<Begin Segment 21>

TI: Okay, so what a coincidence for you to be...

JS: Yes, to end up with...

TI: ...amongst thousands of men...

JS: Yeah, that's right. [Laughs] End up with Pete.

TI: ...to get down to the same...

JS: No, Pete was a very likeable guy, and he was a handsome boy. And so he had girls that always flocked to him, so he had no problem with girls. And he also liked to drink. And beer or whatever it was, and in those days, I didn't drink at all. And so when I got together with Pete, I reminded him that his mother had asked me to kind of look out for him. And, but Pete liked to drink and have fun, and when I would get on his case, so to speak, we were like brothers. He would rip me up and down and say, "Mind your own business." And he had a premonition of death, and I don't know if that was true or not, but he told me that when he was in high school, that he went to some fortune teller, or that read his palm or something, and this fortune teller told him that he was gonna die before he's twenty-one, so that was the excuse he gave for having a good time. And so when I joined up with Pete in 2nd Platoon, 2nd Squad, I was kind of his older brother. And at first he tolerated it, and then he got ticked off with me about that, so when we were overseas, he was big and strong, so he was a BAR man. That's a... it's a type of machine gun that we used to have in those days, and it's heavier. It weighs more than the nine pounds that the rifle weighs, I think it weighed twice as much.

Anyway, Pete was a good soldier on the line, when we were on the front. But when we were not on the line, he was always looking for vino or women or whatever. And we had our verbal differences, and this one incidence when, after we came back from front line duty, and we, every so often, if you're on the front line, they take you to the rear to get some rest. And Pete and I shared a tent. Each of us carries what we called a half a tent, and then you put the two halves together to make one pup tent. Pup tent's only about that high. And when we got back to this rest area, Pete wanted to go to the closest town to get some wine or beer or whatever. And I said, Pete, we have to make, put up our tent, and we have to make our bunks and so forth -- which was nothing more than blankets on the ground. And Pete said, no, he's gonna go to town. I said, "Okay, when you come back, you can't get into our tent." And he said I was a sorehead, but off he went. And when he came back, he was three sheets to the wind, and it was dark, and he tried to get into our pup tent. Pup tent's only about that wide. And I said, "No, Pete, you can't come in." And so he called me some foul names, and so he was pretty tired anyway, so he slept outside. And in the morning, he was covered with dew and all wet. [Laughs] And he, oh, he was very unhappy about how chicken I was for not letting him get into the tent.

Anyway, even while we were in the rest area, we called it rear echelon area, we went to school. And I was a scout, so I went to scout school. So we have certain training, even while we were overseas. When I came back, Pete was lying in my tent, because I had built it, and he was lying on my blanket. And so his feet were sticking out, so I kicked him in the foot and I said, "Pete, get out." And he said, "Don't be like that, I just wrote my mother a letter." And so that kind of softened me up, and I says, "All right," and I crawled in beside him. And so we were almost touching each other. But Pete was on his stomach and elbows reading the newspaper. We, it was a military publication, and all of a sudden, I heard a "bang." In the rear areas, we unload our arms. But when I looked next to me, Pete was, had... on his back, and the newspaper had fallen across his face. What had happened was someone picked up a rifle that had been used for guard duty, and without unloading it, and somebody accidentally pulled the trigger and fired a shot. And what had happened was Pete was on his stomach reading the paper, and the bullet hit him right behind the right ear and came out here. [Points to left cheek]. But I didn't see it, because the paper, newspaper had fallen across his face. The only thing I could see was his eyes; they, they had that glazed look. And of course, we had seen enough, you know, dead soldiers. And so I leaned over, and then I -- across his body -- and I saw that big hole. So I went out and hollered for the medics, and they came and they took him in, wrapped him up in my blanket, 'cause he was lying on it, and they put him in an ambulance to take him to a field hospital. And I asked for permission to go along with him, but they said no. But I went AWOL and I hitchhiked to the first field hospital down the road, and that's further away from the front line, and asked if they had brought in a Nisei soldier with a head wound, and they hadn't. And so then I hitchhiked to the next one, next further field hospital, and I was inquiring about him there. And I heard on the -- I was, I heard someone speaking on the radio, and I heard that they did bring in a guy with a head wound, but he didn't make it.

And so then I hitchhiked back to our area, and I got back just as they were preparing to, for his burial. So they buried him right there in the field. Of course, they register it so that they know where the bodies are and so forth. And the, so they buried him in my blanket. And so I went up the captain, I said, "You know, is there some way to say that Pete was a KIA?" that's killed in action. And the captain says no, they can't do that. So although today, I believe that on the monument in D.C. he's listed as a KIA, but in those years, we didn't have the term "friendly fire," but that's what happened. Some kid -- it wasn't even his rifle -- somebody had come off of guard duty and laid his gun down, rifle down, and someone else picked it up and accidentally discharged it. So as he was lying down, my head came up to his shoulders. So the bullet, when it hit him, it hit him here and came out here, that's it, flipped him over, yeah. So it had whizzed over my head, 'cause I was lying next to him. And I said to him, "Man, that was close." But when I looked at his eyes, I could, I knew that something was wrong.

TI: So that must have been devastating to you.

JS: It was, yes, it was. That was hard to get over. And it's, it was tough to have to tell his folks that he was killed in that way.

TI: And so when you went back to Seattle, were you, did you visit...

JS: Yes, I was able to visit his mother, I don't remember the father. And I told her, and I met the... before I went to Seattle, I met his sister in Denver, and I told her how he was killed.

TI: Did they know before that?

JS: They did. They knew it was an accident, yeah. But it was unfortunate. And the, I don't know the fellow that actually pulled that trigger, that fired that shot, but I had heard that he became emotionally disturbed over that incident. And so we used to call it Section 8 in those days, it's a psychological condition that prohibits their remaining on the front line. But it was very difficult. But true to his prediction, I think he was twenty-one when he was killed.

TI: So how did the squad deal with this? Did you guys talk about it?

JS: No, we didn't. We didn't really talk about it, not that I recall. It was just one of those things, I guess. They, others have seen their buddies killed, too, but this was an unfortunate way. So, especially for the family, you know. But anyway, he was a good soldier on the front line, but he was a rascal otherwise. [Laughs]

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.