Dear friends,

My career at the Go For Broke National Education Center has been very special because of the people that I have met and worked with over the past 12 years. It all started one day in 1998, when I entered a small office in Gardena, where a group of WWII veterans sat around a table talking and laughing. They joked around, playing pranks on one another, clearly enjoying each other's company. Col. Young Oak Kim and these vets, including my grandpa, were the original group who worked to build the Go For Broke Monument.

Ted Tsukiyama's initiation into World War II was abrupt and swift. One day he was a University of Hawaii student finishing his third year in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC). The next, Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor, and Tsukiyama's entire ROTC was standing at the foot of St. Louis Heights in Honolulu prepared to protect their country against Japanese paratroopers (none appeared).

On January 28, 1942, the Royal T. Frank, a military transport boat carrying 26 draftees to Hilo, was struck by a torpedo launched from what was believed to be a Japanese submarine. Only nine draftees survived. The transport was part of a convoy that included a destroyer and ammunition boat. The 26 draftees had just finished basic training at Schofield Barracks and were heading back to Hilo. Somewhere between Maui and the Big Island someone saw a torpedo go by in the water. The next one hit the boat but the third torpedo was a direct hit. The Royal T. Frank went down.

Christine Sato-Yamazaki has been a guiding light for the Go For Broke National Education Center (GFBNEC) for the past 12 years, first as executive director and most recently as president and chief executive officer (2008). She has seen the hard work and tenacity of the Japanese American WWII veterans in the final stretch of the Go For Broke Monument capital campaign and worked side-by-side veterans, volunteers and one staff member through the building and dedication of it in 1999. She was fortunate to be mentored by Col. Young Oak Kim when she first stepped into the role as executive director in 1999 after the former director fell ill and unable to continue.

The Go For Broke National Education Center (GFBNEC) honored the 100th/442nd Veterans Association and the Military Intelligence Service Club of Southern California on June 5 at the 11th anniversary celebration of the Go For Broke Monument in Los Angeles. At the day's event an estimated 200 veterans and their family members and friends gathered to commemorate the Monument's inception 11 years ago. This year's tribute featured a keynote address by Los Angeles City Councilmember Jan Perry, who represents the downtown Los Angeles area that includes Little Tokyo, and Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Terry Hara, who is also a GFBNEC Board Member, was master of ceremonies. Assemblyman Warren Furutani (D-55), Assemblyman Kevin De Leon (D-45) and Los Angeles City Controller Wendy Greuel also delivered special remarks.

Since 2008, special floral tributes have been distributed to 39 members of the 100th/442nd and MIS interred in European cemeteries, primarily in Florence, Italy and Epinal, France, through the Floral Tribute Fund first started by attorney/appraiser Ronald Yamada. In 2004, Yamada visited the Epinal American Military Cemetery and was disturbed by the fact that so few graves were adorned with flowers on Memorial Day. "I was saddened to think that these fallen were seemingly forgotten," said Yamada, son of the late 442nd RCT veteran Eiro Yamada.

The Go For Broke National Education Center held its second Teen Leadership Program session, this one sponsored by Nissan, on April 8 and 12, 2010. Once again working with Los Angeles High School teacher Rebecca Solomon, GFBNEC provided her with information on the WWII Japanese American experience, including the incarceration and emphasizing the Nisei veteran legacy to build youth leaders surrounding the theme of citizenship.

Save the date! Hawaii teachers are invited to participate in a unique professional development workshop on October 8-9, 2010 covering WWII from the perspective of Hawaii's Japanese American and local communities, "Looking Like the Enemy: The Case of Japanese Americans in World War II."