As the roll was called yesterday, the proud veterans, some 600 strong, formed a procession — led by the same man who led them 65 years ago.

Some hobbled along with canes. Others were in wheelchairs. Still others walked slowly, their backs straight and tall, behind their chapter pennants carried by their grandsons or sons and daughters at the 65th anniversary banquet of the formation of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

Their leader then and yesterday was retired Col. Bert Nishimura, 89. A picture taken at 'Iolani Palace on March 28, 1943, showed a much younger, more robust Nishimura standing before thousands of men who just a few days later would depart for Camp Shelby, Miss.

"It was an exciting experience to lead them today," Nishimura said. "Never in my wildest dreams would I think we'd be all back here. We were only doing what was asked of us."

Among the men was U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawai'i, who recalled that the volunteers were quite the ragtag group. Inouye, who won the Medal of Honor for his service with the unit, spoke to an audience of more than 1,200 veterans, family members and friends from the 100th Battalion, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the Military Intelligence Service, 171st Infantry and the 1399 Construction Engineers.

"I remember that morning vividly," Inouye said yesterday. "None of us was really trained. We weren't really soldiers. Our uniforms didn't fit. Many of us left Hawai'i looking like POWs (prisoners of war)."

The last time there was such a gathering of World War II veterans was in 2003 for the 60th anniversary of the formation of the Regimental Combat Team.

Then, as now, the glory and the praise are two things none of them sought. Most of them shy away from the limelight, preferring to give rather than receive praise.

Barney Hajiro, one of 21 men from the unit to receive the Medal of Honor in Washington, D.C., in 2000, didn't see his role in the war as anything to brag about. Even his wounds, which left his left arm paralyzed, are nothing to talk about.

"I'm not a hero," said the 91-year-old Hajiro. "I'm just an ordinary man. I had to do my job. I had orders to do my job to shoot down Germans."

After the war, Hajiro raised two sons and worked as a security guard at Pearl Harbor for 30 years.

"My dad never talked about the war," Glenn Hajiro said. "He got his medals for fighting in France. He stood up and attacked and the rest of the guys followed him. He was just a private at the time there to help save the lost battalion.

"He never said anything about the war. I found out by going through a suitcase of memorabilia."

The luncheon, part of a three-day event put on by the Sons & Daughters of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, included a Fun Day, a tour of the state Capitol, a stop at Kapi'olani Community College's library exhibit on the unit and storytelling.

As Inouye said, the stories were different for each veteran. Kiyomi Yamamoto's was one of being alone, running through the back woods of Europe delivering messages from one platoon to another. Sometimes the job was lonely. Sometimes it was terrifying.

"I was just doing my job, just like any other veteran of a war," said the 85-year-old Yamamoto. "Just doing the same thing most Americans would do during war time."