Pvt. Morimoto Offers Philosophy of Islanders

The sun beat down piteously. The red clay drill field at Camp Shelby caught the glare and the heat and hurled them back cruelly in the faces of the marching men. Perspiration streamed and darkened their dusty uniforms.

Then came a rest. The man fell out. A few lighted cigarettes. Pvt. Tadashi Morimoto cradled his rifle and carefully wiped his rimless glasses. Through those glasses Pvt. Morimoto had looked at books and at life and had acquired a master's degree in social work. He was a graduate of the New York School of social work, a part of Columbia University.

Before that, Pvt. Morimoto had graduated from the University of Hawaii. He was 31 years old, and had been married five years. Why had he enlisted in the Japanese-American combat team? Pvt. Morimoto put on his glasses again, and hidden fires glowed in his studious, timid eyes as he answered some questions.

“I knew a soldier,” he said. “It was in Hawaii. He was the first soldier I ever knew well. He was from New York City. He had been on the island of Kauai for over a year, and he wanted to be back in New York with his wife and children. He said he hoped for nothing more than an early victory so that he could return to civilian life, enjoy his family and his old job.

“Suddenly it occurred to me that this soldier not only wanted the very things I did, but he was willing to fight for them. Why then should I sit back and let someone else fight for the rights and privileges I myself cherish. My home, my family life, my islands! I suddenly wanted to protect them myself, and asked no other person to do it for me. So I volunteered,” Pvt. Morimoto ended quite simply.

After graduation from the University of Hawaii in 1936, Morimoto worked for two years in the Social Service Bureau at Honolulu and then for three years in the territorial Department of Public welfare. While in the latter work, he won a $1500 scholarship which sent him to New York for his master's degree. Thereafter came six months of field work at Plainfield, N. J., and another six months in the psychiatric clinic of the Manhattan Children's Court on the Lower East Side of New York.

Return To Islands

After Pearl Harbor, Morimoto was one of the few Japanese Americans permitted by the War Department to return to Hawaii. He resumed social work in Honolulu in June 1942, but was promoted and transferred the following September to the island of Kauai as supervisor of child welfare services. It was then that he met the American soldier who awakened him to the duties and obligation of a citizenship whose privileges he had enjoyed for 31 years.

“You may think,” said Pvt. Morimoto, “that I was proud when I was granted my master's degree in the life work I had chosen. But I will tell you that the proudest day I have ever known was the day when I found myself in the uniform of an American soldier.

New Pride

“Now I have a new depth of feeling, a feeling to share with that American soldier from New York who missed his family so, but knew why he was away from them. In less than five years of marriage, my wife and I have been apart only twice. But now we are separated again. For how long, no one knows. But I am certain we will be reunited again. And my wife is so proud of me. In one of her recent letters, she wrote, ‘Soldier, you may be proud of yourself, but don't forget you've left the damn proud wife of a soldier!” My wife is a social worker too. She doesn't use words like ‘dam’ unless she means it. I believe she does. Gosh, I never felt better in my life. What heat?”