The Purple Heart
The
Purple Heart
A Love Story
By Vincent Yee
Copyright © 2012 Vincent Yee
All Rights Reserved. Published in the
United States
www.thepurpleheartbook.com
This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, and incidents
are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is
entirely coincidental.
ISBN 13:
978-0-9859320-0-8
Kindle
First Edition
D E D I C A T I O N
Dedicated to the Japanese American men,
women and children who were imprisoned during World War II and to the heroic
and courageous Japanese American soldiers of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team
and the 100th Infantry Battalion who received 9,486 Purple Hearts.
Dedicated also to my parents and to my
mother who told me to, “Do something creative.”
C H A P T E R S
“Men died. A lot of men
died,” said Joey as he held up his drawing of the slain men on the ground. The
men were in green drab clothing and crimson splotches covered their chests. “My
grandfather said that war is awful and too many men died. Including his best
friend and he becomes really sad when he thinks about it.” He then pointed to
another soldier in the middle of the drawing, who was lying on the ground with
crayon red, splattered across his chest as another soldier, presumably, Joey’s
grandfather, knelt by his side.
A few soft gasps were let
out before the classroom fell silent. Ms. Satoh stared solemnly at Joey, caught
off guard by the horrific picture of war captured by a child’s crayon. Joey
probably wasn’t even old enough to understand why men sometimes go to such
extremes as war.
Before the silence in the
roomful of second graders became too awkward, Ms. Satoh asked, “And Joey, what
war are you referring to?”
Without hesitation, Joey
stated, “World War II. It happened a long time ago. My grandfather is really
old. He was part of an all-Japanese American team that fought against the
Nazis. They were bad guys from Germany. My grandfather was one of the few who
returned home alive.”
It was what Ms. Satoh
wanted to hear. For a moment, she reflected on her own grandfather, who also
fought in the war. But he had died in the war. She then wondered amusingly how
both she and Joey could be grandchildren of a generation of Japanese American
men who fought in World War II. Was Joey’s grandfather very young? Did he marry
much later in life, or was one of Joey’s parents the youngest of his
grandfather’s children? She quickly snapped out of her brief reverie and
addressed the class.
“Thank you Joey, for the
very detailed drawing and story. Well children, as you can see, Joey’s
grandfather fought in a war that happened a long time ago.” Ms. Satoh glanced
up at the classroom clock and saw that it was close to noon, and decided that
it would be a good time for lunch.
The children hastily got up
from their seats and went to the back of the classroom to get their brown-paper-bagged
lunches. Two of the children took up the duty of handing out the milk and juice
cartons to the other children. As the children went about their way, Ms. Satoh
looked in Joey’s direction and saw that he was standing by his desk as a few of
his classmates came over to look at his drawing.
For whatever reason, the
drawing piqued Ms. Satoh’s curiosity. Her father always said her curiosity
would get her into trouble. Her grandparents’ experience during World War II
was rarely discussed, and was always dismissed as something that was better
left in the past. It was forbidden to mention her grandfather, but she never
really knew why.
After lunch she let the
kids into the schoolyard. As the last child exited out the door, Ms. Satoh waved
to a fellow teacher and indicated that she would be out in a couple of minutes.
The other teacher, Ms. Catherine Scarpelli, affectionately known as “Cat,” who
taught another second-grade class adjacent to hers, nodded back. With that, she
allowed the door to close and ward off the chilly spring air.
Ms. Satoh quickly wrapped
her arms around herself and rubbed the sides of her arms a few times to warm
herself up. She quickly looked towards Joey’s desk and she quickly made her way
there. She carefully knelt down over the drawing. It was a magnificent drawing
for a second grader, she thought. The colors were vibrant and all the elements
of the drawing were drawn to scale. Joey’s grandfather was in a green drab
outfit as he knelt over a fallen soldier with a red splatter across his chest.
The grandfather was applying a white bandage to the fallen soldier. To the left
of them were other Japanese American soldiers, all lying on the ground, dead.
It was sad, if not tragic. Joey even drew a blown-up machine gun bunker with
dead Nazi soldiers lying about. Joey had scribbled a few words in the drawing
and one of them was “Grandfather,” written next to the solider kneeling over
the fallen soldier.
A tapping came from the
window near the door that startled Ms. Satoh. Cat’s face was pressed right up
against the window with one hand over her forehead to block out the glare of
the sun. She waved invitingly over to Ms. Satoh, who realized she was
neglecting her recess duties. Ms. Satoh placed the drawing back on top of
Joey’s desk and straightened up while smoothing out her skirt. She quickly
checked her waistline to make sure her white blouse was properly tucked in and
adjusted her feet, as kneeling in her navy-colored pumps wasn’t all that
comfortable. She grabbed her black coat, and exited into the schoolyard.
Ms. Satoh walked into the
brisk air that whisked about her prompting her to pull in the lapels of her
coat around her neck. Her walk was brisk, reflecting her youthful poise, yet
there was a distinct sense of authority appropriate for a teacher. As a young Japanese
American woman, she wore only enough makeup to accentuate her natural beauty.
Only her lipstick stood out and gave her a sense that she was older than she
really was. Her beautiful almond eyes always seemed to glitter but also
conveyed serious determination. Her shiny, shoulder-length hair bounced
slightly with each step until finally she came right up to Cat.
“Aiko! How can you leave me
to watch over these little monsters all by myself?” Cat said sarcastically as
she gave Aiko a quick hug.
Cat was from New Jersey,
and Aiko just loved her friend’s accent. It was a clear giveaway that she
wasn’t from the D.C. area. Cat looked almost out of place with her red knitted
turtleneck sweater and her black leather skirt whose hem was a few inches from
her knees. Her fashionable black leather, calf-high, three-inch-heeled boot was
more fitting for New York’s fashion scene than the stuffiness of the D.C. area.
Gold hoop earrings dangled brilliantly from her ears. Her favorite below-the-waist-length
leather jacket accentuated her figure, which she kept up with daily exercise.
She held, in one hand, her usual Pellegrino sparkling water.
They stood side by side
watching the kids running along the playground, dangling precariously from
steel apparatuses that looked too dangerous for little kids to play on.
Children were chasing each other as their laughter crackled through the air.
The brisk spring air whisked around them like an invisible companion.
Cat took a sip from her
sparkling water. “Earth to Aiko, earth to Aiko.”
Aiko looked startled, but
turned to her friend, “I’m sorry, I’m a bit distracted.”
“What’s up, hon? Tall,
dark, and handsome didn’t call last night?” asked Cat.
Aiko smiled, “Oh, it’s not
that, he called as usual,” and for a moment her eyes seemed to glisten. “Just
something happened in class today that caught me off guard.”
“I need sex, Aiko,” Cat
said abruptly.
Aiko laughed suddenly from
her friend’s blunt comment. She could always count on her friend Cat to bring a
sense of levity back to the conversation.
“Cat!” exclaimed Aiko as
she let out another laugh.
Cat then began a monologue
about the convenience of the birth control patch that she had recently started
using. Soon enough, recess came to an end and as Aiko and Cat departed to
gather up their children, Cat reminded Aiko of their dinner plans for that
Friday night, and that she would come by to pick Aiko up at 6 P.M.
Back in class, Aiko
continued the class exercise by having all the students talk about their
drawings. Though Aiko listened to each child intently, she couldn’t help but
steal a few furtive glances in Joey’s direction as he continued to draw. Though
she would have wanted him to pay attention to his classmates, she was hoping
that he would draw more, and she wasn’t sure why.
Toward the end of the day,
the children began to gather their belongings as the long hand on the clock
ticked closer to the end of the school day.
“Children, you all did
wonderfully today, especially with the drawings,” said Aiko. “For homework, I’d
like each of you to write one page in your journal about your favorite part of
the day. Also, we’ll continue with more drawings on Monday, so please leave
your drawings in your desk.”
It was Aiko’s clever plan
to allow her to sneak a further peek at Joey’s drawing to see what else he may
have drawn. How foolish, she thought, that she had to use such a ruse to sneak
a peek at a second grader’s drawing.
As the kids exited the
classroom, Joey was the last one to file out, with his friends anxiously
waiting for him outside. Joey had thick, straight, black, hair and luckily, he
didn’t have the typical bowl cut so common among many young Asian American
boys. He strode up cheerfully in his jeans, striped shirt, jean jacket and
white sneakers. He was quite the handsome boy.
“Bye-bye, Ms. Satoh!” said
Joey. Aiko waved warmly at Joey, but she looked at him a little longer that
day. That day was different. There was a connection between her and Joey, a
common history. Though she had to laugh to herself at how much younger he was
when she considered that they were probably both fourth-generation Japanese
Americans,
Yonsei
.
“Go on now, have a good
weekend, Joey,” said Aiko with a smile.
“You too, Ms. Satoh!” he
answered as he shuffled out of the door. Aiko watched him leave with his
friends, and she could only imagine what kind of mischief they would get into
that afternoon.
Aiko turned her head toward
Joey’s desk and walked over to it. She moved his chair aside, knelt down behind
his desk, and started to carefully riffle through it. The drawing was
underneath another piece of drawing paper. She carefully removed it and placed
it atop his desk.
Aiko lowered herself onto
her knees, lifting herself off her calves a bit, and propped her elbows onto
Joey’s desk. Joey did indeed add a few more elements. He had added a second
blown-up machine gun bunker and a tank. The treetops were dotted with several
yellow and orange explosions. Joey had written at the top, “My Grandfather in
the 442
nd
.” She finally came back to the most poignant image, the
one of Joey’s grandfather. Her eyes then came across a phrase written
underneath the fallen soldier, “
Homerun
.”
Aiko’s jaw dropped, “Oh my
God, that’s my grandfather.”