"There is the danger of a blind, wild hysterical hatred of all persons who can trace ancestry to Japan. That some of those persons happen to be American citizens...easily could be swept aside by mob hysteria." -Walt Woodward, The Bainbridge Review.

Walt and Milly Woodward barely thirty years of age purchased the weekly Bainbridge Review, in 1940. At the time it was a small community paper that featured small local stories and neighborhood gossip. When America. entered WWII a year later, the couple had transformed the Review into a respected community paper full of current, factual news, and an editorial page that drew national attention.

"The Review says this: These Japanese Americans of ours haven't bombed anybody...They have given every indication of loyalty to this nation. They have sent...their own sons–six of them–into the United States Army." -Walt Woodward, The Bainbridge Review

They used their editorial section to warn against letting hatred, fear, and prejudice determine their readers' views of their Japanese American neighbors that they had known for years. They spoke out against the wrongs done to the West Coast Nikkei in a time when most stayed quiet

Under the Woodward's guidance the tiny Bainbridge Review was singled out nationally as the lone newspaper to take a stand in defense of the beleaguered Japanese Americans. Throughout the war Walt and Milly Woodward continued to speak out against the constitutional violations contained in Executive Order 9066. Also, in an attempt to report accurately on Islanders' lives,In an effort to keep track of neighbors and those encarcerated the Woodwards hired high school students to report from Manzanar and, Minidoka. The students wrote of the daily lives of those exiled. 150 of the 272 exiled Islanders returned to Bainbridge, a greater percentage than most communities.

Atsusa Sakuma was the oldest Nisei, first born in the U.S.from the family, and first to grow berries in Skagit Valley having moved his berry farm from Bainbridge Island, WA. One by one, Atsusa’s brothers moved to Skagit after high school to help with harvesting.

In 1941 the brothers farming in Burlington supported the family remaining on Bainbridge Island. Then Pearl Harbor was attacked in December. The Sakuma family was imprisoned at Manzanar in March. In June the brothers from Burlington were ordered to Tule Lake (northern California), five hundred miles from the rest of the family.

While family was treated as the enemy, three of eight Sakuma boys joined the famed 442 nd Infantry Regiment including Satoru. Three other sons served with the MIS.

After the war, the Sakuma family returned to Bainbridge, but their property was lost, so they moved to Burlington. During the war, their farm was maintained by the Oscar Mapes family—a never forgotten act of kindness

The Loyalty Questionnaire that all incarcerees had to address. Questions 27 and 28 were the breaking point for many. Most had never even left the city limits of their American home towns. Many young people especially girls shuddered at the thought of question 27. As for question 28 few even knew the name of the Emperor of Japan. Answering, "no" to either or both of those questions earned one the label of "dissident" and was a one way ticket for one's entire family to the maximum security internment center in Tule Lake CA.

Theme art commissioned by the US Government for the celebration of American troops returning from Operation Desert Storm.
1991

Advance one sheet

Album cover art
Only a Lad

VietNam Conflict, Laos 1968
Gallantry, self-sacrifice, and profound concern for his fellow men at the risk of his life.

America's first and only female African American U-2 Pilot

Central America

Defending home. Painted with smoke from burning napalm

Long for home. Painted with smoke from burning napalm

Thailand