'Art Iwasaki'
As a 20-year-old
soldier, Art Iwasaki watched the federal
government uproot his family from their Hillsboro home in Oregon and send
them to Eastern Oregon to farm as an alternative to internment. 'That was
pretty hard to take,' Iwasaki says. 'being in the Army, wearing the uniform
... and your family is ordered to go to camp.' Iwasaki won three Purple
Hearts and a bronze star during his service as an infantryman of the 442nd
combat. Iwasaki, now 85, says he spent the first two years of his Army
service classified as an enemy alien and forced to pick up cigarette butts
and mow lawns 'just like a prisoner of war.' 'The only difference was POWs
had 'POW' painted on their backs.'
