Written by Sandra Vea.
Masao Abe was a kibei (born in the United States but educated in Japan). Drafted into the US Army when he returned to America in the 1930s, he was recruited to the secretive Military Intelligence Service. Trained to accompany American soldiers as they fought their way across the islands in the Pacific, his assignment was to convince Japanese Imperial soldiers to lay down their arms. On the battlefield, he was accompanied a bodyguard because his commanders knew he wore a target on his front and his back.
This little-known slice of history reveals how the confluence of race, war, and loyalty played out when the nation called for the service of those it judged most harshly.
Hardbound: 320 pp.
