<Begin Segment 8>

BF: You know, Jesus also has been interpreted in a lot of, recently, in a lot of Third World countries as having, as being seen as a rebellious political -- they take inspiration when they're being oppressed, from his message. And I wondered, as a young pastor in this situation, where you, your rights are trampled on and you know it. How did you deal with sort of, I guess feelings of real anger and maybe, I assume with some bitterness with what the government was doing to you and your community? How did you -- ? What kind of messages did you try and present? Were they almost all positive or did you sometimes sort of sneak in a message of, you know, "We should...?

PN: Well, I think the idea of faith is concerned -- as far as I was concerned, they were all positive. I mean, I think if I were a little more involved in social justice, and in a time like that it's difficult to just, you know, ask for justice and all that in camp. But I think it all had to do more with the devotional and personal in terms of salvation of the group and of individuals in their relationship to God, to meet the vicissitudes of life. So in that sense, all this social justice thing didn't come out too often. But when we had the volunteers for the 442, we had some problems there because Christian fellows, particularly at the beginning, they were volunteering for the special regimental team, 442. And we had to think that thing through, because here they're incarcerated in camp because they're Japanese Americans, and then to volunteer for the U.S. Army. Parents are still in there, and then to go overseas to fight the battles. It was a hard decision. And of course, you know about the questions they had to ask -- answer regarding, do you -- are you faithful and loyal to the United States? Are you faithful, loyal to the Emperor? And so forth. And there were a lot of the "no-no" and the "yes-yes" boys. We had that. So that was a little controversial. And I could say the Christian fellows were more readily responding to that, saying, "Yes, I'll volunteer."

BF: Did people come to you for advice?

PN: That's the -- you know there was a question asked about counseling. That was one area where I got a lot of counseling because we really had to wrestle with that question. Yeah. Here we are in these camps -- American citizens -- concentration camps, really. And they want us to volunteer and serve the United States Army. It was sort of a paradoxical experience.

BF: Do you recall some of the things that that you said?

PN: Well, it's very difficult to answer those questions. But I wrestled with it myself, and so I volunteered. But I volunteered as a chaplain. My friends were going and I was at that age, still able to volunteer. And I volunteered as a chaplain. And a couple of weeks later they called me in from the other camp saying, "You cannot serve as a chaplain because you don't have your seminary training." And so I was rejected. But in, in thinking about this, we felt that, well we could get mad and say, "Here, we are in camp, and we're considered prisoners. And we should -- why should we go out and fight for the United States?" But we didn't know where our future was to be or where do we belong? And we realized we're -- actually, our future will be here in America. We are American citizens, this is our proper responsibility. And we thought about the future. So that was the counseling that I gave out. I tried to be an example, myself, by volunteering. But I didn't have the training. So after that news, well, I left camp to get my training. But by the time I got through, the war was over. But I went to Minnesota where we had our MIS, so I was able to minister to the Military Intelligence School there. So in that way, I was trying to do what I can.

SF: Do you recall any, counseling any families where there was a really serious disruption due to the registration issue -- "yes-yes," "no-no"? Did you talk to a lot of folks who ended up in that kind of quandary?

PN: Yeah -- I didn't get to talk as much as I would have wanted to in that sort of situation, but I know of many, many families that were disrupted because of that. There's one perfect example, the Reverend Shimada, who's gone now -- that tells about -- and the family is from northern California, and I have the manuscript. It's a very moving story of how this young man decided to, to go. And then the family were against it, the parents were against it. The minister tried to intervene. And he would have long talks with Nobu, who was the person who did volunteer, and try to convince the parents that, you know, this is his country, and he, he feels led that he must serve the nation. Well, the parents were not reconciled to that at all until he did volunteer. And before he left, the parents were reconciled -- says, "Son, our love and blessings are with you. Go and we'll be supporting you all the way." Unfortunately, shortly after, he was killed in action. And they had the memorial service there in camp. And of course, the parents were really moved. And they recall the time when they had this misunderstanding or -- and, but then they realized that this is what he had to do, and he did it. And everything seemed to work out okay. But it's a very moving story. The minister who ministered, Dr. Shimada, he dealt with all the counseling before, and then he took care of the memorial service when the body came back -- and he was brought back to the camp.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.