PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I was born to a mother who was courted and married in a ''relocation'' camp in Poston, AZ. My father volunteered from camp to join the all-nisei 442nd Regimental Combat Team (RCT). After a brief training period of about five months at Camp Shelby, MS, he was shipped overseas to the European Theater.

My father was killed in action after only three months in Italy, one month before I was born. Around the same time, my mother, Miye Shiomichi, received news of her favorite brother losing his life in combat. It was not long after these enormous tragedies that my father's older brother, Tok Shiomichi, returned home from the battlefront with one leg missing.

My mother was so completely devastated by these losses that she forbade anyone to speak of my father in her presence. At five years of age, when I pressed her for some answers to questions about my father, she became hysterical and could not stop sobbing. I learned my lesson overly well. I never asked about my father again until I was in my fifties.

When I was in college, my grandmother, Fusa Shiomichi, took me into her room and clandestinely handed a large envelope to me. It contained all the things she had saved from the U.S. Government pertaining to my father, including his Purple Heart medal. She had salvaged them from my mother, who because she was so angry with the U.S. Government, had threatened to dispose of them. At that time, being in my early twenties, extremely naive, and still too raw from my experience as a five year old, I was unable to examine the contents in that large manila envelope. I merely tucked it away with my other stored memorabilia.

It took me almost thirty years to open that envelope and begin my search of that man I had never met. This search coincided with the 50th anniversary of such poignant events as Pearl Harbor, WW II, and the internment camp expereience. Also around that time, my Aunt Carol and Uncle Tok Shiomichi came to pick me up at my mother's house to take me to visit the Japanese- American National Museum in Los Angeles, which had just opened. I can still recall how excited they were to share with me all the newspaper clippings and any information they had saved and collected surrounding the topic of the 442nd RCT and Tok's younger brother. Fifty yearts is along time to carry a ''secret''.

It was sometime during these events, my father's sister, Edna Yoshida sent me the copy of a letter she had saved. This letter was written by Arthur Harris, Superintendent of Education at the Poston internment camp, about my father shortly after he was reported killed in action. There was such love and compassion in the letter; I began to wish there were some way I could thank the kind and beautiful man who had written it. Dr. Harris' letter represented a wonderful doorway to the beginning of my quest.

My father grew up in Brawley, California, along with many other Japanese families whose first generation parents had emigrated there from Japan. This extraordinary group of families, who were mostly all ''relocated'' to the internment camps, never did move back to Brawley after the war. However, they have formed an amazing bond, which has manifested itself in regular Brawley Reunions. My aunt and uncle often encouraged me to attend one of these reunions and meet some of my father's old friends, among them Ed Tokeshi and Patrick Sano. Last year, I was able to attend one of these reunions held in the Los Angeles area.

Ed Tokeshi, my father's best friend, had saved letters that my father wrote to him in the early 1940s. Now, through his caring kindness, I have been able to receive yet a further introduction to a man whom Ed clearly loved and respected.

When John Cline, a schoolmate of my father's Brawley Union High School (BUHS), heard that I was seeking information about my father, he too, responded. He had the generosity of heart to photocopy his BUHS yearbook from 1938. This was my father's senior year, when he was chosen as the salutatorian, and Ed Tokeshi, the valedictorian. John made a very concerted effort to present this yearbook copy to me personally. He has been a supportive friend and mentor for me through my unusual revelation process.

More recently, Patrick Sano has been contributing extensively to the introduction of the man I never had the honor of knowing in person. Pat, through his eloquent writing and all encompassing wisdom, is indeed the one who is responsible for my decision to make this offering of A GUY NAMED JOE.

Again, thanks to Uncle Tok and Aunt Carol, Lawrence Yatsu, who was interned with my father at Poston, also contacted me and we began to correspond. Mr. Yatsu's memories of my father were filled with admiration and fondness. He always referred to my father as his ''mentor'' whenever he was interviewed about his Poston and WW II experiences. During the course of recounting his appreciative memories of my father, I was inspired to send him a copy of the letter from Dr. Arthur Harris. It was then that a miraculous series of coincidences began to take place. These conincidences resulted in an opportunity for me to thank Catherine Harris, the wife of the kind man whose heartfelt letter first introduced my father, Joe Shiomichi to me.

Joe Shiomichi, at the very young age of 23, seemed to comprehend a broader picture of the prejudice against Japanese Americans and the ''temporary aberration'' of the internment camps. He saw these to represent more of a result of the fear-based hysteria that gripped our nation after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

When I was in my fifties, I read my father's words for the first time, and after watching my mother's lifelong choices, I could only wish that she had been able to hear his message. Her perspective of WW II and the internment situation were exactly opposite of her husband's. I do not believe that their brief courtship and marriage of six months gave her the opportunity to understand the wisdom in his outlook. The ensuing tragedy for my mother was a lifelong struggle of anger and resentment.

As I grew up with my widowed mother, and well into my adult years, I often felt extremely sad for her. Not only had she lost her husband before her only child was born, but also now, here she was with a child who was not at all like herself. Unfortunetely for her, this difference was the cause of a great deal of unhappiness. Despite the fact that Miye was the only parent to lovingly raise this child, it would appear that this child saw the world through the eyes of Miye's beloved husband.

Originally, the purpose of comiling these memories was to introduce my father, Joe to my daughter, Lindsay, when she was ready to ''meet'' him. This collection embodies my father's outlook on life and values, as well as his perspective of the Japanese American's predicament resulting from the bombing of Pear Harbor. As I spent time gathering, reading, then cherishing these materials, it became clear to me that I wanted to share them with additional people than my daughter.

Most important is my wish that no sentient being would ever have to endure the degree of anguish my mother has suffered. Harboring such anger and resentment for almost sixty years has taken an unbelievably tremendous toll.

I also want to share the beautiful letter that Dr. Harris wrote when he received the news of my father's death. There has been so much written and filmed about the injustices thrust upon our forefathers, I would like people to be able to also read and know about exemplary Americans such as Dr. Harris. I cannot help but believe that there were many other Dr. Harrises out there who shared his egalitarian and humnitarian beliefs. That unrecorded group of Samaritans seems to get lost and forgotten in the midst of such an enormous outcry against the injustices inflicted upon both the issei and nisei. As the daughter of a volunteer, 442nd RCT soldier who was killed in action before she was born, I do not feel in any way like a forgotten victim. I feel very grateful and proud of both of the generations which preceded me. They were an incredibly strong group of Japanese Americans who perservered under painful discrimination and unfair treatment. It is unquestionably their dignity, faith, and forbearance that paved the path of dignity and equality for all the Japanese Americans who will follow. My depest gratitude and tribute to my predecessors.

April 2002 San Rafael, CA Ryoko Shiomichi Thomas

If you wish to read the full story of A GUY NAMED JOE, please ask the librarian for a copy of the anthology under ID 2003.304.1.

Following article is by Vanessa de la Torre, Staff Writer

Yoko Thomas never knew her father.

When she was born, he was dead, and since it confused her as a 5-year-old why no daddy lived in the house, Yoko sidled up to her mother one day and asked, as little kids do, ''How come?''

Miye had not prepared for this moment.

''She became hysterical and started sobbing,'' remembered Yoko.

There was no talk of freedom, no mention of sacrifice, or even of her father, Pfc. Joe Shiomichi of Brawley. Just fury and a lifetime of silence on the issue.

Yoko, now 59, was so disturbed by her mother's reaction that she suppressed her curiosity for the next half century. The life of Joe Shiomichi, however, could not easily be ignored.

Joe was the youngest of three kids, a Boy Scout while at Westmoreland Grammar School, then a top shot-putter at Brawley Union High School. After graduating in 1938, Joe left the family farm for the University of California, Berkeley. But history would take its course.

On Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese bombed American ships at Pearl Harbor, Joe's older brother, Tokio, was delivering 12 tons of pears from Chico to Los Angeles when he heard the news on his truck radio. Immediately he thought it was a joke. Didn't Orson Welles fool a lot of folks with ''War of the Worlds'' not too long ago?

Tok went to a football game after dropping off the pears. It was at halftime, however, that he realized the seriousness of the situation when an announcer ordered all military personnel to report to their posts.

The next morning Tok signed up for the Army but was rejected by the draft board. Military officials classified him as a 4-C enemy alien.

A day of infamy would pave the way for another.

On Feb. 19, 1942, about two months after the United States entered World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 that created 10 internment camps for 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry as a ''protection against espionage and against sabotage to national defense material.''

Joe Shiomichi had just graduated from US Berkeley, where he was president of the Japanese Students Club and a member of Phi Epsilon Chi fraternity, when he was forced to ''relocate'' with his family to Poston, Ariz. The Shiomichis were driven at gunpoint from their melon farm in Brawley.

Most descendants of the two other Axis powers, Germany and Italy, were left untouched.

Bitterness, however, was a road that Joe refused to stumble across.

After 10 months at Poston Relocation Camp, Joe Shimoichi kept his patriotism much like his brother Tok, who became one of the first Japanese Americans to volunteer for the war once President Roosevelt allowed it. Joe wanted to sign up soon after, but their mother begged him not to - one son, she said, was enough.

But in a letter dated March 11, 1943, Joe revealed to his college roommate and best friend since third grade, Eddie Tokeshi, his trouble sticking to that fear-driven order. At the time he began his courtship with Miye Kojaku, another Berkeley student at the camp, adding to the ''thoughts constantly in a turmoil'' in his head.

A decision was at hand.

I've become more and more convinced that we must take a firm stand now in asserting our beliefs in regards to being Americans. We may have just causes for some of our grievances but I cetainly don't feel that those grievances should be kept so long and harbored with us to the point of distrorting our views for the future,...

''Because there have been a few uprisings and a few outbursts of pro-Axis feelings, I've gone the other extreme and have continually asserted that I am pro-American,'' Joe wrote. ''By volunteering for the Army, I feel that the Niseis are building up something concrete with which to fight discrimination after the war is over.''

Joe Shiomichi, known as the gentle chemistry teacher at Poston, also had little patience for the Niseis, or second-generation Japanese-Americans, who refused allegiance to the United States - they ''are either damned fools or want to be deported to Japan,'' he told Eddie.

But many of his younger students, such as Lawrence Yatsu, felt the oppression of internment. It was undeniable. They had not textbooks, lab materials or classrooms. So the teacher gave the students a few words to chew over.

As Yatsu recalled to the Times-Picayune in 2000, Joe Shiomichi took him for a walk one day and said, ''Larry, all this is a temporary aberration. We do't belong in a camp. But don't be bitter. Don't let this get you down.

''America is the best country in the world. There will be flukes and aberrations along the way. But get past it. This is temporary. America is the greatest country - don't forget that.''

Yoko Thomas, in discovering her father for the first time, read his words and grieved for her mother, whose sentiments were opposite of his.

The two married April 16, 1943, in Poston, and after a few months Joe Shiomichi signed up for the Army to join his brother in Europe. In seeking out his legacy, Thomas also attended the 60th reunion of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team last April in Honolulu.

''By a fluke,'' Thomas said, she sat at the table of Daniel Yamashita, co-author of ''And Then There Were Eight,'' the story of the most decorated military unit in U.S. history: The all-volunteer, all Japanese American 442nd RCT. Though hundreds were killed during the crucial battles to save the ''Lost Battalion'' (141st) from German annihilation, one of the most painful moments of the war, Yamashita told her, was before they entered combat.

Of all the memories that had since faded, Yamashita still remembered, clearly, the stark image of a pregnant woman running along the train tracks, calling to her husband, Joe, as the men were shipped off to Camp Shelby, Miss., for basic training.

And then began the times that tried these men's souls.

Thomas Paine, months before July 4, 1776, stood before a depleted army, batterd by the December cold and British forces, and was ordered by Gen. George Washington to deliver this message: ''The summer soldier and sunshine patriots will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country, but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.''

A sniper's bullet caught Pfc. Joe Shiomichi three months into his combat duties in the Rome-Arno Campaign in Italy. The Graves Registration Report No. 113, dated July 19, 1944, was received by Miye Shimoichi a month before she gave birth to daughter Yoko. Two days earlier, GRR No. 112 had been filled out for Pfc. Shaw Kojaku, Miye's closest brother.

Then came Aug. 31, the day Joe would have turned 24, when his brother Tok stepped on a land mine that blew off his right leg. Last July he died at age 86.

Heaven has a price for all its goods, Thomas Paine had said, ''and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.''

After World War II ended, veterans of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team returned home to storefronts and restaurants that posted signs that read, ''No Japs wanted.''

But throughout those times, Larry Yatsu, the wary chemistry student, remembered the words his teacher had said to him while walking along the dusty trails of Poston: ''This is a temporary aberration...America is the greatest country.'

Yatsu would consider the man his lifelong mentor.

''Here's Joe Shiomichi, torn away from his home, pilloried and put down by his neighbors. They stuck him and his family in a concentration camp, and they stripped him of everything. And he still didn't lose faith. He still believed. I think he belongs up there with the grreatest patriots.''

Pfc. Joe Shiomichi, the soft-spoken idealist, was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart, the Combat Infantryman's Badge and the Bronze Star. He is buried next to his brother-in-law, Pfc. Shaw Kojaku, at the Nisei Veterans Memorial at Evergreen Cemetery in Los Angeles.

A yard away lies Miye.

Yoko Thomas, married with a grown daughter of her own, now has a compilation of letters and rememberances that she had bound into a booklet called, ''A Guy Named joe.'' The title is taken from a letter by Arthur L. Harrris, superintendent of education at Poston, after he received word of her father's death.

Joe fought to the end ''that dark era when man let greed, passion and hate rule his thoughts and his behavior, ''Harris wrote. ''But never has this war hit so close to home as it did through that bit of news...

''In June I received a letter from him, and his closing phrase was, 'Take care of the students back there and we'll try to do our best up here.' Six weeks later Joe gave his life for his country, for the people, - yes, for all of us here in Poston.

''He had 'done his best.'''

A 60th year memorial service for Pfc. Joe Shiomich will start at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Evergreen Cemetery in Los Angeles.(July 2004, Imperial Valley Press)