Robert Asahina

7/27/09 Disc 6 out of 7: So far, I'm finding the book excellently written, with a lot of insight and first-person accounts from the 100th Infantry Battalion (Special)/442nd RCT. I've read before stories of internment life, and treatment of ethnically Japanese in the United States mainland. But to hear about stories from the front line of war is new. Very insightful. New found respect for these gentlemen. Asahina did his homework, and is a masterful storyteller, that you feel like you get to know some of these soldiers.

(Not-so) small annoyance: the reader should have been coached better on the pronunciation of Japanese surnames and Hawai'i place names. It's petty, but it grates on my nerves every time I had to hear him drawl out names like Ito (EE-toe) and Inouye (ee-know-WAY) repeatedly, and then just butcher others like I'olani (eye-oh-laaan-ee) Palace, yet gives a fairly graceful and practiced pronunciation of French and German place names. Just a little coaching would have done wonders. Also, when the reader quotes individuals, with an exaggerated American Southern drawl, and German and French accents, it is just annoying and tacky.… (mere)