And It has Come to War

Chapter Two

My eighteenth birthday finally came on February 3^rd, 1942, on the day before that cross-dresser J. Edgar Hoover sent a rather lengthy, and very racist, memo to the Attorney General of the United States. One that caused President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 9066, the Interment Camp order, on the 19^th. What this meant that anyone who was Japanese, held Japanese Citizenship or was born in Japan and who lived in certain areas found themselves sent to camps meant to control their obviously unAmerican activities (like possible voting against the Republican Party.)

What did this mean to me? My birthday meant that I was no longer under my parents rule, if I moved out of the house I mean. I was now considered a free adult, able to make my own legal contracts and even marry without my parents say. In regards to 9066, not much right now, though it would plage me during the war. I was an American Citizen born in Japan through no fault of my own, a daughter of two American citizens, one of English decent, the other French and neither country were enemies of the United States, at least not yet. Father had gotten me to sign the papers that should have removed my Japanese citizenship while aboard the ship bringing us back to America, so though I had been raised in Japan for the first sixteen, and thus most formative, years of my life, I was still a white, female American citizen. What none of us knew was the chicken scratch scrawl I had used, for father would not accept Kanji as a civilized form of writing, had caused those papers to be set aside for review. An American girl of seventeen years should be able to write her name better than that had been the clerks decision.

A few days later we traveled to Cody to see my brothers off, John was headed for the Army and Paul the Navy, that way there was almost no chance that they might end up serving together, so they believed. After the train with all its recruits pulled out there was nothing really to do, rationing hadn’t started yet, in fact the idea hadn’t even reached our little section of the nation and wouldn’t until a month later. Father would have a green B sticker because he was a Minister for example, while I didn’t learn to drive for another four months. With my brothers off and the city looking much like a male ghost town, it was really as most of the able bodied men were now gone, mother decided that she needed a few things while they were still available.

This allowed me to convince my mother that I had ‘some personal shopping’ to do, she looked at my father and he nodded yes, they allowed that, as long as I did not spend more than three dollars, money was always tight and with my brothers now gone their additional income was gone as well. So I made my way to the Army recruitment post, it was actually Army, Navy, Marines and Coast Guard as they shared a building. Not really liking the ocean that much, I had gotten sea sick on the way home and though it had passed quickly I feared having it again, I approached the Army first. After all they had taken my brother John in a moment.

“Skills” a really board Sergeant asked after I handed him my filled out application an hour later, I would learn about rank later.

“I speak Japanese fluently” I answered carefully, lest my accent be too noticeable. Even the softest sound of that accent still got fiery looks from father.

“Yeah, and so did the five cheerleaders who came in yesterday” he replied, finally looking up into my face. “Look young woman, the Army doesn’t need wanna-be’s. What were your grades in school, what did you take for electives and where are your papers.”

He was, I had discovered, rather polite, then by now all the young men had come and gone so now it was just women, and the occasional underage boy trying to sneak in. I guess I was rather pretty because he kept his eyes on mine.

“I have never attended an American school” I admitted. “I attended school in Yubari, I was given good but not great grades.”

“Yubari?” the Sergeant asked, somewhat confused. “Where is that?”

“It is a coal mining town in Sorachi Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan” I answered, my accent coming to the full when I spoke those words.

“Sergeant Williams” an older voice almost instantly called from behind him. I looked up to see a man wearing two silver bars standing in the doorway. “Have you bothered to ask her to speak in Japanese yet? I remember that you had those cheerleaders sputtering by now.”

“Sir” the man sitting before me answered. “I don’t speak that... language, and she does have the right accent but she’s short.”

“No, no you don’t, you speak Italian fluently Sergeant Williams, and I speak German. An accent can be faked, I really don’t want to waste too much time on one little girl so lets make a call to the High School. As I recall one of the teachers there speaks the language, maybe he can come down and help us out.” Then the Captain looked at me. “Young lady, will you please have a seat over there? There are other people needing to speak to the Sergeant too, and Sargent, please help her finish the forms if she really can speak the language, if she really is eighteen or over we want her, short or not.”

So I filled out forms, with Sergeant William’s occasional assistance until a portly elderly man walked in. He smiled at me and spoke in badly accented Japanese. “Good morning young lady, are you well?”

I almost laughed at him, he had the words right but not quite the right context, nor did he stress the words correctly. “I am quite well Honored Sensai. Have you come to test me, that I may enter our Honorable Military?”

With a raised eyebrow the man turned to look at the Captain, who had come out of his tiny office again. “Captain, this woman speaks better Japanese than my instructor did. I wasn’t looking at her when she spoke I’d swear she was a native.”

That was when my parents arrived, they had been looking for me since I wasn’t in the store I had mentioned. Father had heard me speak as he walked in and was already removing his belt. “Filthy whore” he bellowed, catching everyone by surprise. “I told you not to say those monkey words, I’ll beat you until you bleed to death if I have too.” He took his first swing and I fell to the floor in pain, but there was no second strike as the Sergeant had leapt between us, taking the second strike of that leather belt himself. I had never seen anyone move that fast since returning from Japan, then my father was on the floor, mother kneeling beside him. The sergeant had only struck him once.

“Your parents?” the Captain asked, his voice was calm but there was repressed anger in it.

“Yes sir” I managed from the floor, the shock of what had happened still washing through me, still too frightened to uncoil from my protective position as father had struck me directly across my breasts.

“You are truly eighteen?” he continued.

“Today sir” I admitted, turning to face him from the floor now that my father was not going to strike me again. “We came to send off my brothers, one is Army, the other Navy.” I found that the Sergeant was helping me to my feet, there was a burning pain of a stressed muscle along my back, fathers normally favorite target.

“Right then, Sergeant, please take the recruit to the Hospital to be examined. If the recruit passes the examine bring her back here to be sworn in.” He actually smiled at me, “Sorry Miss, all the Doctors in back are male and there are no female nurses. We are using the local Hospital for women until we can clear that up, and I am truly sorry about your Navy brother, then there is one in every family.”

That was my introduction to the military rivalry. “Thank you sir” I managed, before Sargent Williams led me out, past my still doubled over father. It was two blocks down the street to the Hospital yet before we had gone a block my father stood in the sidewalk behind us and screamed, “You are no longer my daughter, never enter my house again.”

“I remember him” Sergeant Williams said as we walked away. “Cursed God and the Devil because we wouldn’t take him, he was too old to start with after all, then there was his wound.”

“That was Karate that you used on father, wasn’t it” I asked. “You looked very professional” I continued as we walked slowly, so as not to draw attention to ourselves as my father was still screaming behind us.

“You noticed?” the Sergeant asked, “I’m impressed. I spent several years in China, you either learned their tricks or they crushed you. Are you a student?”

“Kyu-do” I answered, remembering pleasant afternoons with that long black lacquered bow in my hand. “I studied to be a Shrine Maiden.”

“Ky-do?” he asked, mispronouncing the word. “What art is that?” We had reached the hospital front door by now and my father was no longer yelling. I would learn later that he had been arrested, though as a Fire and Brimstone Minister it was knocked down to disturbing the peace by evening.

“Yumi, the bow” I answered softly as we entered, I had never been in an American hospital before and the smells were gagging. I spent the afternoon being poked, prodded, questions asked, and photographs taken, especially of my badly bruised back. They also studied my birth certificate carefully, I had stolen it and what little other records that belonged to me from fathers desk. It all took four hours, during which one of the Doctor’s spoke in private to the Sargent, then we were out, headed back to the recruitment office with me carrying a folder of reports. I was to learn later that the Doctors had been surprised to discover that I was still intact at my age, then father allowed no boyfriends until we were eighteen. I still hadn’t met an American boy outside of the strictly controlled environment of Fathers church and no proper Japanese boy had been interested in me that was, I was Gajin after all. Meanwhile I wasn’t interested in the improper boys.

It wouldn’t be until the next day that I learned why I was being treated differently, though I was too short to enlist, this caused by the poor diet I have been given as I grew up, I was ‘special.’ Special enough to be taken in as a civilian expert, there were very few people in any American military that spoke Japanese fluently, much less understood the social customs, laws and such I was to learn weeks later. I would not be a soldier, but I would be important to the military, very important.