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GILA NEWS-COURIER SUPPLEMENT

"Dear Editor,

"I'm just another proud member of the 442nd and a former resident of Gila. I left Gila in June and since, have been with the 442nd to this day. I was working in the Rivers Post Office and I'm still working for Uncle Sam. From the day I left Gila for duty, Dad has been sending me the News-Courier, so that I would keep up with the camp news. I received a few yesterday but they were about two months old but being my old camp news, I read them with interest and to me they were news. I noticed two or three articles about relocation and I'm in favor of it 100%. From what I've seen out east, I'd like to make a try at it as my home, that is when I get back. My 3 sisters and their families are and have been out there for over a year now and they seem to like it very much. I have been encouraging my folks to go east and make a try at it so by the time you get this, they might be gone.

"After all, we are here, fighting for just that right to be equal as any one and be able to go and do as we please. Already, we've had many boys that are gone and many who are war casualties that have paid dearly for what they think is right. We've done this much so it's the people's turn to do their share. I don't say or mean, that a person should just go out blindly and try to relocate but at least plan for the future because the camps won't last forever. I'm sure my sisters would be only too glad to help anybody out. They've already had many people come to their house and stay for a short time and then move to their own place when things were all set. One of my sisters lives in a nice district, attends the church there and is liked by all the neighbors. One of her neighbors writes to me even though we aren't acquainted. Their children play and sleep at each other's house and are real playmates. Well, I guess I've said enough and I hope I've put over my ideas and thoughts to you.

"I'm in a hospital but expect to be out shortly and be back in this outfit. I'm fine except for a slight wound. I got the injury in one of our battles."

Sgt. Jimmy Makino
Co. G 442nd Inf.
A.P.O. 464 c/o Postmaster
New York, New York

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Every morning, two fellows went by me in the hospital corridor, where I was bedded down with a large group of wounded soldiers, on their way to breakfast. On about the 4th morning, one of the fellows gave me a "hi" sign. The next morning, the same thing happened again and my friend asked me if I knew him. He was shocked because the guy was an officer and officers didn't mix with EM (enlisted men). The officer gestured to me to follow him. As I went and turned the corner following him, I saw there were only two men, officers, in the room - rank has its privileges. He told me that he was with the 135th Infantry and they had "kicked our boots" at Pisa. We had been chasing Germans out of the area and his unit relieved us. When his unit came up to relieve us, they had asked where our holes were. As you’re moving up in a battle and you’re getting hit by an artillery barrage, you want to start digging for protection. Our guys, being Japanese and smaller in stature than the white guys, didn't need very big holes. It turned out that he was from Southern California like myself and we even knew some of the same athletes from a college in Glendora. His name is Bill Hastie.

It took so long for my wound to heal, I began seeing litters arrive with wounded soldiers who no longer had heels on the bottoms of their shoes. This told me they were fighting further north, in the mountains of Italy and even as far as France. By the time I healed up, I was too far behind and got orders to return stateside.

Jimmy on a Harley Davidson 59-7-C, Rivers, Arizona

Chicago. After the war ended, I went to Chicago where my sisters and parents had moved. I was only in Chicago about a half a year. It was cold and dirty, but I felt accepted there. I met a guy who shared my love for motorcycles who was all crumpled up and used two crutches to get around after surviving a civilian airplane accident. He had an 80 cubic-inch Indian motorcycle with a side-car. He rigged up an automatic starter using a car battery that he stored in the side-car so he could still ride without using the kick starter. One day, he says, "How'd you like to go to Canada?" On our way back down from Sioux Saint Marie where we saw locks like they have at the Panama Canal, we met some veterans riding army-issue motorcycles in Milwaukee. I found out that there were as many as 2500 army surplus motorcycles for sale to veterans. There were 200 or so in Illinois. I bought my first motorcycle, an Indian Scout, in 1940 and loved to ride motorcycles. I bought one of the army motorcycles for about $230-$240. They were still in crates waiting to be shipped overseas before the war ended. They were covered thick with Cosmoline to protect them against the salt ocean air on the voyage overseas. I had to rub off the Cosmoline, take off the gun rack and put on the handlebars. I left the shield on and drove it to California. It took about two weeks at 40-50mph.

After resettling in San Gabriel in Southern California, I began a career at AT&T that lasted for thirty-eight years. During that first year, one of my co-workers took a look at me and said, "I'll be goddamn if I gotta work with one of them after I've been fighting in the Pacific." I calmly told him that I was a soldier in the European Theater. Then I asked him if he had ever brought his gun up to his shoulder, squinted down at the site and fired at someone. "No," replied the man, "I'd just shoot to cover the area" (-so the enemy wouldn't raise his head up for fear of being shot). Well, I said I didn't know if I had every shot anyone. One time when we were on patrol, we came across some Germans at a farm. They were walking back and forth and we had a bead on them. We were ready to shoot if they discovered us, but nothing ever happened.

Life didn't improve rapidly. My father, like many other Japanese-Americans who lost everything to the hysteria of the war, began a new profession. He started a gardening business that eventually grew strong enough to keep him employed for an entire week. Landscape gardening became an important enterprise for Japanese-Americans after the war. One of my friends had Glenn Miller's widow as a customer while another became the groundskeeper for Dodger stadium.

My mother and father went to classes in the 1950s and got their citizenship. I think it was one of the big stepping stones in their lives. It's pretty bad that what you worked for all your life is taken away. I regret that Congress did not pass restitution until after my parents had died. My grandson just attended his high school prom recently. Things have changed for his generation. The doors are wide open now. Here's one example. You'll recall the truck farmer, Jim Ito, and his brothers David, whom I fought with in the war, and Tom who my sister married? Jim, had a son, Lance, who grew up to be a judge and presided over the celebrity trial of O.J. Simpson.

Jimmy & Masayo Makino circa 1950s

Just after Christmas, 1998, I was trying to help my mother-in-law find a place to rent. I had just left a luncheon I had been invited to along with some other veterans of the 442nd by a Jewish organization. Veterans of the 442nd have always been remembered because it was our guys who opened the gate of Dachau Concentration Camp. I knocked on the door of a place where I saw a "for rent" sign in my neighborhood, the neighborhood I had been in and out of all my life. The woman who opened the door shut it after saying, "We don't rent to your kind!"