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On this day, December 7th, I remember my Uncle Bob who was a member of the Hawai'ian Territorial Guard in their WW1 surplus Tin Hat helmets and rifles in the 1930s and 40s. They were mustered as first responders to save sailors and marines from the burning waters of Pearl and transport to Tripler immediately at the attack.

His sister, my mother, watched the horrific attack from Manoa where she worked as a live-in nanny as she attended secretarial school in town. Her employers told her to rush home to the North Shore. She said the explosions and fires were shocking and scary. When she got home, they learned Bob was at Pearl with the Guard but had no contact.

Meanwhile, at Pearl, after hours of diving into the burning waters and transporting the wounded, by about 6pm, Uncle Bob and his fellow Guard troops who were Americans of Japanese ancestry found themselves under arrest at bayonet-point as spies, under the orders of a white Mainland General. They were held for days by US troops with guns trained on them until local officials intervened and they were released.

Bob rejoined his Guard unit reformed as the 100th Battalion, then volunteered to fight in Europe as part of the segregated 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the most highly decorated US military unit in US military history for its size. They knew they were going to be used as racist cannon fodder, and they fought valiantly despite it. Because, for guys like my Uncle Bob (and three other Uncles and my cousin Buster) they were fighting for their home, Hawai'i, and for democracy. In one battle, a short company of 110 was left with only 8 standing. Bob was wounded multiple times, and received Bronze Stars and commendations which we did not know about until after he died and was given a military funeral with 21 gun salute.

The fight for democracy is a relentless and continuing fight. This is why I fly the American flag, to honor those who willingly sacrificed, with full knowledge of their beloved, complicated, and imperfect America. Uncle Bob was a devout Buddhist, and war and killing were antithetical to his personal religious beliefs, and this was his greatest sacrifice, one that left him in absolute quiet moral agony till he died in 2008, at Tripler.

He was the sweetest, kindest, gentlest, soft-spoken quiet man. RIP.

#JapaneseAmerican #WW2 #pearlharbor #442RCT #december7th #USHistory #hawaii