On this Remembrance Day...

On this Canadian Remembrance Day....I remember an American WWII veteran which I called "grandpa".

Grandpa Nouchi was Japanese-American, born in Hawaii and was in his early 20's when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He quickly enlisted in the army to fight as an American. He joined the 442nd Infantry Regiment, an all Japanese-American combat team who had enlisted to show their loyalty to the U.S. at a time when anyone Japanese was the enemy in the States and in Canada.

Grandpa sailed away and didn't come back to Hawaii or to his wife for the next 3 years. He fought in the front lines in Italy and then in France in the Bruyeres region near Germany.

I was lucky to spend a whole summer with him a few years back. We often shared a papaya, watched Price is Right together and then watched the same war documentary video on the 442nd Infantry Regiment. He would reminisce about the battles his infantry was successful in and would proudly talk about the time he went to one of Hitler's summer houses after the Germans were defeated - he took some pebbles from the fireplace, slipped it in his pocket and has kept it ever since for show. Grandpa would also tell me about the ways him and the other soldiers kept their socks dry as they were fighting in the trenches and would go for weeks without changing or taking a shower. It was simple - they kept their extra socks by putting it on their head under their helmet~! He told me that because he was quite tall for an Asian, they put him in Company M, which was the heavy guns and artillery which would be more back of the combat line. The shorter soldiers would be on the very front line and it was not uncommon for them to be killed in action. The 442nd Infantry Regiment had a high casualty rate and was often referred to as the "Purple Heart Batallion" because of the unusually high casualty rate.

Grandpa didn't talk about the tragedies he experienced on and off the battleground. As we would watch the war documentaries, I would glance over at him and try to wrap my head around even a sliver of what this man had experienced physically and psychologically during his years as a front line soldier.

So today I think about and remember Grandpa Nouchi. Thank you Grandpa for teaching me and touching my life.