<Begin Segment 13>

TI: The letter that you got back, though, that overturned the court-martial, they didn't really give real specific reasons why they overturned it, I don't think. They just said they looked at the case. What do the three of you think were the real reasons why they overturned the court-martial? Because it's done so infrequently, it's such a rare thing, and yet they did it. Why do you think they did it?

BT: Well, I think for the three...

SK: Well, my feelings, yeah, because the personal notation speaks for itself. He was a great soldier. You tell him what was written over there. [Holds back tears] But it's really heartwarming to receive a statement like this from a general like that. But I feel that because he had six, six purple heart, and the silver star, and I think couple bronze stars, too. And all these decorations, all these awards. I think this convinced the general that Kashino is a great soldier. This is what I believe.

LK: I thought to myself, he must have... they probably had a lot of people looking at the whole record, whole appeal and everything. And maybe the judge, the judge advocate general himself must have taken it into hand after our last letter. And he must have looked at it personally. And this is why his, his human instinct came out. So he wrote that personal note. Otherwise, as judge advocate general, I don't know whether he would have been human enough to write that, you know. So I appreciated the human side of it.

TI: Bill, how about you? What do you think were the key reasons that he overturned it?

BT: To overturn that he needed, we had, we were fifty-two years past the deadline. He needed a reason to justify looking at the thing. So we provided the reason for him to open the case again. And then when he opened the, when he looked at it, I'm sure that... he was a top-notch GI, no fault of his own, and when you look at it, the trial procedure was completely wrong. Three months delay, no defense counsel. As an NCO, he has a right, as a sergeant, he has a right to stop fights. Those things were not taken into consideration. It comes back, why didn't your defense counsel bring those things up? He had no defense counsel. I keep thinking, I keep saying that it's probably the system went wrong at that time -- why? The war had ended. We were all counting points. "Hey, who's going home first?" Everybody forgot. They were too busy on other things. "Hey, let's get this case off the books already. Let's all go home."

SK: It's a hasty thing. Just pass it through, yeah.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.