Minidoka National Historic Site (Japanese Internment Camp)
Some things are not fun but need to be remembered. After Pearl Harbor, Japanese on the west coast were given 6 days to leave their homes and bring only what they could carry. Many lost their homes, farms, and businesses. They came to live in tarpaper shacks, 20 feet by 120 feet – 6 families in a shack. Of this camp of 9,000 men, women and children, 1,000 volunteered for the military. From this one camp, 73 died for their country, and 2 won congressional medals of honor. How do you tell a mother in an internment camp that her son died for his country while she was imprisoned by this same country? I had tears in my eyes when I wrote this.
