Densho Digital Archive - Robert M. Wada Interview II

<Begin Segment 1>

MN: Today is Tuesday, August 23, 2011. We are at the Centenary United Methodist Church. We will be interviewing Robert Wada, and Tani Ikeda is on the video camera, and I will be interviewing; I'm Martha Nakagawa. Bob, before we get into your Korean War experience I wanted to go back and ask you about Poston, and Poston had these double roofs. Why did they have these double roofs?

RW: Well, they were put on there to put a little buffer between the main roof to hold off the heat because in Poston, Arizona, in the summertime it's hundred degree plus weather, and that would kind of buffer the heat before it hit the main roof. If it hit that and they didn't have that double roof, the sun was hitting just a layer of pinewood and black tar paper, it would be an oven inside those rooms. So that really helped buffer some of the heat.

MN: So you're telling me Poston gets very hot; how did you folks keep cool?

RW: Hot and cold in the winter.

MN: How did you keep cool? How did you keep the barrack cool?

RW: Well, the ingenuity of the Isseis. Most of them built little water vaporizing air conditioners. It was a fan and it was a large box on the outside of the barrack, and they had wire going down the sides of the box instead of a closed box and in between the wire they had excelsior, and then they had little troughs of water above on top of the box and water would drip down through that excelsior and they had a fan blowing air through those dripping excelsior into the room. So it really helped cool the room, but it also made the room very damp because it was drawing in moist air from the outside.

MN: Now, Poston also had these severe dust storms. Were you ever caught in one?

RW: Yeah, you're always caught in a dust storm, but you're kind of forewarned because if you looked off to the east you would see these large, large, looked like big, giant cotton coming towards you. So then people would say, "Oh, here comes a dust storm," and sure enough, in a matter of an hour or so, depends on how far away it was, you'd have just a solid dust storm and it became almost like a fog, a dense fog. You wouldn't even hardly see the barrack next to you. It was a very dense fog and very dusty, and of course what we did was put some kind of material in the door cracks and windows just to try to keep the dust from coming in, but it still came in. And I did get caught in one dust storm on the way home with my mother and I and a neighbor lady. I was visiting my father at the hospital and as we were coming back, and of course we had our little dog with us too, as we were coming back a dust storm hit real hard, very strong. The wind was really, really horrible, so it got so bad that we kind of hid behind, or got behind this little canteen building that was a small building. As we just got there, lumber came flying over, bouncing on the little building, and I thought, wow, where's that coming from? And then I looked at our block, at our barrack, and all of a sudden I saw what I thought it was the entire barrack being lifted up and thrown up with the wind, but it turned out to be that upper of the double roof. The wind was so strong it was ripping that upper roof right off and it's blowing it up in the air, and it looked like the whole barrack was going, but it was just that double roof.

MN: So these are very severe, almost like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz kind of a storm.

RW: Yeah, they were very strong winds, and it'd have to be to lift those double roofs off like that. Yeah.

MN: Anything else about Poston you want to, you want to share with us, or experience there?

RW: Well, goes off with a little humor, I guess. One of the things about going to school is we weren't really that keen on going to school or learning, most of the boys. The girls were different. They were more intuned to studying and being good students. But we would ditch classes and we used to ditch class sometimes where we had classes off near the edge of the camp, we'd go off into the sand dunes and hide behind the sand dunes, wait 'til a couple came by, throw rocks at 'em and then run. I don't know, if somebody reads this they might be one of the people that got rocks thrown at 'em. [Laughs]

<Begin Segment 2>

MN: Now I'm gonna skip to your, after you get out of Poston and you return to Redlands and you went into Redlands High School, and then your sophomore year in 1946 you were on the high school track team, and who was your coach at the time?

RW: Well, the one year we, our coach was Payton Jordan. That was when he pretty much graduated college, I think he went to USC, and he came to RHS because he was a close friend of another coach/teacher there. So he was our track coach before he went after Redlands High School to coach at Occidental College, I believe Stanford. One of the things about him was he was, he would teach us all the aspects of track, whatever we were participating in, and I happened to be running the low hurdles and high hurdles. One track meet against Riverside I got a good start and I was leading right up to the last hurdle, and my foot just kind of clipped the last hurdle and I half stumbled so then I lost the race, I don't think he was too happy with me 'cause he pretty much ignored me after that. He would hardly talk to me, but I don't blame him. It was just a miscue on my part and all coaches, if they're coaching someone in track they're coaching 'em to win. They're not coaching 'em just to run. So that was my downfall, but he was a good coach and most of us were in touch with him. He was in touch with my brother Hank 'cause Hank had met him before during junior high school before World War II, and Jordan was in contact with a lot of the Redlands High School students.

MN: Then he went on to coach the Olympic team, is that right?

RW: Yes, he went on to coach the Olympics too, as well. Wasn't too long after that.

MN: Would you describe him as a very demanding coach?

RW: No, I don't, I wouldn't consider him a demanding coach. I just think he was a very dedicated coach and I don't think he was, it was, whether it was a high school or college, it didn't matter. He was dedicated to teaching, and he was teaching us how to master whatever event we were in. And he did a good job. I think he taught me a lot. It's kind of unusual for a shorter Japanese American to run high hurdles, but he taught me how to get over 'em quickly, and so I think he was a very good and dedicated coach with not really harsh demands, just "do as I say," and if you did it he said you'd excel.

MN: You know, as one of the runners on track, were you considered shorter, because for Japanese American you're pretty tall.

RW: Well, I guess in high school I wasn't tall. I guess I should say wasn't short either, but then I wasn't extremely tall. However, I guess I was about five-ten, and I was very, very lanky, very thin. I think I only weighed about a hundred and thirty-five pounds through high school. Then, of course, when I went in the Marines I went up to about a hundred and fifty-five, so in high school I was a little taller. That's why I was able to make the varsity basketball team in my junior and senior years. In my senior year I was on the starting line up until I broke a finger playing touch football with some of the Japanese guys in Riverside. When I broke my finger, that didn't make the basketball coach too happy and that's kind of when I lost my starting position.

<Begin Segment 3>

MN: Now I want to ask you about your military connections. You come from a family with close ties to the military. Did this come from your father's side or your mother's side?

RW: Well, I guess I'd have to think, and let's just say in my case I would think it came from my mother's side. I would assume because my mother had all these records, pictures, books, about the Japanese army, Japanese navy, march music. My favorite was the "Gunkan March." I can hum that even today. And the oddity is just this year at my brother's ninetieth birthday party, I was talking to my brother Frank, and he said he remembered the "Gunkan March" himself and that was one of his favorites. So I think we just learned the military things from what my mother had, and her brother was killed in the Russian-Japan War, so she used to talk to me about it and I'd always ask her questions about it because it intrigued me. And from then I think I just always wanted to be in the military.

MN: Can you hum us a few bars of the "Gunkan" music?

RW: I beg your pardon?

MN: Can you hum us a few bars?

RW: Well, I know it goes [hums]. That's enough. [Laughs]

MN: [Laughs] And so, let's see, your oldest brother, Jack, served in the Military Intelligence during, is it during the Korean and Vietnam War?

RW: Yes, he was my oldest brother, but he had an earlier heart problem when he was young so he was in camp as a fire captain in the fire department. After we came back to Redlands he was able to get into the army pretty much at the end of World War II, so he served during the Korean War and the Vietnam War and retired with over twenty years.

MN: And then your second brother, Ted, he was in the 442nd during World War II and also served during the Korean War?

RW: Yeah, Ted was in K Company, 442nd, wounded twice, and when he came home, I guess he wanted to go to Japan, so he joined the paratroopers and was in the 11th Airborne and was stationed in Sapporo with the 11th Airborne. When the Korean War started he was transferred to the 7th Army Division in the Military Intelligence with the 7th Division. And I know that's where he met Roy Shiraga, who most Korean War veterans are very acquainted with. I had a party, we were celebrating something about the Marine Corps at my house, and Roy was invited and he walks in the house and sees my brother Ted, and he couldn't believe his eyes because they knew each other in Korea during the war. So when my brother Ted was in Korea, my brother Hank was there and I was there, so there were three of us in Korea at the same time.

MN: And then your brother Frank also was in the 442nd during World War II.

RW: Yeah, Frank was in E Company and wounded once. He was in E Company with Senator Inouye and the Medal of Honor recipient George Sakato from Redlands, and there was another from Redlands George Kanatani was. The three of 'em were in E Company along with Senator Inouye.

MN: I think I asked you this last time, but I'm gonna ask you this question again, if you could share with us about your brother Henry, or Hank, as you call him, and how he got into the Marines in -- well, I guess he tried to get into the Marines in 1946.

RW: Yeah, after we got back from camp. He graduated in camp high school, class of '45, so when we got home I really didn't know he did that at that time, but in 1946 he tried to join the Marines. But he was turned down solely because he was Japanese. It was not a health or physical thing. Then in 1947, a year later, he tried to join again and they let him in this time. That's when things were starting to ease up, even for the blacks, because even until then in the Marine Corps the blacks were housed in a separate barrack and trained in a separate platoon, so they were easing up on that by the time Hank joined in '47. In 1949 he was discharged, the same as I was when I joined in the reserves in '48, and then I was discharged in '50, but when the Korean War began Hank reenlisted with the question when he went down to the recruiters, he asked 'em, "If I reenlist will I have to go through boot camp again?" And they said no, then he joined, but he wasn't gonna join if he had to go through boot camp again.

<Begin Segment 4>

MN: You mentioned you were in the Marine Corps reserves. Why did you enlist in the reserves?

RW: Well, first thing, the opportunity came because the Marine Corps had, a recruiting team come to Redlands High School and during an assembly of the school they presented something about the Marine Corps. And of course my friend Bob Madrid and I always talked about wanting to be Marines, so when this recruiting team came to Redlands High School, that was in my senior year, 1948, and that was in May, and so I immediately told 'em, yeah, I want to join, went home, got my mother to sign it. Course I don't think she knows what she was signing, but she signed it and so I joined the reserves in May of 1948. In May of 1950 I received my discharge. I had gone to Camp Pendleton for summer training and things, but I received my discharge in May 1950, two years later. Then, as you know, the Korean War started in June of 1950, so they couldn't call me back. They couldn't activate me as a reserve 'cause I'd already received my discharge.

MN: So when you went into the reserves at that time did Bob Madrid go in with you, or just by yourself?

RW: No, I just went by myself with about four other classmates in the senior class. Turned out that when the Korean War started I think I was the only one that served in the Marines. I think they were discharged so they all just stayed out.

MN: So you had two weeks of reserve training at Camp Pendleton.

RW: Yes.

MN: Was that really tough? I mean, did you get harassed for being a Japanese American?

RW: No. Not at all. Marines never, the Marines themselves didn't look at me as a different race. They looked at me as another Marine, and I made some pretty good friends from there. During that two weeks I made friends with a guy named Bernard Trainer from Bremerton, Washington. We promised each other I'd send him a box of oranges if he sent me a box of apples. He sent me a box of apples from Washington probably within less than a year, four or five months after we got out, but me, I didn't send him anything, probably because at that time I guess when the war started then things started happening real fast for me, so I completely forgot about it. But I have to say that I fulfilled my promise about, about five years ago, maybe five or ten years ago. I found his phone number, called him and actually talked to him and reminded him that I never sent him that box of oranges, so I sent him a box of oranges on the Greyhound bus and be sure and pick it up. So I filled my obligation, what, fifty years later? But I did fulfill my, my promise.

MN: And then, so in two years, in 1950, you were discharged from the reserves and then around this time you got married to Jo Ann Ikeda. And you two were both underage? Why did you rush into marriage?

RW: She wasn't underage because she had just turned eighteen, and girls could marry without permission from their parents after eighteen. Boys had to be twenty-one, and I was still twenty so I had to get my mother's permission. And of course, as my story goes, when Jo Ann died, I went home to see my mother and the first thing she told me, in Japanese, she said, "Yokatta ne," she had let us get married. She was very emotional about that, the fact that she let us get married and that Jo Ann passed away.

MN: Now, once you got married, and before she passed away, did you plan on having a family immediately, before you left for the war?

RW: Well, Jo Ann wanted to have a baby and I was pretty adamant about not wanting her to have a baby. I told her, "I don't want you to have a baby 'cause if I don't come home you won't be able to remarry. You'll be burdened with a child and some guy won't want to marry you with a baby." But then like, I guess the way a woman thinks, she said she wanted a baby for that reason. If I didn't come home she'd still have a part of me. So as far as I know up to that point she was not having a baby, or at least we weren't attempting to have one.

MN: Now, if you chose to, because you had just been discharged from the reserves, could you have stayed out of Korean War?

RW: Yes, I could have stayed out, except there was a draft going on. I decided to join the Marines and when I decided to join she was kind of upset, crying because she didn't want me to go. She didn't want me to go right away. And I said, well, I have to go right away 'cause I don't want to get drafted into the army. The draft was on so the threat of getting drafted in the army was always there, and it was not my choice to not serve in the Korean War. I would have to, if I didn't join the Marines I would get drafted, so after we decided that I would join, she wanted me to wait 'til we got draft notice, I did wait and we got married 'cause that's what she wanted. And then we were married in October of 1950. In November 1950 I got my draft notice. I was working in Los Angeles at the time and when I came back to our little duplex she was at the door crying, and she had the draft notice in her hand, so that was the beginning of the change in my life as far as the Korean War went.

MN: And then you had also called Bob Madrid and invited him to join.

RW: Yeah, I immediately called Bob Madrid, or his nickname was Bat, I immediately called Bat and told him, "Hey, I'm gonna join the Marines. You want to go?" And he said sure, so he got on a bus from Redlands the next morning and came to Los Angeles where I was living at the time, and we went down to the recruiting office and joined that next day. And then we had two weeks, so I moved Jo Ann to Redlands to live with my mother and then we reported to the Marine Corps and that was the start of my Marine career.

<Begin Segment 5>

MN: What was the hardest part about boot camp training?

RW: Well, I guess the hardest, there's two things. There's a mental hardness and there's a physical hardness. The mental hardness was learning to deal with the discipline, the harassment, the harsh mental treatment, just saying, "Yes, Sir," an immediate response was a, "Yes, Sir," whatever they tell you. If the drill sergeant sticks his nose right in your nose and says, "If I told you to kill your mother would you kill your mother?" "Yes, Sir." You know, it's not a, "Oh, Sir. I don't know if I'd kill my mother." I mean, you don't give that kind of answer. But they don't expect you to kill your mother; it's just, it's, they want that immediate "Yes, Sir." When you go to combat they want that immediate, "Okay, we're gonna do this, we're gonna take that hill," and, "Yes, Sir," and you go. You learn not to question. And so the mental harassment was hard, but I think for me the hard part was the physical part, like going into the so-called gas chamber and taking off the gas mask and having to sing the entire Marines' Hymn before they let you out of that Quonset hut where they were having the gas chamber. And the other physical thing I remember the most was putting on full backpack, rifle, helmet, everything you had, canteen of water, and then they took us out to the beach and we walked for miles in that sand in the beach. And if you ever want to know what that feels like just take a fifty pound bag of something and throw it on your back and walk along the beach and that's what it felt like. To me it almost felt like a hundred pound sack of rice, but I don't think we had a hundred pounds, but we had more than fifty pounds.

MN: Did you ever have second thoughts about joining the Marines while you're going through boot camp?

RW: Not at all. Bat and I talked about it when, we were gonna get through it. One of us was not gonna fail, and we pretty much were determined to get through it.

MN: Now, were you the only Asian American in your unit?

RW: Oh, yeah. I was the only Asian American. We had maybe three or four blacks now -- they were now integrated -- a number of Mexican Marines, but I was the only Asian at that time. I think I ran into one other Nisei. He was from San Diego, that I knew from Poston. I saw him at Camp Pendleton, but that was the only other Japanese that I saw. Although I did see, on the boat going to Korea I saw Vince Okamoto's younger brother, Roy, 'cause I knew Roy in Poston. I didn't talk to him and I'm still kicking myself for being stuck up and seeing him on the boat, saw his name on his back, Okamoto, and not realizing that it was the same Okamoto that I knew in camp, 'cause this is a few years later. I still regret not saying anything. And then when we were over on Hill 749 I saw him, I think he was in engineers, mine clearing, and he was on the hill in the trenches there. I saw him again and I could've said something to him there, but I didn't. I wish I did.

MN: Well, you're friends with Vince Okamoto, so you must see Roy also.

RW: Well, Roy lives in Chicago, I think. So I just saw him, I think, at a funeral, talked to him for a little while.

<Begin Segment 6>

MN: Now, up to this point the U.S. had just had a war with Japan and now they're going to another Asian country, to Korea. Did the drill sergeant or the other folks pull you out and say, this is what looks, this is, you look like the enemy and make an example of you?

RW: You know, I never had any kind of, that type of treatment. I never had any reference to my being Asian in any manner. Now, I know that some people have said that some some guys that were in the Marines have claimed that, I know Dave Miyoshi became a Captain in the Marine Corps and during his officer training they did that with him, made him dress like a Viet Cong and used him as an example. But he took it and graduated and did well, came out as a captain. And I understand that there's others -- Reverend Cliff Ishii's a Marine Officer -- and I saw Marine Officers right after I came back from Korea, a few years later. A couple of young Marine Officers came to the bowling alley to see some friends. So there's been a lot of guys that went through officer training where I feel that they did that type of things which today I guess they consider harassment, but they never did that to me. In fact, when I first saw the head drill instructor, I noticed he had a chest full of ribbons and they were from the South Pacific. He served in the South Pacific, and had the Purple Heart so I knew he'd been wounded, I was deathly afraid of him when I first saw him. I thought, oh God, this guy's gonna just tear me apart. But I didn't get any different treatment than any of the other boots. The most satisfying thing was when we graduated and after the graduation parade and we were getting our gear together to leave, he went around shaking everybody's hands. Until then, I mean, he was an untouchable person, untouchable God we had to just say, "Yes, Sir," bow to him for everything, salute this and that, but he came up to me and said, "Wada, you're gonna be a good Marine. I'd be glad to serve with you anywhere, anytime." And when he said that to me that made all the harassment and all the physical training I went through all worthwhile, just for him to say that to me.

MN: So it sounds like he was very familiar with the 442nd and the 100th.

RW: Well, he could be. He could have been. I know, it's ironic, one of the first things when I got to Korea, I was assigned, when I first got there, I was assigned to Headquarters Company, and in this little gully by Headquarters, they would put up a screen and show a movie with this screen and the very first movie, I'll never forget it, they showed Go For Broke. I kind of think that probably had a lot to do with the guys I served with in Korea around Headquarters. They showed that movie to different units, so for them to show Go For Broke at that time was very timely for me, and for any Nisei person.

MN: Now your platoon was chosen as the honor platoon. How did this come about?

RW: Well, when they have reviews, they have inspections and things like that. They have what they call a Company, which is three platoons, and they graduate Companies at a time. When you're going through training they evaluate your platoon, how they march, and how clean are their rifles, how they snap their rifle up for inspection, and just how they conduct themselves during their training. We had this real young Marine, one of the drill instructors. The head drill instructor was, of course, the man I talked about, but this guy was a young Marine just out of high school. He was a colonel of the high school ROTC at Los Angeles High School, and so he was really into drilling, marching, and inspections and stuff like that. He would take us out on the parade ground in the middle of the night, have us marching, and so our platoon was, because of that, was much, much sharper than some of the other two platoons that were in competition. So when the officers selected an honor platoon, they picked the one graduation for the parade. The honor platoon leads the parade, with the colors, the American flag and the Marine Colors then the other two platoons followed behind that. In other words, the flags are protected by a platoon in front and two platoons behind, and so we were the honor platoon for that graduation parade at the end of our training.

MN: Did you say you've, you folks were marching in the middle of the night also?

RW: Yeah, we were training. He did take us out there and marched us out there, trying to train us to be, the ability to march, to be good... and it paid off 'cause we did a lot more marching than some of the others.

MN: Now you had a chance to avoid going overseas to Korea, but you didn't. And can you share with us what this opportunity was and why you turned this down?

RW: Well, before graduating boot camp they interviewed each individual as to what your interests were, what you had done in the past, and I had put on there that I had played the drum and the bugle, and I did that in Poston in the Boy Scouts. I played in the orchestra of the high school too while I was in junior high school. And so when they saw that they, the Marine that was interviewing me asked me would I like to be in the band? Of course, my first thought was, wow, that's pretty, I'll get the nice, spiffy blue uniform that I wanted to wear. And then I thought about it, so then I said, what's band guy do? Would he go overseas? He says, "No, you'd probably be just stationed right here, maybe San Diego, and be in the band." Then it dawned on me, well, I sure couldn't have asked Bat, Bob Madrid to join the Marines with me to go to Korea and then stay here in the band and have him over there. That would tear me apart. That would break my heart. So I just told the guy, I don't know how to read music. He says, "Oh, you don't? Well then, I'll have to disqualify you. Okay." So then I just let it go at that. I didn't want to stay Stateside and have my brother Hank over there and have Bat over there and here I am playing in a band. That's not why I joined the Marines.

<Begin Segment 7>

MN: So after boot camp you and Bob Madrid return home on leave, and your wife passed away. When your wife passed away did you think about just staying home and not returning to the Marines?

RW: Say that, what was that again?

MN: When your wife passed away, did you feel like you should just stay here in the United States and not go back, go to Korea?

RW: No. I think if anything it intensified my wanting to go. I felt like, you know, I had lost everything that meant anything to me. When she died we were only home three days from boot camp and she got sick, and we put her in the hospital at three o'clock in the morning, but by seven o'clock in the morning the hospital called, said she had died. So the Red Cross gave me a couple weeks' leave to stay home on a bereavement leave, but had I known I would've gotten separated from Bob Madrid, I really honestly would never have stayed home. It didn't dawn on me. I thought, well, when I go back I'll be with him 'cause we were together. We were assigned together to the same unit. So I stayed home for the two weeks, I had visions of going to Korea and being a hero 'cause I didn't want to come home. I'd never been to a war so I didn't know how you can determine what you're gonna do in a war. So when went back to Camp Pendleton, then, of course, I was assigned to tank school, and that was set my rest of my Marine career and for the rest of my life.

MN: Now, before you left for Korea you visited Jo Ann's father, Mr. Yoshiya Ikeda. Can you share with us what that meeting was like?

RW: Well, he was living in the Little Tokyo area here in Los Angeles, and he was a, he was a World War I veteran, one of the older of the Issei that served during World War I. I knew who he was because in Poston he was a policeman. He was a big man. And of course, like any kids you're always afraid of the policeman. We had a little riff with some other guys, and he came walking towards the fire station where we hang out, so we all ducked out because we thought he was coming after us. But he wasn't; he was just coming over to the fire station to play that game of go that the Japanese play. Isseis used to play go at the fire station. I knew who he was, and when I visited him in Little Tokyo here before I went to Korea he just wished me well and to be careful, and said, "Be sure and boil your water," I guess he figured we were gonna be living in the same manner that they did in World War I when they didn't have water, when we got over there, there was no need to boil our water. They had plenty of trailer tanks of water, so we didn't have to do that.

<Begin Segment 8>

MN: And so you returned to Camp Pendleton and, you mentioned earlier, you were not able to be in the same unit as Bob Madrid, and then you ended up in a tank unit. And you were given this choice of land or amphibious tank unit, and which one did you choose and why?

RW: Well, that was kind of comical and I think that I didn't do much for the Nisei because when we got assigned. When I got to what they call receiving barracks, I was there and then when we were outside in formation then they start reading names where you're going, and when they read my name and said, Wada, Supporting Arms Training Battalion, guy next to me says, "Oh shit, man, that's machine gun stuff." Then it all of a sudden dawned on me, whoa man, the shortest life in any combat is a machine gunner. They measure his life in seconds, not in hours or days. So I thought, well, I don't have any choice. Then when they took us, actually to the supporting arms, tank training school, they assigned me to tank school. Then they were interviewing each person individually and there were three officers, and each of us would go in there and they'd interview us. They start asking me, "Wada, you've been assigned to tank school. You have a choice of land or amphibious tanks." I said, "Sir, I don't want tanks. I'd like to get transferred over to my friend's unit at Camp Pendleton." So they said, well, we can't transfer you, 'cause they're a couple of weeks ahead of you in training. "You can only choose a land tank or amphibious tank." And so I says, "Well, Sir, isn't there some way I can just go somewhere else instead of tanks?" And then the one officer says, "Wada, what is it that you don't like about tanks?" And I said, "Sir, every movie I've ever seen I seen guys jumping out of the tanks just burning." And I said, "I think I'd rather die some other way, maybe with a bullet down my head." And they started laughing and they said, "Well, Wada, you'll find out this is not the John Wayne Marine Corps. These tanks are the best outfit in the corps," they said, "but you got to make a choice. We got to talk to these other guys. You got to make a choice." So I said, "Well, I guess I don't want amphibious tanks either 'cause I don't want to drown either." [Laughs] So at that point they must've thought, "Jesus, is this one of these guys that was from the 442nd?" And so then they gave me the land tanks, and I have to admit it turned out to be the best thing for me. I got to see action, but I was safe most of the time. I had a big tank to crawl under when we got shot at, and the infantry guys and Madrid and them didn't have that kind of protection.

MN: Now, at the same time you also apply for Naval Flight Training and you pass this rigid oral exam, and after you passed this exam what did the interviewing officer tell you?

RW: Well, when I was in tank school this one guy was saying, "I can't go training today. I'm going for an interview for flight training." And I said, "I didn't know you were a college graduate," and he says, "I'm not, but you can be a pilot if you have a GTC score," which is a general, it's like a IQ test, so if you had an IQ test over 120. The guy said you can apply. So then I start thinking to myself, I thought, wow, that's all you need? I remember now I had a score of 136, so it was quite a bit higher than the minimum to get into flight training so I applied. Then they gave me the same interview, and there were three real high ranking officers, so they were questioning me about why I wanted to be a pilot and things like that, and so I told 'em I took a navigation course in junior college, just told 'em things why I thought I wanted to be a pilot. So then finally they came up with a question and said, "Well, Wada, if we approve you and send you to Pensacola, Florida, you know you're gonna have two strikes against you when you go there because of your race?" So I said, "Yes, Sir," and they said, "Well, you still want to go?" And I said, "Sir, I played a lot of baseball, but I was never out 'til I had three strikes." They kind of chuckled and excused me from the room and called me back in, and they approved me. But when I took the final physical exam in Korea they flew me back to one of the airfields and I failed the test. My right eye was focused a little lower than my left, and that doctor really tried to get me approved, but he said he tried every way he could, but that's a defect that really affects landing on an aircraft carrier because the depth perception changes. And so he was sorry, but, and now over the years I've seen these planes landing on little tiny aircraft carriers in the ocean and I always think to myself, was I that stupid or that dumb in those days to want to be a pilot and land on one of those little aircraft carriers? It's mind boggling, but then, I guess when you're twenty years old you're not as smart as you are at eighty. [Laughs]

<Begin Segment 9>

MN: Now, before you shipped out to Korea, you folks were docked for two nights and three days in San Diego Harbor. What was that like?

RW: Well, let's go back to Camp Pendleton when after tank school we graduated, and then we knew what day we were going, and so the day we were going we packed up all our gear, got our sea bags together, and got on these buses. And then we rode these buses through Oceanside and a lot of people were on the sidewalk with flags waving at us, and that really brought tears to my eyes and really, really choked me up. I just felt so proud to be sittin' in that bus going to a war and those people are waving at us, and hat was the real pride of going to Korea. There's the awe, the spectacle of going to Korea was when we got on the boat in San Diego, docked right there near downtown San Diego, on the piers. We got on the boat and for three days, we were on that boat and we couldn't leave, couldn't phone anybody, but we looked over the side and after we were on the boat we could just see thousands of Marines still gettin' on the boat, loading equipment, trucks, even some tanks, and fresh equipment to go to Korea. And it was just an awesome sight to see all that, especially all these other Marines still getting on the ship. And then the pity for that period was at night we'd be on the boat and we were right near the Padre baseball team field, the old field, and we could hear the cheering and could see the glare of the lights up in the sky, and so we thought, god, they're over there playing baseball, trying to win the game, and they don't give a damn about all of us on this boat goin' to war.

Then the fear came to me the next, the day we were leaving. The boat was pulling out, the Marine band was on the dock and people were, relatives were there -- none of my relatives were there because they didn't believe in coming to watch me go to go to war -- but as we stood in the boat and the boat was getting ready to leave and the Marine band played the Marines' Hymn, they released the moorings off the boat and the boat started to inch away from the dock. And I looked down, I saw that water start swirling away from the dock and gettin' farther away, and boy, the first thought came to my mind is, I said to myself, I said, "Mama, what did I do? Where am I going?" 'Cause that feeling of helplessness, not being able to jump off, go home, or change my mind, there was no changing of your mind. The boat was going and that was it. But that was just a momentary thing. The guy next to me fainted, so it was not, it was not an easy time to be leaving. But on the other hand, I have to tell you that when we came home it was a totally different feeling to see that boat just inch, inch, inch closer to the dock and then bang, it hits the dock there, and that was a feeling of real joy compared to the day we left.

<Begin Segment 10>

MN: What year and month did you leave for Korea?

RW: I left for Korea, I think it was in April, 1951. Came back in May '52.

MN: Now, before your unit went to Korea there was a stop in Yokosuka, Japan, and you had a few encounters where the, where the Japanese there said they would pray for you. What were some of these encounters, and do you think their prayers helped you to come home?

RW: Well, there were two things that I remember and bring tears to my eyes is, one is when I went shopping with this friend from Texas and we went to this little shop. This lady was real nice and I was talking to her and I bought some stuff from her to send home. I asked her if she had some wrapping paper that I could have or buy to send my package home, and the poor thing, she reached under the counter and got some old paper, like rice paper, I guess it was, and she was smoothing it out 'cause it was all crimpled. It was just a used piece of paper, and she gave it me. So I sent the package home, but I wrote to my mother through my sister, told her to tell Mom to send this lady, send this lady some canned foods and lots of rolls of wrapping paper, brown wrapping paper. So apparently she did that for me because when I got home and came back from Korea there was an unopened package that they left for me from that lady, and she had sent this big, nice Japanese doll. I have it at home up on top of my china cabinet, and I still have it. It's a nice, big doll, so that's been sixty years and I still have that nice doll. The glass case I had built for it is broken, so I need to get another case for it.

But anyway, that was my first encounter, but the second one, which is more heartfelt with me, when we were going back to the ship that night -- it was close to midnight, eleven o'clock or midnight -- we were going to the ship and this little girl was standing by the gate with a handful of flowers and a handful of money, and so I told her in Japanese, I said, "What are you doing here? It's too dangerous for you. Somebody's gonna take all your money away." So I gave her what money I had and I said, "Give me the flowers," she gave me the flowers and I gave her the money and she ran off. I told her, "Don't come back, stay away, don't come back." So then we went on the ship. We figured we were leaving that night, but then word came that they were still unloading things and loading things. What they were unloading was all our sea bags because it had our dress clothes and stuff, so we didn't need that. For all the Marines, you can imagine, it's thousands of, stuff had to be unloaded, other things loaded. So we stayed over one more night. We went into town, and then we were coming back about eleven o'clock and that little girl was there again. So then I went up and scolded her and told her, "I thought I told you not to come here anymore. Here's the rest of my money, so go home. Don't come her no more. Too dangerous." She said, "Chotto matte, chotto matte," So she went running down the street, and there were a group of about six or seven ladies standing way off in the dark of the street and she was pulling, dragging one of 'em by the hand, turned out to be her mother, and they said they came to thank me for the concern for their daughter, and then she said they would pray for me and they appreciated the fact that I had concern for her daughter. They said they came to see this Marine that spoke Japanese, and my Japanese was not that good, but I was able to converse because I could talk to my parents. And that was a very touching night for me, and they all said they'd pray for me. I did try to find those people, any one of 'em, years ago when I went to Japan -- I won a free trip to Japan at the Nisei Week one year and it just so happened some newspaper people were talking to me about the trip at Nisei Week and when they heard this story that I would like to find one of those ladies, they took my picture and they put in the papers over there. But never, never heard from 'em.

<Begin Segment 11>

MN: Now, when you first arrived in Pusan you had this chance meeting with Torao Oyama, or Aoyama. Can you share this story with us and what happened to him?

RW: Well, I wish I could tell you what happened to him, because I tried to send some kind of a care package to him when I got home, but they said there's just no way they could do it. When we first got to Pusan they trucked us over to this large airfield that had large tents, large, what they call squad tents, and we were there waiting for our flight to fly us up to, up near Chunchon. So while we were waiting there -- we had to stay there, like, a couple days, before it was our turn to fly -- and there was no fence around it, so there must've been hundreds of kids running around. They were stealing backpacks and stuff like that. So the MP, military police, would come through and chase these kids and get them out of the area. As I watched what they were doing, I saw them come and kick one of the kids so hard the kid flew up in the air, just trying to get him out of the area. This one little boy came running by my tent, right by me, and I grabbed him and I pulled him into the tent and I said, "Here, hide. Stay here. Get under my cot." And he got under my coat and I hid him for a while. Then the MPs were gone and he got out. Then I started talking to him, asked him his name, and he told me Torao Aoyama, "Oh, you Japanese?" "Yeah." Anyway, he started hanging around with us, so I gave him some of my rations and some of the other guys in the tent took a liking to him and gave him some of their rations. And I asked him where his parents were and he said they were killed up near Seoul. And I said, "You have any relatives?" He said, "I have a sister in Japan, but I don't know where she is."

He followed me around and followed me to the Red Cross area. They had a shower down there, so he followed me there. And as I'm walking he tells all the kids, "This is my niisan, this is my niisan." And so he hung around with me and we took care of him, and then the morning we were gonna leave, the night before, I told him, "We're gonna leave in the morning at five o'clock in the morning, so I won't see you after that." He started crying and he asked if he could go with me, and I said, "No, see, the Marines over there are climbing in the airplane up the ladder and they check each guy. I can't take you. If we were going on trucks," I said, "I'd hide you on the truck, but I can't." So he was just all upset, and so I gave him one of the boxes of my day's rations, and some of the other guys gave him some, so he's got all these rations, and we gave him some money. We figured that by the time he got out of the tent, that stuff would all be gone. They'd just demolish him. And one of the Marines even took a dog tag off and told him, "Here's a dog tag. Anybody try to take that stuff away you show 'em this dog tag, tell 'em I'm gonna come and beat the S out of them." So that's how much this kid impressed us. He was not one of the other wild kids. Just by stroke of luck I just happened to grab this one kid and talk to him and bring him into the tent, and everybody took to him. And then the day we were getting on the plane, lined up to get on the plane, I look back and he was over by the edge of the tents. He was crying, but nothing I could do.

MN: How old do you think he was?

RW: I would think he was probably between ten and twelve. I think because he seemed more intelligent, he'd have to be more like twelve, but not much more than that.

<Begin Segment 12>

MN: Now when you arrived at the 1st Tank Battalion Command Post your battalion First Sergeant almost got you busted down from private first class with one stripe with, to private with no stripe. What happened?

RW: Well, I guess this was my first encounter with somebody that had something against me? I don't know if it was racially or what, but the first day I was there I went down to what they call the mess tent to get some food, and he came walking over there and he said, "Wada, where the hell's your weapon?" At that time I just got there. I'm carrying an M-1, and most of the other guys are all carrying pistols 'cause they're already been there. And I said, "It's back in the tent, Sarge." He says, "Dammit, you know the orders here. Everybody carry a weapon at all times." And I'm thinking to myself, hell, I didn't know that. I just got here a few hours ago. [Laughs] And so he chewed me out and says, "Go get your damn weapon." "Yes, Sir." So I went and got my rifle, carried my rifle, getting my food, and I ate and I went back to the tent, set the rifle down on the cot, and I had to go the bathroom. And over there you don't have a nice running water bathroom like here. It's just a box with a hole in it sittin' out in the open field right near my tent, actually. It was just maybe five or ten yards or away. So I'm out there in the open sittin' on that box, and here comes the sergeant and says, "Where in the hell's your weapon, Wada?" And I said, "It's right there in the tent, Sarge." "Man, if you can't carry that weapon as PFC I'm gonna see that you carry it as a private." And I said, "Okay. Sorry, I'll bring it with me. I'll carry it at all times." Then one of the clerks there in the Headquarters that was in the same tent, says, "Hey, Wada, Sergeant Allen reported you to Captain Crossfield, told him that you were disobeying orders or something." Captain told him, don't be harsh on him. He just got here. He's not trying to be disobedient. We can't file anything on him right now. Anyway, the captain didn't want to file anything, but that's how close I came to getting a demotion just because I didn't carry my rifle.

MN: Were you the only one, were you the only newcomer that was getting picked on? Was he...

RW: Yeah, I think there were two of us, but he went to one of the companies somewhere else to one of our tank companies. I was in the headquarters company at that time, just because I just got there.

MN: Now, the second day someone yelled sniper and you, but you didn't go out of your tent like the others to look for the sniper. Why not?

RW: Well, that was weird 'cause that's the first day I was there. And I was sitting there trying to write a letter to my mom to tell her I was okay. A couple of shots rang out and to this day I don't know if they were a sniper or just somebody accidentally fired their rifle, but they said, "Sniper," and everybody's running around and grabbing their weapons and running out. So I grabbed my helmet and rifle and I started to run out the tent, and I thought, hey, wait a minute. I just got here. These guys don't know me, and when they see my face they might just shoot me by mistake, so I said heck with it. There was no more firing, so I just went back and sat down, took my helmet off and said I'm not gonna go out and stick my neck out where I shouldn't be.

MN: Was it at this time where the tank battalion headquarters had station, made their station on a Korean family cemetery?

RW: No, this was a little later, we were at then was what they call the Hwachon Reservoir area, and then after that the whole Division went into what we call reserve in a rear area to regroup and we fixed up all the equipment and everything. So we were in this rear area right next to a river, and that's when there was some commotion. This is where Bob Madrid and my brother Hank used to always come and visit me, and this is where we took all those pictures that I have. But there was some commotion over in one area. There was a bunch of Korean civilian people doing something, so I walked over to see what they were doing, and they were digging up some bodies. We apparently were set up on their burial grounds, so what they did was they uncovered 'em, wrapped 'em, and in a procession they took 'em up onto the hill nearby and I guess they reburied 'em somewhere else.

<Begin Segment 13>

MN: And that June you had a medical problem. What happened?

RW: This was while I was there, when I was in my sleeping bag and I woke up and it was morning, I started to get up out of my sleeping bag, but when I moved, my whole head just swirled, just a sudden violent dizziness. If I just moved my head just a quarter of an inch then it, boy, just set it off, and so I had to just lay still. And then a little later I tried to get up and it started swirling again, and it got so bad that I started vomiting, and finally one of the guys went over and got the Battalion Doctor to come and check me out. He came over and gave me what they call APC pills. They're all purpose aspirin pills, and if you have a sore throat they give it to you, if you have a headache they give it to, if you have a sore back, if your stomach's upset they give it to you, but anyway, it's kind of a joke, but it's called APC pills. He gave me that and he told me it was just overexertion, but I don't think it was that. But I didn't get it again 'til I came home. I got it pretty bad after I was first back for a while, for a few years, and I had to go to a doctor. And it was a situation where I could feel it coming. I would know just when I'd get anxiety. And so at that time they had a relaxant called Miltown, I had that. Then there was valium later. They were more or less relaxant medication.

MN: I think also you're on valium.

RW: Huh?

MN: You were on valium.

RW: Valium, yeah. That's the one I couldn't think of. I was taking valium, but I didn't want to get addicted to it, so I would just take it whenever I felt that it was coming.

MN: So the Battalion Doctor, I guess he just said you were suffering from overexertion. Were you reassigned as a result of this medical problem?

RW: No. I think it might be for that reason they kept me there in headquarters for a while. And then, of course, Bob Madrid was killed, I asked for a transfer to his company, but they wouldn't let me go to a line company. They wanted to keep me. They said I'd have to stay within the tanks. So I asked if I could get transferred to a tank. They would do that, so they transferred me to a tank with Bob Pike from San Leandro, California, who was my tank commander. He and I are still good friends to this day.

<Begin Segment 14>

MN: But before you go there, you were at headquarters, and you work with Captain Crossfield?

RW: Yeah.

MN: What were some of your duties and how did you help your captain, Crossfield?

RW: Well, Captain Crossfield was the operations officer, so he was always going up to the front lines for different things, and if he was going he'd always call me to go with him. And sometimes if he thought we were gonna need the interpreter then they would take the interpreter, but they used me to talk to the interpreter in Japanese 'cause he spoke Japanese, and then I would tell them in English what he said. I'd say maybe forty percent of what was relayed was accurate. [Laughs] And the other sixty percent was guesswork. Captain Crossfield would just maybe call out, say, "Wada, grab the Thompson --" it's a submachine gun -- "Grab the Thompson. Let's go." So I'd grab my helmet, and then we'd go in the jeep up to the front line. And it was during that period, that one time we were up there, we went all the way up to the trenches of Hill 749 and he went up there because, I guess we were controlling the tank fire and stuff, and that one day we were there up in the trenches and then of course we got shelled a few times, and when we were finished and we came back down and got in the jeep, start heading back toward battalion headquarters, and that's when, as I was looking at the guys along the side of the road, the Marines were sittin' on the side of the road on a short break, and of all the Marines sittin' there I spotted Bat. And I yelled out, "Bat," and Captain Crossfield stopped the jeep and said, "Who's that, your compadre?" And I said, "Yes, Sir. That's my buddy from back home." He says, "Well go talk to him. I'll wait for you. They're gonna hit the hill next." I said, "Thank you, Sir," and I ran over there and talked to Bat and asked him where my brother was. He pointed back to a ravine back and said, "They're coming from behind us." I don't know why I asked him such a dumb question, but I asked him, "How do you feel? Are you scared?" And he said, "Well, I wasn't worried until we found out we're gonna be the point platoon," which is, obviously, the first guys to make an attack and get the enemy to shoot at you to find out where they're at 'cause you don't know where they're at until then. Well, a few hours after that when they launched their attack, then he was killed, of course, I didn't know that for probably weeks, 'til I saw the casualty list. And then I saw another casualty list and I saw my brother's name on there as wounded, so that was a double shock for me.

MN: And this was September 13, 1951?

RW: September, yeah, he was killed September 13, 1951. Yeah.

MN: And your brother, Hank, was also injured on that same day.

RW: On the same day, same battle, same, same time, yeah.

<Begin Segment 15>

MN: Before we go there, I wanted to ask you a little bit more about, you got there, you're with Captain Crossfield, you're going to the front lines, and you saw your first dead Marine? And how did that make you feel?

RW: Actually, yeah, I saw a dead enemy before, and I would just casually think, wow, he's just laying there and nobody's doing anything about it, and he must have a family, this and that. But what really struck me was when Captain Crossfield and I were going up there another time in the jeep, well, we were going along this road and he says, "Watch out, be ready to jump off because this is where I got some incoming yesterday." So sure enough, a few minutes later here come these shells exploding towards us, and he slams on the brakes, we jump in a ditch, and soon as it was over then we just took off and went to the front line. As we got there he stopped at one of the tanks that was on the side of the road to talk to 'em, and so I got out, walked over to look, I saw somebody layin' on the tank, so I went up to see, and there was a Marine layin' on the back of the tank. I looked close. There was a little hole in his neck, side of his neck, and they weren't treating him or anything, so I figured he was dead. Right then the first thought that came to my mind was, here I am looking at this dead Marine, he has a family somewhere back home. It's the middle of the night there, it's the middle of the day here, they don't know. They're just sleeping. They don't know he was killed. They won't know for a while. I was so sad, it was a sad feeling to think that way, and I don't know why I thought that particular way, I ran across other bodies and I would think of their families, their parents, maybe they got a wife, and they don't know they're dead but I do. I wish I could tell 'em. Nowadays, in today's war, Afghanistan, I understand these guys are in touch with their cell phones and they can talk to each other on the phone and all kinds of stuff like that, so if somebody gets hurt or gets killed it's instant they can find out. But then in those days it was not like today, so somebody was hurt or killed, the family wouldn't know for a long time.

MN: And it sounds like you had similar feelings for the dead enemy bodies that you saw.

RW: Yeah. If I saw an enemy soldier body I would think the same way. When I was transferred to a tank and we were on this hill firing across this valley at this opposite hill where there were some machine gun bunkers up there, and this one guy must've been North Korean or Chinese, was running up the hill. They just yelled, "Throw high explosive in there, get an HE in there," and we fired and the guy's gone. The gun on the tank just blew him, blew him all to pieces. And then I thought about that and I thought, gosh, we had to do that 'cause if we let him go he's gonna go up there and fire the machine gun and maybe he's gonna kill some of the Marines, so it was our job to protect 'em. But I thought, I felt for his family, but I didn't feel for him. I felt like, sort of like payback time. It was payback, you know? That doesn't bring Madrid back, but it was, for my heart, it was a payback to really just actually kill somebody that I wasn't in combat on the ground and fighting in the trenches to be able to say, here, this is for Madrid, but I did finally feel a little bit of a payback on that day. But I still felt, well, his family is probably gonna suffer because they don't know what happened to him, and on the other hand, Madrid's family is gonna be sad and unhappy too because they're not gonna see him again. So it's an exchange. Not a fair one, not a fair exchange, but life for life.

MN: Now, you were in the tank unit. Had you done hand to hand combat, and you're having these, you're very sensitive about the family of the soldiers, could you have killed somebody? Could you have killed the enemy?

RW: Well, I have to say that this is the way it is with all guys in fighting and combat, is that you fight and kill somebody, it's because it's him or you. If you don't kill him he's gonna kill you, so which is more important, his life or yours? In my opinion my life, this Marine or this U.S. soldier's life is more important than the enemy's life, and the more you can kill of them the less chance there are of them killing our guys. Yeah, I would, I would say to protect myself I would not hesitate, like none of the other guys hesitate, other guys like Hershey Miyamoto. He didn't hesitate to kill people and protect his guys. Do it for protection. You do it to protect your own life and protect the lives of your fellow soldiers. And I think that's why you're there fighting.

<Begin Segment 16>

MN: Earlier you mentioned doing some interpreting. Did you meet other Niseis in Korea, and were they MIS?

RW: Yeah, I met a small MIS group of guys. In fact, one of 'em, he came up to me at one the VFW reunions and mentioned that, "Hey, I remember you in Korea." His name was Jimmy Umeda. I didn't remember the name, of course, because I met those guys, but I just didn't remember their names, but apparently he remembered me. We're still in touch off and on. They were assigned to the Marine Tank Battalion, but they were Army MIS, when I met them, I first met them at this one area we were in, and I walked over there to their tent 'cause they invited me to come over. I went over there and I smelled cooking, and I went into their tent and a guy's sittin' there cooking something like okazu, just Japanese stuff, rice and everything, and I says, "God, where'd you guys get all this food?" He says, "We requisitioned this stuff from Japan and they send us whatever we want, especially for the prisoners." So I was really surprised to see them eating Japanese home-cooked stuff. But yeah, I met that little group, and it turned out that my brother Jack, when he came home, he was at Fort Ord in Monterey and one of the MIS guys went up to him and asked him if he was related to a Bob Wada that was in the Marines. He said yeah and he kind of described me to them, and then they said, "Yeah, that's him, that's him," so apparently they still remembered me and they talked to him about me.

MN: I would imagine because there weren't a lot of Niseis in the Marines you probably stood out.

RW: Yeah, that's true. And then I ran into those guys again because the Battalion sent me back to prisoner interrogation. Kind of a short lecture, or school, for one day. I went back to Division Headquarters, and these guys were the guys that were conducting on how to treat the prisoners, how to question them, what to question 'em, and what not to do in their treatment, stuff like that.

MN: So is this also about the time you adopted this dog named Booze?

RW: Yeah. It was during the fall, I think, early, just before winter. One of the guys had a dog at Headquarters and he had some puppies that were born in his tent, so they were just trying to get rid of 'em, so I said, "I'll take one of those." I took one and had it in Headquarters, and as we're raising the dog, some of the guys started giving the dog beer and so from then on we named the dog Booze. And it grew fast, surprisingly, in just a few months. Then when I got transferred to a tank, then all the different guys in headquarters wanted the dog, so I gave it to one of the guys.

MN: Now were you, when you were in Korea did you correspond with your mother?

RW: Yeah, it was kind of a Mickey Mouse method of communicating, but I guess she was able to read my letters. What we did was I made chart and I wrote in English the A-I-U-E-O and all those vowels, and then I had my mother write in simple Japanese next to it as a chart.

MN: Hiragana?

RW: Huh?

MN: Hiragana?

RW: Whatever it was, she would, in the very simply Japanese, write the symbol next to it, then made a chart on how you write it, from the right to the left, I guess it was, something like that. So then I would look up "ma" and then I'd write it, then I'd put "ma" again, Mama, shimpai nai, and I'd look up those symbols and write it. Then I guess my Japanese was not that good, so I used the word boku, for, "Boku wa ii desu," that's about all I'd send her. But then she'd write long letters, but then what I did is I'd take it to the interpreter and we'd sit there and he would read it to me. But letters didn't come too often.

MN: Did she send you care packages?

RW: Yeah. Our family was Mexican food eaters, so chilis were our delicacy, the yellow chilis, so she would carefully pack a jar of yellow chilis and stuff like that. And I told 'em don't send candy 'cause each tank got a big box every couple of weeks, of candy, cigarettes, toilet paper, shaving stuff, everything, so candy was the last thing you needed. So she would send me the chili. The unique thing is there was a little houseboy named Pak that was hangin' around all the time, and one day I was sittin' there eating one of my chilis and I'm a chili nibbler, not a biter, so I'm nibbling on a chili and he says, "Can I have one?" And, "No, no, too hot for you. Too hot." "No, I like. I like." So I said, "Well okay, you can have one, but they're hot." "Okay." He took that chili and put the whole thing in his mouth in one bite, gulp, and he just ate it. I mean, it's nothin'. And he wanted another one, so I gave him another one, but it was shocking to me for him to do that, but I guess there they eat hot food. I didn't know because, we just passed through cities, but we never were there to experience food and things like that, or to really meet people. We were always in the mountains, so the only communication I had with them was a couple of kids like that.

<Begin Segment 17>

MN: And then you were transferred to D Company and your tanks were involved with supporting the Marines during the firefights. Can you share with us an experience at this hill called Luke's Castle?

RW: Well, at Luke's Castle, we were called up there one night, It was called Luke's Castle 'cause it was this sniper was in the ground there and it was on a kind of ridge that went out to where he was at. A ridge would go right out to where his hole was, and then when the Marine patrols would go walking by down at the bottom of the big valley, he'd shoot at them. So it was kind of a cat and mouse thing, and I guess one day this Lieutenant who just got there without orders he went up on that ridge towards the Luke's Castle 'cause he was gonna knock it out, get rid of that guy once and for all. Well, when he got halfway there they hit a mine and now they're stuck. They get shot at, so they're stuck. They called our tank up there, and now it was nighttime. We ran our tank up right behind his tank and hooked up. One of the guys dropped out of the trap door on the bottom of a tank to be able to get out in emergencies -- got out and hooked the cable onto that other tank. And everything was quiet, there's nothing, no firing or anything, just all real quiet, and the minute our tank and their tank put their tanks into reverse then the enemy shot everything they had at us, trying to demolish ours too. But we finally dragged the tank back, but in doing so, I had a California flag on the antenna, was gone, most of our gear on the back was blown off. But we got the tank back, and when they got 'em out of the tank it was a real mess inside. You know, in those tanks you just get sick, vomit and stuff like that, I guess it's the fear, it's the smoke, just a lot of things that contribute to that.

I can tell you one humorous story about someone getting sick, was when we were on this one hill, firing, and we start getting shelled, so we buttoned up, closed the hatches, and of course we had done some firing, so it's smoky in there. Anyway, the assistant driver got real sick and he was gonna vomit, so he asked for my steel pot of the helmet. So I gave it to him and he vomited in it, and then after we went back to the rear area to get some more ammunition -- it was wintertime, there's snow all over -- so we went back to get ammunition. While we were there, he yelled out, "Anybody want some hot chocolate?" So everybody ran out, yeah, I'll have some, so I dipped a little out of it and then I looked at the helmet and I said, "Hey, that's my helmet, isn't it?" He says yeah. I says, "You just puked in that." He says, "Oh, I cleaned it out with snow." I almost got sick. I luckily hadn't tasted it yet, so I just, I just dumped it. It was humorous, but at the time it was kind of, God, if I'd have found out after I drank it it'd make me sick.

MN: You mentioned also that you lost your California flag on the tank?

RW: Yeah, that was on that, in the rescuing that tank.

MN: So did each tank have a different flag, state flag on it?

RW: Well, not every tank, but some guys had the Confederate flag and different flags, and so I wrote home to the Redlands newspaper telling 'em a lot of tanks have their own state flags flying, so I said I'd like to see if somewhere I can get a flag to fly on my tank. And this lady from Redlands -- it so happened my brother, in later years, was working for her as a house caretaker and stuff -- so she sent me a couple of flags. So one day this classmate from a year behind me, comes walking in and he was in C Company, Charlie Company of tanks, and he was from Redlands, he came to visit me, so I gave him one of the flags. I had one on my tank, but I lost mine, and he said he lost his but he didn't know what happened to it.

<Begin Segment 18>

MN: Now, before Bob Madrid passed away in September of '51, you and your brother Hank and Bob had a reunion. Now, can you share with us the first time you, were you reunited with your brother Hank? How did you meet in Korea?

RW: Well, that was a real surprise because, first of all, I have to go back, my brother Hank and I, as kids I was always jealous of him. He was always the better marble shooter and he was a better athlete. He was just better at everything, so we always had a little rivalry, and one day, since I'm the spoiled brat of the family, this was right at high school time, I guess -- I was yakkin' at my mom in an abusive manner, and he said, "Don't talk to Mom like that," and I just told him to shut up, next thing you know we're fighting. My mom had to break it up. So then after that we never associated or talked to each other much at all. It was just, you do your thing, I'll do my thing. But then when we went to Korea, of course, he got wounded before I got to Korea once. In fact, he was wounded precisely at the time that Jo Ann died, so we got two telegrams. Well, I thought that telegram from the War Department to my mother was a mistake. This telegram's addressed to Mrs. A. Wada instead of Robert for my wife, because I was getting telegrams from far away. Then I started to open it, it said from War Department. Then I took it outside the house because everybody was there because Jo Ann had just died, so then when I read that my brother was wounded, I just walked in the house and told 'em, "Hey, Hank's been wounded. They don't say what, how bad, but he should be okay." Anyway, my sister says, "Well gosh, it's sure good you were here so you could just calmly tell us, because otherwise Mom, everybody would've gotten real rattled, but you were so calm." Anyway, my brother Hank was wounded before I got there. Well, then when I got to Headquarters, it must've been one of the first few days I was there, and we had the tent flaps rolled up because it was hot and we were just sittin', talking, and I saw somebody's legs coming towards the tent and then some guy ducked his head down, looked in the tent, and I saw this Korean looking guy with a handlebar mustache, and I didn't think... who's that guy, what's he want? Then it dawned on me. "Hey, that's my brother." And I ran out, we shook hands, hugged each other. It was just a whole new life for us. From then on we've been awfully close. And it was an awakening, to see your brother way over there like that. It was something that, I guess, was just meant to be a way to bring us back together, and it did it instantly, just seeing him for that moment just brought us back together totally.

<Begin Segment 19>

MN: And then you had shared with us how you had last saw Bob Madrid before --

RW: I beg your pardon?

MN: Earlier you had shared about Bob Madrid, how you had met with him before he died on Hill 749.

RW: Yeah.

MN: Can you share with us how you learned about Bob Madrid's passing and how you learned about your brother Hank being wounded a second time?

RW: Well, at headquarters they post this casualty list daily. And I normally didn't go look at it because, hey, I don't know other Marines that much, our attitude at that time was nothing's gonna happen to us. We're somebody special. We're there to experience the war, and then we planned a beer bust, "Okay, when last of the three of us get home, we're gonna have a big beer bust, okay?" That was all we talked about. "We'll see you when we get home." We'll do this, we'll do that. "Hey, Bat, maybe when we get back we can go try to be a highway patrolman," things like that. We were always planning what we were gonna do when we got home. But it was not meant to be, I guess. One day I just happened to walk by headquarters, and I saw the casualty list and I'm looking at it, and wow, there's Bat's name, the first name of the killed. There's about ten guys killed and his is at the very top. That means he was the first to be killed. I asked the guy if I could have that list. So then I was wondering about Hank and I had no way of finding out. Well, what I did was I borrowed the company jeep and I went up to Bob's unit, found the three guys -- the Marines use what they call a fire team, four guys, and Bat was one of the four men in the fire team, took their picture, and talked to them about what happened. Then I thought about Hank, and I think the next day or couple days I was watching the casualties, then I saw his name. That's how I found out they were killed and wounded.

MN: And then a short time later your close tanker friend, Vernon Todd, is killed.

RW: Yeah.

MN: How did you, how did this learning of Bob Madrid's death and then Vernon Todd's death, how did that affect you at the time?

RW: Well, I just broke down and cried when I saw Bat's name. In fact, one of the guys thought I was hurt or wounded or somethin' because I was crying, but I couldn't help it, I just saw his name on there. When I saw Vernon Todd's name then I checked with some of the guys from his unit, what happened, and they said they were getting shelled and somebody got hurt and he looked up to see who it was and a shell landed next to him and decapitated him. The thing about Vernon Todd was... when I was leaving for Korea, I went to see my mother, I told her, "Do you want to come to my sister Mary's house and then come and say goodbye when the boat leaves? She said, in Japanese, "No, it's bad luck to say goodbye to somebody going to war. I'll be here when you come back." And she said, "Just do your best, be brave, and don't get sick." So as a mother, since she's not gonna be there to take care of me if I'm sick, she doesn't want me to get sick. But that's what she told me. I'll never forget those words. Well, in the case of Vernon Todd, at tank school he bunked next to me, and he's the guy I asked and said, "Hey, Vernon, you guys from Texas are real prejudiced, man. How come you are such a good friend of mine? You treat me really good." "Bob," he says, "you've never done anything wrong to me. And besides, you're a Marine. I'm looking at you as a Marine. I don't care what else is there." He was that type of guy.

His parents came about two weeks before we finished tank training and were visiting. They would give us rides out to the main highway before the freeway, Highway 5 and we'd hitchhike to L.A. or wherever, or I'd hitchhike home. I got to know them, and he was the only child and only son. The day the boat was leaving, his parents were at the dock. I always think about that and I always think how sad because little did they know that was the last time they're gonna see their only son alive. When I found out I wrote a letter to his parents, told 'em I don't know why God does what He does, but He took my wife and Vernon, I said I asked him why he treated me so well and liked me when I was Japanese and he told me I was a Marine and he respected me as a Marine. I always look back and say is what my mother said true then? Is it true that it's bad luck to see someone leave to go to war? The parents were there and they saw Vernon go and, poof, just one explosion and he's gone. And they would never get to see him again, never see his face. He was decapitated. There's an article in a book written by one of the tankers who was with him, tells about what happened. It's gruesome because he said they were getting shelled and when the shelling stopped he picked up something and it was a piece of a skull that was Vernon Todd's. The thing about the parents, one of her close friends was writing to me for a while and she was telling me the letter was read at the funeral, made me feel very good.

MN: Now, your brother Hank, were you able to go and see him while he was recuperating?

RW: No. I didn't see Hank again for a while because he was on the hospital ship USS Haven down in Pusan, I didn't even know he was there until I got a letter from him, and letter writing is worse than pony express. I mean, you're lucky to get it all. But he did write and say he was there and that he was trying to get them to let him go home because he'd been wounded twice, and getting wounded twice, a third time is not a charm in war, so he did finally convinced them. They got him all the way back to Division and then he finally convinced them that he's supposed to go home. So then he called headquarters to try to find me and they got word to me, I got back to him and told him I'd borrow the jeep and come back to Division Headquarters to visit with him. Then he asked me if I had an extra pair of socks and some money. He wanted to borrow five dollars. I went back to visit him, and there was an empty Quonset hut so we went in there, we were talking. Then the first thing he said was, "How's Bat? Have you heard from him?" I said, "Gosh, haven't you heard?" And he said, "No, what happened?" I said, "God, he was killed the day you were wounded." I said, "Didn't Helen write to you or anything?" He said, "No, the mail hasn't caught up." So we just stood there for a few minutes, then his legs just buckled. He fell to the floor. It was a bad experience for me too because I'm the one that had to tell him. I kind of wish that he'd have been told some other way. That was the last time I saw Hank, when he was on his way home, so I was relieved of that.

<Begin Segment 20>

MN: On a more lighter note, right before Christmas of that year, 1951, one of your fellow Marines told everybody to write home for some canned fruit.

RW: Oh, yeah.

MN: What did he do with that?

RW: Well, they're far more mature than we were. They were talkin' about something called raisin jack, and I had no idea what they meant by raisin jack. I remember there were no raisins, but we told everybody to write home for some canned fruits, so I did. I got a couple of canned fruits. Other guys got some. And what they did was they took a regular five gallon water can, and dumped out the water and opened 'em up, put all this canned fruit in there. I guess he got some yeast from the cook at the mess tent, and threw the yeast in there. They knew how to do it and had it fermenting in our tent. The next day, one of the guys came by and said, hey, they're gonna have an inspection of equipment, the Sergeant and the Lieutenant's comin'. Keep your eye out when they come." They watch for him, then they say, here they come, so they closed up the can because it was smelly, and the Lieutenant and the Sergeant came through and checked our weapons and everything. Then they left. The minute they left one of the guys yelled, "Get your canteen. Get your canteen." So we ran over to the five gallon can and the sides had bowed out, like, it was almost like a half a round ball. They opened the tip of the lid and this little stream of liquid came shooting out. It was like punch, but it was homebrew, and they wanted it, they wanted it for Christmas, but it was gone in a couple of days, that's what that canned fruit was for, was to make this thing called raisin jack. And like I said, there were no raisins in it. It was funny.

MN: So this, your first Christmas in Korea, 1951, what was that like?

RW: Well, I have to tell you, it was the saddest Christmas I've ever had in my life. It was sad to, everybody talking about Christmas, home and family, and I kept thinking about Jo Ann, I'm not gonna see her again, kept thinking about Madrid, he's not gonna be able to have Christmas at home with his family, Vernon Todd is gone and his family is suffering, losing their only child. I just thought about all the suffering that was going on, our losses. The only bright spot was my brother Hank was now home, so he was safe at home. Christmastime you always hear "Silent Night" and we heard that a lot, when I hear that song it kind of tears me up inside to hear that song at Christmastime. Just reminds me of that Christmas, what a lonely Christmas that was.

MN: Did they have USO shows for the Marines at that time?

RW: Well, they had Bob Hope and some others, but they didn't come up where we were at. They were pretty far back, I imagine, to either Division or even what they call Corps headquarters, which is further back than Division headquarters, I didn't even know they were there until my sister sent a newspaper article saying the Bob Hope show was back there. But there's a show that came to our battalion headquarters. It was a real amateur show. They just did some dancing and some singing, but I thought it was real Mickey Mouse, but then again, I gave them a lot of credit for taking the time to come over there, as amateur as the show was. Maybe it was a good show. Maybe I just wasn't being appreciative of what had happened to me during that time so I didn't think too much of the show, but nevertheless they were there, coming up to battalion headquarters. Got to give 'em that credit.

<Begin Segment 21>

MN: And you talked earlier about being transferred to Bob Pike's unit, but it's around this time that you asked for this transfer and you ended up there. How did the other guys treat you? Did you experience any prejudice when you went to this new tank unit?

[Interruption]

MN: You were gonna share with us how you just joined Bob Pike's unit, and how did these guys treat you?

RW: Well, again, this is like when I went to boot camp, I was deathly afraid of how I'm gonna be accepted, the same feeling when I got assigned to a tank. I got to the unit where they were at, found which bunker they were in, I went in this bunker and the crew, four guys are sitting there so then I told 'em I was assigned to your tank. And they said, oh yeah, they're So-and-So and So-and-So, so at first it was, it was okay. A few days later, since they were treating me as a crewman, I talked with Pike 'cause he was very friendly with me and I said, "You know, when I first came to this tank, man, I thought I was gonna have a hard time adjusting, being accepted by you guys." Pike said, "I don't care what race you are. You're a Marine, you're assigned to my tank, but heck, you're a sergeant too," 'cause I was a sergeant by then, and so he says, "I'm a little uncomfortable." I said, "Man, that rank's got nothin' to do with it. I'm a crewman here." And so Bob told me when I asked him about the fact, "I was really worried that you guys weren't gonna accept me," but he said, "Hey, we, you are one of us, you're our tank crewman. You're a Marine. That's all that matters to us." But over the years, I came home and I visited him in San Leandro way back when we first got back, I've gotten back together with him a few times. We communicate daily on email, and we went to the Marine Memorial Hotel in downtown San Francisco for a reunion dinner. I stayed there and he came and we had dinner. I've been visiting with him quite a bit.

MN: Now you participated in something called Operation Mousetrap. Can you tell us what this strategy was?

RW: Well, I don't know what the whole strategy was. All I know is it was to try to just kill some enemy, and this was around the area where Bat was killed too. We were just giving up the hill. We were giving up that whole territory, and our tanks were told to tear down everything and load up our tanks and at a certain time we were gonna just pull out. We pulled out of this gully where we were hidden. We were retreating and all the units, the artillery, everybody, pulled out and moved to the rear. We stayed in the rear for, I guess, about a week at the most, and then at night they moved us all back up again. And then just before dawn they turned on searchlights on the hills and caught these North Koreans or the Chinese rebuilding their trenches and stuff and just bombarded 'em, so it was just kind of like a pull off and then go back and fight again.

MN: Now, you --

RW: I don't know the strategy.

MN: You know, in a lot of these missions did you ever feel like your life was in danger?

RW: Only when we got shelled. I just always never felt that that shell was meant for me. Even when we were in the tank, all we did was have to button up, close the hatches and just let the shells hit the tank and that was it. Then they would finally let up after they hit us quite a few times. As long as they weren't able to sneak up on us and fire some heavy weapons that would pierce the armor, but you have the ground troops around us, so it's not very likely they're gonna do that. I didn't get into real heavy tank battles itself and we did more support firing, supporting the ground Marines.

<Begin Segment 22>

MN: Now, in March 1952 the entire First Marine Division moved to the western front, and the 1st Tank Battalion went by sea. Why did they go by sea?

RW: They didn't want to wear out or run the tanks directly from the East Coast to the West Coast over the mountainous and rough roads to get to the other side, so they loaded all the tanks on LST. The landing ship tanks, big ships that hold the tanks. And then we went around through the ocean, around the tip. One of the unique things about that trip was we did a little bit of helping tie down the tanks with the chains, but when we went around the tip down around Pusan we hit a big storm, LSTs are flat bottom so they can go right up on shore, so they roll a lot, side by side. We had our cots set up between the tank and the side and what they call bulkhead. We were camped there. When the storm hit we got sicker than sick. And as the storm got worse then the ship would turn side to side and the tanks would kind of slide a little side to side. Finally we start hearing this big loud ping, ping, ping. The chains were popping loose, and then all of a sudden the tanks were sliding side to side, so we climbed up -- the bulkheads have wooden slats along the side -- we climbed up those slats and our tanks were just sliding and hitting right under our feet. All the stuff we had down there was demolished and it was a nightmare. And I kept looking forward at the big door that opens up. I thought, God, that door's gonna pop in and that ocean's gonna come flying in here. I thought, oh my god, we didn't know what to think. Then finally the ship and the whole convoy -- it was a convoy -- slowed down and actually came to a stop. They had to retie all the tanks. And then we found out it happened to the other LSTs too, not just ours. So boy, that was worse than combat, getting shot at. I mean, that was really scary. If you can imagine, giant tanks right under your feet slamming into the side as if it's gonna knock right through the wall and you're right there above it. We didn't have time to go to any doorway because there's so many doorways down there. So it was one of the more frightening times over there.

MN: Plus you were seasick also.

RW: Oh, we were so sick. Bob Pike remembers that. We finally went up with a life raft up toward what they call the bow, in the front. We stayed there and slept up there. We didn't want to sleep down there anymore. Down below it's warmer, hotter and stuffier, and that doesn't help seasickness.

MN: Now the ship arrived in Inchon and you stayed overnight. What was the city like at that time?

RW: It was total devastation, and I wish I had tried to take some pictures. I had this little camera, but for some reason I didn't -- we didn't have time to sit and take pictures, but that whole area was just demolished. We loaded our tanks on flat bed railcars. I don't know how many there were any rails left going north of Seoul, but when we went through Seoul, I mean, the railroad tracks were twisted and spiraling up in the air like spaghetti. It was just amazing how demolished the buildings were, yet there were some areas that were still standing in pretty good shape, so it just depended what area it was.

MN: You received orders that you could go home, but you asked to remain in Korea. Why did you make this request?

RW: Well, after I was assigned to tanks then I felt a kind of a way of payback. When I was in headquarters just going up with the captain to the front lines and stuff, I mean, we weren't involved in any fighting. One time we were up on a reconnaissance and we ran across a Korean patrol that was near us, and we didn't engage 'em in a fight or anything. We hid. And so it wasn't any fighting, and so when we moved to this new area right at that time when we got there and got settled. I heard there was gonna be some fighting in that new area so I thought, well, might be a way of getting more payback for Madrid. So I asked the lieutenant that was taking over for the one going home. I asked him if he thought I could stay with my tank, and he says, "Yeah, sure. I'd like to have you stay. Better get it cleared with the Battalion Commanding Officer." So I went back to battalion headquarters to see this major -- he was a major, might've been a colonel by then, but Major Moore, and I went in to see him in his tent. He said, "What is it, Wada?" I said, "Sir, I was wondering if I could extend over and stay here another six months. I'm scheduled to go home with this ninth draft." He says, "What's the matter with you, Wada? You cracked up or something?" And I said, "No, Sir. I just want to stay another six months with my tank." He said, "What do you want to do that for?" And I said, "Sir, I have nothing to rush home for. Lost my wife, lost my best friend, and up here I got a couple of good friends, and so I'd like to just stay and stay with my tank. I understand there's gonna be some new action up here." He said, "You know, Wada, if they get orders back at Division that you want to extend over another six months, you know what they're gonna do?" I said, "No, Sir." He said, "They're probably gonna pull you back as an interpreter. You want that?" And I said, "No, Sir, I want to stay with my tank." He says, "Well then I think you better go home." "Yes, Sir." So I did what he said and here I am, came home.

<Begin Segment 23>

MN: So in April 1952 you rotated home, but before heading to the U.S. the ship stopped in Kobe?

RW: Uh-huh.

MN: Was prostitution rampant at, in Kobe?

RW: Well, I think prostitution was pretty rampant in any port city. One of my friends and I were walking down the street there in Kobe and these girls came up to us and started making sexual motion with us and touched us and pretty much trying to get us excited enough to want to go with them. And the guy I was with, he was married, had a couple of kids. He was recalled in the reserves. This other Marine that was stationed there just walked by and said, "Hey, you guys better stay away from these gals. You guys are going home and most of 'em are dosed up," meaning they had some kind of venereal disease. I just told 'em in Japanese, "No, no, iranai." These older people would walk by and look at us, I don't know if they were looking at me because I was Japanese coming back from the war in the Marines or whether they were thinking, how disgusting these girls are messing with these guys, but I have to think they were looking at me because I was Japanese because I think the girl thing was nothing. I think it's just happening every day so it's not like they were doing it for the first time.

MN: You know, one of the guys in during World War II who went over to occupied Japan told me they used to have these VD patrols. Did they have things like that at that time?

RW: Gee, I don't know 'cause I wasn't stationed there long enough. We just were passing through. I know they didn't have anything like that in Korea, although in Korea if you wanted condoms they had 'em, if you wanted 'em. One of the medic corpsmen was passing 'em out, so we took a couple but we had no reason to. There was no girls around where we were, so we used it to put on the end of our rifles and stuff like that. [Laughs]

MN: So how did you feel when the ship, the USS General -- is it William Weigel?

RW: Yeah.

MN: -- docked in San Diego and you returned home?

RW: Well, it was certainly a different feeling than going. It was extremely happy, even though I didn't want to come home I was still happy to come home. I looked on the dock and my sister Mary was there carrying her son, Stevie, two or three years old, and my nieces were there with her. It was exciting to see the dock that we left, and then when the boat finally inched in and hit the dock, I mean, that was just ecstasy to feel that jolt. When we went down the gangplank with our sea bags, they brought the recruits from boot camp over and each one would take our bag off our shoulder and then they took it to load it on the trucks to where they processed us, let us out, and then we got to go to the families. There were some Red Cross people giving donuts, coffee and milk, so I got a donut and a bottle of milk, and then I went over to my sister and kids and they were all hugging, so I dropped my milk and donut, and so my sister said, "That's okay, we got lots of milk at home." And I always think of that day because I use that in my speech, and I just say that I was so fortunate to come home and be able to drop my milk and donut, and guys like Bat and Vernon Todd and fifty-five thousand guys that were killed in Korea, they didn't get to come home and drop a donut and milk. So that's the irony and sadness of coming home.

MN: Was your mother there?

RW: No, she was waiting at home for me.

MN: Now, years later you learned from your sister that your mother had nightmares. Do you know why she was having nightmares?

RW: Well, she went through World War II with two sons in the 442nd who got wounded, between the two of 'em, three times. She gets three telegrams telling her her son's wounded. Any day she could get one saying they died. Our family's just lucky they didn't die. During the Korean War there were three of us in Korea at the same time, although Ted came home not too long after we got there. She gets two telegrams from the government for Hank saying he was wounded twice, and again, luckily he's not killed. With five sons, or four sons in the war, she would just have these nightmares, yelling in her sleep. When my sister Helen told me that, I said, "Well, did you wake her up? Why didn't you wake her up if she was screaming?" She said, "Oh no, I got so scared I used to just crawl further under the covers." It scared her that Mother would be yelling in her sleep. Even I do that. I used to do it a lot. I don't know about now, but it used to wake me up before, but now, all I do now is just dream and dream and dream constantly.

MN: I'll ask you some of that later on, but I wanted to ask you right now, how soon after you returned from Korea did you go visit Bob Madrid's parents?

RW: Right away. That's the first place I went. But I have to say the visit wasn't very fruitful because I couldn't talk to them. I was crying. It was hard for me to talk to 'em. All I was doing was apologizing, telling them I'm sorry. His brother told me, "Well, you can't feel that way because he died doing what you two guys talked about, being Marines, since little kids. He died doing what he wanted to do." And trying to console me he says, "Well, if you didn't ask him to go he probably would've died in a car accident that same day, same time, same moment." That's not easy to digest and say yeah, okay, he would've died anyway. Maybe I'd rather have seen that. And I wouldn't have to live with it.

MN: Now, your high school friend, Louis Moreno, had become a motorcycle police officer and years later you found out he was visiting your mother's place while you were in Korea? Why did he do that?

RW: Well, Louie and I were good friends in high school and, he along with a friend named Jimmy Martinez. Louie said he was a policeman and so he figured if he stopped by and visited my mother every so often, park his motorcycle out there, then people in the neighborhood or any people driving by would see a policeman around there and they would think twice before messing with an old lady living by herself. Whether it was necessary or not it was a nice, great gesture on his part to do that, and I'm sure it probably helped.

<Begin Segment 24>

MN: Shortly after you returned you were in Los Angeles and you got some bit parts as extras in a movie. Can you share with us some of the experiences at some of the movies you had extra parts in?

RW: They were bit things, background things. They were like, how far down does it go, B, C, D, E, F, Z movies? Anyway, one was Willie and Joe Back at the Front. It was about these two GIs there in Japan, so we dressed as Japanese students in their black uniform, and we were in the background and you would walk by and then go to the other end and then a guy was standing there and turn you around, you go back. You go back and forth in the background. That was one of 'em. The one that was the most fun was called Destination Gobi, about the Gobi Desert, furnishing the Mongolians with rifles or something. Anyway, Charles Widmark and Don Taylor were in that movie and Shiro Kitabayashi and I were dressed as Japanese soldiers, and Widmark and Don Taylor were captured and we were told to kind of guard Widmark and push him towards the shack where they were gonna question him. In doing so, it was a night scene and the director turned to me and said, "Can you speak Japanese?" I said, well, a little bit. He said, "Well, tell Chuck to go in. Just tell him, hurry, hurry, get in." So okay, I knew, I could say, "Hayaku, hayaku." But then this Filipino guy says, "Hey, wait a minute, he's not in the guild. He can't say anything." And the director says, "Are you two in the guild?" And I said no. "Okay, well you do it then," he tells that Filipino guy. Well then he goes, "Ugga, ugga, ugga." Gee, I thought, oh god, what a farce. And then what was fun was we got eighty dollars each for getting wet. Widmark is supposed to have escaped, so we're inside this building and then we come running out into the rain, these big pipes of water showering water, and we climb in this truck, and we're slipping and sliding, laughing and bumping into each other. Of course, it's not on the film 'cause they're filming it a little ways away from the truck, but it was fun. The best part was we went to the commissary to eat, have lunch, and Shiro says, "Hey look, there's Marilyn Monroe." She was having lunch there. We were having more fun watching the waiter 'cause he kept looking at her and he almost bumped into everybody with the stuff he was carrying. That was the highlight of our career in the movies. [Laughs]

MN: Now, you eventually married a second time, in April 1953, to Shinobu Shirley Hamaguchi, and after you got married you went looking for an apartment, and how did these apartment managers treat you?

RW: Well, they didn't treat us very good, I mean, apartments and homes. First we tried, after we got married, to try to rent an apartment and looked in the paper and then got the address, went to this one apartment in L.A. area, Wilshire area, it wasn't a fancy place. And the lady came out at the top of the stairs at the doorway and then I asked her, "You have a note here you have an apartment for rent?" And she just flat out said, "I'm sorry, I can't rent it to you. It's not my policy; it's the owner's policy." I told her, "Well, you know, ma'am, I just got back from Korea fighting for a-holes like you, and if they have another war you better send your son 'cause I'm not gonna go..." I used some language that wasn't very nice, but that was fuming after I'd just got back from Korea. And same thing was with houses. We did buy a house in San Fernando later, after my first boy was born. We went to a couple of places and they wouldn't wait on us. We don't stand around for an hour waiting, if they don't wait on you you're not gonna be waited on. We went to this one place and I asked 'em, "You sell to Japanese?" "Hey, we sell to anybody if you can qualify." "Do you have a house?" "We have this one over on Cork Street that somebody's loan fell through." We went to look at it. It was one of those no money down things. The price was low. So we bought it and that really helped us get started into buying better houses. Course, this was in San Fernando. Since we were in San Diego all the time to visit relatives I decided we had to get on the other side of the whole valley, so we went into La Mirada looking for a place and we ran into a bigger problem there. I mean, we went into one tract home, the sales office, and they wouldn't come out to talk to us, but if a white couple walked in, they would run over and bend over for them. I didn't need a baseball bat hittin' me to tell me, so I just said come on, let's go. They're not gonna wait on us. Went to another place, same thing, and then finally went to a third place and guy said, "Yeah, if you can qualify we'll sell you a house. Got a couple over here." He showed us this one house in La Mirada and that's the house we bought, and we were there 'til the, all the kids went all the way through high school.

<Begin Segment 25>

MN: Now, since high school you worked as a part time draftsman and chainman on a field crew, and you eventually passed the state of California's land surveyors examination in 1960. Were you the first Japanese American to get a land surveyor's license in California?

RW: Actually there were two of us that year, the first two. He got his a little before me during the year. His license was issued before mine. I never did meet the guy, but I know his name was Yas Mikuriya, and I used to see his name around this area.

MN: What other states are you licensed in?

RW: Arizona and Nevada.

MN: You eventually opened up Robert Wada & Associates, and you've been in business for thirty-eight years. Have you ever been turned down for a project because you were Japanese American?

RW: I can't say yes or no to that because I'm not sure the reason, but I did a lot of proposals. When I would know that there was something amiss is they want to meet me on the job. "Why don't you come out? We're gonna show you what I need." You go out there and then when they take a second look at you, you know that they're kind of surprised that you're Japanese or Oriental. So yeah, I can't say that I was turned down, although I will say that I had a pretty hard time until I got a disability through the VA for my PTSD and for my back and my hearing from tanks. Then I got a disabled veteran rating from the state of California. Well, they have a requirement that contractors and builders, they have to give ten percent of their job to a DVBE, disabled veteran firm. That turned things around for me quite a bit, 'cause it became a mandatory, and there aren't too many disabled veteran firms, especially surveying.

MN: Your company has recorded hundreds of maps with the Los Angeles County with your name and company's name on it. How does that make you feel?

RW: Well, I don't know if I've recorded hundreds of maps, but I recorded quite a few. They're what they call Record of Surveys, Parcel Maps, Subdivision Maps. It just makes me feel that I've accomplished something because those maps are recorded with the County Recorder, and they're gonna be there forever, and people in the future, when they survey, the same area, they're gonna refer to those maps. And it's all done by Robert Wada & Associates. I work with maps sometimes way back in the 1800s. They're still on record and you can get copies of it. They were very Mickey Mouse surveys in those days, all done on paper, but it's totally different than today where they really control every monument, every marker that you set is got to be substantiated and why it's set there. It's a science in itself.

<Begin Segment 26>

MN: Now earlier you mentioned that you did suffer from nightmares. Do you still suffer from nightmares, and how severe are they?

RW: Well, dreams, I don't know if dreams are considered nightmares or what's considered nightmares, I still have the frightening kind of nightmares that I had, and I still have dreams constantly. I dream almost like every minute I'm asleep. If I'm in bed at 11:30, 12:00, I'll dream and wake up thinking it's three, four in the morning and it's 12:30. And I'll go back to sleep and I'll dream about something and I'll wake up, it's 1:30, two o'clock. I'll wake up three, four times a night and I was dreaming each time. The type of dream is always the same, sort of like I'm lost, can't find my car, impossible situations. Last night I dreamt I was taking somebody to the airport and time was getting short and had to be there by a certain time and the airplane was gonna leave. I'm driving the car, but I'm back in Redlands and I know the roads that it was on, and I started to go up this hill and then the car stopped. And I couldn't press the gas, trying to start, nothing, and it wouldn't start. And then I woke up. But I don't know if those are what you call nightmares. Some nightmares I have, I do have something threatening, like a snake, life threatening things, war, being on a ship going somewhere going to war, wondering how I got there, I am thinking I know I had a house. Another dream last night, I was walking in front of the house, going back to the house in Redlands with my brother-in-law, and he died last year. And in my dream I'm telling myself, gosh, I thought he died, but he's here. I can consciously think of things in my dreams. Some are nightmares. Some are just weird, god awful dreams, trying to play golf, can't find my ball, swing at the ball, missed it, looking for my ball and here's balls all over the place and can't find mine, the one ball. Always something I've lost someplace. Can't find my car, I know I parked it over here on this street, but oh my god, there's no cars here. Things like that.

MN: Did these start after you came back from Korea, or did you always have dreams like this as a child?

RW: I don't remember dreaming as a child at all. Course, some of the dreams, like seeing Madrid, seeing Bat, different times, different ways, that all comes from war. Seeing him on the road, telling him, "Don't go, don't go, something's gonna happen to you," and he just looks back and keeps on walking. One dream I saw his brother come out of this broken down shack sort of like the torn up shacks in Korea, asked his brother, "Where's Bat? Oh, he's coming out." As Bat came walking out I go over to greet him, hug him, he just kind of shrugs his shoulder at me and walks away. Then my feeling is a sad feeling. I wake up with that sad feeling at that point.

MN: Now you weren't aware of post traumatic stress disorder until 2002, and how did you become aware of PTSD and can you tell us a little bit about what, what PTSD is?

RW: Well, PTSD is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and it's the mental effect that your service, war has on you. Right now it's a pretty big thing with those that are coming back from Afghanistan, things like that. And I think a lot of it comes from the fear that's generated, the unknown fear. Like for them, they go out patrol, they're driving down the road, they're on a constant, every minute fear they're gonna be blown up, and that can weigh heavily on you in the future. I've talked to a number of guys and they have nightmares, they have them during while they're awake, they're conscious, they do dangerous things that are reactions. I was walking into my office the other day and, it's really weird, this bird, this large bird, a dove, flew into my large window and it has reflections of across the street so it thought it was just flying down the street and hit that window right next to me with a big bang, and boy, I jumped a mile. My heart was beating a hundred miles an hour. I didn't consciously see a shell exploding, but it certainly weighs on your reaction to something, especially with a sound like that right next to you. I don't know. PTSD is just something affecting a person's mind and gives 'em a lot of problems, dreams, nightmares, stuff like that.

MN: Has it restricted your life?

RW: Well, I think at times it causes a little stress. You get short-tempered. I used to be very short-tempered before. Now that I'm getting older I'm trying to be a little more controllable, not drive so fast like I used to, but it's, it still has an effect on me.

<Begin Segment 27>

MN: Now, during the 1990s you became active in the veterans organizations. Can you share with us how the Japanese American Korean War Veterans Organization came to be formed in 1996?

RW: Well, for years I was working with Jim Yamashita with the World War II Memorial Alliance, but we didn't have that organization. It was in the days of when we were arguing over the 442nd Living Veterans monument. Before that Jim and I were collecting names, addresses and names of World War II veterans, 442nd, and I was collecting Korean War vet names and addresses, At the time I didn't know why I didn't have anything in mind. Something just told me to collect names and addresses, and so I had a pretty good list of names and addresses. In 1996, the Vietnam War Committee, Vince Okamoto, Ken Hayashi, and Dave Miyoshi and a bunch of 'em built that Vietnam War Memorial at the Japanese American Cultural Center, so once they built that, then that was the impetus for the Korean War vets to do something. Min Tonai -- I didn't know who he was at the time -- called me and said he had heard that I collected a lot of names of Korean War vets, that we should organize and build a memorial too. So I said, well, okay, that sounds like a good idea, but we got to get permission from the Cultural Center. "Oh, don't worry about that. Don't worry about it." He assured me don't worry. Well, we need to do this or do that. "Oh, that's okay. We can do it." So I thought, well jeez, who the heck is this guy, I said I got the names, we can just contact all these people and see if they want to come out to a meeting. After we hung up I called Sam Shimoguchi 'cause we were working together on that 442nd monument issue, and I asked him, who's this Min Tonai? Man, he sounds like he can get anything we want at that Cultural Center. "Don't you know who Min Tonai is?" And I said no, who is he? "He's the President of the Cultural Center." He is? Wow. Okay, so then we got together and on my own I put together the list, sent out letters to everybody inviting 'em to a certain day for a meeting to form a Japanese American Korean War vet group, and surprisingly, at the first meeting we got about forty guys. And I think every meeting since, even today, it's at least twenty, twenty-five guys that show up, so they're very, very active today. I've kind of dropped off because I've been doing the book writing and other things, but the Korean War vets are very, very active today.

MN: Now, were the Korean War vets, their names, were they supposed to be part of that Go For Broke Monument?

RW: Well, that was my contention. That was Sam Shimoguchi's and Jim's argument. Well, they didn't argue that point as much as I did. I refer to theirs as a monument. I refer to ours in the, in the memorial court as a memorial. Theirs is not a memorial because they're living. But when they were given the property by the city, in the proposal, a big, thick booklet proposal, it specifically said it would be to honor and memorialize the World War II veterans and Korean War veterans. That always was a stickler for me because it said "and Korean War vets," but their guys, without naming names, they had guys that were pushing for just living names on the monument. They insisted that the city made a mistake, that they didn't mean to include the Korean War. And that, to me that was totally wrong. So we had meetings after meetings. Harold Harada was one of the guys that was pretty strong, Jim Yamashita, myself, Sam Shimoguchi, we tried to argue, I tried to argue to just give us a little space on the back of the monument with those that were killed in Korea. That's all we'd like. "No, we can't do that. We can't. This is just for the living names." So it was a big argument, and one of the guys at one of our meetings just to really tell you what their thinking was at that time, one of the MIS guys told one of our guys that, "We don't have to honor those who died in the war because they didn't do the fighting. They died and didn't do the fighting because they were dead." And that was absolutely shocking to hear somebody say such a thing, because our motive, what we wanted to do was to honor and memorialize those who died. And then when we tried to even ask them to separate those that died on that monument from the living, they said no, they have to put 'em all in the same listing but they'll put some kind of symbol. I don't have the wish to go look at -- I've never seen that monument and I don't have intentions of seeing it, but I think they put some kind of symbol for those that were killed in action. In the meantime we formed our Korean War vet group and in a matter of a year we had raised two hundred thousand dollars to build our Memorial with all the Japanese names. A few years later Ed Nakata and Min Tonai were instrumental in our suggestion that we put up a memorial in Korea, and so we built one, the same type of memorial at the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea with the Memorial listing all the Japanese Americans that were killed in Korea. We've had a lot of good comments from the Korean people whoever see it. When they find out that Japanese Americans actually fought in Korea for their freedom and then when they see the names of how many were killed they have a lot of respect for the Japanese Americans. That was the intention of that memorial.

MN: Was it difficult to get permission from the South Korean government to build that memorial?

RW: Actually no. Min and Ed Nakata did a very good job of getting the permission, and to this day they're very close to a lot of the government officials of South Korea.

<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.

<Begin Segment 29>

MN: -- school in 1948, and at your fiftieth year Redlands High School reunion you were asked to be a speaker. What did you share in that speech?

RW: I just told 'em about some incidents that happened to me in Redlands, because these are all Redlands people, and I told 'em about the fact that an older man had sort of threatened me right after World War II started, the fact that he said, "You little Jap, I'm gonna cut your head off," and I took off from my Sunday school picnic. And I related that to them and told them that when I first joined the Marines and went to boot camp I saw this sergeant with all these ribbons from the South Pacific, I thought it was gonna be total hell for me. It's the same thing when I came to Redlands High School, "I just want to let you all know that I thought I was gonna be shunned by all you people, that I wouldn't have any friends, that I'd have to probably fight somebody all the time. This was just gonna be pure hell for me enrolling here as a Japanese American. But," I said, "I had no problems. You all just treated me as one of you, and it was such a great experience. I had a really good, good time. I just felt like these guys would really give me a hard time, but it really was the best years of my life at this high school because you guys treated me as one of you and certainly dispelled a lot of fears that I had when I first enrolled as a sophomore here at Redlands."