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Painful Times, Pleasant Memories; Despite Internment, Scouts Endured, Enjoyed
Lori Aratani Washington Post Staff Writer
1,381 words
12 June 2005
The Washington Post
Copyright 2005, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved
The Boy Scouts of Troop 343, no longer boys by any measure, met here last week
for their first reunion in more than 60 years. A little older, a little grayer
and a smidge wiser, they greeted their fellow Scouts with delighted grins.
This was their chance to remember the good times -- the camp-outs, the
flag-raising ceremonies, the stew they cooked in tin cans. But it was also a
time to reflect on the circumstances that brought them together. As Scouts, they
did all the things that other Boy Scouts did: They earned merit badges and
learned the Scout pledge. And they did it all living behind barbed wire.
The boys, now in their seventies and eighties, were among the 120,000 Japanese
Americans sent to live in internment camps during World War II.
Their homes were wooden barracks in Heart Mountain in Wyoming and Manzanar and
Tule Lake in California. Their campgrounds were muddy fields watched by armed
guards.
While many were questioning the patriotism and loyalty of Japanese Americans on
U.S. soil, the community embraced the most American of American traditions. The
Scouts endured sandstorms, bitterly cold winters and the indignity of being
forced to leave their homes with only the belongings they could carry, merely
because they looked like the enemy.
But Thursday was their night to relive the joy of being boys again. More than
two dozen Scouts gathered for what many know will be their only reunion.
George Imokawa, 76, of San Jose, slightly stooped but spiffy in his Boy Scout
tie, gray slacks and blue blazer, had the honor of carrying the red-and-white
troop flag to open the festivities at the convention center here. Technically it
wasn't his troop's flag, but folks were willing to overlook that for the
evening, seeing that after six decades, they felt lucky to have the flag, found
by chance in a church storeroom a few months before.
He was flanked by younger Japanese American Scouts from two nearby churches. The
honor was fitting because it was Imokawa who was the inspiration for the
reunion.
The old Scouts had largely scattered once the camps were shut in 1945. Most were
so occupied with building lives in a country that still was suspicious of them
and their families that there wasn't time for keeping in touch.
Buddy Takata, 76, moved back to his family's farm in Campbell, near Silicon
Valley, and later received an electrical engineering degree at UCLA.
Imokawa and his troop leader, Art Okuno, returned to the Bay Area, married and
raised families less than 10 miles apart from each other but never crossed
paths.
Last summer, quite by chance, Frank Erickson, then a Scout executive with the
Santa Clara County Council, was sorting through a stack of postcard pledges for
the annual Scout drive when he came across one from Imokawa.
Under the heading "Scouting experience," Imokawa had written simply: Heart
Mountain.
Erickson paused a moment, and then it hit him: Heart Mountain was one of 10
internment camps set up to house Japanese Americans during World War II. He was
struck by the irony that even as Japanese American families were being rejected
in their adopted homeland, they were embracing Americana.
"The hair on the back of my neck stood up," Erickson said. "It was one of those
instances when you can't do nothing."
Together again Thursday night, surrounded by more than 200 family members and
friends, was like watching pieces of an old jigsaw puzzle fall into
place: When one Scout couldn't quite recall a story, others stepped up to fill
in the details. "The best thing when I used to meet with you in your unit --
that toaster," Takata told Okuno. "You'd call me and talk to me, and all I could
think of was that I'd get toast. And you had real butter."
Takata, now of the Los Angeles area, tried to remember how it was that he ended
up a senior patrol leader of Troop 343. "You know, I'm not sure how I got that
job," he said. Turning to Okuno, he queried: "Do you remember?"
"Are you kidding?" Okuno replied. "That was 60 years ago. I don't remember."
The men recalled their rivalry with Troop 379, which consisted mainly of Scouts
from Los Angeles and had a much-celebrated drum and bugle corps. "We really
looked up to them," Takata said. "But in '45, we took the flag" in the annual
competition.
Okuno is now 83 and lives in Saratoga, Calif. But he was a sophomore at the
University of California at Berkeley when his family was sent to the internment
camp and he became head of Troop 343 -- one of seven troops at Heart Mountain.
All the internment camps had troops, but Heart Mountain's were among the most
active.
Scouting had deep roots in the Japanese American community before internment,
with the desire of immigrant parents to assimilate into U.S.
life. "Our parents wanted us to get integrated into American life as quickly as
possible," said U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norman Y.
Mineta, a Heart Mountain Scout. "Scouting was one of those activities that they
thought would do that," added Mineta, the reunion's featured speaker.
He was 10 when he and his family were sent to live at the Wyoming camp. The day
they left San Jose -- May 29, 1942 -- Mineta wore his Cub Scout uniform for the
train ride to the assembly center in Southern California. "I have always been
grateful to the Scouting movement for what it gave us," he said.
Imokawa, 13 when his family was interned, always dreamed of becoming a Boy
Scout. At Heart Mountain, where his mother, Shizue, served as den mother, he
earned 10 merit badges, mementos he keeps tucked away carefully even today.
Scout leaders did their best to make sure internment camp troops were like any
others. But there were subtle reminders that life behind barbed wire had its
limitations.
In the early days, troops weren't allowed to leave camp grounds, so overnight
trips, long a staple of Scouting, were out. (The restriction eventually was
lifted, and the boys took a memorable trip to Yellowstone National Park.)
Censors from the War Relocation Authority screened scouting books entering Heart
Mountain to ensure that none of the material posed a security risk.
The camp had no pool, so the boys earned their swimming badges by paddling
across a muddy hole.
An early attempt by Scout leaders to invite Scouts from the neighboring
communities of Powell and Cody initially met resistance, Mineta recalled.
"The Boy Scouts refused to come," he said. "They called it a Jap Camp. But
someone told them: 'These are Boy Scouts. They wear the same uniforms you do.
They study the same books you do. They go after the same merit badges as you
do.' "
Eventually the Scouts from Cody came. And on the bus that drove past the guard
towers and through the barbed wire fences was a boy named Alan K.
Simpson, who went on to become a U.S. senator. He would be paired with Mineta,
and the two would form a lifelong friendship. "We had some fun,"
Simpson recalled recently. "We did some devilish little things together."
Takata, who flew up for the reunion from his home in Los Angeles, brought his
old knapsack and a well-worn candy box. Carefully tucked inside were his Boy
Scout hats, including a version his mother sewed for him because regulation hats
weren't available in the internment camp. In an album, he had photos, postcards
and more than a dozen merit badge applications, carefully typed out on index
cards. Back then, he knew the Scout oath by heart. Six decades later, it's a
little harder for him to recite from memory, but other things about Scouting
have remained in his heart.
"As I think back, maybe some of those things really impacted me and are part of
my own values today: to always do your best, to be loyal."
And to do it all surrounded by friends.
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