<Begin Segment 16>

SI: I don't think I've run into anyone in our outfit who was, became completely fear-stricken at the thought of getting hurt or becoming a casualty in the war.

SF: Now, that's really unusual. Why do you think that happened?

SI: I really don't know because you hear of GIs in the outfit, fellows completely breaking apart, and refusing to charge or advance.

SF: Or even fire their weapon, right?

SI: That's right, but I've never experienced this. I think quite the contrary was true, that they wanted to get in on the fight. I don't know whether that's part of the Japanese spirit and heritage of not... for instance, I shouldn't have been where I was. I mean, I need not have been in the position I was. I asked for it and on the other hand, and my chances of getting hurt -- I didn't even get a purple heart, not that I wanted one. Last night at the play they said I was with I Company -- had the highest casualties in the Lost Battalion push. I remember twenty-seven as being the number left. But when I was in Senator Inouye's office, he said, "I Company, oh, yeah, that's the outfit that had nine left." And last night at the play they said I Company had eight left, so the numbers get... [Laughs] But, and I guess it would be incorrect to say that I wasn't afraid at times. There were times when the situation got quite perilous, and I thought well, maybe my time has come, that the next shot or next machine gun or next what, I would get hurt. And I think I had in the back of my mind well, if my time comes, my time comes, and like the Japanese say, "Shikata ga nai." I'm in this position and if it happens, it happens. But to say that I wasn't afraid is not correct. I was, but in spite of that, I was willing to accept my fate whatever it happened to be. So in that respect I wasn't afraid and if I came through this, fine, I came through and I'm in one piece. I accept this as much as if I'd gotten injured or I wouldn't know if I got killed, I suppose.

SF: So when you kind of came back from the battle sometimes and you were in the rear area kind of resting up, you never sort of had the jitters or thought back, Christ, I could have had my arm blown off or something like that and have to go back crippled and all that?

SI: No, I never felt that. I was willing to go back out again. I really didn't give it much thought. That was my job, which I had asked for. I did it to the best of my ability, and as you might read -- I took great pains in writing that Lost Battalion Four Days -- but at the time I really thought that this was what war was like. I didn't think it was an extraordinary effort and a special effort that we made to rescue the Lost Battalion. I just happened to be part of the team that did it and that it was more or less what was done in wars. So it seemed, well, perhaps not routine, but it was what GIs did in the war.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.