Hawaii and the 442nd Veterans Reunion

Ahola,
As the rewriting process continues, I have been lucky enough to spend some time in Hawaii with several of the true-life heroes including Barney Hajiro (above) and Mutt Sakumoto. Today was the 63rd Annual 442nd Veterans Reunion and featured over 600 attendees. The entire ceremony, which lasted four hours, was quite an experience and was filled with both laughter and tears.
After the event, I made a trip to "Punchbowl". This National Cemetary serves as the final resting place for hundreds of Japanese American veterans who sacrificed their lives for a country that did not trust them. I visited both Nobuo Amakawa and Takeyasu Onaga's graves and made a solemn promise to honor them through this film and all future opportunities. The following message is engraved at the memorial: "The solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom". One must not forget that for these Japanese Americans, the "altar of freedom" carried with it a dual meaning.
I was reminded of the urgency of this story. These men deserve to be recognized and their legacy must not be forgotten with their passing. Each year, the number of surviving veterans diminshes and this year the number of lost grew exponentially. You can see the sadness in these men's faces as they realize the friends they have lost over the past 12 months.
As we move closer to a finished script, I want to encourage everyone to pass the LITTLE IRON MEN website (www.littleironmen.com) along to their friends and family. In addition, recommend that they visit the Go For Broke Foundation website (www.goforbroke.org) and the Smithsonian website: A More Perfect Union (http://americanhistory.si.edu/perfectunion/experience/) to learn more about these men and their amazing accomplishments.

Stay tuned for the final draft of the script....