“I was standing face to face with my brother, with our heads at gunpoint. How did things get this bad? Not to far back we were sitting at our dinner table eating with our family.
We were supposed to kill each other because we were fighting for two different countries. I was shaking with anticipation of what would happen next. My index finger was resting nervously on the trigger of the M50 Reising. Everyone around us was dieing but we just stood there nervously waiting for death. I didn’t want to kill him, but I almost had no choice.
I was playing that day over in my head. I remembered what had happened, almost every, little, detail. We knew that we were probably next in line to be drafted, and we were not far from it. In the morning of June 30, 1942, it was the fifth registration. My brother and I both were being drafted but our father could not because he was sick and dieing in his old age. We were eating our breakfast when three servicemen knocked at our door to take us to war with another country.
We were allowed to take our necessities so we go and get them. We told our mother and father good-bye because we didn’t know if it is the last time that we would ever speak with them or not.
Further on down the road it was time for war, and while fighting, they took him. All I had, and they took him. My brother, all I had left, and the Japanese took him away from me. I thought he had been dead for the longest period of time. I thought that they might have killed him. They probably thought that he had betrayed them.
My brother was part Japanese and part American. My mother had been Japanese, full, and my father was American, full. I am half also, but I look more American than Japanese, unlike my brother.
I was so happy to see him alive; they could have killed him, but they didn’t. And he was now fighting for the Japanese, our enemy.
My finger was still resting on the trigger of my M50 Reising, shaking nervously. I had my left eye closed, my right open, with Tommy, my brother, in view to die. I watched him; I could see him breathing in and out. I knew I had to kill him and seeing the look in his eyes, I knew that he knew that he had to kill me too. We weren’t ten feet away from each other. We started over 100 yards away and had inched closer to each other. I began to lower my gun, and Tommy did too. I repositioned my shaky index finger and before I could step for my brother was dead.
The cannon on the Japanese side had fired and my brother was in view, in the way. As sickening as it sounds his blood covered my green uniform. I wanted to run to his side, but there wasn’t much left to run to. I turned and walked away. I felt as if I should’ve died instead. I can’t believe I held him at gunpoint instead of hugging his neck like I should’ve done. I messed up; I missed him terribly. I had nothing better to do, so I lied down in the open and just looked up to the sky. I watched cannon balls fly overhead and the black smoke move through the air. I closed my eyes.
I opened my eyes to see an enemy over my head with a gun. I was too nervous to identify the gun. He looked confused by the fact that I was giving no effort to live. He moved his aim from my head to my stomach. He did pull the trigger. I started bleeding. I just knew I was going to die because I was losing so much blood. And the doctors couldn’t stop the blood either. Then all of a sudden, it just stopped. No one knew why. But I had the weirdest feeling come over me. Something told me it was God or my brother. It was like my brother wanted me to live. And I finally accepted that. And after I heeled I went home. My father had died and my mother was depressed. With time she lightened up with my presence but was never the same. Three years later she dies and I was all alone. And that’s when I met your grandma.”

My grandsons’ faces lit up with excitement.

“We had Tommy a year later.”
“Our dad?” they ask me with lit faces.
“Yes, your dad.”

Now every time they come over, I tell them my story of WWII.