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TI: So I want to go back to something. You said earlier, in the first corporation, you were there for sixteen years, in that people didn't know that you were half Japanese, and yet, you're part of the 442 now, I mean, you were part of the 442, perhaps the best-known Japanese American fighting unit in history. How is it now? Do people know now of your Japanese heritage more? Do you talk about that?

VW: Well, the people who are in the Burroughs Corporation, they don't, they still don't know, probably what happened to me, unless they happen to pull me up on the internet and all of a sudden, "Hey, I knew that guy," yes, then they would know. I went in about, well, let's see, about two years before I left that corporation at Burroughs, I had to, we had some NASA work. And to do NASA, you have to have a top secret crypto-clearance. And I, and my boss said, "Virg, you have to get a top secret crypto-clearance." Well, I filled out the forms and all, and as I handed 'em in, I said to him, I said, "Bob," I said, "I might not get top secret crypto-clearance," 'cause I'm thinking just a short time ago, they took my license away. And he says, "Well, why not?" And I said, "Well, because I'm part Japanese." He looks like that and he said, "I don't want to know anything about it," he said. He held up his hands like that. He says, "Let's just wait." Well, we waited about two weeks or so, and pretty soon it came through. It just surprised me, but okay. And so then I felt that things had maybe changed some. And then I went to AM International, and I talked to somebody about a month and a half ago who had been my technician, and it's in the book, I think, somewhere, about the technician. And I said, he called me up 'cause I gave him my number in a Christmas card. We were always exchanging Christmas cards, but never on the phone. He worked for me like twenty years or so. And I said, "Jim," I says, "I'm surprised that you called me, that's great." And I said, after we'd conversed for a while, I said, "Jim, can you tell me," I said, "did you know anything about me?" He says, "I didn't know a thing about you," he said. I said, "Did you know I was part Japanese?" 'Cause he had the book now and he had read it. And I said, "Did you know I was part Japanese?" he said, "Never." He said, "I thought you were maybe Italian or maybe a little bit of Indian, maybe," he didn't know. And I said, "Well, did you know I was in the war?" And he didn't know that either. He said, "I thought maybe you were, but I didn't know it." I just never said anything. And if war or something came up, I'd just walk away or I'd change the subject. And he worked for me. And then another guy called me from Ohio because Jim had called him, and he had read my book already. And he's getting pretty old, but he worked for me for seven years, he didn't know I was part Japanese or anything until he read the book.

TI: So this book that just came out this year --

VW: January.

TI: -- has really changed what people know about you.

VW: Yes, oh, yes. Quite a bit, a lot.

TI: And how has that been for you? I mean, it's, all of a sudden, it's almost like this, this curtain has been removed and people kind of know a lot more about Virgil Westdale.

VW: Yes, they know a lot about me now. [Laughs]

TI: So how does that, how does that feel for you?

VW: Well, it's okay now, because I'm getting used to it now. And, well, it turned out all right. And the prejudice, of course, is gone, which helps a lot. And, but I did surprise a lot of people, I'll tell you, a lot of people, 'cause they had no idea who I really was. And the people that started probing, there were two girls, one was being a police officer, and the other was Stephanie Gerdes who helped write the book, and they're the ones that really opened me up, and I became Virgil Westdale, finally. [Laughs]

TI: Well, how does that feel -- again, or what has changed for you since January? So it's just been a few months. Do you notice any changes in you by, by having the book out there?

VW: Well, it seemed that people, people recognize me more. Of course, I've been in the paper and things like that. In fact, some people at McDonald's used to come over and they'd recognize me, and they'd stop and want to talk and so on. And then I'd tell 'em, some of 'em didn't remember that I wrote a book, and so sometimes they'd buy it right there.

TI: It's so interesting to me because in the few days that we've known each other, I've seen you in downtown Seattle like at the hotel, and you're almost like a mini celebrity. Because, because you so easily share a little bit, people want to know more.

VW: Yeah.

TI: And, and all of a sudden I see people around you asking you questions, and so I just thought that was normal for you. But I've come to realize, this is something fairly new for you.

VW: It's quite new, yeah. And in fact, they say, "Well, what did you do during the war?" Oh, now, that gets complicated, doesn't it. "Have you got an hour and a half or so?" [Laughs] No, they don't. And so yes, it makes a lot of difference, it really does.

TI: Well, so I want to ask you this. This might be a hard question, or you're not, maybe have answers, but in about an hour and a half, we're gonna have a room full of mostly Japanese Americans who want to hear your story. How is that gonna be for you? How do you feel about that?

VW: That's different because I haven't talked to... almost no one I've talked to that was of that nationality. I've talked to, of course, a lot of Caucasian people, and then they want to know all about it. They're very supportive of people like that, they really are, which is good. That's good, the way it should be. And, of course, everybody says, "Well, that's a story that should be told." In fact, I've been told that so many times. And so I say, well, you know, nobody seemed to know who I was until they started asking questions and I finally started talking.

TI: And how about now that you've written the book? Are there any thoughts or plans of maybe trying to reconnect with some of the old 442 guys?

VW: Well, I talked to a Hawaiian guy, Fred... (Hirayama), and he wants me to come to Hawaii and see him. Yeah, that's a big trip and costs a lot of money to go over there. [Laughs] Someday maybe I would really like to go over there, yeah. And then I talked to Ted (Tsukiyama), who wrote the article "Fire for Effect," he's one of the guys, and that's how I got a hold of Fred. Ted gave me Fred's number and he says, "He can't hear very well." Well, he was right. He wouldn't... but I was yelling, and he could hear me. He could hear me. And that was good. So, yeah, they would really like to have me come over. They remember me because I looked different, you know. And they knew I was in the Fire Direction Center, of course, and that helps a lot that they know, they remember me.

<End Segment 48> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.