Free to Die for Their Country.

• Author: Tashima, A. Wallace
• Position: Book Review

FREE TO DIE FOR THEIR COUNTRY. By Eric L. Muller. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2001. Pp. xx, 229. $27.50.

In a small, triangular plot, a short distance north of the Capitol in Washington, D.C., is the recently dedicated "National Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism." One of the primary purposes of the memorial is to recall publicly the forced removal of Japanese Americans from the Pacific coast at the beginning of World War II and their imprisonment in government internment camps for the duration of the war. (1) The incident is worth recalling, of course, if for no other reason than as a constant reminder that we must not let a similar tragedy befall any other group of Americans. But one is at a loss to know why it is called a "Memorial to Patriotism." (2) Is it patriotic to be stripped of all of one's dignity and earthly possessions and forced into exile/imprisonment solely because of one's race or ethnicity? Is it patriotic for a citizen of this country to be regarded as the enemy based on one's race alone? Is it an act of patriotism to bow to the command of the President, literally enforced by the U.S. Army, when there is no apparent alternative? That many Japanese Americans evacuated by force from the West Coast choose to call their obedience to that unconstitutional act patriotic sixty years later highlights the schism within the Japanese-American community that Professor Eric Muller (3) explores in his book.

This modest volume that expands on a footnote to history can be read on several different levels. It tells the story of a small group of Japanese American men of draft age who, out of their understanding of patriotism, defied the draft and of the consequences they knowingly faced. The evacuation and internment of all persons of Japanese ancestry, citizens as well as aliens, from the Pacific coast at the start of World War II is a well-known episode of our recent past. Professor Muller does not go into detail, but he provides some of that background and the historical context of the evacuation and internment. (4) He then launches into his tale.

Shortly after World War If started, all draft-age Japanese-American men were reclassified into draft category 4-C, the category reserved for enemy aliens and other undesirables, with the consequence that, despite their American citizenship, these men became ineligible to be drafted into the armed forces. The leading "civil rights" organization for Japanese Americans was (and still is) the Japanese American Citizens League ("JACL"). (5) After it became inevitable that Japanese Americans would be removed from the Pacific Coast, the JACL, instead of protesting the evacuation as unconstitutional, urged full cooperation with the government. (6) It also lobbied the War Department to permit Japanese Americans to serve in the military, believing that such service was the best available vehicle for Japanese Americans to regain their rights as citizens (p. 42). As one Pentagon official put it, the JACL "has been a good influence. It has pursued a policy of full cooperation with the War Department and other federal agencies" (p. 63). Indeed, Professor Muller goes so far as to characterize Mike Masaoka, one of the wartime leaders of the JACL, as a "collaborator ... with many of the wartime government's anti-Nikkei policies...." (p. 198).

The JACL was successful in these efforts and Japanese Americans were again reclassified, this time as draft-eligible. It was, however, unsuccessful in its efforts to have Nisei soldiers placed in "general assignments," that is, assigned throughout the army, in the same manner as any other soldiers, as the need arose. After a long internal struggle within the War Department, the government determined that Nisei would serve in segregated combat units, rather than being integrated into existing units. One of the important considerations, of course, was the difficulty of explaining how the army could "possibly integrate the Nisei while simultaneously segregating black soldiers" (p. 62). As one general observed, the "general assignment of the Nisei would inevitably draw attention to the continued segregation of blacks in the army" (pp. 60-62). Those young Japanese-American men who answered their country's call by serving distinguished themselves on the field of battle. The segregated, all-Japanese 442nd Regimental Combat Team compiled a record of heroism unmatched in the annals of American military history by any unit of comparable size. As President Truman stated in his address to the returning soldiers of the 442nd:

You fought not only the enemy, but you fought prejudice--and you won. Keep up the fight, and we will continue to win--to make this great republic stand for just what the Constitution says it stands for: the welfare of all of the people all of the time. (p. 198) A few young men, however, concluded that it was unjust for them to be drafted into the military to protect American democracy while they and their families were being held under armed guard, behind barbed wire, their status as prisoners resting on nothing less (and nothing more) than a purely racial classification (pp. 83-84). They either refused to report for their preinduction physical examinations or refused to step forward to take the oath when their names were called at the draft induction centers. Inevitably, these men were charged with refusing to report for induction into the armed forces of the...