"I think you had to prove yourself first and let them know this is our country - we're loyal," George Iwasaki tells CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy. 

Iwasaki never lost faith in America, even when America had no faith in him.  After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. government ordered 120,000 Japanese, more than half of them American citizens, to internment camps.

"I didn't believe it," Iwasaki said. "I was an American - I thought."...

The 442nd became one of the most decorated units in U.S. military history. On Wednesday they received one of America's highest civilian honors, the Congressional Gold Medal.