A Youth Exchange student from Japan proves to a close-knit Utah family that a simple hug can work magic.
by Alan Steinberg
Every true Rotarian has a story to tell, a defining moment that captures the essence of Rotary. In this issue we offer another installment of "Rotary story," a regular feature in which individuals describe how the hands-on experience of being a Rotarian -- putting Service Above Self -- has affected their lives.
Rotary entered Danny Brock's life by making him an offer he simply couldn't refuse.
In 1988, members of the Rotary Club of Bountiful, Utah, USA, recruited Brock, then a 30-year-old Boy Scout leader and co-owner of a skylight manufacturing company, to join a Group Study Exchange (GSE) team bound for Scotland. Six weeks later, Brock filed an impassioned trip report that captured the essence of GSE: to promoting goodwill by exposing young professionals to different cultures. His report prompted the District 5420 governor to invite him to join the nearby Rotary Club of Centerville-Farmington and to offer him a seat on the district's GSE committee, a prestigious appointment for someone so young. (Not surprisingly, at age 44, he would become the third-youngest district governor for Rotary year 2001-02. He's now a member of the Rotary Club of Salt Lake City.)
"Before that Scotland trip," Brock says, "I thought Rotary was out of my league. I thought it was reserved for the McDonnells and Douglases."
The reference resonates from his childhood in Huntington Beach, Calif., near Long Beach, where his father built airplanes for McDonnell-Douglas Aircraft. "Dad's a premier giver," he says. "Since he knew Rotary was the premier service club, he always wanted to join." But, Brock says, the local clubs never seemed to have any vacancies "so when Rotary asked me to join, I did it, in a way, for my dad."
But even though his father, Charlie, was never a Rotarian, he still would play a major role in a family experience that demonstrated, as Brock puts it, "Rotary's phenomenal power to change people's lives."
In 1991, Brock and his wife, Kelly, a labor and delivery nurse, volunteered to host a 17-year-old Rotary Youth Exchange student from Japan. But there was one potential problem.
Charlie Brock had been drafted into the U.S. Army immediately after Japanese warplanes attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, plunging the United States into World War II. Two years later, as a member of the U.S. Army's 81st "Wildcat" Infantry Division, he was huddled on a landing craft headed toward the South Pacific island of Angar. They were to occupy the island and build an airstrip. When his outfit hit the sand, 250 soldiers piled out, believing the island to be abandoned. As they advanced inland, they found phosphorous mines carved into the hills. Suddenly, a dozen flatbed railroad cars emerged from the mine entrances, each carrying Japanese soldiers firing heavy machine guns. Under withering fire, Charlie Brock hauled wounded comrades one at a time back to the beach until he finally passed out from his own injuries.
Only later did he learn he was one of the few survivors. His actions earned him a Bronze Star for bravery and three Purple Hearts for his wounds. But his emotional scars would linger much longer.
"Fast-forward to 1991," says Brock, "and me telling my folks: 'We're hosting a Japanese boy.' My dad said, 'He will never set foot in my house.'
"I never knew this man to say an unkind word about anyone, so I was stunned," Brock admits. But he also understood, recalling the many times his father would wake up screaming from nightmares of the war. For the elder Brock, the Japanese were "the enemy," and he made sure the family never owned Japanese-made cars, electronics or other products.
"And here I was asking him to welcome a Japanese boy into his home," says Brock. "I told him this kid didn't know anything about that war, but he wouldn't budge." On the day the student was to arrive, Brock gave it one more try, asking his father if he realized that unless he changed his mind, the student would spend his entire time in Utah without ever setting foot in the home of his host family's parents.
At that, Brock says, his father paused and said: "'Son, bring him over. Don't stop at your home, don't stop at the store, bring him right here. I want to see him.'"
"I was dumbfounded," Brock says.
Brock describes the student, Hoyu Shimamura, as a "wonderful boy" who had been taught that American family members hug each other and call grandparents Grandma and Grandpa. Sure enough, when Brock and his wife arrived with Hoyu, the youth immediately greeted Brock's parents with big hugs and cries of "Grandpa! Grandma!"
Brock and his wife braced themselves for his parents' reaction. "And then my dad said calmly, 'Okay, let's eat,'" Brock recalls. "I watched my parents walk -- with Hoyu between them -- into the kitchen. Kelly started sobbing and I almost lost it. I always prayed that my dad would find peace someday -- and here's this Japanese boy bringing him that peace. I asked my dad later that day why he relented, and he said he was tired of the hate and anger he'd carried all these years."
Brock remembers his wife asking him if he grasped "what just happened here because of Rotary?"
Hoyu stayed with the Brocks for five months -- and Charlie Brock hasn't had a nightmare since. "I don't think thousands of dollars worth of psychological help could've worked this magic," Brock surmises. "Here this loving kid from Japan shows up and, in an instant, heals a wound of 50 years and changes my family's entire life?"
Attributing the "magic" to Rotary, Brock and his wife seized service opportunities with renewed vigor. For example, Kelly, now a member of the Centerville-Farmington club, has visited Africa three times on Rotary projects. She is most committed to the Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, run by Australian surgeon Catherine Hamlin. The facility treats young mothers -- many in their early teens -- who develop obstetric fistula, an injury in which the fetus tears a hole in the birth canal, often causing chronic incontinence. Even though it's a condition linked to poor prenatal care and the young age of the mothers, such women are stigmatized and often abandoned by their husbands and families. Fortunately, a relatively simple surgical procedure can repair the damage and the women can return to normal lives. Dr. Hamlin's surgical team helps more than 1,000 women each year.
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