R.I.P. Barney F. Hajiro, Japanese, 1916-2011. Was oldest living Medal of Honor recipient. Member of greatest commando unit in US history 442nd/100th Combat Team.
R.I.P. Barney F. Hajiro, Japanese, 1916-2011. Was oldest living Medal of Honor recipient. Member of greatest commando unit in US history 442nd/100th Combat Team.
I'm going out on a limb and guessing Japanese-AMERICAN....
Nisei always call themselves 'Nihon Jin' even today. After they tore up the Nazis, the US insisted they were 'Japanese Americans'. But Nisei know they are Japanese.
From what little I could find, he was Nisei (2nd generation Japanese-American). To me that indicates he was born in Hawaii after his parents landed there.
Also, I never considered the 442nd to be a commando unit. Regardless, an incredible group of soldiers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/442nd_Infantry_Regiment_%28United_States%29
21 MOH for the 442nd/100th is the most ever for a US combat team. These guys were trained by 1935 Japan-China War sergeants to Japanese Army standards two orders of magnitude beyond any of the so-called modern day 'special forces', 'recon', 'delta-force', 'SEALS' units.
In grade school, we had a old wrinkled Nisei guy talk to our class. He owned the big lettuce farm in town. I grew up in Imperial County CA. I could barely understand English by the 5th grade and he could barely speak English. He was in a concentration camp and his father was shot and killed by the US Army in jail. Then he went to France and his mother back in concentration camp died. His buddies were Japanese, segregated by the Army. I would have gone AWOL if they killed my mom and dad like that. At recess we all said F,U,C,K the US for doing that to him.
VMI 1976 wrote:
21 MOH for the 442nd/100th is the most ever for a US combat team. These guys were trained by 1935 Japan-China War sergeants to Japanese Army standards two orders of magnitude beyond any of the so-called modern day 'special forces', 'recon', 'delta-force', 'SEALS' units.
Hi, you must be retarded. I'm your new Special Ed teacher. I wonder what our first lesson will be.......................
21 MOH for the 442nd/100th is the most ever for a US combat team. These guys were trained by 1935 Japan-China War sergeants to Japanese Army standards two orders of magnitude beyond any of the so-called modern day 'special forces', 'recon', 'delta-force', 'SEALS' units.
Pentagon Certified. The history of the 442nd is well known and is taught in every graduate war college, service academy, ROTC program, etc.