the last useful thing I did before the military medical pipeline sucked me up and spit me out again in Landstuhl, Germany.
Once my leg was pinned back together I was off to the US for recuperation and physical therapy. The process left me with a lot of free time, which was good because Grandma was getting old fast. As long as I showed up for roll calls and medical appointments, no one cared if I spent the rest of my time with her at the retirement home.
I did get a bit of a shock the first time I made it all the way to her room on my crutches. I knew the Gold Star and the picture of Uncle Ed would be on display, but I wasn't expecting the one next to it. Me, in my dress blues, shaking hands with the President on the day they awarded me my Silver Star. Someone had put me in for it without telling me, and while I didn't think I deserved it I wasn't going to turn it down either.
"What's this, Grandma?"
"You make me proud, Emerson. Made the whole family proud. Your uncle would be proud too. You a credit to our name."
Suddenly all the pain and boredom I was going through didn't seem like such a heavy burden.
Eventually the powers that be decided that my leg was never going to be fit for active duty again, and I was discharged with a disability rating and the right to lifetime VA medical care. Between the VA and GI Bill benefits, I also had funding to finish college and go on to medical school.
Internship and residency at Oregon Health Sciences University was one of the hardest experiences of my life, but I always made time for the monthly gathering of the guys I had served with in Afghanistan. Pretty much all of us were out of the service and moving on with our lives, but the things we had been through together were a lifetime bond. I needed those guys to keep my perspective on life beyond the hospital, and they were always happy to see me.
This month the gathering was at a bar in Northeast Portland that someone had heard about. We had spent the first hour or so catching up, and I had gotten up to use the head. On the way back I had managed to get in a conversation with a cute little brunette who was helping her friend celebrate her upcoming wedding, and wasn't in any hurry to get back to our table.
I guess I should mention that I like Asian-American girls just fine, although not as much as some of my white friends. Unlike them, I had grown up around Asian girls and didn't buy into that whole geisha/M. Butterfly fantasy. Besides, their momma's reaction when they heard that I'm a medical resident could be a little overwhelming. I'll go out with a pretty Japanese-American girl any chance I get, but that doesn't mean that I'll pass up a chance with an attractive girl of any other race. This girl was cute and friendly, and I was having a great time flirting with her.
"Hey, gook, why don't you stick to your own kind?"
I turned. Shaved head, suspenders, boots- the whole skinhead package designed to look tough. Not uncommon in Portland, but stupid and usually dangerous only in groups. A couple others were watching off to one side. I tried Plan A.
"You're making a mistake here. Why don't you go hang out with your friends?"
Behind him I could see what he couldn't: the guys I came with had noticed the problem and were getting up from our table. He had too many drinks in him to listen to reason.
"Why don't you make me?"
The girl I had been flirting with was standing there, wide eyed. I spoke to her quietly.
"Could you stand back, please?"
She promptly did. A deep, Spanish accented voice came from behind him.
"Hey, ese, if you got a problem with the Doc you got a problem with the rest of us. Why don't you maricons go drink someplace else?"
Manny Rodriguez wasn't much taller than I was but he was built like a fireplug. Over a lot of bull sessions in Afghanistan, I learned that he had been a rising star in the East Los Angeles Surenos when he realized that he was attending way too many funerals and was going to be the guest of honor soon if he stayed on the path he was on. The Marine Corps had turned his life in a completely new direction. Now he was an urban planner, wore a tie to work, and spoke without a trace of an accent, but when he got angry the tough cholo rose to the surface quickly. He still had the absolute loyalty to his friends that his early life had ingrained in him, and threatening one in his presence was close to suicidal. The skinhead was starting to catch on. Desperately, he looked up at Brian.
Brian was our petty officer in Afghanistan, and still our natural leader. He's probably 6'3" and close to 300 pounds of muscle. On the inside you couldn't find a gentler, kinder man, but he won't hesitate to use his size to intimidate people who start trouble for no reason.
"Are you really going to stick up for this spic and gook?"
Brian's eyebrows rose. His voice was calm, quiet, and even deeper than Manny's.
