"Go For Broke"

"Go For Broke". An American Story. , Rising to the defense of their country, by the thousands they came - these young Japanese American soldiers from Hawaii, the States, America's concentration camps - to fight in Europe and the Pacific during World War II. Looked upon with suspicion, set apart and deprived of their constitutional rights, they nevertheless remained steadfast and served with indomitable spirit and uncommon valor, for theirs was a fight to prove loyalty. This legacy will serve as a sobering reminder that never again shall any group be denied liberty and the rights of citizenship. , - Ben H. Tamashiro , "Go For Broke" was the motto of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, an Army unit comprised of Japanese Americans from Hawai'i and the mainland United States. For high-rolling gamblers in Hawai'i in the 1940s, it was slang for risking everything for the big win. For the Nisei (second-generation Japanese American) soldiers, "go for broke" meant they would put everything on the line to win the war in Europe, and the war against racial prejudice at home. During World War II, the soldiers of the 100th Infantry Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team (RCT), and the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) were Japanese Americans determined to prove their loyalty as United States citizens. These soldiers came from Hawaiian plantations and American incarceration camps on the mainland to demonstrate their honor and patriotism. The 100th/442nd became the most highly decorated unit for its size and length of service in American military history. Meanwhile, the MIS was credited with shortening the War in the Pacific Theater by two years while also helping to rebuild Japan during the postwar Allied occupation.