On the morning of Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, 18-year-old Lawson Sakai was sitting in his kitchen, listening to the New York Giants-Brooklyn Dodgers football game on the radio. Suddenly, a breathless announcer interrupted the broadcast and said, “The Japanese have attacked the American base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii!”
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“I was so mad!” he told me years later. “I thought, ‘How dare they attack my country?’ I turned to my parents and yelled, ‘What the hell is the matter with your people?’ ”
The next morning, Sakai and four of his friends marched down to the U.S. Army recruiting office to sign up. That’s when he found that this wasn’t his country anymore. His friends were accepted, but he was turned away. Why? Because they were Caucasian and he was Japanese-American.
He was told that his draft classification had been changed from 1-A to 4-C (“enemy alien”) even though he was born and raised in the United States. There was worse to come.
A few weeks later, all Japanese Americans on the West Coast, including the children, were sent to internment camps in the middle of nowhere from California to Arkansas, where the weather was broiling hot in summer, freezing cold in winter, and dirty, dusty and depressing all year round.
The camps were surrounded by barbed wire and guards on the watchtowers with machine guns, ready to shoot anyone they thought was trying to escape. And for what? There was not even one incident of Japanese-American espionage or sabotage throughout the war. The whole thing was racist, mean-spirited and cruel.
By 1943 the Army was so desperate for manpower that it reversed itself and created a segregated Japanese American regiment called the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, and thousands of young Japanese American men, including Lawson, volunteered.
Were they good soldiers? No. They were the best soldiers America has ever had, and the numbers bear that out. They were awarded more medals, man for man, than any other military unit in U.S. history.
“They were superb!” Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Marshall wrote after the war. “They showed rare courage and tremendous fighting spirit. Everybody wanted them.”
They were called the “Purple Heart Battalion” because of the thousands of casualties they suffered. Lawson was awarded four of those Purple Hearts — technically, a Purple Heart with three Oak Leaf Clusters — and he would have been awarded a fifth if he hadn’t refused because he didn’t think his wound was serious enough.
On Oct. 27, 1944, he was on patrol in the Vosges Mountains when he suddenly found himself face-to-face with a German soldier. They both fired their rifles simultaneously. The German missed. Lawson didn’t. After the battle he looked at the calendar and realized that it was his 21st birthday. More importantly, it was also the day he didn’t die.
Remember the end of “Saving Private Ryan,” when the dying Captain Miller says “earn this” to Private Ryan? Lawson Sakai spent the rest of his life earning the sacrifice of his brothers-in-arms who never came back. He was an exemplary husband, father, businessman, veteran and, speaking personally, friend of mine.
During another time of national crisis — the Revolutionary War — Thomas Paine wrote, “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
Lawson and his band of brothers in the 442 were winter soldiers. Their country betrayed them, but when their country needed them most they kept the faith.
Every year for decades on Armed Forces Day — the third Saturday in May — the men of the 442 gathered at Roberts Regional Recreation Area in the Oakland hills for a memorial service honoring their comrades who never came back. This year, it will be on May 18.
They’re all gone now, including Lawson, but the ceremony goes on, and they would have wanted me to invite you. Take Skyline Boulevard and follow the signs for the Chabot Space & Science Center. About a mile before you get to the science center, you’ll see a turnoff on your right for Roberts park.
Go though the first parking lot to the second lot beyond it, and you’ll spot me and a bunch of other people. We’ll walk about a hundred yards into the park to the site of the service. Bring a jacket; Roberts park has its own microclimate. The ceremony will start at noon. I hope to see you there.
Martin Snapp can be reached at catman442@comcast.net.