The Story of the First Asian American To Control an Army Division

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Let's take a listen. So my grandfather came here in 1901 because he had invested in the Japanese futures market, Sake, and in essence lost half of the family fortune. So he decided to come to the States to gain back that money and then return to Japan. Well now it's 18 years later and my grandmother is by herself with five children and my grandfather is still in America. So my father is now 18 years old and my grandmother says, you get on a boat, you go to America and get your dad to come back.

So that's what he did. He gets on a boat, comes through Seattle, Washington and finds his father in Kearney, Nebraska. They moved to Colorado and my grandfather buys a boarding house. But what happened was there were waitresses who were serving the meals.

Well it turns out the waitresses were more than waitresses. But my grandfather didn't know that when he bought the boarding house because my grandfather was a Christian, which was highly, highly unusual for Japanese in those days. And so my grandfather, when he found out this side operation going on in his boarding house, he shut it down.

Needless to say, he lost a lot of clients. And so my father convinced him to sell it and take the money and go back to Japan. But my father stayed here in the States. He had a love for America. Frankly, he wanted to come here for the opportunity and the freedom we have. When he was in grammar school, English was a mandatory language when my father was in elementary school in the 1900s. In fact, he had to memorize in English the Gettysburg Address when he was in grammar school.

And so he had instilled in him early in his life the feelings of democracy and freedom and opportunity. So he came here and wound up in Chicago in the late 20s. Keep in mind, these were legal immigrations, I might add. We were here before the war, actually, and that was a big plus for us because there weren't a lot of Japanese in Chicago at that time when the war broke out.

I mean, there were less than 400 total in the whole city. And so we did not have to go to camp. And by the way, when I say camp, during World War II, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which ordered all people of Japanese descent to be forcibly removed and put in camps in the interior of the United States, namely in God-forsaken desert areas. These were your standard concentration camps.

They euphemistically referred to them as relocation centers. But anyway, so we had assimilated so well into the community, my dad was known by everyone. Our neighbors actually sent a telegram to our congressman vouching for the loyalty of my dad as a U.S. citizen. They didn't even know he wasn't a citizen.

They just assumed it. But our friends and neighbors truly rallied around us. And keep in mind, there were 120,000 plus that were removed and put in camps, two-thirds of whom were American citizens, for three years. So you lose everything. You know, if you had a business, you obviously couldn't run your business. You couldn't pay for your mortgage for your home, so you lose your home. So after the war, when they released all these people from the camps, in our case, in Chicago, we were blue collar. We never owned a home. We always lived in a tenant apartment building. My lawn was a concrete sidewalk, but I never felt poor because my mom and dad had not only assimilated into the community, but they became very strong parts of it. My father joined the Chamber of Commerce.

He had a small retail business. My dad helped with Boy Scouts. We became members of our church. And my neighborhood, frankly, was we were the only minority family. We went to a grammar school of 900 kids. My brother and I were the only minority. You know, we had German, Italian, Polish.

We had some Jews. And I never felt poor because we had such a strong nuclear family, and we all took care of ourselves. And likewise in the neighborhood, the local neighborhood patrol were the mothers.

Because in those days, a lot of the mothers were stay-at-home mothers. The church was the main center of our activities. I actually was a choir boy. And then I was in Cub Scouts, and I was in Boy Scouts. It was a great organization because the motto of Scouting was For God and Country.

And the Cub Scout Pack and the Boy Scout troop were sponsored by our church. And you've been listening to Major General James Mukayama, General Mook, telling the story of his family's journey to America, starting with his grandfather just trying to recoup some investment losses to his father while just deciding to stay, even as his grandfather returned home. And it's the story of America in the end, this immigrant's tale.

He was the only minority in his ethnic neighborhood. And as he said, we didn't know we were poor because we had a nuclear family, and so many other families around us did too. When we come back, more of Major General Mukayama's story here on Our American Stories. This is Lee Habib, host of Our American Stories, the show where America is the star in the American people, and we do it all from the heart of the South, Oxford, Mississippi. But we truly can't do this show without you.

Our shows will always be free to listen to, but they're not free to make. If you love what you hear, consider making a tax-deductible donation to Our American Stories. Go to OurAmericanStories.com. Give a little, give a lot.

That's OurAmericanStories.com. Hey, this is Christina Quinn. I'm the host of Try This, The Washington Post's new series of audio courses. The idea behind Try This is to become better functioning humans without having to comb the internet for countless hours. In our first course, we learned how to sleep better. Now, we're going to learn how to make our friendships stronger. I'll offer expert tips that are doable, and I'll keep it short.

So let's do this. Glasses in session. Find Try This from The Washington Post wherever you listen. With dozens of streaming services, box office films, and content to choose from, people are spending over two and a half years of their lives searching for what to watch. But The Hollywood Reporter brings you THR charts, one place for you, your family, and friends to find the most watched TV shows and movies every week. THR charts is a guide to help you spend less time scrolling through platforms so that you can spend more time watching and binging the content everyone is talking about. All supported by data and trusted sources like Nielsen, Comscore, and Parrot Analytics.

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Visit NFL.com slash draft for more information. Presented by Bud Light. Easy to drink, easy to enjoy. Music And we continue with our American stories and the story of Major General James H. Mukayama and the story of his family and how they came to be Americans and my goodness the story he told about the internment camps. Look, not all of America's story is perfect or good. And this was a pretty wretched part of our past. And many Japanese suffered for no good reason, but that they were Japanese.

Let's pick up where General Mukayama left off. I have a daily standard mantra, which is every day is a great day. I have my faith, my family, and live in the finest country in the world. I say it every day. In fact, I do our grocery shopping. And so when I go to the Juul grocery store here in the Midwest, all the cashiers want me to come to their stations because they know what I'm going to say. But when I was born here, I hit the lotto. And so when I say that mantra, sometimes I get pushback about the finest country in the world part. And I say, listen, I've been around the block a few times.

You know, it does help to be around about eight decades. And so I tell them, when I joined the military, there had never been an Asian American admiral or general in our armed forces. Now, I was not the first.

I was about the third or fourth. The club isn't real large, but I've seen in my lifetime alone improvements in our society when it comes to racism. We have elected an African American as a president and re-elected him. Now, has our country made mistakes?

Obviously. But I'll tell you what, we're the only country that I know of that had a civil war to abolish slavery, costing over half a million lives to settle that situation. And our president who ran on that platform was assassinated.

He gave up his life, Abraham Lincoln, knowing full well the risk he was taking. And the proof is in the pudding. There are hundreds of millions of people throughout the world who want to come to this country, versus the minuscule few who say that this is terrible and they want to leave. But have I experienced racism? I grew up right after Pearl Harbor. I mean, the phrase, remember Pearl Harbor, was still sunk in everybody's mind. And for a long time, I got to tell you, I wasn't real happy about going outside on December 7th. But I always considered the source.

The number of incidents in my life of racism and prejudice are far outnumbered by the goodness of our nation in terms of equal opportunity. And when I was in high school, by the way, as I mentioned, you know, we didn't have a lot of money, so I had to work hard to earn money so I could go to college. So when I was in high school, I played in the band in high school. I became the first chair clarinet in the band. I was the principal woodwind of the orchestra.

But I also played in two combos to make money on the side. So one was a Polish band. So I played for Polish weddings. You know, since I played clarinet, you know, I was pretty good with polkas. And by the way, by the third set, everybody was so drunk, nobody cared. And of course, here I am, a high school guy, and you know, at weddings and things like that, people buy the band drinks, right?

So needless to say, I was not going to turn that down. So that was a good gig. But then also, I played in another band which played for Jewish bar mitzvahs. So I told people, I had them coming or going.

Either way, I knew all the synagogues on the north side and suburbs of Chicago. I learned very early in life that I have a bad temper. And my wife can attest to that, unfortunately, because although she stuck with me for 52 years now, so I guess I have some other redeeming qualities. But I knew very early in life, when I say early, in grammar school, that I had a bad temper, so I had to control myself. On the other hand, I was always, I was kind of a nerd. So I was always picked on, especially during recess, but I had to control my temper, I knew that. But one day, a guy called me a jab, and I lost it. Literally, I had him on the ground in seconds, and I was on top of him, and I was beating him. And the kids had to drag me off of him, and they all looked in astonishment, and they said, Who is this guy?

Where's Jim Mukuyama that we know? There was a book, years later, that I read, and it was called Wild at Heart, by John Eldridge. And he starts the book by talking about his son coming home from school one day, and he looked kind of down, you know, so Eldridge says, Son, what's going on? He said, Well, Dad, you know, we got this bully at school. I don't know what to do about it. So Eldridge tells his son, he said, Son, you go back, and you tell the guy to stop.

And if he doesn't stop, you hit him as hard as you can. And I'm sitting there reading this, and I get this flashback, and I'm saying, Yes. And then my wife is there, and she says, What are you doing? And I said, I know that every guy who read that book, that story would sit there and say yes.

But I knew every woman who read that story would be in horror. They'd say, No, you can't do that. You can't tell our son to do that. Tell him to go tell the teacher. You know, now the good news is that I grew up in the neighborhoods, and we had a code, and the code was you took care of things yourself. And you didn't tattletale and go to the teacher and cry about, you know, because had we done that, kids who were tattletales, they were ostracized among the kids.

I mean, it's the worst thing you could do. So I fortunately avoided having anyone tell the teacher and rat on me. So I didn't get called, you know, to the principal's office. That was the thing I feared the most when I was in school because my parents taught me to respect my elders and to respect my teachers. So if they got called to school for anything, you know, I didn't care what the principal was going to do to me.

I worried more about what my father was going to do. So my dad told us, my brother and I, never shame the Mukoyama name, that means the family, and never shame the Japanese race, but you have been born in America. You are Americans. This is your country. This is your homeland.

This is where your loyalty lies. And you need to take the best of the Japanese culture and add that to the American culture to make our country the best it can be. Now my dad, by the way, a lot of people don't know this, Japanese could not become naturalized citizens of the United States until 1952. And my dad had been here since 1918. So he was one of the first to become naturalized. So he goes downtown to the federal center to be sworn in, and the judge, I still can't believe this to this day, the judge asked my father, what took you so long to become naturalized? And my father had to give the guy a five minute civics lesson, and he said, judge, they just passed the McLaren Act, this is 1952, which is the first time we've been eligible to become people of Japanese descent.

So he was respectful, but it's incredible that that could have happened. And you've been listening to Major General James Mukayama, General Mook, tell his story. His story is a young musician playing in Polish bands and then playing at synagogues playing Yiddish music and just having a good old time and every once in a while a free drink. And he learned early in his life that he had a bad temper, and one day one bully pushed him too far. We learned also about what it meant to his father to be Japanese and also what the Mukayama name meant, but also that his loyalties were owed to America now.

He was an American. When we come back, more of General Mook's story here on Our American Stories. There's a lot happening these days, but I have just the thing to get you up to speed on what matters without taking too much of your time. The Seven from the Washington Post is a podcast that gives you the seven most important and interesting stories, and we always try to save room for something fun. You get it all in about seven minutes or less.

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Visit nfl.com slash draft for more information. And we continue with Al American stories and with General Mook's story. His family's immigration story continues. I just found out a couple of years ago from my wife team across a wonderful treasure of a two-hour audio tape of my mother. And it was the first time I saw it.

And it was the first time I saw it. And it was a wonderful treasure of a two-hour audio tape of my mother, who at 84 was interviewed. And it was an audio tape interview by a researcher from the University of San Francisco who was researching Japanese Americans of my mother's generation. The interviewer kept on asking her, well, tell me about your experiences in Wyoming and Nebraska and Wisconsin and Oklahoma and California.

Tell me about racism that you experienced. And my mom said, I did it. This woman could not believe it.

And she kept on probing her. And my mom said, no, I mean, we were part of the community. So my senior year in high school, I worked from 5 o'clock until 10 o'clock at night, Mondays through Fridays, and eight hours on Saturday. So as a senior in high school, I worked 33 hours a week. You know, I was pretty busy. But the lesson it taught me was time management because I really had no time.

When I came home at night, I got home probably around 1030 at night. I had to study. And by the way, I had my best year in high school that year. I had straight A's.

That really made me focus. So now I'm in college, University of Illinois. So I'm in the dorms with a roommate.

And just like any testosterone-laden guy when I was in high school, one of my favorite readings was Playboy magazine. So I actually saved the centerfolds. So I wallpapered our ceiling and two of the walls with playmate centerfolds. Well, one day, my roommate's mother came to campus to visit us. She didn't tell us she was coming. Obviously, had she told us she was coming, we would have kind of cleaned up our room.

But she didn't tell us, right? She says, we're on the weekend. Knock on the door.

This is Mother. And she walks in and she looks at the room. And she looks at her son and she says, oh, Fred.

And then I looked at him and I said, yeah, Fred. You know, our room was famous on campus. Guys would knock on our door, you know, and I'd say, yeah, can I help you? No, we're not here to see you.

We just want to see your room. When I graduated, after getting my master's degree, being an infantry officer, I volunteered for Vietnam. And the Army, in its infinite wisdom, sent me instead to Korea. So I go to Korea to the 2nd Infantry Division, which was stationed on the Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ, which separates, obviously, the north from the south. Our mission was to defend against infiltrators from the north. So we were going up against the North Korean Special Operations. And we were tripwires. We knew that if the north was going to come across, we'd be pretty well toast.

So I'm on the DMZ. I'm now a platoon leader for an infantry company. And it was so good. Finally, after eight years of ROTC and one year of graduate school, I'm finally doing what I was trained to do in life, leading soldiers.

And it was better than what I thought it would be. People say, well, gee, you know, how did you become a general? I often ask myself that, too, in astonishment. But my answer always is, I had great noncommissioned officers. Those are the sergeants who made me look good. And I had commanders who mentored me.

And they didn't cut my head off when I screwed up. And I did my fair share of mistakes as a junior officer. And so I'm leading this combat patrol, ambush patrol. And one day I got a message that I was to report to the battalion commander at the battalion headquarters.

You know, normally that's not good. So I get in my Jeep and go down to the battalion headquarters. And he says, Lieutenant Mokuyama, how are you doing? I said, sir, you know, it's really great.

I mean, I'm leading troops and doing what I've been trained to do for eight years. And I appreciate the opportunity to do that. And he said, I see you have a master's degree. And I said, yes, sir. And then he said, I see you have a degree in English.

And I could see where this is going. The colonel says, Lieutenant, how would you like to be the battalion adjutant? And I said, sir, you know, I'm honored that you would even consider me. But I'm really happy doing what I'm doing now, leading these troops and getting this experience. And he said, Lieutenant, I'm not looking for happiness in my battalion. He said, you will report on Monday morning.

Yes, sir. So Monday morning, there I was. And I became the battalion adjutant. You know, before I went, when I was at the University of Illinois, there was a very popular book that was out. It was called The Ugly American. And that book talked about how we as Americans need to get our act together when we go overseas and not create a bad image of Americans. So I had read that book.

So I knew when I was in the Army, no matter where I'd be assigned, I'd have to be a good representative of America. And Korea was a wonderful experience for me. There was a local village there. And by the way, that part of Korea was the poorest part of Korea.

The government did not invest in it because if the North Koreans were to come across, they would be the first to go. And so they were very poor. And we basically raised money every payday.

I would have a coffee can and I'd put it out there. And we used to get paid in cash. You know, they'd throw in 25 cents or 50 cents, which was a big deal in those days.

And we used that money to help the community. My soldiers used to joke that if I ran for mayor of Changpuri, I would have won. I'll tell you one incident. What happened was now I'm the battalion adjutant and I get a call from one of the companies. And the guy says, Lieutenant, we got a problem. And I said, uh-oh, you know, those are not the words you want to hear.

And so I said, okay, what's up? And he said, by the way, in those days, keep in mind, this is the 60s, we own the night. We're the only ones who had night vision devices. I mean, these were classified top secret. And that's how we own the night, especially on the DMZ. And they were called starlight scopes, the night vision devices. And he said, we had one of our trucks going through the village today and somebody stole the starlight scope.

I mean, had that fallen into the hands of the North Koreans, it would have been disaster. And you've been listening to Major General James Mukayama tell the story of his life, his family's life, his military journey. General Muk, well, he went to the University of Illinois after pulling 33-hour work weeks while a senior in high school and still managing straight A's. He said he learned time management, graduates with a master's, he volunteers for the infantry during the Vietnam War, not what many people were doing then.

Talk about countercultural. And then training eight years to do what he dreamed of doing, leading soldiers, as he said, it was better than I dreamed it could be. And then getting an assignment in the military that he wasn't happy about because, well, his commanding officer wasn't really concerned about his happiness. When we come back, more of Major General Mukayama's story, General Muk's story, here on Our American Stories. Finding the right news podcast can feel like dating. It seems promising until you start listening. When you hit play on Post Reports, you'll get fascinating conversations and sometimes a little fun too. I'm Martine Powers.

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Check out THR Charts on HollywoodReporter.com. Lowe's, official sponsor for the 2024 NFL Draft. And we continue with our American stories and with Major General James Mukayama, General Mook. Let's pick up where we last left off. So I immediately hop in my Jeep, I drive down to the Ville, I go to the Chief of Police who was a good friend of mine because I had helped him with some things.

And I said, Chief, today one of our trucks is going through the village about one o'clock this afternoon. There was a black box in the back of that truck. Somebody stole the black box. I didn't tell them what was in it. And I said, I don't care who took it. I don't care why they took it. I need that box back.

Within one hour I had the box. When I was in combat, I never once worried about my personal safety because I knew if God was going to take me I'd be in a better place. What I worried about was I was a commander of soldiers and I was worried about my responsibility and screwing up by making a bad decision. Because when you're leading troops in combat, it's not like you're in business where if you have a business and it goes bankrupt, you can restart again. But if you're leading soldiers in combat and you make a mistake, it can cost lives.

The most precious commodity that any leader has is the lives of his people. And so that's what kept me awake at night. But personal safety has not been anything that I've ever worried about. I've had my share of medical situations from Agent Orange. But now I'm in Vietnam, I was committed.

I was what was called a lifer. I was a naive, young, gung-ho, regular Army Airborne Officer, infantry. But I had seen things.

When I was at the headquarters level, I could actually see what was behind the curtain. And I could see that the Army was heading in a direction that was not good. And I'm in a combat zone, and they're looking for managers, not for commanders.

You know, it's almost like the woke today. Then they promoted me to brigade adjutant. A brigade is about 3,000 soldiers, and that position is authorized a major. And I'm still a first lieutenant. When I was in that position, I saw all the officer efficiency reports for every officer in the brigade.

Those are your report cards that determine your career in the military. And so I looked at the officer efficiency reports, or OERs, of the battalion commanders. I knew every one of them. I had interacted with them. I knew their capabilities. I knew their strengths and weaknesses. And if I, Jim Murayama, were to rate the four battalion commanders, I would have rated them one, two, three, and four.

The actual ratings came out four, three, two, one. And so I was not real encouraged by that. I came back to the States. I resigned my regular Army commission. I joined the Reserves because I was committed to 20 years, and it turned out to be 32, but that's what happened in Vietnam. Then when I finally retired in 95 from the military, I started volunteering for veterans' organizations. I was at a medical college in Oregon giving a speech. When my wife and I first arrived to the hotel, we're checking in and we're going up the elevator to our room, and I'm wearing my Vietnam veterans hat, which I wear every day, every chance I get.

Why do I do that? I do that to let people know that we have veterans in our communities. They just don't know it. Not only that, but frankly, it starts up conversations with veterans, at which time the first thing I mention to the veteran after I meet them is I ask them, are they registered with the VA?

And if their answer is no, then I kind of talk to them about fixing that. But anyway, so we're in this elevator going up, and there's a hotel employee there. And he said, hey, I served in Vietnam too. So anybody who knows veterans, what happens is immediately there's a bond, and we start talking. And I say, well, when were you there? He was there same time I was, 69 and 70. And then I said, well, what service were you in?

And he was in the Army, so obviously he was a man of great character. And so we get off the elevator, and he's still talking. And then he says, hey, did you hear that there's going to be a general speaking? To which I said, well, yeah, it's me.

And I gave him my card, I shook his hand, and I said, welcome home. My generation was treated so bad that when you tell people today, they can't believe it. When I came back from Vietnam, I was told not to wear my uniform in public.

That's how bad it was. Now, I was a United States Army officer, and I was airborne, so I wouldn't have any of that. I wore my uniform when I came back.

But guys were spit on, people threw urine and feces on them, and they called them baby killers. I had one guy who was a very dear friend of mine. He had been with the 101st Airborne in Vietnam, a platoon leader. He comes back, and he's treated like garbage, and so he goes to his church, he was Catholic, and he went to his priest seeking some understanding and consolation. And the priest looked at him and he said, you served in the Army in Vietnam, you're going to hell. At which point the guy turned around and he never went back. Now, later on in life, fortunately, he did go back to church, but that's what we encountered. Guys purposely just never talked about their experience, and that, unfortunately, has led to the high rate of suicide among veterans in my generation. And the good news for the current generation is that when that happened to us, we all swore that this would not happen to future generations of warriors coming back, and I think we've been fairly successful in that. So, yeah, I gave my speech that night.

Next morning we're in the parking lot, I'm putting luggage into our car, and who comes running out of the hotel but that employee? And the guy had tears in his eyes, and he said, nobody has ever said welcome home to me. So, if you know a Vietnam veteran, instead of saying thank you for your service, please tell them welcome home. I literally display our nation's colors every day. I have a flagpole in front of my house, I plant the flag, I salute it in the morning, and then in the evening at sundown, because I don't have a light on the flag, I have another ceremony where I salute the flag and take it down. I want our neighbors to know and to remember the sacrifices of our great nation in the goodness of America. Frankly, the way I judge things is that if the United States of America had never existed, the world would be in worse shape. But it's our responsibility as Americans to live up to the foundations of our country. I'm so grateful to live in this nation, to have the opportunity to have served with some of the finest people in the world, my fellow soldiers, and to share my life with my wonderful wife, who, by the way, let my parents live with us for 22 years, same house.

Imagine two women in the same kitchen until they die. So I've just been so blessed, and every day is a great day. I have my faith, my family, live in the finest country in the world. And a terrific job on the editing and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to Major General James Mukayama, General Mook, to people who know him and people who care about him. He's the author of Faith, Family, and Flag, memoirs of an unlikely American samurai crusader, a book printed under retired Navy SEAL Jocko Willink's publishing company.

Pick the book up wherever you get your books, Amazon or the usual suspects. And what a story he told. When I was in combat, I never worried about my personal safety.

I worried about screwing up. When you're leading soldiers into combat, it can cost lives. By the way, that story of the Vietnam vet thanking him for saying welcome home tells you everything.

The story of the first Asian American to command a U.S. Army division, Major General Mukayama's story, General Mook's story, here on Our American Stories. The countdown is on for the 2024 NFL Draft, presented by Bud Light. We're the first pick in the NFL Draft. Catch all seven rounds, three days, live from Detroit. April 25th to 27th with NFL Network draft coverage presented by Verizon. And on ABC, ESPN, ESPN Deportes, and streaming on NFL Plus. It all starts now. It all starts Thursday, April 25th at 8 p.m. Eastern. Visit NFL.com slash draft for more information. Start streaming at play.xumo.com or download from the app in Google Play stores today. All you can stream with Xumo Play.