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Q: What was your involvement with draft resisters?

MY: Back in 1943, during October, after I had been given temporary leave from Minidoka, I was in Denver, Colorado, to rejoin my mother and my younger brother and sister. During that time, Joe Grant Masaoka was the regional representative for what we call the Tri-District or Tri-State Council, including Colorado, Western Nebraska, and Wyoming. Because we had a great number of so-called "no-no boys" that came out of the, particularly the Heart Mountain camp, we felt that it was important to make the rounds of the camp to insist that, "As long as you are protesting actions by the government," that they fulfill their obligations. It put the protesters, it seemed to me, in a far better position to say that, "We have fulfilled our obligations and therefore our rights are due to us."

Q: In regard to the 442nd Regiment, do you feel that those men were sacrificed for Japanese Americans?

MY: To a great degree, yes. We know certainly that the 442 were thrown into situations that were really horrendous, that the casualty rate that they suffered is enormous. The casualty rate, as I understand, exceeded something like three hundred percent, whereas the ordinary army unit, when they suffer ten to fifteen percent are pulled out of the line and given a chance to rest and recuperate. Whereas the 442 boys, in the cases of emergency, were immediately thrown back into the line, and as a consequence, suffered tremendous casualties.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 1983, 2010 Densho and Steven Okazaki. All Rights Reserved.