<Begin Segment 28>

MN: Now, fifty years later you received an email from Bob Caldwell. Can you share with us what you learned from him?

RW: Yeah, I was in touch with Caldwell through Nori Uyematsu who did something through the computer, checking the names, and he got Bob Madrid's unit off of the website, and we found this one name so I contacted this Bob Caldwell. I think he was from Washington, Seattle area. And then I was able to get in touch with others. There's a John Gerhardt who was the Lieutenant and Jack Underwood. These were guys that were with Bob Madrid the moment he was killed. John Gerhardt from Cypress area was the platoon Lieutenant. So I was able to get together with these guys and visit with them, and had Bob Madrid's brother and his wife come and visit with us too at the, we all met at the Cultural Center one day.

MN: And why did you meet at the Cultural Center?

RW: Well, for one thing it was a good place for us to meet, and then we had the Memorial already built for the Korean War, and I just thought it was an appropriate place for us to get together. Actually, what they did too, John Gerhardt had some of Bob Madrid's belongings that he never gave to the family. He said he went to Redlands, got up to the house, but, near the house, he couldn't get the nerve to go and see the family, so he had it all this time and when I set up this get together, gave him an opportunity to give it to the family.

MN: And going back to that Go For Broke Monument, one more thing I wanted to ask you, because you had brothers in the 442nd, were their names on, placed on there, or did they request to get the name off the monument?

RW: Well, I'm not sure 'cause I didn't try to persuade them one way or another. I would assume their names are on there. I didn't feel like I had the right to tell them not to put their name on it. They deserve to be on there just as all these other guys. It's just that our, our contention was that a monument to list all the names of the living people, the dentist that you go see or the guy that does your gardening, his name's up there and he's still alive and living a good life, whereas the guys that were killed are not... but now they have the Go For Broke Foundation and their doing a lot of Densho stuff themselves, so that's good too because they need to record a lot of those 442nd stories. They haven't shown any interest in the Korean War vets, or the Vietnam vets. Well, maybe not, I don't know about the Vietnam vets, but they haven't shown much interest in the Korean War vets and the Korean War vets have responded by not wanting to give their stories -- some have given their stories, but some of us, some of the key guys have not given them a story because we tried to work them, but they would say, okay, we'll do something with the Korean War vets and we'll do this, do that, but they don't come through. I think one of the sticking points with me with them was when we were negotiating with them to work in the Korean War vets. Okay, we'll be part of it, and then they had a golf tournament and if you are a 442nd veteran you got to get in the golf tournament at a discount, half price, whatever, but they didn't say any other vets. That was their opportunity to get the Korean War vets to support and jump on their bandwagon, but when they did that then I just called Sam and I said, "Hey, did you see their golf tournament? They don't include any other veterans. It's just 442nd," so they are telling us one thing one day and doing something else another way, so we told 'em I'm not interested anymore.

MN: Now, I asked you this last time about Bruce Yamashita and including him as part of the Japanese American National Museum's exhibit on the soldiers, Japanese American soldiers, and you were one of the people who really opposed having him on there because he had a lawsuit filed against the Marine Corps Officer Training School. How do you feel about how Yamashita's lawsuit came out when he won?

RW: Well, he might've won a lawsuit, but he didn't win my approval nor the approval of other Marines that are officers or even non commissioned officers. You know, to get a commission through a lawsuit is not my ideal Marine, okay? For one thing he joined the Marines 'cause some Major friend of his in the Marines, a white officer, talked him into joining the Marines, and he publically said he joined the Marines to meet people and to travel. Well, first of all, you don't join the Marines to meet people and travel as a primary reason to join. I mean, you join because you want to serve with the finest, the best. I feel he joined for some other personal reason and he wasn't ready to take the type of training that they give. And it was during the period of close to the Vietnam War, if I'm not mistaken, and if you get captured and put into a prison camp, say in Vietnam, and you're Japanese, Oriental, I mean, there's no holds barred how they're gonna treat you. And one way they're gonna really, really put the pressure on you is mental, and if you can't take that kind of mental training, just training in officers' school, like he couldn't take it, then -- what was his famous comment about, "We don't serve sushi here." So what's wrong with telling him we don't serve sushi there? Maybe they didn't serve sushi there. But it just seemed to me that he did something by filing a lawsuit he got a commission in my opinion -- that's just my opinion -- he did not earn, okay? And if you're gonna be in the Marines and you're gonna get a commission, you have to earn the right to be called, two things, you have to earn the right to be called a Marine and you have to have the right to say Semper Fi to the fellow Marines with your head up high, not with the fact that the court said you're a Marine. You've got to earn it. That, that's my opinion.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.