Paul Takeo Bannai was born in July 1920 in Delta, Colorado, to Japanese parents. His grandfather got into the coal mining business, but his parents decided to be farmers. They decided to farm near Grand Juncture, Colorado. He had a typical childhood, including going to school. His father decided to go into the coal mining business, so the family moved to Utah. Coal mining was dangerous and Bannai's grandfather was killed in a mining incident in Provo, Utah. After his father was involved in a cave-in Utah, the family moved to east Los Angelas, California. He thinks the Great Depression affected his family because his father kept changing jobs. In California, his father worked as a tofu manufacturer. The family bought a home within walking distance of his schools. After graduating high school, Bannai started looking for work in banks. It was difficult to find a job because the banks would not hire Asians. Finally, he got a job at a bank in Little Tokyo. He helped the bank gain Japanese business, which helped him rise in the company.

When the war started, Paul Takeo Bannai registered for the draft, hoping to fight for his country. He was not called up for the draft, but was told he was now considered an enemy alien and could not serve. He was then evacuated to a relocation center, or concentration camp. His family went to the first camp between Los Angeles [Annotator's Note: Los Angeles, California] and Reno [Annotator’s Note: Reno, Nevada]. Bannai did not go with his family. He decided to stay at the bank until he was sent away. He was the last person able to enter the camp his family was in. He still wanted to serve in the Army, so he worked on ways to get into the military. He heard about the attack at Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] on the radio while working in Little Tokyo. The people there were affected by the news. He was angry about the attack. He found out about a camp near Monterey, California, that would train Japanese-Americans to fight in the war. He found out there were Japanese-Americans helping fight in Attu and Kiska [Annotator's Note: both islands are in Alaska's Aleutian Island chain]. They interrogated prisoners and read Japanese intelligence. Bannai did not want to stay in the internment camp, so he asked the camp leader if he could get him out. Instead, some of the internees, including Bannai, were sent to Idaho to work as farm labor.

Paul Takeo Bannai decided to go to Washington D.C. to lobby for the inclusion of Japanese-Americans in the military. He failed to lobby Congress. He then went to the Pentagon, because there were Japanese-Americans in the military going to the Pacific, however the military commanders did not want them. The Pentagon told Bannai to go to Camp Shelby, Mississippi where a unit might be formed. Bannai also asked to be considered for a change from 4C [Annotator's Note: Selective Service classification indicating that the individual is an enemy alien] to 1A [Annotator's Note: Selective Service classification indicating that the individual is fit for military service]. While he was at Camp Shelby, his status was changed, and Hawaiian troops started showing up for service. Bannai became friends with Daniel Inouye and Spark Matsunaga, both of whom became senators after the war. The first unit from Hawaii became the 442 [Annotator's Note: 442nd Regimental Combat Team]. The next unit created was the 522nd Field Artillery, which Bannai trained with. He then heard that more Japanese-Americans in camps [Annotator's Note: internment camps] were being drafted into these new Japanese-American units. These units were being sent to Europe, not the Pacific. Bannai, however, did not leave with his unit, instead he was sent to Camp Savage, Minnesota, where he was taught Japanese. The Military Intelligence Service was serving all over the Pacific Theater. He told his commander he did not want to learn Japanese, but acquiesced to the order. Bannai's commander of the school was a friend of his from California, so he helped Bannai a lot. He would study in the latrine because it was the only light on at night. His first station was a military police academy in Illinois, where a unit was preparing to ship out to the Pacific. Bannai deployed from San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California] to Australia, where he joined a unit called ATIS, Allied Translator and Interpreter Service.

Paul Bannai joined the Allied Translator Interpreter Service [Annotator's Note: referred to as ATIS], which served all over the Far East. In Australia, he learned about the Japanese Army, which led him to be transferred to General MacArthur's [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area] command in New Guinea. He was sent to work with an Australian unit, where he wore an Australian uniform. He landed in Borneo with the Australians. There were a lot of forests on Borneo, making it difficult to see the Japanese until they were very close. He saved several Australians while he was with them, earning himself some British medals, but he turned them down. He was mentioned in an Australian book. When Bannai finished working with the Australians, MacArthur decided to keep him with American forces. His next task was to covertly land in various places in the Philippines. He was looking for good places for invasion forces to land. The Filipinos would help him in his mission. He landed with a group of Americans on Tacloban [Annotator's Note: Tacloban, Philippines] to captured the local airport. The Air Force and the Navy both used the island as an airbase and a port. It was supposed to be used in the invasion of Japan. Bannai was in Tacloban when the war ended. He was then sent to Japan for occupation duty. When he landed on Tacloban with the Americans, the Filipinos helped them except with active fighting.

Paul Bannai interrogated Japanese soldiers and read Japanese documents during the war. When the war ended, Bannai was sent to Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan] to help bring normalcy to the Okinawans. He saw them living in caves with little food. He stayed on the island for two or three weeks before going to Tokyo [Annotator's Note: Tokyo, Japan]. He traveled around Japan trying to bring the country back to normal. The greatest damage was in the two atomic blast sites [Annotator's Note: Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan]. He wanted the Japanese people to know the United States would help them rebuild. The atomic blasts totally destroyed the cities they hit. At first, Bannai found the Japanese people reluctant to believe the United States would help them. It was harder in some places because some of the Japanese still saw the United States as the enemy. He saw evidence that the Japanese people would have fought the Americans if the invasion happened. Bannai thinks being able to move around the Pacific and fight the enemy was memorable. He also believes that learning Japanese to help the United States was a good thing. He thinks what the Army taught him and how the war was conducted was valuable. He thinks the Japanese-Americans proved themselves as Americans, despite the prejudices against them at the start of the war.

While Paul Bannai was in Japan, he knew his family would be able to leave their internment camp. He was given permission to return to the United States. When he returned, he immediately helped find them a home and work. After some time, he found himself a job. He was emotional when he got back to his family. It did not take Bannai long to feel like a normal American again. Bannai became involved in politics after the war. He and a high school friend settled in Gardena, California, where a large Japanese-American community was living. They both ran for the city council. Because Bannai was a Republican [Annotator's Note: American political party], Ronald Reagan [Annotator's Note: Ronald W. Reagan, 40th President of the United States] called him to discuss his gubernatorial race. Bannai helped Reagan become Governor of California. Afterwards, Reagan called him and urged him to run for the assembly of Gardena. Reagan helped him win the campaign. Bannai ran, and won, four times. He bought a house in Sacramento [Annotator's Note: Sacramento, California] and would drive back and forth to Gardena. In 1980, Reagan asked Bannai to help him in his presidential campaign, which he did. Reagan asked Bannai to join him in Washington D.C., so Bannai moved to the city and worked on the Wartime Commission for the Relocation and Internment of Civilians. While working on the assembly, Bannai lobbied Congress to help those that had been interned during the war. During the commission hearings, Bennai served as the executive director in Seattle, Washington, San Francisco and Los Angeles [Annotator's Note: both in California], as well as Alaska. He took the testimonies of people who were interned. The report he gave to Congress paved the way for reparations to be sent to Japanese-Americans interned during the war. The President also gave a formal apology to those that had been interned. Bannai believes that things can change through government action. He believes kids should learn about World War 2 because it still affects the way we live today. The war changed him a lot because of his race and how he was treated by the government. He wants future people to know it is important to do things for people that make life better for everyone.