Brown, Daniel James. Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II. Viking, 2021.

Daniel James Brown, author of The Boys in the Boat, has another (2021) book out, Facing the Mountain. Despite my wholehearted support for the idea of “never forget”, I have to admit that I am somewhat jaded and tired of reading about the World War 2 Holocaust, and the Japanese internment camps in the U.S., and really, World War 2 in general. The stories are important and even relevant to our own time, but they are starting to sound like old news.

Nevertheless, this one deserves a place in your reading line-up or stack or To-Be-Read list, wherever you keep those titles that you are planning to read soon. The book covers the internment of Japanese American citizens and legal residents, but the emphasis is on the service of the young men, Nisei–second generation Americans of Japanese descent–“who volunteered for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and were deployed to France, Germany, and Italy, where they were asked to do the near impossible in often suicidal missions.”

Definitely not old news for me. I learned a lot. The story of these men is a lesson in courage and fortitude and persistence that went way beyond my small store of those virtues. There are even a couple of stories that feature peace-making in the midst of war.

One example, many of the soldiers of the 442nd were Hawaiian-born Japanese Americans; others were from the mainland, mostly the west coast. The two groups may have looked similar with the same ancestry, but their cultural heritage and general attitudes were not the same. The Hawaiians, who were called “Buddhaheads” by the mainlanders, were much too easy-going and rule-breaking for the “Kotonks” (nickname given the mainland Japanese Americans). And the Kotonks were too serious and legalistic, having come mostly from the internment camps, as far as the Buddhaheads were concerned. This difference in outlook led to arguments, even fights, while the guys of the 442nd were in training, and it took some time and some hard knocks for the 442nd to become a cohesive fighting unit.

Then, also, the author Brown tells the story of Gordon Hirabayashi who fought his own battle in prisons across the Southwestern United States as a conscientious objector and resistor not only to the war but also to the restrictions that were being placed on Japanese Americans as a result of their ethnicity. And the Japanese American chaplains who served the 442nd are also featured with quotations from letters that these men sent home.

Daniel James interviewed several of the men of the 442nd, “by most reckonings, . . . the most decorated military unit of its size and length of service in American history.” He also talked to their families and descendants and read and shared their letters and notes and memories. The result is a well-written narrative history of the wartime service of several Nisei soldiers as examples of the entire combat team. And readers get a picture of the chronology of all of the battles and assaults and rescues performed by the 442nd, including the rescue of the “Lost Battalion”, a group of mostly Texan soldiers who in late 1944 in Germany were sent into a trap and only saved at the expense of many lives by the 442nd Nisei.

If you’re a World War II buff, you must read this book. If you’re not particularly interested in WWII, but you do like inspiring stories of courage, like Unbroken and The Boys in the Boat, you should also pick up a copy of Facing the Mountain. Finally, if you have a relationship with anyone of Japanese heritage or if you are a Japanese American yourself, this book is a must read. I’m not Japanese at all, but it made me proud to be an American, even though our record as a country in regard to how we have treated people of color is mixed to say the least. Still, the stories of people overcoming obstacles of racial prejudice and mistreatment, and even becoming heroes, belong to us all.