VETS HONOR NISEI DEAD

[Photo caption]: ONE OF SEVEN: Followed by mourning relatives, one of seven caskets containing bodies of Seattle Nisei who were killed in action in Italy was carried by a military guard from the Buddhist Auditorium after services yesterday.

Across the street from the Seattle Buddhist Auditorium where the bodies of seven Seattle Nisei war veterans lay in flag-draped coffins, a small boy with a kite stood scowling as a man told him it would be best to fly his kite after the funeral.

In the big auditorium several hundred persons sat in silence, some staring solidly ahead, some clasping rosary beads as The Rev. T. Ichikawa chanted a Buddhist prayer, in Japanese.

There were grey-haired men and women and younger ones with children. Some bowed their heads in grief. These would be the mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters of the seven men who died in combat in Italy.

They would be relatives and friends of Pfc. William Taketa, of Pfc. Matsusaburo Tanaka, of Pvt. Satoru Onodera, and of Pvt. William Mizukami, and Pvt. George Tatsumi, and Pfc. Masaru Tamura and Tech. Sergt. William Imamoto.

Outside, the boy with the kite had given up his idea, for awhile at least, and stalked away. He was a Nisei boy.

Then there were Episcopal services for Private Onodera, and after these more Buddhist prayers. And the eulogy by George Revelle, who was a lieutenant colonel on the staff of the Fifth Army, in which these Nisei had served as members of the famed 442nd Regimental Combat Team -- and had died.

Revelle said no words could pay sufficient tribute to these men who died to keep their country free. He said the memorial to them was shown more, perhaps, in attempts to right the wrongs against the Japanese-Americans, wrongs "of which we are so ashamed." He said he meant the coastal evacuation and discrimination in employment.

After that, as the caskets were carired [carried] to the hearses, the boy with the kite returned. He said it was a "free country and I can fly it if I want."

In Washelli Cemetery there were the volley of shots and the sound of Taps.

And on the playfield, where some of these men once had played, a small Nisei boy watched his kite climb into a blue sky on a cold March wind, and said that this is a free country.