Latest / Japanese America / Honoring Nisei Heroes: David Ono on Valor, Legacy, and Cultural Reflections

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Honoring Nisei Heroes: David Ono on Valor, Legacy, and Cultural Reflections · Japanese America

• 0:00
  So, Koji, what's your favorite Nisei vet story?
• 0:03
  My favorite Nisei vet story is a story that takes place in Italy, and there's this giant mountain that the Japanese Americans had to or, sorry, the Americans had to take over to get into Germany. And they were the Americans had been trying to get into this, you know, get past this German unit because they're on top of the hill just kind of firing artillery.
• 0:23
  And the Japanese Americans said they could take the hill in 30 minutes.
• 0:26
  Everyone's like, that's crazy.
• 0:27
  We've been trying to take this mountain for a while.
• 0:29
  And what they did is they snuck around in the middle of the night, they climbed up the back of the mountain.
• 0:34
  So, like, you know, the mountain climbed and rock climbed and did the whole thing.
• 0:38
  And they told each other that if you fall, you can't scream.
• 0:42
  Because if you scream, you give us away.
• 0:45
  So these boys climbed up the mountain and they got to the top.
• 0:51
  The Germans weren't expecting them, and they did, in fact, take the hill in 30 minutes.
• 0:55
  Do you have any stories that you wanted to share about the 442 that you know, or about the Japanese American vets.
• 0:59
  I did not know anything about it.
• 1:01
  Until like I don't know when I found out, but I didn't know anything about it for a long time.
• 1:10
  And then you also gave me a book too?
• 1:12
  Yeah. That's right, my book.
• 1:13
  Yeah. And I mean, I've heard about it, but I didn't know much about it.
• 1:18
  And then last year, I mean, this year I went to the JANM Gala and there was, there were some vets and I'm like, oh my gosh.
• 1:27
  And they still I mean, they must be very old, but they are still looking good.
• 1:38
  Welcome, welcome, welcome to episode number eight of the Japanese America podcast.
• 1:43
  My name is Michelle and I'm one of your hosts.
• 1:46
  And I'm Koji. Michelle, do you have any exciting plans for Thanksgiving?
• 1:49
  Do you do anything different for Thanksgiving?
• 1:51
  Thanksgiving? No, I don't like Thanksgiving meal.
• 1:56
  I'm not a fan of Turkey and I.
• 1:59
  My husband usually cooks everything.
• 2:02
  Do you have like, Gohan or something?
• 2:03
  Or just.
• 2:04
  No. He makes turkey and he makes mashed potatoes and all that stuff.
• 2:08
  But he doesn't like pumpkin pie.
• 2:11
  I buy pumpkin pie from Costco, so I have to eat the whole pumpkin pie in like five days.
• 2:20
  Wait, so you don't do it? You don't put any.
• 2:22
  There's no Japanese part of the meal.
• 2:23
  It's just all traditional Thanksgiving.
• 2:25
  But Thanksgiving is like Japanese New Year's meal.
• 2:29
  Everybody makes, like, similar things.
• 2:31
  And I don't know, it reminds me of Japan.
• 2:34
  Japanese osechi riyori.
• 2:36
  But I'm not a fan of either meal.
• 2:41
  Growing up, we had rice or Gohan.
• 2:44
  We had, uh, kimpira gobo.
• 2:46
  I don't know why my my mom made.
• 2:47
  I thought kimpira gobo was a Thanksgiving thing until I grew up and realized that it wasn't normal Thanksgiving.
• 2:54
  Kimpra Gobo is supposed to be like a lucky food?
• 2:56
  No, but I did make turkey before I got married.
• 3:00
  And because I read that turkey is like making instant ramen, and it was.
• 3:05
  It's like you just, I don't know, you just put it in a bag and leave it in the oven and then it comes out edible, like.
• 3:16
  Although I think I like instant ramen better than.
• 3:18
  Turkey.
• 3:18
  Turkey. Yeah.
• 3:19
  Does it make you sleepy?
• 3:20
  No, I just I don't love turkey.
• 3:23
  I like turkey in my sandwich.
• 3:24
  I don't know if I like turkey as a meal.
• 3:26
  Yeah, I'm not a fan.
• 3:27
  This is where we look at all things Japanese american we'll bring alive the history, culture and people that make up this diverse community.
• 3:35
  Please consider writing a review of our show on the platform you use to listen to this podcast. We know it's a pain in the butt, but it does go a long way in helping the show. It helps us reach new listeners, grow our show, and most importantly, it enables us to keep putting out the content we hope you enjoy.
• 3:50
  In this month's episode, in honor of Veterans Day, we are talking about the Japanese American Nisei veterans.
• 3:57
  Just in case you don't know, the Nisei veterans who fought in the Second World War in the 100th, 442 and MIS the Military Intelligence Service.
• 4:05
  These units were segregated, consisted of Japanese Americans from Hawaii as well as from the continental United States, many of whose families were incarcerated in the concentration camps.
• 4:15
  The 442 eventually became the most highly decorated unit for its size and duration.
• 4:19
  The 442nd earned 21 Medals of Honor, 9486 Purple Hearts, 4000 Bronze Stars, 560 Silver Star Medals.
• 4:30
  They received eight Presidential Unit Citations and seven Distinguished Unit Citations. In 2011, President Barack Obama awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to the 442, the 100th Infantry Battalion and members of the Mis.
• 4:43
  Their motto was go for broke, a gambling term that means risking everything on one effort to win big.
• 4:49
  Michelle, from what you've heard about, what do you know about the vets?
• 4:52
  I researched?
• 4:53
  And there are like numbers, like 20,000 soldiers, 30,000 soldiers.
• 4:59
  So somewhere in between that's that's a big number of Japanese American soldiers.
• 5:05
  I thought because 120,000 people went to concentration camp and 20, 30,000 people became American soldiers.
• 5:15
  That's amazing.
• 5:16
  You have to also remember, though, that that includes Hawaii, Hawaiian, Japanese Americans were not generally like my family was.
• 5:23
  But for the most part, Japanese Americans in Hawaii were not sent to concentration camps.
• 5:27
  And that's true. But still, that's a huge number, I thought.
• 5:30
  And almost 10,000 Purple Hearts.
• 5:32
  Wow.
• 5:33
  I think the like after the hundredth, which were the Hawaiian, Japanese Americans, they went first and they served valiantly.
• 5:40
  They were very valiant. They were very heroic.
• 5:42
  They were the they were badass.
• 5:44
  And that's when the military thought that got the idea of, you know, there's all these Japanese Americans in camp in the continental United States.
• 5:52
  Why don't we get those guys to fight as well?
• 5:54
  And that's when they sent the loyalty questionnaire that we talked about in a couple episodes ago. And they thought, I think that more people would be like, yeah, let's go fight. But I think that there was not as much excitement as the Hawaiian, Japanese Americans.
• 6:08
  And I think a lot of that obviously has to do with the fact that they were in prison.
• 6:12
  Right. And that's actually one of the fun stories.
• 6:14
  Or I don't know if it's a fun story, but one of the stories that I, that I think is really valuable to understand, that was in the beginning when they when they formed the 442 with the Japanese Americans from the continental United States and Japanese Americans from Hawaii, there were some beef.
• 6:27
  There were some problems between the two groups.
• 6:29
  And generally the Hawaiians were much more easygoing.
• 6:33
  And the Japanese Americans from the mainland continental United States were not.
• 6:37
  And they didn't understand why they were so angry.
• 6:39
  Hawaiians were like, why are these guys so angry?
• 6:41
  And so one day they were training in Arkansas, and they ended up going to one of the camps as a visit to visit their families before they left.
• 6:49
  And the the Hawaiians thought, this is cool, I'm going to go meet some Japanese American girls. You know, I'm going to go get some food.
• 6:56
  And then I think that when they went to the camp, they realized it was prison.
• 7:00
  And I think they saw for the first time what their brothers who were from the mainland, had gone through. And I think it hit them there that, you know, these guys who were fighting were coming out of these places.
• 7:12
  And I think that that brought that unit closer.
• 7:15
  But it also just hit home what they were fighting for.
• 7:17
  It hit home for what they were, what they were doing.
• 7:20
  And I love their motto, go for broke the gambling term.
• 7:24
  It kind of goes around the idea that a lot of these guys already are in prison.
• 7:29
  So what do they have to lose?
• 7:30
  Right? What do they what do they gain?
• 7:32
  They're gaining the right to be American, right?
• 7:34
  The right to fight for their families.
• 7:37
  When I tell people, like, a lot of times I get questions like, why is this important?
• 7:41
  Why do we need to talk about this?
• 7:43
  And it's these guys that made it so that people like me or, you know, people can do the things because they proved beyond a reasonable doubt the loyalty of Japanese Americans to this country, you know.
• 7:55
  And what did they do? They sacrificed their lives for that.
• 7:57
  And for that, you know, I think that's why we talk about it today.
• 8:00
  That's why we continue to talk about it forever.
• 8:02
  Um, how many people did not make it to the top of the German mountain or the mountain in Italy?
• 8:10
  That's a good question, I don't know.
• 8:12
  But I do know, I know people died.
• 8:14
  Oh no, I don't know how many people died, but people did die because it was a very treacherous climb to the top.
• 8:19
  This unit was very they went through a lot of deaths.
• 8:22
  Actually, one thing I will mention also you reminded me is that the the Japanese Americans that fought in Europe had a very different experience than those Japanese Americans that fought in Japan or the East, because the ones in East.
• 8:35
  They were they they served as interpreters, interrogators, those kind of guys.
• 8:40
  Right?
• 8:40
  Yeah. And they were seen as important.
• 8:43
  Right. Like, they could They could talk to the prisoners, they could read intelligence.
• 8:47
  They could do. And there was only like, you know, a bunch in a unit, not like a whole unit of them. And so generally they were seen as valuable.
• 8:54
  So they weren't like thrown out to get killed.
• 8:57
  Yeah. Whereas a lot of the Japanese-Americans who fought in Europe, the, the bad joke is they were seen as cannon fodder to send them.
• 9:04
  It doesn't matter what happens to them, send them home.
• 9:06
  And so I think that, like a lot of the experiences were completely different in terms of just even how they were valued within the within the government.
• 9:14
  Wow. So they were segregated as a team, but did they have like did they have support from the other units or.
• 9:23
  Yeah, yeah. They were actually in the beginning, a lot of the units were led by Caucasians. And then as they got killed they were replaced by Japanese Americans.
• 9:33
  And that's actually one of the interesting things about these segregated units, whether African-American, Latino, Asian or whatever.
• 9:38
  If you were in a regular unit and you showed any ability to be a leader.
• 9:43
  What did they do? They took you out of that unit and put you in a different unit so that everybody would have leaders.
• 9:48
  The problem with these segregated units is that if you were a leader of a Japanese American, there's no other unit you could be sent to.
• 9:54
  Oh.
• 9:54
  And so within the units, there was a leadership and a no.
• 9:58
  There was no drain of talent or brain.
• 10:00
  Right. They stayed. I mean, there was nowhere else you could go.
• 10:02
  Yeah. So within the unit, there was like this kind of stronger unit, whereas like, a lot of the regular Caucasian units wouldn't have that because, you know, they would instantly if you were like a superstar, they would just move you to another place that needed the superstar. And so that's one of the reasons why they were they were so, you know, that these units were special in that in that way.
• 10:20
  To help us talk about the Nisei vets, we brought in guest David Ono.
• 10:25
  David Ono is the co-anchor for Abc7 Eyewitness News at 4 p.m.
• 10:30
  and 6 p.m., and was recently named anchor of the year in the US by Broadcasting Cable.
• 10:37
  David joined Abc7 in 1996 and during that time has witnessed history worldwide covering Hurricane Katrina, Haiti's earthquake and Japan's tsunami.
• 10:49
  He traveled across Europe and Asia, chronicling the brave acts of the Nisei soldier from World War II.
• 10:56
  David has produced multiple award winning documentaries, two of which have made their way to the Smithsonian Institution.
• 11:04
  David has won 12 Edward R Murrow Awards, 31 Emmys, two Rtdna National Unity Awards, six AAJA National Journalism Awards, and was honored with Distinguished Journalist Award by the Society of Professional Journalists.
• 11:22
  He has also received both the journalist of the year, as well as the Lifetime Achievement Award from the LA Press Club.
• 11:30
  Michel, should we get started?
• 11:31
  Yes.
• 11:32
  Okay, let's do it.
• 11:33
  First, let's get to know David a little bit.
• 11:36
  David, tell us about yourself.
• 11:38
  Um, my name is David Ono.
• 11:39
  I am the evening anchor for KABC TV.
• 11:43
  That's an ABC network.
• 11:44
  And, um, I in addition to being an anchor of three shows a day, I do some reporting for them. I do some stuff for the network, and then I do independent filmmaking and other types of creation, largely revolving around the Nisei soldier.
• 12:04
  Next, we asked David about the 100th, 442 and the MIS.
• 12:08
  It's a remarkable unit, a segregated unit, which I always found ironic that we are fighting the probably the greatest white supremacist in the history of the world, Hitler with a segregated army.
• 12:18
  But we did during World War two.
• 12:20
  And one of those segregated units was the 100 442nd MIS.
• 12:25
  So the 100th largely started out of Hawaii because it was already an established, uh, National Guard unit when Pearl Harbor occurred, and they were the first to go into battle as as one established Japanese American unit.
• 12:42
  Soon after them came the 442nd, which is made up of Hawaiians again, and also young men from the incarceration camps, American incarceration camps.
• 12:53
  Of the 120,000 or so Japanese Americans that were locked up during World War Two, and then the MIS stands for Military Intelligence Service.
• 13:02
  And these were similar men, similar backgrounds, but they were more astute in the Japanese language, and they formed an intelligence unit that largely worked in the Pacific to decipher Japanese transmissions and help with the efforts in the Pacific to actually defeat Japan.
• 13:23
  And together, all three of these units were amazing, some of the most outstanding units in American military history.
• 13:30
  Yet, as we always say, most Americans have never heard of them.
• 13:33
  And that's why I feel like their story is extremely important because they're one of the many chapters in American history that we have chosen to basically hide or sweep under the carpet and not really evangelize or talk about.
• 13:47
  David, what's the importance of the Japanese American vets and their story?
• 13:52
  I think they are model Americans with an immigrant's face.
• 13:57
  And I think that's important to say, because the reason they were isolated was because they looked like people from another country, as opposed to, let's say, Germans and German Americans and Italians and Italian Americans during World War two at least. We isolated the Japanese Americans, even though they were far, far more German and Japanese. But they were Caucasian, so they looked more like Americans, whereas easier to isolate the Japanese Americans.
• 14:24
  I think it's important in the context of our country's history, and that is we've often shunned or vilified certain segments of our population and not just people of color, you know, but, uh, people who are Caucasian, like Irish and Catholics and Italians when they were coming over in mass quantities.
• 14:45
  And so we have a tendency of doing this.
• 14:48
  And I think that's important because each one of these communities or groups finds a way to assimilate and become accepted in the American community.
• 14:57
  But when it comes to Asians and Asian Americans, um, they have a harder time because they don't, quote unquote, look like Americans.
• 15:06
  And so this unit of Nisei soldiers, they were remarkable because they endured extreme prejudice during the war.
• 15:13
  I mean, to be locked up, being innocent and locked up in these concentration camps and yet still choose to fight for the very country that did that and not just fight, but fight in such a way that is considered one of the greatest units ever in American military history.
• 15:32
  That's a pretty remarkable story.
• 15:34
  And I feel like if people can see these young men as Americans, they could better understand America as a whole and how we are a melting pot and how many of these communities have come from someplace else but eventually assimilated, assimilated, and became Americans.
• 15:51
  And it's part of what makes America great.
• 15:54
  I firmly, firmly believe that.
• 15:55
  What's your legacy?
• 15:57
  You know, in terms of American history or to you?
• 16:00
  Well, to me, it's their ability to put aside all the hate and choose to be patriotic, sacrifice their own greater good for the greater good of the country, and then kind of go back into American society in the most modest of ways and never talk about what they endured and what they accomplished.
• 16:22
  And I think that kind of quietness is, is part of, of who these young men were.
• 16:30
  And this, this Nisei community is and that is it's it's extremely modest.
• 16:36
  They have a lot of Japanese sensibilities.
• 16:39
  And they brought those sensibilities to the way they fought the war, but also the way they endured after the war.
• 16:46
  And so I think that's really something to be recognized and even celebrated.
• 16:52
  But that modesty, I think, is a great lesson within today's community, because we don't we certainly don't have enough of that.
• 16:59
  David, why don't you tell us your favorite Nisei vet story?
• 17:02
  Well, there are so many.
• 17:04
  And that's the beauty of it is, if you take each one of these young men as an individual, his story will blow your mind, you know?
• 17:11
  Almost all of them.
• 17:12
  So that's that's part of the beauty of it.
• 17:14
  I'll kind of divide it up into a couple of things.
• 17:16
  And one is one of the greatest folks in the war in this unit was Senator Inouye.
• 17:24
  Daniel Inouye had this Remarkable ability to lead.
• 17:30
  And you saw it from the very beginning, from Pearl Harbor, when he was a 17 year old kid in Honolulu, and his parents told him to stay in the house and get down.
• 17:39
  Yet he did just the opposite and ran out of the house and didn't go back for a couple of days because he was helping to triage victims.
• 17:45
  Et cetera. Just a 17 year old kid.
• 17:47
  And eventually he goes into the 442nd.
• 17:51
  He was too young to enlist in the Army at that time.
• 17:54
  But when he became of age, he was with that second group that went in as the 442nd quickly rose up through the ranks to become a great leader within this unit.
• 18:03
  But when he actually eventually received his Medal of Honor, that particular battle blows my mind. And I have actually been to this very place.
• 18:12
  It's just outside of Tendilla, Italy, which is up in the mountains in Tuscan region of Italy. And this community is so beautiful.
• 18:21
  But he was in a forested hillside just outside of this, this beautiful village and got into this nasty fight before the fight even started.
• 18:31
  He was shot through the abdomen and didn't even know it.
• 18:34
  It was one of his.
• 18:35
  The men that was with him pointed out that you're bleeding.
• 18:38
  And he said, I didn't even I don't even feel it.
• 18:41
  And he still led his men into battle.
• 18:43
  And then his heroics during that time were extreme.
• 18:46
  They were under heavy fire from multiple machine gun nests, and his guys were pinned down. So he chose to crawl up and take one out with grenades and machine guns and crawl to the next one and take that one out.
• 18:58
  And then he got his basically his arm shot off.
• 19:01
  While he was throwing another grenade.
• 19:03
  He fries the grenade out of his hand with his other hand, throws it, and continues on with the one man attack with his with one arm dangling, which he eventually lost and the other one firing a gun.
• 19:15
  And then eventually he was shot in the legs and he went down.
• 19:18
  And he survived all of this to eventually get out of the war, get into politics and become this great senator.
• 19:27
  In fact, four heartbeats from the president of the United States, and was a great leader for the rest of his life.
• 19:32
  I think that's an extreme, you know, version of a Nisei soldier.
• 19:37
  But there are so many others that have so many different stories.
• 19:40
  But in addition to those stories, I think another great story in the legacy of the Nisei that kind of talks about how important they are is a good symbol of how important they are, is if you go to Bruyeres, France today, in fact, I was just there a couple of weeks ago for the 80th anniversary of this big battle called the rescue of the Lost Battalion. And that's where 220 men were surrounded by the Germans.
• 20:01
  And it was the Nisei that broke them out with, you know, great expense.
• 20:05
  They lost so many men doing it.
• 20:06
  And just the days prior to that, they liberated this town called Bruyere.
• 20:11
  To this day, that town keeps thanks and gratitude to the Nisei because they were under horrible A situation where the Germans took over their town for the next 4 to 5 years. They endured all these atrocities, and it was a naysayer that eventually liberated them. And to this day they recognize and they say, but to an extreme way to where they are.
• 20:40
  Re-enactors say put on the Nazis uniforms.
• 20:43
  They preserved the the vehicles that were left behind in the battle.
• 20:48
  And they basically these Caucasian French people pretend to be Japanese American soldiers, and that's how much they love them.
• 20:57
  And it's all just they imitate them because they adore them.
• 21:01
  They're their heroes.
• 21:02
  And I think that's a very loud statement of how important the Nisei were to the French, even though most Americans have never heard of these guys.
• 21:11
  So I love that story, too, because here we are, 80 years later, multiple generations later, and each generation passes on that legacy, that important story, and also the need to imitate these guys and and put on their uniforms, etc.
• 21:28
  and keep this legacy alive.
• 21:30
  I think. I love that.
• 21:31
  And there's also some Nisei that are buried at Épinal Cemetery, which is right there, and they still take care of the graves.
• 21:38
  And the kids in the elementary school are constantly caring for the graves and and putting flowers on them, etc.
• 21:46
  and that way, that's how they keep this legacy alive from generation to generation.
• 21:50
  Michelle, as a person who grew up in Japan, what do you think about when you hear these stories?
• 21:55
  So I don't know. I grew up in Japan and I took history Japanese history classes over and over. But, you know, we start out from like 2000 years ago, Jomon Jidai.
• 22:07
  But by the time the year is almost over, we almost run out of time and we usually get like so quick on World War two.
• 22:16
  And we don't really learn much about the World War two because we ran out of time.
• 22:21
  I don't know if they did it on purpose or not, so I didn't learn much about World War Two to start with.
• 22:28
  And I didn't know anything about Japanese American till I came to America, when I had my boss who went to the concentration camp, and I really didn't know anything about the Japanese American soldiers who went to war for America.
• 22:45
  And oh my gosh, I mean, I don't want to go to war to start with, but those people went to war for America as a Japanese American.
• 22:55
  And that's like so courageous and so brave.
• 22:59
  And I can't believe they earned the most medals and awards as a team in American military history. Is that true.
• 23:09
  For their size and duration?
• 23:10
  Yeah.
• 23:10
  Yeah. Like, oh, that's amazing.
• 23:13
  So brave.
• 23:14
  Yeah, they were crazy.
• 23:16
  And maybe crazy, but but but I mean, you got to be courageous and brave to be crazy.
• 23:22
  Crazy in a good way. Not crazy in a bad way.
• 23:24
  Crazy in a way that, you know, that these guys were so willing to put their lives on the line. You know, the there were a lot of famous battles where they were just running straight into machine guns nests.
• 23:34
  They were they were the unit that would do the things that no one thought was possible.
• 23:38
  Like, you know, these guys over and over prove their loyalty, you know, and prove their that they were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for this country.
• 23:47
  That's amazing.
• 23:48
  David, what's your connection to the Nisei vet story?
• 23:50
  Well, I really don't have any connection except as a journalist because I came here.
• 23:55
  My family came here well after the war.
• 23:57
  My family is from Japan, and so I simply stumbled upon this story when I moved to Los Angeles about 30 years ago.
• 24:07
  I had never heard it before, even though I was Japanese American, and a lot of people make the assumption that my family must have been maybe incarcerated or part of this, This may say history, but it wasn't.
• 24:18
  My father was in the army.
• 24:20
  So I do understand what it's like to be like to be in a military family and and enduring what military families have to endure.
• 24:28
  But I never heard this story before.
• 24:30
  And at first you're kind of as a journalist especially, you deal with a little bit of shame. Why do I not know this story?
• 24:37
  Especially since I'm Japanese American and you're talking about Japanese Americans.
• 24:40
  And I grew up on an on multiple military bases, and yet I never heard this great story about these amazing fighters in the United States Army.
• 24:48
  But then once you do a little bit of soul searching and try to answer some of these tougher questions and why the ignorance, and you come to realize that it's really not your fault. If you don't know something, then how are you going to know?
• 25:01
  You don't know. You know, it's it's partly part of our history books.
• 25:05
  It's it's what we choose to talk about in our history as opposed to what we choose to ignore. And clearly, this is one of those chapters that we ignore.
• 25:13
  Yet we talk talked about the Alamo.
• 25:15
  Everybody knows about Davy Crockett.
• 25:17
  You know, we talk about the American Revolution and the Civil War.
• 25:19
  Of course we talk about D-Day.
• 25:22
  We don't talk about the Nisei.
• 25:24
  And so once I figure that out and started to actually meeting these men later in life and, and interviewing them and gathering their stories and understanding what they dealt with as a young man choosing to fight for a country while their family was locked up in a concentration camp.
• 25:41
  I mean, that's kind of mind boggling stuff.
• 25:43
  And if you put it in today's context, you know, after the Civil War, I mean, after the Vietnam War, we learned to protest, to speak up.
• 25:52
  And but that was not the attitude during World War two.
• 25:56
  And so I feel like in today's world, there's these amazing young men may have chosen not to fight for the country.
• 26:05
  Um, if their families were incarcerated unfairly.
• 26:08
  But it is a good examination of what would you do if you were in their predicament?
• 26:14
  And it's a tough call.
• 26:15
  And so I, I kind of love that too.
• 26:18
  And so as a journalist and I learned more and more about what these young men endured and then their incredible sacrifice, their incredible accomplishments, and then the fact that they just came back home and never talked about it again.
• 26:32
  And in a way that is sort of a disservice, which in itself, because if you don't talk about it and how are people going to know what you endured, what you experienced and why that's important?
• 26:43
  And so all of these things put together, to me, this is one of the greatest stories ever, because you're you're talking about great heroes and these amazing heroics under incredible odds.
• 26:53
  And then when I fly to the various battlefields and I see them today and they meet the Italians who still know of the Nisei and the French, who know the Nisei and the Germans, who know the Nisei.
• 27:04
  And to gather all of these stories and see where it happened.
• 27:08
  It's like almost storybook stuff.
• 27:11
  So as a journalist, this is it's just ripe with incredible stories with with a great message attached.
• 27:18
  Do you remember the first time you heard about the Nisei Vets?
• 27:21
  I did, it was around the late 90s, and I remember I had met I was starting to meet some of these, these young men, and they still didn't get it.
• 27:33
  In fact, I wish I could redo some of those interviews because now I get it.
• 27:37
  But back then it's there's so much to the story, it becomes overwhelming and you just kind of like, pretend to understand through this one person's perspective.
• 27:47
  But you really don't understand how this entire population was impacted and how these were really tough decisions that these men had to make.
• 27:57
  So I wish I could do some of those interviews again, but I'm so thankful I did them because most of these guys passed away just a few years later, and even the youngest ones are in the 100, 101, 102 years old.
• 28:08
  And there's only about, I don't know, 15 or 16 left in the entire country.
• 28:13
  David, what about their stories important to you?
• 28:16
  I think about these guys when I deal with adversity, and I think we all have our own moments when we deal with adversity and we kind of measure ourselves to how how did we deal with that? Did we deal with it in a respectful way, in a way that we're proud of?
• 28:34
  Did we do the right thing?
• 28:35
  Did we do the wrong thing?
• 28:37
  And so these guys can be a great guide.
• 28:41
  There's very few things that are as difficult than what they had to deal with and the sacrifices that they made.
• 28:48
  I mean, these young men in their late teens and early 20s, thousands didn't come home.
• 28:54
  And so they made the ultimate sacrifice.
• 29:00
  Um, but they did what they felt was the right thing.
• 29:03
  And that is fight for their country to prove their loyalty, understanding that maybe they won't survive, but their family hopefully will.
• 29:11
  And then the next generations will, and the example they are setting could pave the way for them to be seen as great Americans.
• 29:19
  And so I think that's really important.
• 29:22
  But it's more about, in my opinion, the courage that they displayed.
• 29:27
  Very few things are as scary as somebody's shooting at you and you running towards them as opposed to away from them.
• 29:33
  I mean, quite literally, sometimes it's up a steep hill.
• 29:37
  When you are, you have incredible odds against you, which we've seen multiple times.
• 29:42
  So I feel like they are great heroes for us to keep close to our hearts.
• 29:48
  And when we find ourselves in some of those tough moments when we have to make a decision or deal with a tough circumstance, it's probably not as tough as these guys.
• 29:58
  And let these guys be your barometer and guide you as you try to make the right decision and do it respectfully.
• 30:04
  Finally, David, why don't you tell us what you're working on?
• 30:07
  We have we have multiple projects.
• 30:09
  And in fact, um, I would love for folks if they're listening, if they're part of this Nisei community.
• 30:16
  Um, we're trying to gather as many letters as possible.
• 30:18
  So we're doing a letters project, and we're trying.
• 30:20
  It's a complete.
• 30:21
  And I'll admit it, it's like a rip off of Ken Burns Civil War documentary from I think it was the late 80s, but it was fabulous.
• 30:28
  And I always figured if he could do a doc about the Civil War using letters, then we could certainly do a story or a documentary in a similar vein, but but a much more modern approach where we I want to get letters from Hawaii.
• 30:44
  I want to get letters from the mainland.
• 30:46
  I want to get letters from people who were in the camps.
• 30:49
  And then, of course, are our young men who were fighting in Europe and in the Pacific.
• 30:54
  The letters going back and forth and basically telling the whole story of the war from start to finish to just before Pearl Harbor to to after the day we the armistice was signed or the surrender of Japan was signed.
• 31:09
  And so in all of these little relationships and these moments and these, you know, being locked up behind barbed wire to rebuilding Pearl Harbor, to what they're dealing with in the cold of France in the middle of winter.
• 31:25
  Et cetera. I feel like there's so much drama in all of that.
• 31:28
  I'm even finding letters of some of the young Nisei soldiers who began love affairs with young women in France and Germany and Italy and Japan, and showing that kind of human experience in the war that we don't often talk about.
• 31:49
  And I think it's a beautiful thing.
• 31:52
  So the Letters Project is one where I want to tell the whole story of the war, especially of the Nisei soldiers.
• 31:57
  Through the multiple letters, I continuing on with my Defining Courage stage show, which we think there's probably going to be a bunch of dates coming up in 2025.
• 32:08
  We already are going to do USC and Cal Berkeley.
• 32:11
  We're talking to Seattle and Portland, Salt Lake City, quite possibly Chicago, and maybe a couple more shows in Hawaii and maybe even West Point.
• 32:20
  You know, many most people in the Army have never heard this story.
• 32:24
  So we feel like West Point could be a great opportunity and we're exploring that as well.
• 32:30
  So. Defining courage is going to continue on.
• 32:33
  We're writing new music.
• 32:34
  We're creating new chapters.
• 32:35
  And as I mentioned, I was in France just a couple of weeks ago shooting new chapters.
• 32:40
  So we're always adding to it.
• 32:41
  We have so many great new stories that we want to put into that show, kind of revamp it and make it fresh for some folks who might have seen it before.
• 32:49
  So. And then, of course, ultimately everybody a lot of folks are working on this, but I'd love to be part of the project to get either the The Band of another brothers type of series on the air, or a big Saving Private Ryan level of a movie, because these guys certainly deserve it.
• 33:07
  And that's one of the big travesties, is the fact that Hollywood has not embraced this story in the last 80 years.
• 33:13
  Outside of that movie called go for broke in like 1951, starring Van Johnson, who is a Caucasian, you know, so they deserve it.
• 33:24
  It would be an amazing story to tell, and it would help teach Americans about these great guys, these great heroes.
• 33:32
  The Defining Courage is a journey into the legacy of the Nisei soldier.
• 33:35
  Narrated by ABC seven Los Angeles news anchor and filmmaker David Ono, along with musicians and vocalists curated by music director Chris Wade, we immersed you into the tragic yet uplifting world of these heroes who fought prejudice at home and the enemy abroad. See, hear and experience their incredible heroics through this piece of innovative storytelling.
• 33:54
  Far from a lesson in history, it is a testament to inner strength, one that inspires us. Our search for courage in today's world.
• 34:02
  The next show is on April 4th in Berkeley.
• 34:04
  Tickets are available at defining Courage Show.com.
• 34:08
  We encourage you to come to JANM to check out our ongoing exhibition, Common Ground, Heart of a community where you can find out more information about the Nisei Vets.
• 34:16
  My favorite part is where you can see a real Medal of Honor.
• 34:18
  They have a real Medal of Honor there.
• 34:25
  Michelle, what kind of soldier would you be?
• 34:28
  Medal of honor winner or deserter or something in between?
• 34:32
  Oh. Oh, my gosh, I don't know, I don't know.
• 34:37
  I ah ah I, I want to fight, but I might desert.
• 34:42
  I'm so sorry.
• 34:44
  What about you, Koji?
• 34:46
  My wife makes fun of me because I am a listener to people.
• 34:51
  So, like, you know, if somebody tells me to do something, I just go do it.
• 34:54
  So I think I'd probably make a pretty good soldier.
• 34:57
  They'd be like, okay, take over that hill.
• 34:58
  And I'm like, okay, run off the cliff.
• 35:01
  Okay. So what would you do if you deserted?
• 35:04
  What would you like, go to another country.
• 35:06
  Would you hide? What would you.
• 35:08
  I don't know, I don't know.
• 35:10
  I guess I just, I just can't.
• 35:14
  Can I stay behind and, like, Polish guns?
• 35:19
  I might be good at it.
• 35:22
  Polishing guns.
• 35:24
  That's crazy.
• 35:26
  How about flying a drone?
• 35:27
  You can fly a drone. Can you?
• 35:28
  Are you good? Like at, like, video games or something?
• 35:31
  No. I used to play a lot of video games that shoot airplanes.
• 35:36
  Yeah but I wasn't good at it.
• 35:39
  I don't know.
• 35:40
  Maybe you could cook.
• 35:41
  Yeah, I could, I can cook, but I don't think I could be a nurse, so I'm useless.
• 35:50
  That's funny, because my son, me and my son talk about the end of the world and what our skills are. And he always says, I'm useless at the end of the world.
• 35:57
  But I told him no, that they need storytellers who could tell stories about what's happened and what's happening and entertain people at night when there's no TV anymore. So maybe you could be a comedian for the troops when they're, you know, they're on base or when they're sick and they are hurt and they need to have somebody entertain them. Maybe you could be that person.
• 36:17
  Maybe. Yeah, I could be good at that.
• 36:20
  But like anything else.
• 36:22
  Yeah. Polishing guns or mending some clothes, maybe some flags.
• 36:29
  Some flags.
• 36:32
  Okay, let's just say you'll be a comedian then.
• 36:34
  Oh, yeah. Okay. That sounds good.
• 36:36
  You'll entertain, entertain the troops with some, you know, make them feel better while they're recovering from injury.
• 36:42
  You can't make them laugh too much because you don't.
• 36:44
  Yeah, because then you, the German, will know that you are there.
• 36:48
  And we're not. We don't. I don't think we're going to fight Germany.
• 36:50
  Yeah.
• 36:52
  Thank you, David Ono, for your time and thank you all for listening.
• 36:56
  There are almost 4 million podcasts, and we are honored that you've chosen to listen to ours.
• 37:02
  If you liked the podcast, please share it with your friends, families, and even your enemies. You'll be doing a lot to help us keep bringing exciting and fun content every month. This podcast is a program of the Japanese American National Museum.
• 37:14
  The museum's mission is to promote understanding and appreciation of America's ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the Japanese American experience.
• 37:22
  Please rate, review and subscribe to our podcast, and be sure to join us next month when we talk about Japanese American Christmas.
• 37:30
  Bye.
• 37:31
  Bye.