July 22nd Reflection

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For all those who sacrifice. Who uprooted their once quiet lives for a ride that may never slow down. For those left behind, left alone, and quietly sideline. Rise up to Remember..



To stand up when your country needs you is exactly what my grandpa and his friends did, it was December 1942. It was the inauguration of a new war to us; although, as a country, we had been watching from afar. It was in the days that followed the bombing of Pearl Harbor that activated a nation. The ships that sank in the attack, the fellow humans who perished, and when listening to the President on the radio declare that we were an American people at war, and now is the time when we all needed to catapult into national service. That was all the proof Grandpa and his friends needed as they followed their Wyoming cowboy ethos; always do good for your country.

With the announcement of the opening of 10 sizable relocation camps in the west, the men were intrigued and set off to volunteer for service with the “War Relocation Authority”. It had only taken the President six-weeks to issue the Executive Order which led to the forced removal and incarceration of everyone of Japanese ancestry living on the west coast. Just his luck, a camp was being built near his home and it was to be located at the famous Heart Mountain near Cody, Wyoming.

Growing up in the Pacific Northwest near the largest state fair in the nation, I was always aware that the best fairgrounds in the state of Washington, at one time had been a Relocation Camp for Japanese Americans. Not sure I truly understood the tarnished history and our American fear of a group of people who would be in such circumstances that led to the dehumanization, disenfranchisement, and discrimination of the American Japanese during WWII.

Grandpa never talked about it until very late in his life. Thirty-five years after serving his country as a guard inside the Heart Mountain Complex for Interned Japanese Americans, he began to speak his truths. About that same time, I had traveled to Wyoming to hang out with grandma and grandpa, having just graduated high school, it was 1981. You couldn’t have imagined the dichotomy of generations as I chose to visit for a few days in that Wyoming campground that they had chosen to volunteer to be camp hosts and history interpreters.

I showed up in a tube top, short shorts driving a 1974 Nova 350 SS. The sound of my mufflers was loud and rumbly and that was almost a step too far for grandma. There were park rules against excessive noise, and I was very representative of muscle cars and had an incessant talking problem. They were old, walked much slower than I remembered and were on the embarrassing side for a teenager as we hung out together. Both were wearing the infamous green polyester pants and tan button up shirts that continues to be reflective of the uniform in the park service. Grandpa was the typical old dude who pulled his pants up too high. There is a fine line between wearing trousers too low on the hips, where he would then just look like a Wyoming cowboy with plumbers’ butt, or the raising of the pants too high that would cover the old man potbelly while simultaneously making the pants high water and sitting near the top of the cowboy boots. Now grandma, she was surviving by wearing a colorful neck scarf to offset the drab colors. Her hair had been dyed to extract the grey hairs; it was now a blended color of lavender and silver creating an illusion of a non-natural color. Guess it was just those years when women were not aware of the consequences of home perms and hair dye from a box!

Now it is my turn. I remember the details about grandpa’s stories from those days over 40 years ago. Truth is, I have never forgotten the stories. I just did not know how time strings experiences together and explains the human willingness to survive in austere conditions. Before he lost his battle with dementia, we would sit together in his room, and he would talk and talk, just like he was sitting around the campfire in Wyoming. “The trains would keep coming, one after another and all would stop in the same place, same time for weeks on end. Eventually there would be over 14,000 Japanese Americans stepping from the sliding doors of the rail cars to the wood platform of the in-processing center. This was the Heart Mountain Relocation Camp. Men, women, and children; all uprooted from either California, Oregon or Washington and then brought to this hell on earth.”

As those trains rolled in, there was no doubt grandpa was serving as an American loyalist during WWII during a time of uncertainty to what was believed to be the enemy from within. The Japanese Americans followed the governments instructions, and they too were American loyalists caught in the crossfire of a nations fear.

In his safety of the far away campfire, grandpa struggled not with the beliefs of those days’ past, but of the immense burden he was carrying about being responsible for taking away the dreams of people. Of real people. Of real American people… He couldn’t forget their faces, the tears of the children and the despair of men. “They would show up in their fine clothes and a single suitcase per person. If they had more possessions, they would be confiscated and thrown into large piles and hauled away to a dump site. Their eyes were darting around in disbelief as they caught a glimpse of their new homes. Suppose I wouldn’t call them homes,” he said. “They were a simple military barracks type elongated structure. The outside of the buildings were covered on the outside with black tarpaper; row after row, nearly 500 of these buildings littered the vast barbed wire enclosure. Eventually there would be a hospital, schools, and social clubs. The food was served in a mess hall, sometimes a can of stewed tomatoes and rice would be a menu item. Nobody was starved, but them Japanese didn’t like our food one tiny bit.”

For over three years, The Heart Mountain Camp served as home to this community of people who had sold or lost all their worldly possessions. There were marriages, babies born (in excess of 550), and always the sound of children playing and giggling while their parents wore the pain of confusion and anger; always in wonderment about why their country had done this harm to their families and friends.

Grandpa would tell of the government drafting young Japanese men to go off to Europe to fight on the front lines. From within the confines of the Heart Mountain Camp, dozens of Japanese men were court-martialed for refusing to report for the draft. This was a revolt reflective of a nation that imprisoned an entire American Japanese culture and still had the nerve to send draft letters. He also mentioned that hundreds and hundreds of Japanese men volunteered for service to fight the enemy on the European front. The intestinal fortitude to rise and fight for a country that has imprisoned your people. He always admired their continued belief that they were Americans and wanted to assist in the fight between good and evil.

Years later as grandpa’s stories began to slip from memory to memory and then soon became fewer and fewer, I joined the Army National Guard. I had been activated and was going to serve in Operation Desert Storm in 1990 in Saudi Arabia. When I returned from the Gulf War, the Heart Mountain Relocation Camp was cemented into the history of grandpa’s memory, never to reveal any more stories.

I never forgot and was always proud to tell the stories of grandpa and the Camps. This was history at a time when everyone worked together for all the war efforts. He experienced the dichotomy of following orders while beginning to understand the atrocities against these people. These people that he liked, that were just like his family and yet their circumstances could be described as a tale of privilege versus condemnation because of your skin color. He would tell of how the Crow Indian Nation would hold prayers for the injustice. They would ride the wild stallions near the camp as a sign of solidarity. But I mostly remember grandpa’s sadness.

As the years passed and grandpa aged, he told me how he wished he could find all those whom were interred and apologize for his personal actions. He was burdened with a mind that remembered their names, their families, and their individual plights of survival. His soul was incased with the shame of submitting people to the loss of their human dignity. He spent the rest of his life connecting with nature on a basic and productive way. Learning how to carve wood and mastering the skills as a Rockhound. Marriage, children, and a business that encased his love of the appreciation of the natural world. He sold thunder eggs, crystals, agates, and wood carvings that he would turn a piece of myrtle wood into art that stretched the imagination.

I hope that his service to country as a young man brought him purpose. Mostly, I hope his memories as an old man were clear. He lived a good life full of wisdom, with compassion and continued to showcase the tenacity and spirit of the Japanese American.

I am here on this journey to pay respect to the residuals of war. If it weren’t for the memories, I would have nothing to chase. Twenty years ago, the saddest day of my life unfolded with RPG’s and gun fire, a coordinated enemy ambush and then having the horrifying responsibility of changing young lives forever with the simple words of “there has been an attack”. Next thing I know, it’s 20 years later and I can still feel the shaky knees, the hot taste of the wind and the innocence in the eyes of the Soldiers I so loved. To talk of one’s death is hard. There were more saddest days.

I have been chasing tumbleweeds all these years. Maybe these experiences and adventures have led me to this fork in the road. The last place I found was a canyon that grandpa talked about. He reveled in talking about the bighorn sheep, the wild horses, and the peace and solitude that he would find when he would dare to stare into the river so far below the rim. He would return to this canyon time after time, gathering a tidbit of reconciliation and forgiveness each time.

Today I ventured to the rim of Bighorn Canyon and peered into the river below. I watched the clouds form pillows of softness and then create billowing forms of anger as the storms passed through. I would check the view from all angles, what could I see that would speak to me. Where did he find the solace? Where did he find the clarity in his memories?

Maybe I am not looking for peace. Hmm? What if I could just change the rules to the hunt and can keep chasing one small piece at a time. Overlooking the canyon is one hell of a view from the sidelines. I have had the opportunity to chase my tumbleweeds and it has been one hell of a ride on the inside. As I watched the sun set and the moon sparkle amongst the stars and mysterious lights of the night, I had only one thought. I hope with all my heart that this canyon is what soldiers see from heaven!

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