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(Florence, Italy) As part of his ongoing effort to honor the American servicemen and women who gave their lives during World War II, U.S. Senator Larry Craig paid his respects Wednesday to the more than 5,800 Americans buried and memorialized near the Italian city of Florence.

While at the American Battle Monuments Commission's cemetery in north-central Italy, Craig highlighted the story of Setsuro Yamashita. He was a Japanese American who was forced from his home in Seattle at the start of World War II and relocated to a barbed-wire enclosed detention camp near Burley, Idaho.

"Setsuro Yamashita and his family and friends had done nothing wrong. They were not criminals but they were treated as such. Despite that wrong-doing by his government, Setsuro Yamashita did a remarkable thing. He volunteered to fight for his country. He could have remained unjustly confined at the Minidoka Internment Camp and no one would have thought less of him. But today he is a hero," said Craig, the top Republican on the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

"His buddies called him ‘Sets' and he became a member of one of the greatest fighting forces the U.S. Army ever had - the famed 442nd Combat Unit, which was composed entirely of Americans of Japanese ancestry. He landed on the battlefields of Italy and died after volunteering to take the point, leading a 300 man unit into action against entrenched German forces. Today, on behalf of his sergeant, Tommy Tamagawa, I did what Tommy asked and stopped by Sets' grave and told him that Tommy says hello," said Craig, the top Republican on the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

The internment camp in Idaho that Setsuro lived at was one of ten such facilities built in the United States after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. An estimated 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry - of whom 70,000 were American citizens by birth - were sent to such camps. Of the Japanese interned in Idaho, nearly 800 joined the U.S. military during the Second World War.

Sen. Craig has recently introduced legislation - the Minidoka National Historic Site Act of 2007 - which will include the Nidoto Nai Yoni (Let it not happen again) memorial. It commemorates the courageous Japanese Americans of Bainbridge Island, Washington, who were the first to be forcibly removed from their homes and relocated to internment camps during World War II.

"The fact that great men like Setsuro Yamashita rest forever on-guard in Europe reminds us of the great battle for freedom that occurred on the battlefields of Italy. His sacrifice also reminds us of the important healing which is still taking place in the great state of Idaho," Craig said.

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