Robert Sato had been planning to study economics in March 1940 when he got drafted.

He could never imagine his life turning out the way it did.

"I wasn't crazy about (getting drafted)," said Sato, now 89 and living in McCully with his wife, Kazue. "But you cannot fight against Uncle Sam."

The morning of Dec. 7, 1941, Sato was heading to Schofield Barracks for a football game when he heard about the attack.

He was quickly assigned to the 298th Infantry to patrol Kailua Beach, which was lined with barbed wire.

Six months later he was segregated out of his unit and sent to the pier at Aloha Tower.

"I knew something was going on," Sato said. "And sure enough, we were on a ship, destination unknown. We couldn't even telephone home."

More than 1,400 soldiers arrived in San Francisco and got on trains heading toward Wisconsin.

"It was 110 degrees and we couldn't open the windows because we had the enemy's faces," Sato said.

While he trained at Camp McCoy in Wisconsin for six months with the newly formed 100th Infantry Battalion, Sato's father, who worked at the Izumo Taisha Shrine, was relocated to an internment camp in Louisiana.

He found out in a letter from his sister.

On his furlough he caught a train to visit him.

"The boys were giving me a bad impression that it was rough over there," Sato said about Camp Livingston, where temperatures exceeded 100 degrees in the summer. "But it wasn't so bad."

Sato saw his father for only two minutes.

"He asked to borrow money from me," Sato said. "But I barely had enough for the train and bus ride."

He returned to his unit, which met up with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team at Camp Shelby, Miss. After several more months of combat training, the 100th Infantry Battalion was sent to North Africa. By September 1943 the soldiers were in Salerno, Italy, fighting Germans.

After a month in combat, Sato was wounded.

Shrapnel tore through his right thigh in a battle at Bruyeres, France. About 40 soldiers were hit that day, Sato said.

He watched a fellow soldier, lying about 30 feet away, trying to keep his insides from spilling out of a massive wound with his dirty hands.

"I tried to bandage myself, but I couldn't do it because my hands were shaking," Sato said.

He thought he was going to die there.

But a Jeep came barreling toward him. Two Caucasian soldiers — with whom the 100th guys often fought — saw him struggling to bandage his leg.

"They picked me up like a matchstick and threw me in the Jeep," Sato said. "I will never forget that."

For 11 months Sato was in hospitals all over the country, recuperating from his injuries and honing his chess-playing skills.

While in a New York hospital, he met legendary baseball player Babe Ruth, who was visiting wounded soldiers.

"I didn't wash my hand for so many minutes," Sato said, smiling. "I told the boys; they couldn't believe it."

He was discharged in 1945 and worked for the military in counter intelligence in Japan for four years, then returned to Hawai'i.

He enrolled at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa, then transferred to Bradley University, where he graduated with a degree in economics in 1953 and served as the captain of the school's chess team. He later did post-graduate work at Mexico City College to learn Spanish.

Though he had spent just five years in the military, Sato never forgot the value of service.

In addition to helping at the 100th Infantry Battalion clubhouse, he helped people become U.S. citizens by teaching a night class at McKinley High School for 37 years. It was his way of helping others.

"Before, we (those of Japanese descent) couldn't become citizens," Sato said. "But because of our boys who died for our country, they can. I think about that."

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.