William Tsuyoshi Ishida grew up in the small town of Lindsey, Calif. His father had come first arrived in San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake and then moved to Lindsey to work on the railroad between San Francisco and Yosemite. His parents married through the 'picture bride' service, and his father raised citrus and olive trees. In 1923, when Ishida was six and his youngest brother was just one, his mother became sick from tuberculosis and passed away.
Growing up Ishida remembers being the only Japanese in his class. He hated his Japanese name "Tsuyoshi":

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I hated it because Hakujins [Caucasians] couldn't pronounce it or couldn't write it. During my grammar school days, they spelled it about a hundred different ways. What I really went by when I was going to grammar school was Tayashi, that's what they got out of it. [Oral History]
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But despite this one memory, for the most part, his childhood experience was trauma free. He skipped fifth grade, and his father pushed him into kendo, although the rigid routine and regime did not suit him.

On July 10, 1941, the Army drafted him and he went to basic training at Camp Roberts. The Army first sent him to Fort Ord with the 7th Division and he worked as a guard at the Presidio prison. Only an hour after completing his shift did he hear about the bombing of Pearl Harbor:

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The radio was blaring that the Japanese had dropped the bomb on Pearl Harbor. It was hard to believe at first. It really took about an hour or so before it really sank in that this is war. It's hard to believe. And I'm glad I wasn't in there guarding the cell when the war actually broke out and the prisoners knew about it. 'Cause all I had was a whistle. [Oral History]
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Next he worked at the Santa Rosa Fairgrounds where he "pulled" guard duty. He saw a large group of Japanese-American soldiers just "laying around, rolling around" while he had to work. For some reason, those soldiers had been pulled out of duty, but Ishida continued to work.

Around the same time, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, evicting all people of Japanese ancestry off the West Coast, and the Army brought all Japanese American soldiers in the same area to Gilroy, Calif. Army officials kept the soldiers busy by digging trenches until they decided to send them all inland to the Midwest. Ishida moved to Fort Custer, Mich., and three months later was assigned to the Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS) at Camp Savage, Minn.

As a youth, Ishida served as the president of the Young Men's Association (YMA) and had to deliver speeches in Japanese. He also attended Japanese school on Saturdays and Sundays but remembers that he was more interested in having fun than learning Japanese. 

After graduating from the MISLS, he was selected to go to the Detention Centers to recruit for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team-an all-Japanese-American infantry group. Before entering the detention camps, they had learned about the "loyalty oath" questions administered to the internees, but the recruiting soldiers did not understand the tension and hostility those questions had brought. The recruitment leaders assigned Ishida to Topaz Detention Camp in Utah. On the third night he and two Caucasian sergeants appeared before a rowdy Kibei group to give their side of the story:

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As soon as I walked in through the door, I could [feel] the tension, and I could hear them yelling in the back. [They were saying], "Nagutte yare!" [Let's get them!] But I was the only one that could understand it, so it didn't bother the others a bit. [Laughter] But anyway, they called on me to speak first, so I got up and said my piece and some of the phrases I used "Yamato damashi" [love for one's country] and all that worked in good stead because after I got through, well, they gave me a standing ovation for which I was surprised. And the other sergeants, they weren't even called on to even answer a question. Lieutenant Tracy said, "Well, what'd you say anyway? Whatever you said must have been the right thing." I tell you, I think that was about the scariest moment I had in my service life. [Laughter] I'm supposed to go in there; you don't know what's going to happen. The wrong word and there could have been a riot. [Oral History]
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After a month in Topaz Detention Camp, Ishida went to Poston to help another recruiting team. 

With the 10 other Nisei who recruited for the 442nd, Ishida left San Francisco on April 30, 1943, and 29 days later landed in New Caledonia. Despite his MISLS training, Ishida admits, "My Japanese wasn't too good.... And my writing was worse" [Oral History]. As a result, he volunteered to go to with a fighting regiment and fought through New Georgia, Bougainville, and the Philippines as a rifleman and interpreter.

While on the porch of the Malekanyan Palace in Manila the Japanese shot "tree burst" artillery over Allied troops. Falling fragments killed and injured many soldiers, and the medics needed help recovering bodies:

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The medics were doing the best they can, but they just couldn't keep up because there were so many of them. And so one guy from Signal Corps and I went and ran out there and we brought two guys in. Unfortunately, they both died. But most of them, when we got there, were already dead. That's what I got the Silver Star for. [Oral History]
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When the war ended, Ishida had been in the service for almost five years and felt it was time to go home. Although he received offers to go to serve in Japan and Korea, both with opportunities to receive a commission, he felt ready to return to his fiancˇe and family.

He returned to the United States and helped his family sharecrop sugar beets and tomatoes in Brigham City, Utah.  A year later Ishida got married and returned to California.

