Under The Wings of Artemis

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Executive Order 9066, by M.J. Linford, tells the harrowing story of an earlier war. During World War II, Kay Nakao, a natural-born American citizen, was forced to leave her home on Bainbridge Island, Washington, along with her parents and her brother and sisters when President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, an edict that required all people of Japanese descent to be evacuated from their homes and removed to internment camps.

The book, bound in beautiful Japanese paper, is an accordion structure that unfolds to show a series of pockets. Nakao’s story is printed on the front of the pockets, while tucked inside are reproductions of photographs of Nakao and her family during the evacuation and cards bearing text about the process. Nakao relates with touching detail how “…without any problems probably close to 200 people were evacuated (from Bainbridge Island). Everybody obeyed.” The informational cards in the pockets include paragraphs from

newspapers, including one editorial describing that while some Caucasian people were sad, others were relieved that the Japanese people were removed. Another editorial exclaimed “Outrage at the removal of American citizens!” A document titled “Japanese Evacuation Report #5” tells how efficient the army was in handling the procedure.

Bainbridge Island, where Linford lives, was the first community in the U.S. to have the Japanese Americans forcibly taken from their homes, relocated to an internment camp in California, and held there for the duration of the war. The civil rights that should have protected Nakao’s family and other Japanese Americans were denied. The order was later officially determined to have been the result of racial prejudice and war hysteria. In her small and finely crafted book, Linford has provided a quiet but emotion-packed narrative of a period of national disgrace told through one family’s heartrending experience.

If Johnny Comes Marching Home
Elsi Vassdal Ellis

The rights of war veterans is the underlying theme of Elsi Vassdal Ellis’ If Johnny Comes Marching Home. Created during the George W. Bush presidency and still relevant today, the book asks if leaders who have never been soldiers themselves understand the true cost of war. Vassdal Ellis interweaves photographs, text, and the lyrics to the Civil War song “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” and the 19th century Irish ballad “Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye” to undertake the highly charged matter of how America treats its returning soldiers.

Wounded soldiers are far more likely to come home alive today than in past wars, and thousands have returned with devastating injuries, both physical and psychological. As the system is today, veterans face years of waiting for their benefits because of a massive backlog at the Veterans Administration.

The fifth century Athenians knew that if they voted to go to war they themselves would be the ones to fight. We have now shifted the human cost of war far beyond those who vote to pursue it, and, whether Johnny comes home or not, this small book brings this point home to us only too clearly.

Executive Order 9066
M.J. Linford