The Purple Heart (34 page)

It was one of her favorite
teas, but Aiko at first refused until he produced a second packet of green tea
from his coat pocket. She then smiled and graciously accepted the packet from
him. “Thank you, Mr. Tanaka,” said Aiko. Both Aiko and Mr. Tanaka tended to
their tea and allowed it to steep. They both silently watched, as if
participating in a ritual, as the tealeaves started to slowly expand out like
green tendrils. They both sipped their tea and placed their cups back down.

Aiko stared at her cup as
the steam slowly rose out of it. She had both of her hands wrapped gently
around it and could feel its gentle warmth pass to her palms. It was a calming
sensation as she pondered the next few moments.

“You must be Ichiro’s
daughter,” Mr. Tanaka said, breaking the silence.

Aiko looked up and replied,
“Yes, I am.”

“Your grandfather was so
happy when he found out his wife gave birth. He said it gave him everything to
look forward to.”

“So, he knew that my
grandmother had given birth?” asked Aiko.

“Yes, he did. He was very
happy but even more shocked to find out in a letter from his wife that she was
pregnant at all.”

“Did you know my
grandfather well?”

“Yes, I knew him very well.
We served in the same battalion and company, your grandfather and I.”

Aiko sat there, knowing
that in the next five to six hours, she would get a glimpse into her
grandfather’s life that no one else in her family had heard. Finally, she
simply asked, “Mr. Tanaka, can you tell me as much as you can about my
grandfather?”

Mr. Tanaka took another sip
of tea and placed the cup down as the steam started to slowly rise upward. He
stared ahead and exhaled lightly. “I think it’s the least that I can do for my
best friend’s granddaughter. I guess I can start with the first day I met him.”

“Today! I’ve been given the
task to train you to serve in the United States Army!” barked the drill
sergeant. “But when I look at all of you, all I see are a bunch of sorry-ass
cry babies who would rather piss in their pants and go back home to their
mommies. I actually declined this assignment until I was ordered to. So here I
am to teach you how to be a United States soldier. And I find this ironic
because we’re fighting Japs and now I have to train Japs to be in the United
States Army.”

From Day 1, Hiroshi
disliked the drill sergeant and his obvious disdain for the Japanese American
soldiers who volunteered to be part of the 442
^nd
. He was a man in
his late thirties, with a weathered look on his pit-bull-like face. He had a
stocky build and was about an inch taller than Hiroshi. The green army uniform
moved with every flex of his muscles. He marched up and down the line
intimidatingly, which was intended to command absolute attention from the Japanese
American volunteers, who he didn’t seem to care for much. Hiroshi was growing
tired of the drill sergeant’s insinuation he was training the enemy. He
whispered underneath his breath, “Japanese
Americans
.”

The drill sergeant’s keen
hearing spun him around. “Who said that?” he barked.

He marched back to the
other end of the line and stared at two soldiers, Hiroshi Satoh and Peter
Tanaka. Peter was shaking in his boots as he stood next to Hiroshi. There were
already beads of sweat pouring down the sides of his temples. He was about two
inches shorter than Hiroshi and he had a slighter build than him. The drill
sergeant first stared deeply into Peter’s eyes, seemingly drilling into his
brains. Peter maintained his nervous gaze and held his ground.

“Nah, it wasn’t you,” as
the drill sergeant pulled back slowly. Then he walked over to Hiroshi and
stared into his eyes but Hiroshi met his gaze and his eyes were unfazed. The
drill sergeant pulled back slowly and said, “It was you who made that remark,
wasn’t it?”

Hiroshi stammered back,
“Yes, Sir.”

“I don’t think the entire
company heard you, why don’t you tell everyone what you said,” asked the drill
sergeant in a condescending manner.

“I said,” as Hiroshi
prepared to shout loudly and affirmatively. “We’re Japanese Americans, not
Japs, Sir!”

The drill sergeant then
barked back, “You are whatever I say you are, Private!”

Hiroshi paused but didn’t
flinch from his stare as he responded, “Beg to differ, Sir. We all signed the Loyalty
Questionnaire, we are not Japs.”

“That damn bureaucratic
piece of paper isn’t good enough to wipe my ass with, Private!” Warm and putrid
spit flew from the drill sergeant’s mouth onto Hiroshi’s face.

“No Sir! We are Japanese
Americans,” answered an insistent Hiroshi. Other soldiers turned their eyes
nervously to look in Hiroshi’s direction to see who the imbecile was to mock
the drill sergeant on the first day of training. But Hiroshi would not allow
anyone to call him a “Jap.” He did not leave his family and his wife to be
called the same name as the enemy.

The drill sergeant stared
at Hiroshi. “A defiant son of a bitch aren’t you, Private? Maybe there are some
guts in all of you after all, or at least a few of ya.” The drill sergeant slowly
surveyed the faces of the rest of the men who were standing at attention.
“Maybe you’re not all yellow bellied cowards after all. Okay, I’ll tell you
what, I’ll stop calling you Japs but if any one of you doesn’t make it through
training, then you’re all Japs. Is that understood!”

The entire company
responded in unison, “Yes Drill Sergeant!”

The drill sergeant then
redirected his attention back to Hiroshi and looked down at his name badge.
“Private Satoh, get on the ground and give me twenty.”

Hiroshi paused but
respectfully got down and gave the drill sergeant twenty push-ups.

“Tomorrow, we will begin
our first real day of combat training at o six hundred hours and separate the
men from the women. Welcome to the United States Army. Dismissed,” shouted the
drill sergeant.

Everyone dropped their
shoulders, relaxed, and let out a sigh of relief. Peter turned to Hiroshi.
“That was really brave of you.”

Hiroshi looked at Peter and
replied, “What do you mean?”

“The way you handled the
drill sergeant and talked back to him.”

“That was nothing, really.
He was testing us to see if we would stand up for ourselves,” said Hiroshi
casually.

“He was? Boy I didn’t even
think about that. I was just so nervous, all I could do was stand here.”

“Yeah, it’s an old trick. When
men want to size up other men, they act all tough and then humiliate you until
you stand up for yourself. It’s how you gain their respect.”

“Oh man. I must have looked
like a coward, then,” said Peter, kicking the ground in frustration.

“Don’t worry about it. Like
he said, we just have to get through training and then we’ll be fine.”

“I hope so. Oh, I’m Peter
Tanaka,” Peter said as he extended his hand forward.

Hiroshi took Peter’s hand
and introduced himself, “Hiroshi, Hiroshi Satoh.”

Just then a voice came from
the back, “Home Run!”

Hiroshi looked over and saw
Kenji Yasuda, Miho’s friend from the prison camp. Hiroshi smiled at the
nineteen-year-old and shook his hand warmly.

“Kenji! How are you doing?”
asked Hiroshi.

“I’m doing good! It looks
like we’re in the same company. My brother was assigned to a different one.
They don’t let brothers serve together in the same company to minimize multiple
deaths in the same family.”

“I see,” said Hiroshi. “Oh
by the way, this is Peter Tanaka, he’s in the same company too. Peter, meet
Kenji Yasuda. We’re from the same camp.”

“Nice to meet you, Kenji.” Peter
smiled and shook hands with Kenji.

Hiroshi then roughly rubbed
Kenji’s hair as he squirmed and commented, “Don’t let his youthful looks fool
you. Kenji is a lot stronger than he looks. Isn’t that right, Kenji?”

Kenji finally beat back
Hiroshi’s hand with his sinewy arms. “Talk about strong? Nah, Home Run here was
the strongest man from our camp. He could take on any of those white guards if
he really wanted to.”

“What’s this ‘Home Run’
thing you keep on calling Hiroshi?” asked Peter, puzzled.

“It’s Hiroshi’s nickname.”
Kenji grew excited as he spoke. “We had this baseball game, see, and it was the
last inning and Hiroshi needed to hit a home run to win the game.” Kenji then
got into a swinging stance and began to reenact the entire scene. “So it was
like this, he swung and BOOM! He fell down and hurt his right arm. We thought
he was going to leave the game, but then he did the most amazing thing: He
batted left-handed and POW! He hit that ball all the way to left field. And
listen to this! His wife caught the home run ball! How amazing is that?”

“Wow… sounded like I had to
be there to see it,” Peter exclaimed.

“Yeah, you had to. But take
it from me, he was great. That’s why we call this guy Home Run!” Kenji shouted.

“Okay, enough now! I don’t
need to be called ‘Home Run’ all over the base,” Hiroshi said, smiling with
embarrassment.

“I still need to get some
of my paperwork filled out, but I’ll meet you at the barrack,” said Kenji. “Oh,
Home Run, I’m glad we’re in the same company. My brother is going to be so
jealous!” he exclaimed as he walked off.

“It’s good to see you,
too!” replied Hiroshi.

“He’s so young,” Peter
said.

“Yeah, I know,” said
Hiroshi as they watched Kenji’s lanky frame fade away.

Hiroshi and Peter walked
back to their barrack. Peter walked in first and Hiroshi was about to follow
after him when he paused. He stepped back onto the second step and looked down
the rows of barracks. He then looked right and looked at the rows of barracks.
He deeply inhaled the morning air and could feel the humidity laced with a bit
of the Mississippi River. Hiroshi found it ironic that he left the prison camp
only to be holed up in another camp full of barracks. Except this time, he was
at Camp Shelby, Mississippi. Hiroshi entered his barrack.

“So you have a wife back at
the relocation camp?” asked Peter as he sat on his bed, which was
coincidentally next to Hiroshi’s.

“Newlyweds, actually–just
got married to her this January,” said Hiroshi proudly.

“No kidding,” said Peter.
“Must be tough, leaving the wife and all?”

Hiroshi thought for a
moment and replied, “Yeah… it was. But I’m here in the army to fight for our
freedom so that I can be with her.”

“Yeah, I know what you
mean. I have a girlfriend back home waiting for me.”

“Home? Don’t you mean the
prison?” said Hiroshi.

“Yeah, it’s not really home
is it? It just seemed like we’ve been there so long…” Peter’s voice trailed
away.

“Hey, Peter, I know. But
now we’re here to fight for our freedom and to prove we’re Americans just like
anyone else.”

A husky voice appeared from
behind Hiroshi. “That is, if they don’t stick us on the frontline in the
Pacific fighting the Japanese. We’re liable to get shot by these white boys.”

Akira stopped in front of
Hiroshi’s and Peter’s beds and looked down at them. His head was shaved on the
sides and left short on the top. With his chin held up high, he exhaled a
stream of cigarette smoke from his mouth. He was wearing his standard-issue
army pants along with his black belt and army boots. He had taken off his army
shirt but left on his white tank top. Akira was in good physical shape and had
a similar build to Hiroshi.

Peter looked up and asked,
“What do you mean?”

Akira took another drag on
his cigarette and spoke down to Peter, “All I’m saying is, if the U.S. Army
puts us in Japan, how the fuck are the white boys going to tell that we’re not
the Japanese?”

“We’ll be wearing the same
U.S. army uniform,” said Peter.

Akira let out a deep
mocking laugh as he leaned his head back. He focused his eyes back on Peter.
“What, are you fucking naïve? Damn, you’re going to get shot first. How the
fuck do you think a white boy soldier is going to see ‘us’ when there will be
bullets, smoke, and fire everywhere?”

Peter could only respond
with a, “Uh, well…”

“I’ll tell you exactly what
will happen. We’ll be on the front line and when we look back to signal for the
white boys to come up, they’ll see our slanted eyes and shoot us just out of
fear!” Akira’s taunts were starting to affect Peter when Hiroshi stood up.

“Hey! Leave him alone. They
won’t be sending us to Japan. I heard we’re going to Europe to fight the
Nazis.”

Akira looked back at him as
he narrowed his eyes.

“And how do you know that?”
asked Akira tauntingly.

“And how do you know that
they may be sending us to Japan?”

Akira paused, took another
drag on his cigarette and then smiled, “I don’t!” He then let out a laugh and
slapped Peter on the back. “I’m just fucking with you. Don’t take me seriously!
I’m just trying to break the dullness around here. Akira’s the name.” Akira
extended his hand out to Hiroshi.

“Hiroshi,” replied Hiroshi
as he took Akira’s firm handshake. Akira was deliberately trying to squeeze
hard, but Hiroshi had already sized him up and offered his own firm handshake.

“Ahh… a good Japanese name.
How about you?” Akira shook Peter’s hand, causing him to wince.

“It’s Peter, Peter Tanaka,”
Peter rubbed his hand gently.

“
Peter
? What the
fuck kind of Japanese name is that?”

“My parents thought that by
giving me an English name, I’d fit in better,” replied Peter.

Akira looked at Hiroshi
with widened eyes and laughed hard. His loud laugh caught Peter’s attention
just when Akira threw his right hand onto Hiroshi’s left shoulder, leaned down
and looked Peter straight in the eyes and shouted, “And now you’re here? The
irony of it all!” Akira leaned back and laughed loudly once more.

Hiroshi had to smile as he
looked down at Peter who let out a chuckle at the irony of his own comment and
then laughed himself. The three men laughed together at their predicament just
as Kenji walked up to them.

“Hey! What did I miss?”
asked Kenji with a curious smile.

The next morning, at the
crack of dawn, the men were awakened by a booming voice.

“Alright you sorry asses… wake
up! Wake up! Wake up!” hollered the drill sergeant followed by two soldiers who
rattled the metal legs of the cots with their wooden batons.

The soldiers sat up quickly
and squinted as the lights were turned on. Some had actually fallen out of
their beds from being so abruptly awakened. Some looked utterly confused as
their dreams disappeared from their minds.