Left I on the News

Unknown to me, anyway. San Jose Mercury News columnist L.A. Chung writes today about some of the people who were part of an event to support Lt. Ehren Watada:

Heart Mountain, Wyo., is where so many Japanese-Americans from Santa Clara County were interned during World War II. A group called the Fair Play Committee rose up in reaction to a move to draft young men from the camps to fight in the segregated - and storied - Army unit, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

Branded as draft resisters, and condemned by the leading community organization - the Japanese American Citizens League - the committee persevered through their trial on principle. They would gladly fight if their country first treated them equally as citizens - restored their civil liberties, released their families from internment camps. In the largest mass trial in U.S. history, 63 were convicted of draft evasion, and they spent nearly two years in jail before the convictions were overturned on appeal.

Three of the Heart Mountain draft resisters, now in their 80's, have lent their support to Watada.