Alan Gratz’s Grenade unfolds on war-torn Okinawa in 1945, where civilians are trapped between the Imperial Japanese Army and the invading U.S. Marines. The novel’s cast is anchored by two boys on opposite sides whose lives—and deaths—intersect, while family members, mentors, and officers reveal how propaganda, fear, and compassion collide in combat. Together they chart a story of survival, identity, and the cost of courage.
Main Characters
Hideki Kaneshiro
Hideki Kaneshiro is a 14-year-old Okinawan student conscripted into the “Blood and Iron Student Corps,” sent out with two grenades and the order to die for the Emperor. Fearful yet keen-eyed, he “frames” the world like a photographer, watching horror and heroism with the same stunned clarity as he searches for his sister Kimiko and clings to their heritage. Guided by his father’s dying revelation that their ancestor’s “cowardice” was actually courage, Hideki rejects the lies of figures like Lieutenant Colonel Sano and begins to define bravery as protecting the living, not throwing away his life. Through evolving relationships with his bully Yoshio and the civilians he helps, Hideki emerges as a survivor whose compassion is stronger than his terror—an arc that embodies The Nature of Courage and Fear.
Ray Majors
Ray Majors is a young Marine from Nebraska whose first combat on Okinawa shatters his idealism and sense of moral clarity. Nicknamed “Barbecue” after his baptism by fire, Ray learns the brutal calculus of survival from veterans even as he struggles to keep his empathy alive by collecting photos of the men he kills. Mentored by the tough Big John and briefly shielded by the humane Sergeant Meredith, Ray’s attempts to stay decent are undermined by relentless violence and memories of an abusive father. His silent, fatal encounter with Hideki crystallizes the novel’s tragedy: two boys dehumanized by war, as Ray’s descent from innocence illustrates The Horrors and Dehumanization of War.
Supporting Characters
Big John Barboza
Big John Barboza is Ray’s foxhole buddy and a battle-hardened Marine who teaches Ray how to survive when ideals won’t. Gruff, pragmatic, and seemingly unfeeling, he nevertheless shows flashes of care, stepping up as a protective sergeant after Meredith is wounded. He embodies the soldier Ray is at risk of becoming—armor-plated by trauma, with humanity buried but not extinguished.
Kimiko Kaneshiro
Kimiko Kaneshiro—Hideki’s older sister, a student nurse and a yuta—anchors his hope with a fierce, steady love. Spiritually attuned to the wounds the war leaves on the mabui, she reframes courage for Hideki, urging survival and guiding him through their harrowing escape. Kimiko represents the endurance of Okinawan culture amid destruction.
Hideki's Father (Otō)
Otō delivers the revelation that breaks the spell of propaganda: Okinawa has been sacrificed, and their ancestor’s “surrender” was an act of love, not shame. His dying wish—find Kimiko, live—becomes Hideki’s compass, shifting the boy’s loyalty from empire to family. Though brief on the page, his impact reshapes the story’s moral center.
Yoshio
Yoshio starts as Hideki’s cruel school bully and a swaggering mouthpiece for military bravado. War strips him of arrogance, revealing a scared, determined boy focused on protecting his family; his uneasy alliance with Hideki shows how shared suffering dissolves old hierarchies. He’s memorable as a mirror of Hideki’s growth—changed by the same crucible in a different way.
Lieutenant Colonel Sano
Lieutenant Colonel Sano inducts the boys into the Blood and Iron Student Corps, commanding them to kill with one grenade and die with the other. Charismatic and fanatical, he is the face of the ideology that devours children in service of a lost cause and the voice of propaganda that dehumanizes the enemy. He does not change—his rigidity highlights the moral awakening of those who reject him.
Sergeant Walter Meredith
Sergeant Walter Meredith is Ray’s first squad leader, calm under fire and determined to keep his men human as well as alive. He listens when Ray questions tactics that endanger civilians and shields the rookie where he can, offering a rare model of compassionate authority. His grievous wounding rips away that protection and forces Ray into Big John’s harsher orbit.
Minor Characters
- “Hard-luck” Lineker, Gonzalez, and “The Old Man” Starks: Members of Ray’s squad whose deaths and reactions to combat illustrate the randomness of loss and the psychological toll on Marines; Lineker’s sudden death is Ray’s first shocking lesson in how fast war kills.
- Principal Norio Kojima: Hideki’s principal, fixated on rescuing imperial portraits even as people die, embodying Okinawans who internalized militarist ideology and valued symbols over lives.
- Masako: A student nurse Hideki rescues, whose trauma—and quiet endurance—reflects the wartime burden placed on Okinawan girls forced into service.
- The Miyagi Family: Civilians hiding in their ancestral tomb whom Hideki helps surrender, marking his first decisive turn from “die fighting” dogma toward survival and mutual care.
- Unnamed Japanese Lieutenants and Privates: Starving, paranoid soldiers encountered in caves, representing the collapse of military order and the army’s cruelty toward Okinawan civilians.
Character Relationships & Dynamics
At the novel’s heart, Hideki and Ray are parallel foils: two boys conditioned to see an enemy where there is only another terrified teenager. Their final collision is both inevitable and senseless, a consequence of systems—U.S. military machine, Imperial dogma, and the fog of combat—that erase individual faces until it’s too late to recognize them.
Ray’s mentorship chain splits along moral lines. Sergeant Meredith models leadership that preserves humanity even in chaos, while Big John insists survival requires emotional armor and ruthless choices; Ray’s path arcs from Meredith’s protection toward Big John’s pragmatism as brutality accumulates. That shift mirrors his internal struggle with his father’s legacy of violence, blurring the boundary between necessary force and the monster he fears becoming.
Hideki’s relationships pull him away from sacrifice and toward life. Kimiko’s spiritual grounding and Otō’s deathbed truths redefine courage as care for the living, while Yoshio’s transformation shows how war collapses schoolyard hierarchies into fragile alliances of necessity. Against them stands Sano’s unbending fanaticism, which treats Okinawan children as expendable. These bonds align the cast into stark factions—Okinawan civilians and children trying to survive, Japanese officers demanding death, and American Marines fighting to advance—yet the story’s most powerful currents flow through the small acts of protection that defy every side’s dehumanizing logic.