It seemed to lack the gritty, life-is-nasty-brutish-and-short sense that one expects when all traces of humanity is stripped away. Early on in the war I felt that the story was a little too pristine to be a convincing account of men at war. As they fought their way up the Italian Peninsula, through France and into Germany their encounters with the enemy became more frequent and also more deadly. They were soon shipped off to Europe to fight the Germans (the Nisei troops were never trusted to fight the Japanese). Hughes tells the story of the 4-4-2, as its soldiers called it, through the eyes of two friends, Yuki and Shig who, leaving their families behind in internment camps, enlisted in the Army to show their country that they were as much loyal Americans as anyone. The unit’s Combat Casualty Rate was an unimaginable 314 percent. 9,486 Purple Hearts were awarded to the 14,000 soldiers who served in the unit. Show More became the most decorated unit in the history of American warfare, earning, among other things, twenty-one Medals of Honor and eight Presidential Unit Citations.
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