Boy Scout Troop 325
Scoutmaster Minute
The Legacy Of Scouting
February 4, 2003
George Denise, Scoutmaster

Many of you know I am a commercial property manager. My company manages commercial office buildings for their owners. Currently, I manage Adobe Systems headquarters buildings in downtown San Jose. A few years ago, however, I managed a property in South San Francisco, Oyster Point Marina Plaza. The owner of this property was a Japanese corporation. They had an owner representative at the property that I reported to. He was an interesting person, so I want to tell you a little bit of his story.

His name is Stan Aoyagi. His parents were from Japan, but he was born in this country. He was born and raised in Alameda, as a matter of fact; right across the bay from San Francisco. At the start of World War II, he was attending Alameda High School. During the war, most Japanese families were rounded up and taken to internment camps for protection, partly because we were thought that many of the Japanese still worshipped the Emperor of Japan and we were afraid they might be disloyal to the United States, and partly to protect them from those who might let their hatred for Japan spill over as hatred for Japanese Americans and do them harm.

Stan and his family were sent to a camp in Idaho, where he finished high school and graduated. When he graduated from high school, Stan joined the United States Army. Because he was of Japanese ancestry, they felt he would be of value working with Japanese prisoners of war, so the Army sent him to school to learn to speak Japanese. Then he was sent to the Philippines to work with prisoners of war. On the trim across the Pacific, the war ended. Stan's ship changed course, and Stan became part of the American forces occupying Japan. Eventually, Stan finished his service and came home, however, he had made many contacts, and had helped to develop the new democratic government that the United States created for Japan at the end of the war. One of the contacts he made was management personnel with Japan Airlines. They contacted Stan, offered him a job, and he worked for them for the next 47 years. Then he semi-retired and went to work for Okamoto, one of Japan's largest boilermakers. They had purchased the office building I was managing in South San Francisco and they wanted Stan to be their representative; my company would manage the building, we would report to Stan, and Stan would in turn report to the owners in Japan. It worked out well, we had a lot of successes, and Stan and I became pretty good friends. We worked together for about five years, before I was promoted and transferred away.

Oh, the other part of the story. Stan was a lifelong supporter of Scouting. Stan had been a member of a Boy Scout Troop in Alameda, and later, they formed a troop in the internment camp in Idaho. Stan always felt the values he had learned in Scouting were the values that stayed with him. They were part of what gave him courage and kept him going through growing up in Alameda, in the internment camp, and during the war. Stan was a strong supporter of Scouting, and he donated several thousand dollars each year to different areas of Scouting, including several thousand dollars to this troop over those five years, providing funds for Scouts for summer camp, International Rendezvous, and World Jamboree for Scouts who couldn't afford the full cost.

I just thought you should know about Stan. In that sense, he was and is a part of our troop.

Thank you, and may God be with you.