“A fascinating, chilling account.
“Muller weaves government records, trial transcripts and the recollections of a dozen surviving draft resisters . . . into a compelling story of young men thrown together by wartime, another ‘band of brothers’ who fought for principle. . . . A model of engaged scholarship.”
— Peter Irons, The Washington Post
A Washington Post Top Nonfiction Title of 2001
In the spring of 1942, the federal government forced West Coast Japanese Americans into confinement on suspicion of disloyalty. Two years later, after stripping them of their livelihoods, liberty, and dignity, the government demanded even more by drafting them into the same military that had been guarding them as subversives. Most of these American citizens grudgingly complied with the draft, but several hundred refused and practiced a different sort of patriotism — the patriotism of protest.
This is their story.
Praise for Free to Die for their Country
“The period covered by the experience of the men whose stories are told in this moving account constitutes one of the darkest moments in the history of the United States. . . . In this climate of hate, many felt the necessity of stepping forward to volunteer for service in the military to prove their loyalty to the United States. These men for the most part carried out their military obligations with much courage and valor. However . . . I believe that it took just as much courage and valor and patriotism to stand up to our government and say ‘you are wrong.’”
— from the foreword by Senator Daniel K. Inouye
“In this splendid contribution to the history of World War II, Free to Die for their Country reveals, through the voices of Japanese American draft resisters, the diverse expressions of patriotism and the sometimes competing claims of liberty and fairness in the law.”
— Gary Y. Okihiro, author of Whispered Silences: Japanese Americans and World War II
“In a beautifully written, gripping account, Eric Muller tells the astonishing and little-known story of how, in the liberal, humane administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the United States government herded Japanese American citizens into concentration camps, then ordered them to report for induction into the armed services in World War II, and, when they resisted, threw them into prison. It is an appalling tale, but Muller shows that from the perspective of the law, it is not so easy to sort good from evil.”
— William E. Leuchtenberg, author of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal