Technician James Kazuo Okubo, A Soldier's Story
US Army Technician James Kazuo Okubo, A Soldier's Story: Technician James Kazuo Okub o was born on May 30, 1920, in Anacortes, Washington. He graduated from Bellingham High School, where he played football, and later attended Western Washington University, joining both the ski and press clubs. In 1942, Okubo left college when his family was forced into Japanese American internment camps. They were first sent to Tule Lake, California, and later to Heart Mountain, Wyoming. There, he worked as an orderly and nurse in the camp hospitals. In May 1943, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, where he trained as a combat medic before volunteering for the famed 442nd Regimental Combat Team. Deployed to the European Theater, he first served in Italy and then in France. During the brutal fighting of the 1944 Battle of Hürtgen Forest, Okubo repeatedly distinguished himself. On October 28, October 29, and November 4, he risked his life under intense machine-gun fire to rescue wounded soldiers, at one...