The VetsConnection Podcast
Join host Scott McLean, a veteran and also a passionate advocate for veterans' well-being. Each week Scott will bring you an episode that will feature insightful conversations with representatives from non-profit organizations dedicated to supporting veterans, as well as experts discussing programs within the Veterans Affairs (V.A.) aimed at assisting veterans with their needs. From discussing innovative therapies to highlighting community resources, this podcast sheds light on the myriad of ways veterans can find support and healing thru nonprofit organizations and also to connect nonprofits with each other in hopes of creating a network that will be beneficial to all.
The VetsConnection Podcast
Ep. 36 - Talking With Dr. Mitch Maki From The Nonprofit Go For Broke: Honoring Japanese American WWII Veterans and Inspiring Future Generations
Join us for an enlightening conversation with Dr. Mitch Maki, President of the Go For Broke National Education Center, as we uncover the enduring legacy of Japanese American veterans from World War II. Discover the powerful story behind the phrase "Go For Broke" and how it became the rallying cry for the brave 100th/442nd Regimental Combat Team. These soldiers, who faced fierce battles abroad and prejudice at home, became the most decorated unit of their size in U.S. military history. Dr. Maki shares his lifelong passion for preserving their stories, driven by his own childhood experiences in Los Angeles.
We journey through America's past mistakes, examining the internment of Japanese Americans and its painful legacy. Reflecting on the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, we discuss how acknowledging these injustices can inform our approach to contemporary issues of race and political leadership. There's a yearning for the bipartisan cooperation once exemplified by leaders like Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan, and we explore how their spirit of unity can guide us in today's polarized world. By learning from history, we aim to foster a more cohesive society.
This episode also highlights the innovative ways the Go For Broke organization inspires civic engagement among young Americans. Through storytelling initiatives like the Torchbearers program and the Go For Broke Journalism Institute, students connect historical events with modern-day issues, cultivating pride and a commitment to positive change. From fashion collaborations to journalism projects, we showcase the transformative power of these narratives in nurturing a deeper understanding of loyalty, sacrifice, and civic duty across generations.
Welcome to the podcast. I'm Scott McLean. My guest today is Dr Mitch McKay. Mitch is the president of Gopher Broke National Education Center. Gopher Broke National Education Center is a non-profit organization based in downtown Los Angeles' historic Little Tokyo District. Gopher Broke is committed to maintaining and contemporarily applying the legacy of the Japanese American veterans of World War II, including their courage, sacrifice, fight for equality and love for their country. Now I don't usually do this, but I want to read you their mission statement. The Go for Broke mission statement is to educate and inspire character and equality through the virtue and valor of our World War II American veterans of Japanese ancestry. I love that, hey, mitch, how you doing.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Doing well. Scott, Just really happy to be here with you today.
Scott McLean:Yes, finally, finally. This was one of those tag episodes, but we finally get it done and I'm glad that you followed through and we're going to have a good interview here Now. About 30 minutes prior to this, I started getting the tickle in my throat. It's the thing going around here in South Florida, so if I go silent for a minute, I'm probably coughing.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Very good, then we'll edit it out. No problem.
Scott McLean:Exactly, we'll do that. All right, mitch. So first of all, where did the name come from? Gopherbroke?
Dr. Mitch Maki:Well, just to give your listeners a little bit of context, during World War II, december 7th 1941, the Imperial Nation of Japan attacks Pearl Harbor and it thrusts the United States into World War II. December 7th 1941, the imperial nation of Japan attacks Pearl Harbor and it thrusts the United States into World War II. But Japanese Americans began to wonder immediately what would happen to us right, would we be treated like the American citizens we were Two-thirds of us had been born in America, were American citizens by birth, and people like my grandparents who came around 1900 had been here 40, 50 years and were American by loyalty and tradition and practice. Or would we be treated like the enemy, because we shared a common heritage? Well, we got our answer about two months later and President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, and that set the underpinnings by which over 120,000 individuals of Japanese ancestry would be forcibly removed from their homes on the west coast of the continental United States and made to live the next two to five years of their lives behind barbed wire. Now, out of this context of living in a concentration camp surrounded by barbed wires and machine gun towers, the US Army came up with an idea of creating a segregated unit of Japanese American soldiers, young men, to go and fight for liberty and justice halfway across the world while their own families were being incarcerated back home. These young men came from both Hawaii as well as from the continental United States and they would go on to become the most highly decorated unit of their size in American military history, for their size and length of service. I mean, think about that just for a moment Young men whose families have lost their homes, their jobs, their businesses, their rights will go on to become the most highly decorated unit of their size in American history. And they were known as the 100th 442nd in Europe. And there were others who served in the Pacific theater that were known as the military intelligence service.
Dr. Mitch Maki:But you're asking me about the motto go for broke. And that was for the guys in Europe, right, the 100th 442nd and go for broke. It started off as a gambling term from Hawaii and it literally means go all in, shoot the works, push all the money in, because the boys from Hawaii love to gamble. I mean, if you know anyone from Hawaii and my folks are originally from Hawaii I mean they love to gamble. It's like eating, drinking and gambling, right, and so it's a gambling term, as I mentioned, to go all in. And while the guys would be gambling during basic training and then even when they're being shipped out to go serve, they realized that what they were about to do was so much more important than any one wager, than any one bet. They were fighting for their future and for the future of people they would never know and they had to go for broke, and for the future of people they would never know and they had to go for broke. They had to go all in because the wager.
Scott McLean:the issue was so large. Very interesting. That's a great story. I'm all about stories and they are.
Dr. Mitch Maki:They went all in. As you can tell from the story, they all, they went all in. Yes, as you can tell from the story, you know these guys did not hold back because they knew, as President Truman would tell them later, they not only fought the enemy, they fought prejudice.
Scott McLean:Yes.
Dr. Mitch Maki:That's what they were up against at that time.
Scott McLean:Literally two enemies, yeah Right. So how did you get involved in all this? Where did your journey begin? As far as this is Because I'm pretty sure at this point this is your purpose in life- yes, it is.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Which is?
Scott McLean:amazing when people find their purpose.
Dr. Mitch Maki:And Scott, you are right on, I am blessed to be able to do this as my quote unquote job, you know, and make a living doing it, but it really is my passion work and it goes back. I'm 63 years old. I was born and raised in Los Angeles, california, and, you know, born in the 60s. I was just the all-American kid like, growing up with my friends who were black, white, brown, everything right, and we didn't see difference with one another. And it was around when I was 10 years old that I learned the stories of Japanese Americans being incarcerated during World War II. And my family wasn't incarcerated because they were from Hawaii and people in Hawaii, by and large, were left alone. But I remember when I learned the story for the first time, I thought it couldn't be Japanese Americans like me and my folks. Right, it had to be like the Japanese from Japan or maybe they captured some of the soldiers or something like that, right. And when I realized that no, it was people like me, it was my friends who were from the mainland and their parents and their grandparents were the ones that were sent off to camp Scott, I was devastated. You know, as a 10-year-old boy I'm thinking how, how could this happen in our country? How could this happen to Americans like me? Because I just saw myself as an American at that point, right, and it devastated me.
Dr. Mitch Maki:And then, shortly thereafter, I learned about the story of the Japanese American young men and eventually the young women who would serve, despite being treated like that, you know, and would go on, as I mentioned, to become so highly decorated.
Dr. Mitch Maki:And I got to tell you that I didn't believe that story at first either, because it just didn't fit the way Japanese Americans were portrayed in the media at that time. You know, we didn't have leading roles at that time. We were never the heroes, we were always the very stereotypic character in the background, right. But when I learned that no, this was true, it was people like my uncle who served in this unit that did such heroic things, it just filled me with pride. And that devastation that I had previous was just replaced with a sense of pride, like this is an American story. This isn't just about Japanese Americans. This is about the sons and daughters of immigrants who, in one generation, said we are American and we're going to embody the very best values of America we're going to embody the very best values of America courage, patriotism and service.
Scott McLean:So I'm going to get to the foundation. This is very intriguing to me. It always has been an intriguing topic to me, and now I can ask somebody that knows more than probably anybody I know knows, and this is never talked about. It's never talked about. I saw a TV series a couple years back three or four years back, that kind of was revolved around that, but it wasn't about that. It took place in one of those internment camps and but it's never talked about, it's not taught, it's not topic of discussion in any wartime movie, tv show conversation. So my question what's your take on it? Why? Why do you think it's just kind of the obvious answer is embarrassment, right, but what's your, what's your thoughts on that?
Dr. Mitch Maki:Well, I think there's a whole bunch of reasons and you know there have been movies, but they just haven't caught on. There have been references in TV shows and you know, as somebody who studies, that every time there's even a mention of it in a TV show I'm all ears and wanting to hear what they have to say. But what you're saying is so true that this generation of Americans growing up and going through school now they don't hear about it and if they do, it's one sentence in the history book kind of thing. It and if they do, it's one sentence in the history book kind of thing. And I used to be a professor in California for a while at UCLA, teaching some of the brightest students in California, and they had never heard about it coming up through school. And to me that is a travesty.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Not only this story, but there are other stories in our history, in our country's history, that we need to talk about so that we don't repeat them and we don't make the same mistakes. And there's nothing wrong and I firmly believe there's nothing wrong with looking at our nation's past and saying we've made mistakes, you know, and we need to rectify that or address that, acknowledge it. You know, and certainly there are limits to what we can do, but we need to live up to America's promise, and that's the promise that in our nation, no one should be judged by the color of their skin, the nation of their origin or the faith that they choose to keep. And if you think about these Japanese American soldiers wrong skin color in World War II right, they were from their parents, were from the nation with which we were at war, japan right, and half of them were not Christian, they were Buddhists, you know. So they were different in so many different ways, and yet they were so American at the very core of what they did and served.
Dr. Mitch Maki:And if we have time, I'd like to get into. In fact, our nation did apologize for this In 1988, president Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act, which provided a presidential apology and monetary redress payments to those that were incarcerated. And in the words of President Reagan, he said today we right a grave wrong, you know. And the strength for our nation to atone and address for its past mistakes. And that's true even on an individual level. Right, none of us are perfect. We all make mistakes and it's important for us to acknowledge that and not live in a fantasy world where we think we are perfect either as individuals or as a nation fantasy world where we think we are perfect either as individuals or as a nation.
Scott McLean:So then, let me ask you what's the impact and lessons learned from America's treatment of the Japanese Americans during World War II?
Dr. Mitch Maki:Well, we could talk about that for hours.
Scott McLean:Impact and lessons learned is a lot, I believe, right.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Right, because part of me worries a great deal that the impact is being lost. Yes, this is an 80-year-old story. As one does the math, we realize it happened 80, 85 years ago. And it's critical that we tell the story and continue to tell the story, if for no other reason, to alert Americans that things like this can happen. You know that, based solely on race, people had everything stripped of them right, based simply on and in fact there was a commission hearing that studied this problem and they said that the camps.
Dr. Mitch Maki:When does that sound like? You know race prejudice, war, hysteria and a failure of political leadership. And more oftentimes than not, the students will say it sounds like today. You know race prejudice I think I don't need to belabor that point that racism still exists in our nation. Wartime hysteria, whether it's wars across the nation, around the world, or we are divided in our own nation. You know, and we need to, as Americans, find that common ground and a failure of political leadership. And I don't mean this as a swipe at the right or the left, but you know what's happening in DC doesn't feel good to most Americans. It just feels so divided. We don't. There's no compromise. There's no. Let's do what's best for our nation rather than what's best for our party, and I say that with extreme neutrality, you know, in terms of we've got to come to that middle. And this story reminds us what happens when we think we're above making mistakes and when we think that it can't happen in America, because it can happen in America.
Scott McLean:Right Now I'm going to touch on something you mentioned. So I grew up in Massachusetts and I grew up a Massachusetts Democrat and this is not a political statement in any way, shape or form, but it's relevant to what you just said. And I grew up, uh, you know, a Massachusetts Democrat, and some years back I took a, I took a look and I said this this isn't, this isn't what I grew up with. It's. Things started to change, like you said. It got uncomfortable and I'm like well, you know, this is this and that's that.
Scott McLean:And then I would talk to my brother, and my brother basically hit the nail on the head when he said you're a Tip O'Neill Democrat. Now you'll understand that, right, you're a Tip O'Neill Democrat. They really don't exist anymore. Tip O'Neill Democrat, they really don't exist anymore. Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan could sit down together. Yes, they could have a literally drink a beer together. They might not agree with each other, but they sat down together and they talked and they worked things out and they made things happen, and that's what we're missing in this country.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Scott, I'm about to jump through the screen to high five you, because that's exactly how I feel. You know, the typical neo-Democrats, the Ronald Reagan Republicans, don't exist in the way that they did in the 80s and so forth. But, even more important than that, the ability to talk to one another, just what you did with your brother, the ability to have discussions, you know, and what we work with a lot of young people at Gulfbrook National Education Center and when I enter their world and see what they see, they're just getting social media that's far right or far left, and you know it's the social media vilifies the other in terms of if you don't believe what I believe, then you're evil. You know, regardless of which way you're looking at it. And I cling to the belief that most Americans still exist somewhere in the middle. That you know.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Yeah, we want a fair shake. We believe in freedom for all of us. You know it's to differing degrees. We want more government, less government, whatever. You know. I mean that's the kind of discussion that tip o'neill and ronald reagan would have, you know, type of thing. But at the end of the day, we're americans, yeah, and at the end of the day, you know, we know we got to stand with each other because united we stand, divided we fall. I know it sounds trite, but it's so true and I'm fearful that our nation is going down that path where dialogue, compromise and finding common ground is not the priority.
Scott McLean:Right, I agree 100%. And so let's talk about the younger generation. So what does Go4Broke do to inspire younger generations to become involved in civic engagement activities and what does it do to let them know that their voices are more important than ever in this modern time with social media and the dangers of social media, the weaponization of social media?
Dr. Mitch Maki:So we have several of what we call next gen programs. We have our torchbearers, we have our journalism institute, we have a traveling exhibit, but by and large, what we are looking to do is use this story of courage, service and patriotism, and I I use the word patriot in this sense, in the old school way yes someone who believes in their nation and loves their nation and uh, and you know not, not in any current meaning that you're far right, yeah, we're going to leave that in the background. Okay.
Scott McLean:We're on the same. I'm 61, you're 60. We're on the same exact page, my friend.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Right, but you know. So we at Gopher Baroque National Education Center say that this particular story that we're talking about is not a great Japanese-American story. It's a great American story. It's a story of the very best values of our nation and people believing in our nation enough that they will overcome the discrimination and the maltreatment that they're receiving in the hopes of the dream of our nation becoming that more perfect union. And that's what we try to share with our young people. And it's not our job to tell them what to think, which side of the issue to be on. It's our job to tell them please think, you know, and please discuss, please engage in discussions, and we're learning as we're doing this.
Dr. Mitch Maki:We're not perfect at it at this point, but my hope is that we can get young people from across the country, from not just Japanese-American young people I was going to ask you that, yeah, no, people of all backgrounds, ethnic backgrounds, racial backgrounds, regional backgrounds, religious backgrounds, blah, blah, blah.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Right, the whole nine yards to come together and share our differences, but, as I keep saying, find that common ground. So just in October of this year, we held a Torchbearer convening in Denver, where we brought young people from Maui to Vermont. We have different partners across the nation and bring them together to have a discussion about the current affairs in the United States, and in particular, we had one professor from Boulder come and talk about you know what does it mean to have a discussion with people who see things differently than you do? Right In today's climate, the answer is we write them off. If you, if you're not with me, you're against me. Right, we've got to work on allowing ourselves to disagree, but still have that beer at the end of the day, like Tip and Ronnie would have that beer at the end of the day like tip and Ronnie would.
Scott McLean:That is a and I am not a pessimist in any way, shape or form but that's a very steep hill.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Oh yeah, as we both know, yeah, that that that's a, very that's a.
Scott McLean:That is a tough cause, but I think, I think it can be done. I think there's a, as my wife always says, the pendulum. The pendulum always swings back the other way. It always does and to.
Dr. Mitch Maki:To be completely truthful, it's not like we're bringing the far right and the far left together in the same room and having that. I mean, that's way beyond us right now. But yeah, we're talking about, you know, average american young adults, 21 through 35, who've graduated from college or trying to make their way. Or, you know, maybe they didn't even go to college or they're doing a trade or something. So these are your, you know, regular, everyday Americans trying to find their way, and we have differing views. You know, whether the views are about abortion, whether the views are about immigration, whether the views are about the unhoused or gun control, we don't all agree. I mean, no one lives in that fantasy world, but we've got to be able to talk about it, right, because we all live in the same nation.
Scott McLean:What do young Japanese Americans when they first hear about this? What is your experience with their reactions?
Dr. Mitch Maki:That's a good question. I'm pausing just because I'm not sure. Unless they're very young, like if they're young adults by the time they get to me they've heard the story on some level for sophomores in high school, and it was a Japanese American basketball group kind of thing, right and so they probably heard it from me for the first time in the detail that they shared. One, I think, disbelief. If you're a 15, 16 year old kid right now you were born way after 9-11, right, I mean, and you don't even remember a lot of the stuff that we talk about all the time. So talking about something that happened 85 years ago is like ancient history to them. But once they get into it and they realize, wow, america was a different place at that time, I think there's disbelief, I think there's tremendous pride, and then they begin to question and this is where I like to bring them to is and how do we make america a better place today? How do we help america to live up to its creed of liberty and justice for all and a nation of laws under which we all live? Yeah, so that's for Japanese Americans. Right? For non-Japanese American young people, because many of them have never heard the story right Because, as you mentioned, it's not into schools and so forth. Again, disbelief, but, surprisingly, a lot of pride.
Dr. Mitch Maki:You know, I've had a lot of Latinos and Latinas really resonate with this story because, for example, one young woman came up to me Her father is an immigrant, her mother is an immigrant and she said these guys are just like me, they were the sons of immigrants. I'm the daughter of an immigrant, her mother's an immigrant. And she said these guys are just like me. They were the sons of immigrants, I'm the daughter of an immigrant. If they can do great things for the kitten, for the nation, I can too. When she said that, I said oh man, we hit pager, you know, because now this isn't just a Japanese American story, it's an American story and, as Scott, you and I are about the same age and growing up my mother used to always quote John F Kennedy and my mother wasn't political in either.
Scott McLean:No, I was mine yeah.
Dr. Mitch Maki:But she loved this one phrase or statement that Kennedy would say, and it was ask not what your country can do for you, Ask what you can do for your country. Epic, Epic, yeah. And we don't hear that today. That's a good point. You know, it's what's in it for me. You know, and I mean that's true in even job interviews that I'm doing with young people today, it's like, you know, it's all about me and you know that sense of entitlement and I don't want to be too ageist in this, but the notion of not what can my nation do for me, but what can I do for my nation is, you know, that is embodied in this Japanese American soldier story of World War II is a nation that had really treated them like dirt. They turn around and say we're going to take that dirt and plant seeds.
Scott McLean:They rose above it. Yeah, absolutely rose above it. So, speaking of Japanese American veterans, do you know how many are still around, how many are?
Dr. Mitch Maki:there there isn't a roster right, but I can tell you I would be surprised if it's more than a hundred that yeah because, uh, these guys, if you were a world war ii veteran, you have to be like 99 years old in order to just unless you lied about your age and some of these guys did lie about their age, they went in when they were 16 and so forth. But in Los Angeles we have an annual fundraising dinner that we call Evening of Aloha. 20 years ago we would march in like 60 or 70 veterans. They would walk in and thunderous applause, and so it was just quite the moment. This past year we had five and we didn't have a march in because four of them were in wheelchairs. We already had them up on stage and, you know, I look at them and I say these are my heroes and I'm blessed to have them for another year or two. Have them for another year or two. But, um, we are very close, uh, very close to that point where we will have no more world war ii veterans of any background, right, and because all of these guys and women and women are our heroes, to us. You know it was a different time in a different place and, yeah, I think, if nothing else, what I would would want your listeners to just really reflect on is we have another year or two, maybe three, if we're a little bit lucky, to cherish these men and women and to thank them for helping us become who we are. That's great perspective. For helping us become who we are, that's great perspective. In Japanese there's a saying okagesamade, because of you, I am, and that's the feeling that we have about our veterans, not only our Japanese American veterans, but all of our American military veterans. Because of you, because of what you did and sacrificed, I can live the life that I live today. You know, if you think about it, here I am.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Before I was in this position, I was in the university setting and I've written articles and books about this very topic, about the experience of Japanese Americans during World War II. My father couldn't buy a house in certain places, couldn't get a job in certain places, couldn't do so many different things, because he was Japanese, american right and his generation. He served in the Korean War, but you, but because he was a little too young for the World War Two. But his generation changed everything so that somebody my age could have a career talking about that. And then my son doesn't even have to think about it in the same way. You know he's going on to become a physical therapist. And you know he doesn't think's going on to become a physical therapist and you know he doesn't think about himself as a Japanese American physical therapist. He just thinks of himself as a physical therapist.
Scott McLean:There you go. I was blessed and lucky enough to early in this podcast, probably in the first 10 episodes I got to interview a veteran that served in World War II, korea and Vietnam, and what you just said actually really put it when I said great perspective, that, yeah, what do we got three, five years at the max, maybe, and that's until you just just said that I never really thought of it that way, but that's uh, yeah in in la right now we have three, uh, veterans that I'm very close to, right there.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Oh, two of them are going to turn 100 this year and one's going to turn 102, right, and they've all outlived their wives, which is rare, right? Yeah, um, and you know, they're 100 and 102. That's super rare, and I attribute part of that to the fact that when they go out into the community, they're put on a pedestal. Yes, demigods, right, they show up to an event, especially if they have their garrison hat on and their gold broke shirt on. People flock to them and just treat them like the heroes they are, and it gives them purpose and it gives them a reason to live. And I watched that and I think you know that's how we should treat all of our elderly, right?
Scott McLean:Well, that's a whole nother podcast.
Dr. Mitch Maki:That's a whole nother podcast. Well, that's a whole nother podcast. That's a whole nother podcast. Certainly for the veterans that we have, you know, all of our veterans. Let's continue to give them that kind of treatment.
Scott McLean:Yes, yes, so let's talk about Go For Broke. Tell us about you mentioned it a little while ago the National Torchbearers Program. Where did that come from? And tell the audience what it's about.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Well, I came on board as the president about eight years ago and I realized it was at that time a 75-year-old story. And then, unless we really got the next gen involved, we were just going to die on the vine, right. And so I decided at that point we need to have a next generation young people's program. So I I called about 12 young people that I knew. I got them together and I shared my very best ideas with them. Scott, I mean, these were brilliant ideas that I had. I'm joking here. Yeah, I had my very best ideas.
Scott McLean:I'm sure you're just being modest, but okay.
Dr. Mitch Maki:We're going to have speeches.
Dr. Mitch Maki:We're going to have presentations, and panel discussion and there's one young dude right, he's probably like 25 at the time. He goes I wouldn't come to any of that, you know. And I'm like, oh my gosh, you know, narcissistic injury. Right, my brilliant ideas, how can you not like them? And I said why wouldn't you come to any of this? And he goes because I don't know what you're talking about, you know. And he goes. I don't want to look stupid and I'm not into that. So I said, well, what are you into? He says I'm into clothing and I'm into drinking. I thought, well, what am I going to do with that?
Dr. Mitch Maki:But from that we started doing in the Little Tokyo area in Los Angeles and in the surrounding area. We would start doing pub crawls where we would go to different bars and put on different events, have trivia contests, so introduce the story. But in a venue where the young people were already asked, we started a clothing line with one of the young, up-and-coming streetwear people. So we had to meet the young folks where they were at and then they started getting interested and saying, well, tell us more about this story. And then we also had to change the story that it wasn't simply about guns, battles and bullets, because the only people who care about guns, battles and bullets are those who were really into the military or they're history nerds, right. But for the average young person it's like, oh, that's a cool story and they move on. But if we took the story and we said it's not about guns, battles and bullets, it's about values, it's about character, it's about commitment. It's about character, it's about, you know, commitment to a higher cause, then they start to see, well, maybe there's some ties to what I believe in. And so from there we started saying, okay, we need to reach out across the nation. So we started reaching out to partner groups that we knew across the nation and saying send us young people.
Dr. Mitch Maki:And we've been doing this now for two full years, where we've had a spring convening and a fall convening. We gather these people together. We have invited speakers to talk about various topics. As I mentioned, we had the professor who talked about how do you have difficult conversations.
Dr. Mitch Maki:We had a speaker come and talk about unhoused individuals, because that's a big problem in all of our major cities. On one hand you want to be humanitarian about it, but on the other hand there's a health and safety concern. How do you start to deal with that. It's not as simple as get rid of them all or house them all type of thing, and we found that when we approach it not from a deterministic point of view or we got to tell you what to think, but just let us be that place where you feel that you can come together, talk about these issues together, talk about these issues and then dedicate yourself to go for broke, if you will in addressing this either on a national level which is kind of grandiose, because that's hard to do but, more realistically, in your particular city. So the young people who come from Denver go back to Denver, the young people from Chicago go back to Chicago and they do their little projects, whatever the projects might be.
Scott McLean:Well, the people can't see but the logo. Go For Broke has a torch, it carries it right into the logo. I like the clothing line. That kind of piqued my curiosity.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Oh, I wish I had.
Scott McLean:That's all right.
Dr. Mitch Maki:You can show me we're going to be in touch a lot more after this okay I'm sure we'll be communicating right a lot we you know, and it's it's more street wear kind of, it's like hoodies and t-shirts and long stuff.
Scott McLean:I I'm I'm committing right now I am definitely going to buy a hoodie all right afterwards you let me know where I love hoodies, so let me know where I can get it.
Dr. Mitch Maki:I think the one you would like is what we call the coat of arms. So it's a hoodie and on one sleeve it's all the different uh emblems of the different units that the Japanese American soldiers spot in.
Scott McLean:Oh, consider that one bought, okay, absolutely bought. Okay, absolutely, absolutely. That's great. So it's basically you're getting them to kind of learn about it and then pass it on. It's, it's, it's almost in. In. In situations like that, I believe, if you have 20 young people come in, if one of them catches, catches on and says yeah, then that whole thing was it's all worth it, right, it's just all worth it, right? You know?
Dr. Mitch Maki:and fortunately for us, our return rate's a little bit better than one out of 20, but no, yeah, that's great yeah you're not going to get everybody right, but if you get people who say, yeah, you know, I want and the term we use is I want to be civically engaged, I want to be engaged with community, whatever that means to them Right, and I want to do it in a way that serves a cause larger than myself.
Scott McLean:So where does the gopher broke journalism Institute fit into that? Are they kind of connected in that sense?
Dr. Mitch Maki:Kind of a loose way, and the journalism program is something that we just recently started. We work with a downtown magnet high school in Los Angeles, so we're looking at ways of expanding this program to other high schools and so forth. But basically what we did is we take juniors from this high school who are interested in journalism, either as kind of a profession that they may want to pursue or just they like writing. We gather them for an intensive during the summer. We provide them with top-notch journalists, mentors, people from the LA Times, washington Post, new York Times, the local news TV stations, so these are like celebrity journalists coming in and doing presentations and then they mentor them one-on-one. But the very first thing we do is we teach them the Japanese American soldier story of.
Scott McLean:World War II.
Dr. Mitch Maki:I do the presentation because these kids have never heard of it right. And these kids, none of them, none of them are Japanese American, because they're all coming from inner city LA. So they learn the story and then we give them assignment Take this World War II story and apply it to today in whatever way, shape or form you want to do it. So some of them talk about oh, so-and-so became a nurse in World War II, I'm going to become a nurse in 2024. So it can be as personal as that. Or others get a little bit more conceptual and they say you know, racism 85 years ago, racism today, but whatever they can do or interest them to make a connection with the past to the present, and that way, you know, they learn the story. But their report or their journalistic piece isn't supposed to be a book report or a history report, it's just the foundation to talk about something that's important to them.
Dr. Mitch Maki:And it can lead to college or Well, so about two years ago we had a young woman. She came in, she did a story on a guy named Kazuo Masuda, and I'd love to tell you that story in a second. But she did this journalistic piece on Kazuo Masuda and based on that she got invited to the USC University of Southern California Journalism Institute, which is really big time.
Dr. Mitch Maki:For the following year. She went to that program because she used her Kazuo Masuda piece as her application and she's graduating from high school and hopefully going on to college and will be looking at becoming a journalism major. So you know, we're planting those seeds.
Scott McLean:So tell me about her subject matter.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Right. So during World War II, there was a soldier named Kazuo Masuda and a reporter asked him why are you fighting for America when your family is in a camp? His family was in Gila River Camp in Arizona and his answer was the answer that I think most Americans, most of the Japanese Americans at that time, would have given, which was because this is the only way that I know that my family can have a chance in America. You know, right or wrong, agree with him or not. Kazuo Masuda and the thousands of other Japanese American soldiers understood that in 1943, 1944, 1945, loyalty needed to be demonstrated in blood. Two weeks after he said that Sergeant Masuda was killed in battle, fighting for America in Italy.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Now, fast forward 40 years later. It's the 1980s and the redress bill that I had told you about has passed the House. This incredible. We called it the impossible dream of ever getting an apology, let alone money. But this impossible dream passes the House on September 17th 1987. Seven months later, it passes the Senate. It's only one signature away from becoming law, and that's, of course, the President of the United States right, and in 1988, the President of the United States right, and in 1988, the president of the United States was none other than Ronald.
Scott McLean:Reagan right.
Dr. Mitch Maki:And for your viewers or listeners who remember, ronald Reagan was a very conservative president and there were many of us, myself included, who thought there's no way Ronald Reagan is going to sign this bill. It's just a little bit too progressive or a little bit too left, whatever you want to say, to fit you know his political viewpoint. But the thing about Ronald Reagan whether you agreed with him or not, whether you agreed with his policies or not, most people would agree that Ronald Reagan was a great communicator. He had the ability to tell stories that would touch people's hearts and move them in a certain direction. The opposite was true of Ronald Reagan. If you could tell him a story that would touch his heart, understand this whole issue on a very personal level and align it with his political viewpoint. And you know, ronald Reagan believed that America could be multicultural, that people could come from around the world and become Americans eventually.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Well, go back now to Kazuo Masuda, his family. He's been killed in battle. Go back now to Kazuo Masuda, his family. He's been killed in battle. His family is released from camp at the end of the war and they want to move back home to Santa Ana, california. They go back to Santa Ana, california, and they're met with nothing but hate speech, racial taunts and threats of bodily harm.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Right and the army realizes this is a PR fiasco. One of our own fallen soldiers or one of our own heroes, his own family can't move back home. So they send out a contingent of army officers to have a medal ceremony for the Masuda family and they bestow upon his sister the Distinguished Service Cross. The second highest medal Among those officers on that day was a young white American captain named Ronald Reagan, and that night they had a convention dinner, a rally, and Captain Ronald Reagan addresses the audience and the Masuda family is there, and what Captain Reagan says at the time is the blood that has soaked into the sands of a beach is all of one color. America stands, unique in the world, the only country not founded on race but on an ideal. Mr and Mrs Masuda, as one member of the American family to another, for what your son Kazuo did, thanks. You can't script this any better.
Scott McLean:No, that's amazing.
Dr. Mitch Maki:So that story was found and it's relayed to President Reagan in the mid-'80s. As this bill is working, in. Congress and his response was I remember what those soldiers did for America, and it wasn't the only reason he signed the bill, but it aligned the bill with his view of America being a place where people could come from across the world and become American. So Kazuo Masuda's statement that this is the only way I know that my family could have a chance in America how prophetic is that.
Scott McLean:Unbelievable.
Dr. Mitch Maki:It's an incredible story.
Scott McLean:That goes right to the roots. And now Mitch every episode, I do a cheap plug for my non-profit One man, one Mic Foundation. And one of the pillars is storytelling. Yes, and how effective a story can be if you know how to really tell it and know how you're affecting people when you tell it, and that's an art form and things like that. Stories like that are proof that storytelling is so overlooked. We do it every day, we don't think much about it, but it the effect that storytelling can have on anybody, or anything can can change your life. It can change a country it can.
Scott McLean:It can it's that powerful and that story is amazing and I'm sure people that are listening to this are going to go holy shit, that's amazing.
Dr. Mitch Maki:I mean you. It's the kind kind of thing if you wrote it into a movie script, people say, oh, that part they made that up.
Scott McLean:They made it up exactly so when truth is stranger than fiction. Right, Right, right.
Dr. Mitch Maki:And Scott, as you mentioned earlier, you and I will have more conversations. I can tell, but I really would like to see how we can find our common ground in our interest in storytelling, because in fact we're thinking of expanding our journalism program to being a storytelling program. You know, whether it's spoken word, whether it's poetry, whether it's whatever composition or whether it's journalism, there's many different ways to tell a story different ways to tell the story.
Scott McLean:I would love to have that conversation, multiple conversations about this, because that's what my foundation is really all about, and because it helped me, and I paid attention to it, though, and that's why I said wait a minute, there's something here, and so we will definitely have. I can give you idea, I can tell you how we'd, whatever I could do to help you. That would be amazing. That would be amazing. I think we're going to be talking yes, we'll be talking a few more times at least. So then there is the go for broke plaza. Let's talk about that for a minute.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Well, unfortunately, your listeners can't see me and my backdrop right now.
Scott McLean:But they can go online and look it up, because it's amazing.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Right, we have a gopher broke monument that was built in 1999 in downtown Los Angeles in what's called the Little Tokyo District. It's a beautiful monument. It's black granite. It's sloped to reflect the mountains the Vosges Mountains of northern France, where the 442nd liberated the Texas Battalion. There are 16,000 names on the monument of those who served overseas. It's just a very beautiful monument.
Dr. Mitch Maki:But it sat literally in the middle of a parking lot for 25 years. I mean, if you look at photos of it and people ask us, why did you build this in the middle of a parking lot? Right, and it's because the and I wasn't active at that time, but the people who built it knew that someday we could transform that parking lot into something more. Well, that someday came to fruition earlier this year, in February, when we broke ground on a building that is going to now surround and embrace the monument, and this is a huge building. It's 330,000 square feet, it's five stories tall. Gopher Broke will have about 10,000 square feet of operating space in there, but we're going to have, on the first floor, legacy businesses, and what I mean by legacy businesses? These are restaurants and businesses that have been in the Little Tokyo area, some of whom have been evicted because the landlords wanted higher rent, and they are now signed letters of intent to come back and will reestablish themselves in this area, and floors two through five will have 248 units of affordable, low-income housing.
Dr. Mitch Maki:So, for those of your listeners who know Los Angeles, we have an affordable housing crisis. In Los Angeles, we have really a big unhoused issue, but we're going to provide housing, and these are not just singles. These are two-bedroom and three-bedroom units. This is for families, right, where we're going to have about 700 individuals living in this building and these people are going to be paying rent. They're going to be working-class folks that are trying to make it. Yes, their income qualifies them for some subsidies that will help them get along, but they're making their way.
Dr. Mitch Maki:This is not a housing unit where people are just getting by for free or anything like that, and so what we like to say is our veterans took care of us 80 years ago when they fought for our future. They still are taking care of us by providing us this opportunity to reinvigorate the little Tokyo district by bringing in the legacy businesses and restaurants, but also to help the city of Los Angeles by bringing in individuals of all backgrounds, right? So let me be clear this is not a Japanese American thing. There are going to be people of all backgrounds living in these units, and they'll be learning the gopher broke story too, because we want them to know that. What's this? Gopher broke plaza, you know, I mean that's great man.
Scott McLean:This is so inspiring that and I've never really said that during a podcast, but this is absolutely inspiring like go for broke is really like making a difference in a big way. That's generational. This will be generational, yes, and it's not what all non-profits strive for, right, right and so with that. So Go4Broke I don't know if I asked you how long has it been around?
Dr. Mitch Maki:So we were founded in 1989, so we've been around 35 years or so and it was founded by the actual veterans who came back and said we want to do something that our legacy will not ever be forgotten. And again, when they said that it wasn't in an egotistical way of you know, watch what I did or you know, but it's the story and the values and the legacy that they embodied that they wanted to make sure would be passed on to generations to come. And so they created that, uh, the organization, in 1989. And, um, you know, over the decades we've been doing different programming and so forth, but, as we just mentioned here, our latest is our next gen programming and building the new building.
Scott McLean:That in itself would be an amazing story. To find out that, what, like, what was the? The one moment where these, these guys looked at each other and said let's do this, like what led right into that. Like what was the conversation? What was the, the feel like what was the? And then you flick that switch and you say you know, thunderbirds are go See me and Mitch had this little nerd off. And that's why he gets it.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Well, I can tell you that opens up a whole other chapter in all this. One of the commanding officers of this 442nd unit was a guy named Young Ok Kim, a Korean-American and for your listeners who know traditionally Korean-Americans and Japanese-Americans or Koreans and Japanese don't get along right.
Dr. Mitch Maki:So Young Ok Kim, at the time was a lieutenant and he was assigned to the 442nd. At the time was a lieutenant and he was assigned to the 442nd and his commanding officer called him in one day and said hey, I know you're Korean, these guys are Japanese, I'm going to have you reassigned. And young old Kim looked at him and he goes no, sir, they're Americans, I'm an American, we're going to do this together. And at first the Japanese American soldiers didn't know what to make of him, right? But then he turned out to be excuse my French a real badass, Right? I mean, he was the World War II Rambo where at night the other guys would dig foxholes. He would just lay on the ground and sleep on the ground. The guys would sleep. He'd go into the forest and come back with two Nazi prisoners, type of thing. Yeah, I mean he led. Go into the forest and come back with two Nazi prisoners, type of thing. Yeah, I mean he. He led by example and the men just followed him and loved him.
Dr. Mitch Maki:He came back to Los Angeles after the war along with the other soldiers and it was through his vision and inspiration that he said we cannot let this story be forgotten. Let's do this, let's, let's create this organization and let's build this monument. So they created an organization and then it took them about 10 years to get the monument, you know the money raised and then to build it right. And it leads all to another important point, which is that people have oftentimes said to me oh so, when all the veterans have died and they're no longer with us, then go for broke, We'll just close up shop, Right? And I said, no, we were built for this moment. We were built when, for the moment when the first person voice is no longer available, that it's now our responsibility to articulate and carry on this, this legacy and this history.
Scott McLean:And there's always going to be veterans. And there's always going to be veterans. There's always going to be veterans.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Yes.
Scott McLean:Well, I should say, hopefully not a lot of war veterans, but we are realistic about things, right right, A veteran is a veteran regardless. So how do veterans are there? Are there veterans incorporated into go for broke? Uh, your programming, uh, your, I don't know. Are you philanthropic with veteran organizations? Is there any type of um, uh, what is it? Collaborations or anything like that?
Dr. Mitch Maki:So certainly you know, the few World War II Japanese American veterans who we know of, we incorporate into our programming as much as we can. Yeah, Because, as you can imagine, when we have a convening of young people, if we have a veteran, just come by for lunch, you know there's a line to shake his hand and so forth. I mean, this is living history, right? We also, at the same time, are very cognizant. These guys are 9,900 years old. We don't want to overtax them, but the guys I know they're always happy, they all want to come talk to young people, you know, and so forth. We do do work with other veteran organizations, either World War II veteran organizations or sometimes they're just veterans organizations. And you know, certainly the truth is we are a nonprofit. We're always in the business of raising money and trying to get people to become interested in what we do and certainly support us through any kind of donation that they can make.
Scott McLean:So that is a great lead-in to what I was going to ask next. First of all, Give the Listen is a website they can go to.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Go for Broke, so G-O-F-O-R. Broke, b-r-o-k-e org. And there they can read about the actual guns, battles and bullets part of the story. They can also see, as you have, scott, about our next-gen programming, about our new building. They can also find out other information about things that we're doing, like we have a traveling exhibit right now that is in Boise, idaho. They can also go and look at our merchandise and look at our hoodies.
Scott McLean:Yeah, that cool hoodie that I'm going to buy, probably before the end of the night, okay, and so you mentioned we kind of touched on another thing and every nonprofit now this is is a it's a veteran-centric podcast and it's there was a emphasis and there is an emphasis on interviewing nonprofits that work with veterans or, as in this case, inspired by and created by veterans and the legacy of their, of their work. Um, every non-profit wants to know funding. Right, you go for broke is on another level, because there are levels of, uh, of non-profits. You know they go from small to large to then you've got the big boys right there and you know. Now the question is always funding, how do you go about it? Fundraisers, you have. Donors, do you have? You know what's that like for go for broke?
Dr. Mitch Maki:Any and anything we will do. Primarily it's a lot of individual donations, a lot of folks who believe in what we're doing, but certainly we've received a number of grants from foundations to do the programming that we do. We have corporate support, you know, and we do major fundraisers throughout the year. So, again, everything we could possibly do to keep the doors open and the lights on, to continue to tell this story.
Scott McLean:So you're the president right. So somewhat the face of it. What was it like then, and what?
Dr. Mitch Maki:was it. What's it like now for?
Scott McLean:the two words that every nonprofit either dreads or just goes. Oh, the ask. Right, you're out there, you're going to put it to it. And the ask does it get easier as it goes along. Was it difficult when you first started doing it? Or if you start? You know the handshaking and the. What can you say about that?
Dr. Mitch Maki:You are. You know, it is probably the most challenging part of my job, but also the most rewarding part of my job, and why I said that. I just came from a lunch with a donor that turned out to be successful and the lunch was like three hours long. You know, I think what I've learned over the years is how to do the ask better and how to time the ask, because it's all about timing, as is everything in life right, and when you do it right and what I mean by right is the person fully is engaged with what you do. The person sees how they plug in to what we are doing and how what we are doing plugs into what is important to them. The ask isn't that hard, you know, but it's when you go up to somebody cold and say, scott, we just met an hour ago, give me a million bucks, dude.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Well, you sold me on a hoodie, so you're good. Oh, I didn't tell you the hoodie is a million dollars.
Scott McLean:Touché, my friend touché.
Dr. Mitch Maki:But if the timing isn't right if you don't have that relationship, if you don't have this sense of common ground, as we've talked about, and that I'm not asking you to help me, I'm asking you to help us, because this story, for whatever reason, that's part of figuring out how to do the ask. For whatever reason, what we do is important to you. Figuring out how to do the ask For whatever reason, this, what we do, is important to you and we're going to emphasize that. So when I do it right and when I say I, I mean that as a team, because there's a whole team of people behind me I mean I often joke that it's my, it's my team that does all the hard work and I just show up and turn on the charm.
Dr. Mitch Maki:You know, I pick the fruits that they labor so hard to plant, right. But when you do it right and there's this feeling of coming together with that donor and them feeling like, okay, you know, we're moving in the same direction, it's very, very rewarding. Hey, we're moving in the same direction, it's very, very rewarding. And when you do it wrong and you realize, boy, I missed time or I misread, or the fit just isn't there, then it's a learning opportunity to say how do I do that better and not make that mistake again?
Scott McLean:I kind of work under this concept of good. So we had our first fundraiser right recently and we we pretty much just broke even. I think we made 40 dollars right and you get with the board and it's like but I looked at it like good, good, we didn't lose money. Now we have an opportunity to be better and learn how to make it better, and I think a lot of nonprofits have to live off that concept of good, good.
Dr. Mitch Maki:And the fact that you had a fundraiser that didn't lose money suggests to me that you had a successful friend raiser. Yes, you know that. You know you are solidifying your relationships with these people and and relationships are so important to getting to that fundraising part. If you don't have a relationship, you're not going to raise any funds.
Scott McLean:Right, right, and the friend raiser, that was a whole nother thing and I did very well with that because I have a lot of community, from growing up in Boston to the military, to customs. So I I I'm fortunate enough to have a large group of friends and they really came through. But that whole concept of good, good, I'm not hanging my head, I'm not like, ah, you know that we didn't get enough money and we, we made 40 bucks.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Yeah, and solidified friendships exactly exactly now.
Scott McLean:More people will come and I'm going to tell you about that fundraiser another time. I think you'd be very interested in it. Uh, it's all. The whole concept of it was storytelling, so it's very interesting.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Would love to hear that.
Scott McLean:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So have I forgotten anything, my friend? Is there anything that you want to touch on that I might not have?
Dr. Mitch Maki:Well, you know, I think what we didn't talk about and understandably so, is we didn't talk about the guns, battles and bullets aspects of this. Let's talk. Didn't talk about the guns, battles and bullets aspects of this, and let's talk. I would well, and I would welcome your viewers either to reach out to us or, you know, I'd be more than happy to come back on another.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Oh, you're gonna be gone again uh, to talk about, and because there may be some of your listeners who would be very interested in that saying well, what exactly did they do to become the most highly decorated unit of their size? And you know, I don't want to glamorize war, I mean, that's certainly not my intent but the courage that some of these men showed in Europe. For example, at the very end of the war, the Nazis had formed what was known as the Gothic Line in Italy and it was their last line of defense before the US could just break through that and charge straight up into Germany and win the war. But the Nazis had fortified this Gothic Line and nobody could break through it. So finally, they said let's send a 442nd to break through, you know, because they had been having huge success in other ways.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Well, the leaders of the 442nd went and scoped out the area and said there's no way we can do a frontal attack. We'll just get mowed down like everybody else Right at. Mowed down like everybody else right. So what they decide to do is, at night, sneak around to the back and literally crawl up almost a vertical cliff in the dead of night, to surprise the Nazis in the morning and one of our current veterans. Yoshinaka Murrow was one of those young men. He was like 19, 20 years old and tells me that was the first time in his life. He thought he was going to be a goner because he said it was so dark.
Dr. Mitch Maki:As they were climbing the backside of this cliff, they literally had to put their hand on the guy in front of them to know where they were walking, you know. And they made a pact with one another If any of them were to fall they can't yell out, because to do so would give away their position they scaled. It wasn't a completely vertical cliff, but it was very steep. They scaled that cliff in the middle of the night, got up there before the break of dawn, waited and at the break of dawn, charged. And the Nazis were completely surprised. Surprised, facing the wrong direction because they they were prepared for an onslaught in the other way and within less than half an hour, broke that area of the gothic line, thus creating an uh, an opportunity for american troops to start to flood through the gothic line, creating the beginning of the end of world war II. Yeah, so that's one story, right, and if I can share, just two others, Absolutely my friend.
Dr. Mitch Maki:The artillery unit of the 442nd towards the end of the war was the point of the spear as they were pushing the Nazis back into Germany, and they were known as the 522nd.
Dr. Mitch Maki:They were the military unit and they were used because military units do a lot of reconnaissance they go out in front and scope out everything. Anyway, they're pushing the Nazis back and they stumble upon this large installation, this large camp-like facility. They have no idea what it is. So they start going closer and they see large lumps on the ground covered with snow and they thought they were logs. But then, as they got closer, they realized they weren't logs. They were the frozen bodies of Jewish inmates. This was a satellite of Dachau that they had just discovered, and they flung open the gates, saving hundreds, if not thousands, of Jewish prisoners that were still there in that concentration camp. Imagine the irony Scott of these young Japanese Americans throwing open the gates, you know, freeing these Jewish prisoners, while their own families are still in on back home exactly freeing these jewish prisoners while their own families are still in prison back home.
Dr. Mitch Maki:You know unfortunately there's not a lot of photos of that day because the army didn't want that to be publicized that it was a japanese american unit that liberated that satellite of doghouse. So they waited to the next day, when the white unit came in, and then that's where we have a lot of photos. But there were a couple of guys that had cameras, so there are individual photos where you see Japanese-American soldiers amongst these Jewish inmates.
Scott McLean:Where would those be found if someone wanted to just Google them?
Dr. Mitch Maki:You can find it on our website. You can find it also in the National Archives. Wow, you can find it also in the National Archives. And then in the Pacific Theater, japanese Americans served, but not in units, not in segregated units. These were the young Japanese American men who could speak and write Japanese, so they would often serve as translators and interpreters. So they would often serve as translators and interpreters and they'd capture POWs and they would translate the interrogation and so forth. But they did so much more than that no-transcript. And so the Marines that were there were just waiting for them, and even General MacArthur talked about how no military unit was ever better prepared than the US troops because of the intelligence that Japanese American soldiers would provide. But the one story that I love to tell is there was a story of a Japanese American soldier. He was in a unit and you know, imagine, at least with the 442nd in Europe. You're amongst all these other Japanese Americans, you know, because it's a segregated unit In the Pacific theory. You're amongst all these other Japanese Americans, you know, because it's a segregated unit In the Pacific theory. You're the only one you know. So you're a sole Japanese American translator attached to a military. You know a marine unit or so forth, and initially the Marines didn't know what to make of these guys right, it's like, hey, that's the enemy right. And so they had to prove themselves to their fellow soldiers.
Dr. Mitch Maki:And towards the end of the war, as the US troops were taking over all the different islands, they landed on Saipan and they into caves and hole up in the caves and either execute the civilians or use them to get out. Well, the US troops had pushed them to the north of this island, in Saipan, and there were about eight Japanese troops that had taken about 100 civilians hostages and they were holed up in a cave and the Marines were just going to wait them out, you know. And then they were going to see if they could go in there and maybe have a firefight or whatever. But Bob Kubo, who was the interpreter, said no, I've seen too many of our young men die. You know young American men, white soldiers. He said too many of them have died. I'm going in there, I'm going to talk them out.
Dr. Mitch Maki:And his own commanding officer said I don't think that's a good idea, but he goes, no, I'll go in. And the commanding officer said at least take a pistol, you know. So he had. They had a pistol in his boot or something, but he. But, as the story goes, they lowered him into the cave and he walks into the cave and he said within 10 seconds he's surrounded by eight soldiers, guns drawn. He spoke to them in Japanese, talked to them about how they needed to surrender, to let the civilians go. And the Japanese soldiers were questioning him. You know, how can you fight for the Americans? You're a traitor. And he said you know, I fight for my emperor, I fight for my nation, and my nation is America.
Dr. Mitch Maki:So you know putting it in terms that the Japanese soldiers really understand. Finally, they said to him okay, we're going to talk about it, we're going to let you go, but we're going to talk about it. We're going to let you go, but we're going to talk about it, whether we're going to come out at two o'clock or whatever the time is. Either we're going to come out or, if we don't come out, that means we're all dead in here, right? So they let him go. Bob goes back to his troop. They're waiting patiently. Two o'clock, the civilians start filing out of the cave and the Japanese soldiers try to file out with them to escape.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Oh, yeah, yeah yeah and so forth, but again, the amount of courage that that took, the amount of heroism that that took and it wasn't self-serving, obviously, because he put himself in harm's way to protect not only the civilians that were in the cave but his own fellow american soldiers, right? So these are just tidbits of the story that we tell, that you know it and that. So I don't mean to to belittle that the guns, battles and bullets aspect of it, because oh no, it's, it's a big part of it it's, it's part of the history of it.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Absolutely. That's so inspiring. It's a combination of being inspired by their courage but then being inspired to. You don't have to pick up a gun now. You have to pick up a petition or whatever it is to get your viewpoint across.
Scott McLean:Wow. So everyone always says this, but this rings true, for this is why wasn't that a movie? Why isn't that? Because that's that story is, just you know, so unique yeah, and there been there.
Dr. Mitch Maki:There was a gopher broke movie in the 50s, uh, but with johnson it just never made it super big right? Yeah, um, there is a book out now called Facing the Mountain.
Scott McLean:I was going to ask you about publications.
Dr. Mitch Maki:OK, so there's a book out called Facing the Mountain which is kind of a historical fiction. I mean, the author, Daniel Brown, uses a lot of real stories and he just massages them into a novel, massages them into a novel. And he wrote a book about the boys in the boat, about I think it's a English crew team. That was made into a movie. So there's talk about them making that into a movie.
Scott McLean:That would be an amazing movie, yeah.
Dr. Mitch Maki:I think part of it is and this is not so true now, but it's probably true more in the 50s, 60s and 70s that you didn't see a lot of movies about Americans who were not white in those decades. Right More recently, in the 2000s and 2010s, you start to see movies about ethnic Americans and their contributions to America. So I'm hoping that you know there will be a time when we can really celebrate what all of our communities have done to make America what it is today.
Scott McLean:I think that's Veterans Day. I think because we all come together on Veterans Day, yeah, and people don't really get this. 90% and I can't say 100% of anything, but 90% of veterans could give a shit who's next to them. That's a fact, yeah, but unfortunately it gets maybe portrayed differently or it gets in recent times, has been put into another perspective. That doesn't make sense to me, because I lived it for 10 years. But, yeah, we're all, we're all the same when we put the uniform on it's. That's absolutely. It's. It's cliche, but it's true, right, you know?
Dr. Mitch Maki:what people you?
Scott McLean:were talking about. The men you were talking about are perfect examples of that.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Yes, yes, one of the veterans, one of our veterans, was telling me you know, one of the values he learned during that time is you look to your left, you look to your right and you take care of each other.
Scott McLean:That's right.
Dr. Mitch Maki:And that's not true just for Japanese American veterans, that's true for all the veterans. Right, you look to your left, you look to your right, you take care of each other because that, in the end, that's all you have. And in truth, that's true for us in America today. Let's look to the left, let's look to the right, because, in the end, that's all we have is each other, because nobody's going to come from outside our nation to save us.
Scott McLean:No, no, that's, and that's true. Words haven't been spoken. Uh well, anything else, we got time. I'm not, you know. Is this something you want to touch on? I don't know.
Dr. Mitch Maki:I don't want to miss anything on this and, as I, as I mentioned uh to you, I would be happy to come back on, possibly bring a torchbearer or two, or bring a veteran, you know, whatever you think might be of interest. But I want to thank you for the work that you're doing. Scott, you know one. This has been delightful, it's been fun and the time has just flown by, but thank you for giving platform to this story, as well as to the other guests that you have, and the work that you do is very meaningful.
Scott McLean:Thank you, I appreciate that, and there's no end in sight. I'm going for broke Mitch.
Dr. Mitch Maki:I love it.
Scott McLean:You're broke. You do that, so all right, I have to say that this is being recorded on december 20th and I I truly mean this when I say this was. This was an early christmas present for me. This was an amazing interview. This is fun. I, I I got to. I got to talk to a, to another nerd, another comic book. He's a marvel nerd. I like Batman personally. We discussed that before the podcast. But, mitch, I look forward to keeping in touch with you. I think we have things that we can do together. Even though I'm on the total opposite side of the country, we can still work together and any help I can give you and your foundation, just reach out to me if you want to promote something whatever. Whenever you want to come back on you, let me know and you got the spot. I'll bump you to the top of the list. I don't care what the people behind you say, it's my podcast.
Dr. Mitch Maki:Thank you so much, scott, and again, it's been a true delight. And so to your listeners, and again, it's been a true delight. And so to your listeners, happy holidays, and to you happy holidays, and I hope you have a good holiday season with your family.
Scott McLean:I appreciate that and stand by. Let me do my outro and then we'll talk a little more when we get done. Well, all right, we built another bridge today, as this podcast was built to do, and I want to thank Dr Mitch McKay for coming on and being sucha great interview. I want to thank you for listening. If you'd like to share it, uh, if you want to find out what platforms are on, we're on all of them. I could get on the list Apple, amazon, spotify, we're on all of them. So, if you like it, share it. And, as I always say, thank you for supporting me and listening.
Scott McLean:It's caught some legs and caught some traction, and the podcast is being productive and that's what I did it for. You can't give a podcast a better gift than that. And also listen to the end of the episode. There's a good public service announcement for veterans, families of veterans and civilians in general. It's about two, one, one and nine eight, eight. It's 30 seconds long. Just give it a listen. It's very informative and, with all that, I will see you next Monday or you'll hear me next Monday with the new episode.
