When Kazuo Komoto was eight years old his parents sent him to Yokohama, Japan to live with his grandparents for over 10 years. At the time, all Japanese high school boys had to train in the Reserve Officer's Training Corp (ROTC) and he learned about the strict and often abusive style of discipline Japanese officers inflicted on their soldiers. After his nineteenth birthday he decided to return to his family in Parlier, Calif., in 1938. Three years later the U.S. Army drafted him, and he went to Camp Roberts for basic training. Col. Kai Rasmussen interviewed him and asked him to attend the Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS), but at the time Komoto only wanted to serve his two years of duty and then leave, so he refused. A few months later he received papers that sent him to Camp Savage, Minn., to join the first class of MIS to be trained in Minnesota:

> I kind of hated to fight against my parent's country, but since I was in the U.S. Army, I felt that if I had to, I had to. [Oral History]

While Komoto, the eldest of six brothers and sisters, trained in the Army, one of his brothers was studying engineering in Japan and was trapped there until the end of the war. The rest of Komoto's family was forced into Gila River Detention Camp in Arizona. Throughout the war Komoto worried that the Japanese army might have forced his brother into the military and that they might meet each other in the war.
In March 1943 Komoto landed on Guadalcanal, where the division headquarters for the South Pacific were located. He led a team of 10 MIS linguists. In July they received an order that requested that two men be sent with a dangerous landing on New Georgia. Komoto's captain assigned two linguists to the mission, but one of the men wanted to go to the Officer Candidate School and Komoto volunteered to take his place. Three days into the landing operation, he was sitting in his foxhole with another linguist when a sniper perched in a coconut tree hit Komoto in his right knee.
Sent by hospital ship, Komoto ended up on a hospital in Fiji. The captain of the hospital surprised him with the announcement that First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt would be visiting the hospital:

> When I was in the hospital in Fiji Islands, Mrs. Roosevelt visited me. I was in bed with my wound. And she says, "What can I do for you?" I says, "Well, there isn't anything you can do for me," but I told her I think it's wrong for the government to put my folks in the camp. And here I am, wounded in a hospital. And she said, it's not right, but the president is doing the best he can. And I just let it go at that. [Uncommon Courage]

Much later he realized that his anger had gotten the best of him, and he had not been respectful to the First Lady; every other patient had sat up in bed to greet her while Komoto lay down during their entire conversation. Later, the Army moved him to a general hospital in Modesto, Calif. where he continued to recover from his leg injury.
During his time in the Pacific, he had accrued thirty days of work furlough. After he recovered from his wound, he visited Gila River Detention Camp where his family was detained.
Komoto received orders to lead a platoon of men to the European Theater, but after asking for help from the MISLS Director, John Aiso, he returned to Camp Savage to teach for two months. He soon realized, however, that he belonged back on the frontline, not in the classroom, and volunteered for combat.
Chosen as the team leader, Komoto felt that one of his responsibilities was to fight for the rights of the Japanese-American men. On the night before they shipped out of San Francisco an officer would not allow the MIS men off the boat. All of the other members of the ship left, and Komoto felt like they were getting a "raw deal" and confronted the officer. The officer relented and Komoto's team of 10 men enjoyed Chinese food in Chinatown on their last night in the United States.
On his second campaign, Komoto sailed to New Delhi, India, and then was assigned to Mars Task Force in Burma. Despite catching malaria and typhus while trekking through the jungle, he rarely encountered Japanese troops and never had to conduct an interrogation. When he returned to the Southeast Asia Translation Interrogation Center (SEATIC), he worked on a few documents and short assignments, but for the most part did not use his Japanese language ability to its fullest.
In July 1945, the Army offered him a commission, an upgrade in rank, with one condition-he must serve for one more year. The memory of his injury reminded him of how close he had come to dying and he decided it would be better to return home as quickly as possible. He refused the commission and returned to the United States.