Page 8 - Access 2021

NAKAMURA HONORS
BY DOUG HOAGLAND
JAPANESE-AMERICAN HERITAGE WITH service to country
A violent explosion slammed Navy corpsman Michael Nakamura into the dirt floor of a brick factory in Afghanistan. The blast from an enemy IED (Improvised Explosive Device) sent sharp pieces of brick flying and filled the room with choking dust.
AN EERIE SILENCE FELL OVER THE SCENE.
Nakamura – “Doc Nak” to the Marines in his platoon – responded instinctively after his body absorbed the concussion of the blast. Jumping to his feet, he shouted: “Is everyone OK? Give me a head count!” Thankfully, no member of the scout sniper team was killed in the November 2009 incident in Helmand Province, called by many “the wild, wild west of Af- ghanistan.”
After the IED went off, Nakamura and the Marines – many of them sufferingblast-inducedheadaches–engagedtheenemyinafire- fight and then continued on patrol for several days. “We all just sucked it up,” says Nakamura, who as a trained marksman also fought in combat alongside the Marines.
After serving in Afghanistan, he deployed to Libya and the South Pacific with one constant to his health: he suffered repeated mi- graines. But his commitment to sacrifice and service remained strong. In 2014, Nakamura received the diagnosis of traumatic brain injury resulting from the IED blast. “People have misper- ceptions about that diagnosis,” he says. “I was highly functional. I didn’t have any learning problems from the injury. I had visual problems, but I overcame those.”
His medical condition reached a crisis in 2018 when he started a new assignment on a destroyer. On board, Nakamura repeatedly fell down and ran into things because his balance was off. In 2019, the Navy medically retired him.
Nakamura 34, had persevered for a decade – overcoming obstacles with the same spirit that his paternal grandparents exem- plified during and after World
II. One family. Two different times in American history. Bound together by a dedica- tion to living honorably.
8 California State University, F R E S N O