Death came just as U.S. was about to honor Morton Grove man

Death came just as U.S. was about to honor Morton Grove man


BY MAUREEN O’DONNELL
Staff Reporter/modonnell@suntimes.com

Last Modified: Nov 18, 2011 02:25AM

Akira “Casey” Hoshizaki, 88, was excited about traveling to Washington, D.C., this month to attend a ceremony honoring him and other Japanese Americans who served the United States in World War II, even after the U.S. treated them like traitors, holding them behind barbed wire because of their heritage.

He and other Nisei veterans were to receive replicas of the Congressional Gold Medal — one of the nation’s highest honors — for fighting prejudice on the homefront and in the military.

Mr. Hoshizaki’s proud sons and daughters-in-laws accompanied him on the trip. But when it was time to get ready for the Nov. 2 celebration dinner, his phone went unanswered, and he didn’t respond to knocks on his door. They called security to open his room at the Washington Hilton Hotel.

“That’s when we found him,” said his son, Ronald Hoshizaki.

After a whirlwind two days in which the longtime Morton Grove resident reminisced with his family and other Japanese-American veterans and toured Washington, Mr. Hoshizaki had died in his room just a couple of hours before he would have received his medal.

Despite their grief and shock, his children had one more thing they wanted to do for their father. At the family’s request, honor guards from the event brought Mr. Hoshizaki’s medal to his room, but police and hotel investigators said they couldn’t let his family back inside just yet.

Nearby, they saw a chaplain. They asked if she could find a way to fold the medal in their father’s hand, “just to kind of complete the journey,” said another son, Gary Hoshizaki.

With the authorities’ OK, the chaplain carried out their bittersweet request.

“We had it put in his hand because that is what he came for,” said another son, Dr. Robert Hoshizaki.

Mr. Hoshizaki was an American teenager when he was ordered out of his Vacaville, Calif., home, told to pack all his belongings in one suitcase and report within a week for confinement. It was 1942, and the attack on Pearl Harbor two months earlier had turned the world inside-out.

“Their good friends all of a sudden hated them — in a day,” said Gary Hoshizaki.

After President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order authorizing the internment of Japanese Americans, Mr. Hoshizaki and his family were held at the Gila River Relocation Center, about 40 miles south of Phoenix.

The site of the camp — whose population swelled to 25,000 — was chosen for its isolation. Government officials didn’t want thousands of Japanese Americans close to any sensitive military sites.

Despite being treated like a criminal, Mr. Hoshizaki, like many Japanese Americans, decided to fight for his country.

Mr. Hoshizaki, who knew how to speak Japanese from his Japanese-born mother, Tsure, and father, Naka, became a sergeant in the Army’s Military Intelligence Service and Counter Intelligence Corps. He had to learn to read and write Japanese for his job as a translator of confidential documents. He served in the Pacific Theater and in occupied Japan.

At one point in Japan, Mr. Hoshizaki was able to locate his father’s brother and cousins. “He tried to introduce himself, and when he did, they were scared of him,” said Gary Hoshizaki. But once they realized the stranger in an American Army uniform was family, they warmed to him.

“He gave them food,” his son said. “They stayed in touch for years.”

After the war, feeling there was nothing left for him in California, Mr. Hoshizaki moved to Minnesota and landed a job as a draftsman, only to be punished again for his heritage. His factory was working on a project for the military, and, Gary Hoshizaki said, “They dismissed him because he was Japanese.”

Mr. Hoshizaki used to joke that he used his brains to get a good job in the internment camp, deciding the mess hall was the place to be. “You want to be where the food is,” he said, “and then you get to meet the pretty girls.”

There, he saw the lovely Yuico Otani. They married after the war and raised their four boys in Morton Grove before retiring to Arizona. He went to night school for eight years at the Illinois Institute of Technology, became a mechanical engineer and worked for more than 30 years as an engineer at Illinois Tool Works.

He was excited about attending this month’s celebration in Washington honoring members of the 100th Infantry Battalion, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, and the Military Intelligence Service.

The Congressional Gold Medal is an “enormous and historic honor,” said U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki, who spoke at the gala dinner. “The first recipient, in 1776, was none other than George Washington.”

Other recipients have included Ulysses S. Grant, Douglas MacArthur and Harry Truman.

Mr. Hoshizaki wrote down the names of three of his old war buddies, hoping for a reunion in Washington, but he never found them.

“He was really looking for old friends,” Ronald Hoshizaki said. “But, at that age, to find anybody still living, it’s hard.”

Still, Mr. Hoshizaki deemed the gathering “fantastic.”

“He felt the ceremony itself, even though it was delayed, it vindicated his time in the internment camp,” said Robert Hoshizaki. “He said, ‘You look around here, and there are 80-, 90-year-olds who can barely walk, but at least they are finally going to get their medal.’ ”

In addition to his wife and his other sons, Mr. Hoshizaki is survived by another son, Douglas Hoshizaki; two sisters, Terri Takaguchi and Mitzi Aono; a brother, George Hoshizaki; and seven grandchildren. Services are planned for 2 p.m. Monday at Freedom Plaza in Peoria, Ariz., where he had retired.

After his death, Mr. Hoshizaki’s family decided to honor him by attending the Nov. 2 dinner that they knew he would have so enjoyed. There were gasps in the audience that night when Army Lt. Gen. Joseph F. Peterson announced Mr. Hoshizaki’s sudden passing. And when the general asked the Hoshizaki family to stand, the room rang with applause.

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Editor's note:  Why doesn't our government wait a little longer to honor these brave Vets? These military veterans saved democracy and the world and yet they have to wait until they are in their 90's to get a medal! Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com