Kenji Kentaro
Born 1922, Honolulu, Hawaii. Drafted, November 1941
His parents dying when he was young, Kenji was sent back to Japan to live with relative while he complete his High School studies. Upon graduation, he returned to Hawaii and lived at the Okamura Dormitory while attending University of Hawaii and working at a laundry in downtown Honolulu. Shortly after his return he was drafted into the Hawaiian National Guard.
Like many young Nisei, Kenji was an avid baseball player and an active member of the Nippon baseball team. By the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor he had had very little military training and had never fired a single live round from any weapon.
Born 1924, Honolulu, Hawaii. Volunteered, June 1943
He was the son of a Japanese immigrant father and a mother whose parents had migrated from Japan. He grew up in the Bingham Tract, a Chinese-American enclave in the predominantly Japanese-American community of Mōʻiliʻili in Honolulu.
As the eldest of four children, Inouye grew up in a household that blended Japanese and American traditions and attended Japanese school after completing his American education in the morning at McKinley High School. His volunteer work as a Red Cross medical aide would serve him, and many of those wounded, well during the attack of Pearl Harbor.
Daniel Inouye
Raiku 'Irish' Nakano
Born 1911, Honolulu, Hawaii. Drafted, June 1941
Irish is the athlete. Being a strong swimmer, he was almost selected to participate in the 1940 Summer Olympics. When that fell through he spent close to a year with his brother in San Francisco. Again, luck was not on his side, and after failing at several career choices, he returned to Hawaii and quickly found himself drafted into the Territorial Guard (if this was a lucky or not he never said ).
After completing basic training he found himself spending many long nights guarding the planes and runway at Hickam Field.
Born 1911, Honolulu, Hawaii. Volunteered, December 1940
Born 'Fukuo' Akinaka, in order to better assimilate into the local culture, he changed his name to “Isaac”. After studying the Book of Mormon he felt a great trembling through his body. To him this was a sign that he had been called to God. From that day forward, he became a devout Mormon. One day “a voice inside his head” told him to join the army. On December 9, 1940, he enlisted in the 298th Hawaii National Guard for one year.
His National Guard obligation would officially end on December 8, 1941.
Isaac Akinaka
Jesse Hirata
Born 1918, Honolulu, Hawaii. Drafted, November 1941
Born on a plantation in Hawaii, he attended McKinley High School and moved out on his own the moment he graduated. Getting a job at a laundry in downtown Hawaii, buying a new car, and spending his evenings on the beach dancing and partying, Jesse was determined to live life to its fullest.
Getting drafted into the Hawaiian National Guard became a huge hurdle to his plans.