It was the first time Shizuya Hayashi had left the Islands — June 1942, six months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

Shizuya, along with about 1,400 other Japanese-American men from Hawai'i, were heading to Camp McCoy in Wisconsin.

They traveled by train, across a vast country most of them had never seen before.

"You see, we come from a small area (in Hawai'i)," said Hayashi, now 89, who grew up on the Waialua Sugar Plantation. "We go to the U.S. and what a big country. There was no end."

Born in Hawai'i to immigrant parents, Hayashi, like many of the nisei soldiers in the 100th Infantry Battalion, never felt much of a connection to Japan.

"I figure I was born here, I'm an American," Hayashi said. "I never did see Japan."

His allegiance to his country was as strong as his loyalty to his battalion brothers. He would fight for them, as he would for his country.

"We all stick together," Hayashi said.

And even now, he prefers to think of his Medal of Honor, earned for an extraordinary act of valor during combat in Italy, as an honor shared with the entire battalion.

"I think the boys who never make it back deserve (one) just as much," he said. "There's nobody to recognize them."

On Nov. 29, 1943, two months into combat for the 100th Infantry Battalion, Hayashi — then a private nicknamed "Caesar" by his fellow soldiers — took part in an assault on enemy forces on a hill near Cerasuolo, Italy.

Firing his automatic rifle from his hip, Hayashi charged through enemy grenade, rifle and machine-gun fire, killing seven men in the nest and two more as they fled.

"I was just standing up and shooting," Hayashi said. "See how crazy I was?"

After his platoon had caught up and advanced 200 more yards, the soldiers were met by fire from an anti-aircraft gun. Hayashi returned fire, killing nine, taking four prisoners and forcing the remainder of the force to withdraw from the hill.

He wasn't wounded, though a sniper's bullet grazed his neck. He could feel its intense heat.

"I never got hit," he said, smiling. "Amazing, yeah?"

In fact, Hayashi didn't get critically wounded at all during the year he was in combat.

"When you don't get hit, you stay a long time," he said. "You wonder when you going get hit so you can rest."

Hayashi was sent to a hospital in November 1944 to treat a case of trench foot. He was discharged in July 1945.

His heroism that day in Italy earned Hayashi a Distinguished Service Cross, which was upgraded to a Medal of Honor in June 2000 — 57 years later.

Sometimes the memories are painful, Hayashi said. He still gets nightmares.

"You see all your friends get killed, it's hard to keep on remembering," he said, quietly.

He doesn't talk much about the war, except when he's asked. Even his own family didn't know much about his time in the service.

"I knew what he did to get the medal," said Hayashi's grandson, Egan Nakano, 19, whose middle name is Shizuya. "But it's a little hard to imagine him (fighting in a war). He's so laid back."

Six decades after the war and seven more since he earned the nation's highest decoration for valor, Mimi Nakano still sees her father as a hero, particularly because he hasn't stopped serving his community.

Hayashi, who now lives in Pearl City, volunteers twice a week at the Ke'ehi Lagoon Memorial complex created by the Disabled American Veterans of Hawai'i.

He also tours the nation as a Medal of Honor recipient and supports the efforts by the 100th Infantry Battalion veterans to keep their memories alive.

"Even at 89, he's an ambassador for the 100th," said Nakano, whose reservist husband is serving in Iraq. "Whenever there's an event, he's there not for his own sake, but so people won't forget what the 100th did."

The men who started it all — the nation's first nisei warriors — not only defeated the enemy in World War II but prejudice as well. Now up in years, the storied veterans of the 100th Infantry Battalion are celebrating their 65th anniversary, intent on seeing that their legacy of courage and service is not forgotten. This is one of their stories.

Reach Catherine E. Toth at ctoth@honoluluadvertiser.com.