JIMMY MAKINO, AN AUTHENTIC WWII HERO

One special highlight of our recent trip to California was the chance to meet and spend several hours with Jimmy Makino at the Japanese-American Heritage Museum in downtown Los Angeles. Betty had spoken with him by telephone in her research of another hero and friend of ours, Nori Sekino, who had been Jimmy Makino's Sergent when they both were serving in World War II. In fact, Jimmy explained that Nori was responsible for Jimmy's being appointed to the rank of Buck Sergeant on his twenty-first birthday. Today he is alert and intriguing at ninety years old and serves as a volunteer docent at the museum.

My regular readers will recall my fascination and appreciation of the Japanese-American soldiers who served valiantly in the Italian and French battles and so impressively distinguished themselves. Among other remarkable achievements and honors, they were the most highly decorated units in military history and had the highest rate of casualties ever suffered by a US military unit in any war. Many of these gallant soldiers were recruited out of the Internment Camps where over 120,000 US citizens of Japanese ethnicity were held in isolated, desert camps behind barbed wire. Behind Jimmy is a photograph (on an upstairs wall of the internment exhibit in the museum) which shows some of the 3,000 men who were formed into the famous 442nd Regimental Combat Team - the "Go For Broke" soldiers. Jimmy (and Nori) belonged to this group of heros!
Our visit was partly to continue Betty's research into the life and history of Nori, but it gave us the opportunity to spend invaluable and priceless time listening to Jimmy's story too - his career serving under Nori, their days of training at Camp Shelby, the transfer to Europe, the treatment and indignities they endured, and a few stories of the combat experiences they shared. I am awed at having had the honor of speaking with and thanking a member of the 442nd RCT. I will never forget that day.

Finally, the statue shown below is a replica of the theme statues in the Japanese-American Memorial Park near the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. where several large images of the golden cranes entangled in barbed wire represent the indignities of the Internment so many endured. It reminds us that loyal citizens have served nobly under great hardships in desperate times, sometimes quite unjustly, but that the greater spirit of good people will always eventually overcome bias and bigotry. And we learned it from the "Ganbar" hearts of some of our finest people who "made the best of it" .