Welcome back to the Learn English Podcast, the podcast teaching English in context so you can learn naturally.
On this podcast, we like to focus on English vocabulary, American history, and American culture.
On today's episode, we're going to talk about all three things.
That is because today is Veterans Day.
If you're listening or watching to this episode when it comes out, Veterans Day is today.
It's a day to celebrate and honor the people who have served in the military in the United States.
Last year, I actually did an episode on the history of Veterans Day and how it's celebrated.
If you're watching on YouTube, I'm going to leave an iCard for you so you can check that episode out if you're interested.
On today's episode, I want to honor veterans while also telling you about an English idiom that comes from a very particular military unit.
That unit is the 442nd Regimental Combat Unit that was formed during World War II.
This unit is special for a number of reasons that I'm going to tell you about in this episode.
One of the things that they're known for is using a particular idiom that we still use today.
That is to go for broke.
Have you heard someone say that before?
Have you heard the phrase, go for broke?
Do you know what I mean if I tell you that I'm going to go for broke?
Well, if you are interested in learning about the history of this phrase, this particular combat unit that adopted it as its slogan and what this phrase means when a native speaker says it, then follow along because we're about to begin.
A quick reminder before we begin that if you look in the description of this podcast episode and of our previous podcast episodes, you will find a vocabulary list.
This is a list of the words and phrases that I use in the episode so you can take these terms, start studying them and hopefully start using them yourself.
Now let's talk about this particular combat team.
This is the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and it was formed during World War II.
Now, in order to understand what makes this team so special, we need to talk about World War II and America's history in this war.
When the war first started in Europe, the United States did not enter into the war.
There were a lot of people in the United States who were isolationists.
What an isolationist is, is someone who wants to stay isolated, someone who does not want to get involved in foreign wars and foreign conflict.
And a lot of people in the United States were isolationists.
They knew that the war was occurring in Europe but they did not want to get involved.
There was a naval base in Hawaii that was called Pearl Harbor and there were navy vessels, navy ships in that particular harbor.
Like I said, the United States was not involved with World War II.
However, on the morning of December 7th, there was a surprise attack.
The Japanese forces bombed Pearl Harbor and did a military strike against the United States.
2 ,403 people died, including 68 civilians and that changed the course of the war.
The United States joined the Allied forces to fight against the German and Japanese forces because of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Because the attack was by the Japanese forces, the people who were of Japanese descent in the United States came under suspicion.
That means that people started to be fearful of them, to be angry at them, even though they had nothing to do with the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
This is a sad part of American history but an important part of American history.
What happened was there was an order that anyone who was of Japanese descent had to get taken, removed from their home and put into an internment camp.
There were camps across the United States and the military came and took people who were of Japanese ancestry and put them in these camps.
One of the most famous people who was put in these camps was the actor George Takei.
If you have watched Star Trek, the original Star Trek, he is Sulu on the show and in the movies and he was one of the people who was interned with his family during World War II.
So this is one of the sad parts, was that Japanese -American citizens were taken and put in these camps even though a lot of them didn't speak Japanese.
A lot of them had never been to Japan.
They were American citizens but they were put in this camp because of the suspicion and the racism after the Pearl Harbor attack.
These people were in these camps and people who were of Japanese ancestry were not able to be in the armed forces at the beginning of the war.
The United States, like I said, joined in 1941 after the Pearl Harbor attack.
But after a few years, there were a lot of losses.
A lot of people, sadly, were injured or killed during the fighting of World War II.
With those losses, the United States started realizing that they needed more men.
They needed more soldiers to help them with the war effort.
And in 1943, two years after the United States joined the war, people of Japanese ancestry were allowed to join the armed forces, were allowed to join the military.
In Hawaii, there are a number of people who have Asian ancestry, who are of Asian descent.
If you go to Hawaii, you will see this.
You will see that there are a lot of people who are Asian Americans.
And what happened was, when people of Japanese ancestry were allowed to join the military, a lot of people from Hawaii willingly signed up.
They wanted to prove that they were American citizens, that they were patriotic, and they wanted to help America with their war effort.
The internment camps, however, were on the mainland, which means the part when you think of the United States that does not include Hawaii, where the internment camps were located.
And the people in the internment camps were more hesitant to sign up.
They didn't sign up as willingly as people from Hawaii did.
There were still people who did sign up.
There were some people who thought maybe their families would be treated better if they signed up for the military.
There were some people who still wanted to prove that they were loyal American citizens, that they didn't belong in this internment camp.
And so, some people did sign up from the internment camp, and a lot of people signed up from the State of Hawaii, or what we now call the State of Hawaii.
The 442nd Regimental Combat Team was a team that was created solely for people who were of Japanese ancestry.
The United States forces at that time were segregated.
I've talked about segregation on previous episodes, like in our first Martin Luther King episode that I did.
What segregation means is that you separate people based on race.
Because the United States forces were segregated, there were African American units, there were white units, and the 442nd became the Japanese American unit.
These were people who, at the time, were called nisei.
We don't use that term now, but what that meant was that people who had parents who had immigrated from Japan, they were born in the United States, they were American citizens, but maybe their parents were immigrants.
And they're the ones who made up this combat team.
Now because of the racism, because of the suspicion after the Pearl Harbor attack, they had a lot to prove.
They really wanted to prove that they were American citizens, that they were patriotic, and that they would be good soldiers.
For this reason, they really wanted to show that they were going to be a good fighting force, and they adopted the slogan, Go for Broke.
Go for Broke was originally associated with betting and playing dice, and I think if you have watched a poker game when someone says that they're going all in, and they push all of the chips on the table, that's very similar to Go for Broke.
So Go for Broke, when it came to betting, meant that you would go all in, that you would risk a lot of money and hopefully you would have a high reward.
They adopted this slogan because they wanted to fight really hard.
They wanted to do a really good job, risk a lot, but hopefully bring a lot of honor to their unit.
And they were successful in that regard.
The 442nd unit was the most decorated unit in proportion to its size and length of service in the U .S.
military. Some of the battles they fought in included in the mountains of Italy.
They fought against the Gothic line, which was the last line of German fortifications, and they helped break through that line and allowed the Allied forces to liberate Italy from the Nazis.
They also fought in Germany, for example in the Rhine Valley, where they helped push the German forces back across the Rhine River.
And in the south of France, they fought in the operation of Dragoon that fought across the south of France and eventually met with the forces that were invading the beaches of Normandy.
The most famous battle that they fought in is now referred to as the Lost Battalion.
There was a battalion of American forces that were completely surrounded by German forces.
That is why they were referred to as the Lost Battalion because they were completely surrounded and they did not have a way to escape.
The 442nd Regiment came in and their goal was to help save this Lost Battalion.
The battle took 5 days to push through the German forces and the 442nd had 800 casualties.
That includes people who were killed, injured, or missing after the battle.
All of this was to save a battalion of 211 white American soldiers and it showed how courageous the 442nd were and how much they sacrificed.
They sacrificed 800 men to try to save this unit that was completely surrounded by the Germans.
Like I said, the 442nd is one of the most decorated units in U .S.
military history and this term really did symbolize their attitude when they were fighting in the war.
There was a lot for them to lose.
There was a lot of prejudice, a lot of racism, a lot of people did not want them to be in the military and wanted them to fail.
And of course, they could also get injured or lose their lives being in these battles during the war.
However, there was also a lot for them to gain.
They wanted to prove themselves.
They wanted to show that they were patriotic Americans, that they were just as American as anyone else and they wanted to show how courageous and brave they could be during these battles.
Now like I said, the term go for broke is still something that we use.
It is still an idiom that is in use in the United States.
And when we say this term go for broke, we're still referring back to the original meaning.
It still has this meaning of risking a lot and hopefully winning a high reward.
When someone says that they are going for broke or when they use this term go for broke, they don't necessarily mean betting, even though the history of this phrase comes from a betting phrase and even though it was used in World War II, the meaning now can be more general.
It still means that you are risking a lot in pursuit of a goal, but that goal could really be anything.
So let's talk about how to use this in conversation, how you can use this in a sentence.
Let's say that you know someone who is starting their own business.
They quit their current job and they decide to become an entrepreneur.
They decide to start their own business.
What you can say is that person is going for broke.
That means that they are risking a lot.
They gave up their job, they're putting all of their money and all of their attention into starting this new business and that is very risky.
We know a lot of businesses don't survive, a lot of people fail when they try to start a new business so this is a very risky thing for that person to do.
However, they could also be really successful.
A lot of people do end up making money from business and so maybe this person is going to be successful and make money and become this great business person or maybe they're not.
So you can say that they are going for broke, they're putting everything into this business and maybe hopefully it'll work out for them.
You also hear this term a lot in sports.
If a team is losing and it is near the end of the game, you will hear the commentators say that a team is going for broke.
If a team is going for broke near the end of a game, that means they are really trying to win.
They are doing everything possible to try to win.
So let's think of a situation.
Let's say that the world cup is going on and it is the elimination rounds of the world cup.
Whoever loses is out of the tournament.
And let's say that one team is down by a goal.
So they have to score a goal in order to get the score to be tied, in order to keep playing.
So they are going to attack with everything they have.
They have everyone attacking.
They push the goalie up even to take a corner kick.
When they're taking a corner kick, the goalie is up there.
They are doing everything they possibly can to win this game.
That means they're going for broke.
They could end up scoring and tying the game and allowing for more time and not getting eliminated right away.
That would be the reward.
But the risk is that they have everyone attacking and they're open to be attacked on.
They're open for someone to score.
If you have your goalie up during a corner kick, no one is in the goal.
And so if something goes wrong, if it doesn't work out and the other team gets the ball, they might be able to score a goal.
And that would be the end of the game.
There's no way that you would be able to score two goals to get it to be tied up.
So it is a very risky situation.
But it's also a high reward situation.
You might be able to score and tie it, or you might risk everything and fail.
That would be an example of going for broke.
So when a team is in the situation, you will hear the commentator say that the team is going for broke to try to score, which means they are risking everything to try to score and tie up the game.
You can also hear people say this with their personal lives and with their own personal goals.
If you're trying to get into school and you're putting everything into your studies and you're trying to get into just one particular university, you can say that you're going for broke and just trying to get into one particular university instead of applying to multiple universities.
If you're making a project, let's say you're making a film and you're paying for the film yourself.
You don't have a studio that's giving you money and you're having to pay for everything yourself, but you're hoping that you can end up selling it to a studio and making your money back.
That's a very risky situation.
Someone could say that you're going for broke on the film or you could say, I'm going for broke with this film project.
You're risking everything and hoping for a reward later.
And those are all just examples.
Any time that you risk a lot but have a chance of winning a lot, you can use this phrase, going for broke.
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
I hope you learned a little bit about the 442nd.
They are an important unit in American military history.
They don't seem to get the attention that I think they deserve, so I really wanted to talk about this particular unit.
And of course, I wanted to do it in a way that you could practice your listening comprehension and learn some more English vocabulary.
A reminder to look at the description of this podcast episode.
You can find the vocabulary list of the words and phrases that I used during this episode.
That way you can study them and start improving your vocabulary.
If you enjoyed this episode, if you found it interesting, please let me know.
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Do you like hearing about American history?
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