<Begin Segment 23>
AI: What, so was it quite a bit, a long time later that you found out what happened?
LK: Well, he really never gave me much detail about the whole incident. It was a fight that they had with an officer and it was the Puerto Rican MP, MP was involved. And so, apparently an officer got hit in the course of the melee, so they got, or a bunch of them got -- they weren't arrested that night of the fight, but the next morning or the day after, the officers came with an MP officer and took the whole group in, my husband's platoon and said, "Okay, now who did it? I want to know who, who's the one that struck the officer." And the fellow who did it wouldn't own up to it, so they were kind of waiting for him to say you know, "I'm the one," since he didn't. And then my husband said he was the highest rank so he said, "Well, I had to say I did it or otherwise everybody would have been, you know, thirty of them might have been detained." So they kept four of them and the rest of them (were rebased) and then (the four) were put into stockades. But he said that they put him into solitary confinement because supposedly he's the one that hit the officer.
AI: So he...
LK: I mean, he admitted to it saying just because he needed to let the other go, guys go.
AI: So he took the responsibility.
LK: Yes.
AI: Because he felt that because of his position, that's what he needed to do.
LK: Yes.
AI: Even though he hadn't actually...
LK: Yeah.
AI: ...done the fighting. He hadn't actually struck the officer.
LK: Yeah, he said he didn't. But then he said that otherwise they would have all been arrested and he didn't want that. So he said, "I took the blame for it." And you know, just casually, "Somebody had to," he said. [Laughs]
AI: So all that happened, but you had no idea at the time that this was going on?
LK: No.
AI: And then when was it that he was finally discharged?
LK: He was, he was, they had a trial in May of '45 and the war was over May 2nd, so then they had a trial on May 10th and he was charged with being guilty of all the charges and they sentenced him to six months in the stockades and six months' pay and they stripped him of his rank. So he was now Private Shiro Kashino. And so after that, he served his time, and then by that time it was like late summer and the war in Europe and Japan was over, so they started letting them go home. And you could go home, they sent them home by point system. And they, you know, he got a number of points for when you, for in a different awards that you got, or injuries and so, he had a lot of points so he was one of the earlier ones to go home. So he left France, or let's see, or Italy. He (was in) Italy, but I think he reported to France for the point of debarkation. And he went on the ship the latter part of September and came home, I don't know how long it took him, but anyhow, in early October I would say. And he was discharged from Ft. Sheridan, Illinois because his sister lived in Chicago, so this is why he came back to Chicago and plus I was there. So that was (when) he got discharged and then we got married two months later.
AI: Now during the course of this whole time, had you any idea that he was going to be court-martialed or any of that?
LK: No, I didn't know about that.
AI: And so that was just a mystery to you. He was kind of keeping that to himself and...
LK: Yeah, he got, simple thing that he got into fight so he got put into jail. [Laughs] You know, and he served his time.
AI: Right. Well, and then it's also peculiar, though, because as you mentioned he had quite a few points and maybe I could have you show this and kind of explain a little bit about his record. [Holds framed collection of medals]
LK: Well, first of all, he was wounded six times so this, this is the Purple Heart and then this little insignia is a cluster which represents five times. So if you get injured you get awarded the Purple Heart initially. So any others, they don't give you six Purple Hearts, it's just that they give you the clusters. This is the Bronze Star and the Silver Star that he was, received and the second, he has a second Bronze Star, so there's a little acorn on here which is the clusters which designates one more. But, and then these others are the routine, you know, sharpshooter and so forth. But he used to just kind of, you know, he discredited his awards and just had them in a box and his, my nephews would come over and say, "Uncle Shiro, I heard you got some awards, can we see them?" So then he'd go looking for it and everything, and so finally I put it into this kind of frame so that it would all be in one place.
AI: Well, thank you for explaining this. But it does seem really contradictory to me that here he was so decorated and had obviously done so much during the war and then to have this court-martial happen. But really you were unaware of that for a number of years.
LK: No.
<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.