Densho Digital Archive - Bo T. Sakaguchi Interview (denshovh-sbo-01-0012)

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JA: Tell me about those who went into the service. You were too young?

BS: No, I, I turned eighteen in camp, so we got our registration papers, you know, a card, registration card, and you're listed as 4-C "enemy alien," which is really great for your ego, because here you are, a U.S. citizen, and they mark you "enemy alien." But we had a neighbor who volunteered for the service, and at the time I thought, "The guy's crazy." Here his father was locked up in a remote camp and he volunteers for the service. But I'm grateful that these people did, because with the war record that they created, that helped all of us after the war, even though many bigots won't acknowledge it.

JA: Tell me about that group, the 442nd.

BS: I don't know too much about it because I wasn't a member, but I'm grateful that they, that they sacrificed their lives. My goodness, they were, they were cannon fodder. They had to go rescue in such an area where the casualties were so much greater than the people they saved, the number of people they saved. But I guess that was the general, whoever the general was in charge, did that.

JA: Do you know the name Sadao Munemori?

BS: Yes, Sadao Munemori, he lived in Glendale, and his sister, his kid sister was a high school classmate. And we knew some of the people from Glendale so I remembered knowing the name. And then his older brother was an orderly at the hospital at the time when my father was in the hospital having treatment, and I had to work as an orderly at night, midnight shift, to aspirate -- my father had had a tracheotomy done, and so to aspirate the phlegm I had to work the graveyard shift, and so I met the older brother. And at that time you didn't think much about it, but you know, you think, my gosh, here was a guy who gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, and the mother is behind barbed wire. I thought, "Wow, that's justice. That's justice." I felt sorry for those, those parents who got Gold Stars because their sons volunteered out of the camp and were killed, and here they were fighting for our democracy, for the civil rights and things, and there they were denied these rights. And here they were, parents who were very loyal to this country, but who were never allowed the privilege to become citizens of this country because of the laws. Fortunately, it changed, the law changed, but that was about ten years later.

JA: What was Munemori's story that won him the Congressional Medal of Honor?

BS: From what I understand -- I'm not versed in it -- but I understand he threw himself over a grenade to protect the other men in his company, and of course the grenade exploded and killed him.

JA: That's the ultimate irony.