74th Memorial Day Service at Arlington National Cemetery
Sponsored By: Japanese American Citizens League (National & Washington DC Chapter), the Japanese American Veterans Association, and the National Japanese American Memorial Foundation.
Date: Sunday, May 29, 2022
Gravesite Listing:
Please review the names below and contact us at jaclwdc@gmail.com for corrections. You may also click on this link to view the listing.
On Sunday, May 29, 2022, at 10:00 a.m. (EDT), JACL DC Chapter, JACL National, Japanese American Veterans Association (JAVA), and the National Japanese American Memorial Foundation (NJAMF), in partnership with the Kobayashi family. will be sponsoring the annual Memorial Day Service at Arlington National Cemetery (ANC) in the Columbarium Ceremonial Courtyard.
This will be the 74th consecutive memorial service honoring our fallen heroes. The theme of this year’s service is “Defending Our Freedoms in Adversity.” The keynote speaker will be Dr. James McNaughton. He served as an Army civilian and as the command historian for the US European Command, for the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, and for the US Army Pacific. He is the author of “Nisei Linguists: Japanese Americans in the Military Intelligence Service during World War II.” We will also welcome Thomas Kruhlak, an 11-year-old, 5th grader from Spark M. Matsunaga Elementary School in Germantown, Maryland to deliver remarks about honoring the service and sacrifice of our veterans and their families. In addition, a special tribute will be made honoring COL Jimmie Kanaya, a veteran of World War II (442nd RCT), the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.
At the conclusion of the memorial service, the participants and organizers will fan out across ANC and place flowers and offer our heartfelt gratitude at the nearly 100 identified gravesites. This supplements the annual custom of soldiers placing American flags at the tombs of the over 400,000 who are interred at ANC.
Below is the list of individuals who the organizations will remember at ANC with a gravesite visit, and you can also use this link. If you have a loved one, friend, or colleagues missing from the list, please contact us at jaclwdc@gmail.com, and we will make sure that they are added to the list and properly honored. If you would like to contribute to the cost of the flowers honoring our fallen heroes, please visit the JACL DC website and make a note that your donation is for the Memorial Day service.
Besides the official Memorial Day and Veterans Day services held at ANC, this Memorial Day observation is the longest, continuous annual event held at ANC. Key Kobayashi, Military Intelligence Service veteran and one of the JAVA founders, along with the JACL DC Chapter began the Memorial Day gravesite decoration program in 1948. When Key passed away in 1992, his family continued the tradition, with son Turner Kobayashi currently serving as coordinator.
All are invited to attend the program at Arlington. Attendees should plan on arriving by 9:30 a.m. to clear security.
The program will also be live-streamed on JAVA’s Facebook feed at 10:00 a.m. EDT, 7:00 a.m. PDT, and 4:00 a.m. HST and posted on the JAVA website https://www.java-us.org/.
For more information, please visit the sponsors’ websites:
Japanese American Veterans Association, https://www.java-us.org/, or contact Neet Ford, Executive Director, at javapotomac@gmail.com
National Japanese American Memorial Foundation, https://www.njamemorial.org, or contact Linda Adams, at njamfdirector@gmail.com
Japanese American Citizens League, DC Chapter, JACL DC, or contact Kim Hirose Tobe, at jaclwdc@gmail.com
Japanese American Citizens League, National, https://jacl.org/, contact Alex Shinkawa, at policy@jacl.org
JACL DC 