For Korean War Vets, It’s a Battle for Recognition

Shot in the leg more than four decades ago, a world away from home, Roy Shiraga was nearly abandoned by his own troops because they failed to realize he was one of their own.

In a different battle in the same war, Hiroshi Miyamura first killed enemy soldiers with a bayonet, then covered two wounded comrades--firing a hailstorm of machine-gun blasts--so they could flee to safety.

This weekend, Shiraga and Miyamura--now aging survivors of the Korean War instead of anxious young soldiers in the thick of it--have been renewing old friendships and remembering at the 47th Annual Nisei Veterans of Foreign Wars Reunion. This year the Nisei, or second-generation Japanese Americans, dedicated their reunion to the Korean War veterans who served in what has been referred to as this country’s “forgotten war.”

Relegated to the back pages of the nation’s newspapers at a time when television was not yet commonplace, the war’s images were kept distant from the public. Among current generations, the Korean War and its 1.7 million veterans have captured far less attention than World War II or the divisive conflict in Vietnam.

The overlooked vets include an unknown number of Japanese Americans, dozens of whom are attending this weekend’s convention at the Burbank Hilton, along with their counterparts from World War II. Miyamura, who spent 27 months as a prisoner of war and was awarded the Medal of Honor, was the keynote speaker at the event, which concludes today.

“Very few people are aware of the Japanese Americans who fought in the Korean War, and it’s a shame because there were so many people who accomplished so much yet they never got the recognition they deserved,” said Miyamura, who after the war returned to his hometown of Gallup, N.M., where he raised three children and operated a service station until he retired in 1984.

“You just never hear of them. . . . Then again that’s part of our heritage. We’re not supposed to be braggarts.”

The war in Korea, which began in 1950 and ended in 1953, claimed 54,000 American lives, making it one of the bloodiest in U.S. history. Among the casualties were more than 240 Americans of Japanese ancestry who were killed or missing in action.

In recent years, efforts have been made to remember the forgotten war and its veterans. Two years ago, as thousands of survivors looked on, President Clinton joined South Korean President Kim Young Sam in dedicating a Korean War memorial in Washington.

Measures have also been taken within the Japanese American community to honor Japanese American veterans of the war. A memorial wall listing the names of the dead, paid for with $150,000 in donations, is scheduled to be dedicated on Memorial Day at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Little Tokyo.

“We were overshadowed by the heroics of the World War II veterans and the controversy in Vietnam,” said Bob Wada, president of the Japanese American Korean War Veterans. “Yet to the veterans, the Korean War was just as deadly and real as those other wars.”

Just how many Japanese Americans served in the Korean War remains a mystery because of a government classification system that identified Asians of all ethnic backgrounds as “Mongoloid,” said Wada, who now lives in Buena Park. As a result, Wada said, the names that will be listed on the memorial wall were culled based on their Japanese surnames.

During World War II, there was little question about who the Japanese American soldiers were because many found themselves in racially segregated units. Of the 33,000 Japanese Americans who served in World War II, 13,000 were assigned to the segregated 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the rest in military intelligence or other battalions.

Fighting to prove their allegiance to their country at a time when many of their relatives were imprisoned in internment camps, the young Nisei helped the 100th and 442nd become two of the most decorated units in U.S. Army history and transformed themselves into icons among Japanese Americans.

Many younger Japanese Americans credit their military service with helping to bring about, though not until 1988, an official U.S. apology for the internment and redress payments from the government to camp survivors. The performance of the Nisei soldiers also helped persuade the U.S. government in the 1950s to allow Japanese immigrants to become naturalized citizens.

But things turned out much differently for the veterans of the Korean War.

By the time Communist-ruled North Korea invaded South Korea, igniting the war on June 25, 1950, the U.S. government had disbanded the internment camps and desegregated the military for Japanese Americans.

As a result, Japanese Americans served in integrated military units throughout the Korean War, making their accomplishments more difficult to distinguish. When the war ended and the veterans came home, they quietly melded into society.

“History will never know,” Wada said, “but I feel that perhaps if we had been a segregated unit serving all together we probably could have made our community very proud, too.”

“We had all the heroics and all that other stuff,” said Jun Ogimachi, commander of the San Fernando Valley Nisei Memorial VFW Post 4140. “But since we weren’t segregated, you don’t hear about it. . . . People just don’t talk about it.”

The silence is shared by some of the veterans themselves, many of whom were reluctant to speak about their experiences, either because they feel they played an insignificant role in the war or because the memories are too painful to discuss.

“Some people like to talk about it and some people don’t,” said Ogimachi, who was an 18-year-old high school graduate from Pacoima when he volunteered for the Navy and ended up serving in the Korean War. Ogimachi said that, like other veterans, he has rarely discussed his war experience.

The same has generally been true of many of the World War II veterans, whose numbers continue to dwindle with each passing year. In the decade since the Nisei veterans from the Valley last hosted the reunion, the number of veterans attending the banquet has dropped from 600 in 1987 to 350 this year.

“A lot of the history they had to give us, especially what was on their minds when their families were in internment camps and what they thought of being in segregated units, has been lost,” said Harold Muraoka, a member of the San Fernando Valley Nisei memorial post, which hosted this year’s reunion.

An exception comes at least once a year when Nisei veterans from both wars gather to remember, honor the dead and pay tribute to fellow survivors.

At a Saturday night banquet, Wada told the little-known story of Noboru Nakamura, a Japanese American soldier who caught a grenade in his chest, sparing the life of his friend John Iwamoto.

“The only time you hear about a lot of the things that happened is at a gathering like this,” Miyamura said. “This is when people start talking.”