<Begin Segment 15>

TI: Is there anything, I mean, when you think about all that you've gone through, do you consider yourself lucky, or how do you think about your life?

SK: I consider myself -- I think the good Lord upstairs still doesn't want me, I guess. Because here I am -- I'm eighty-two, you know. And the good Lord doesn't want me because four times now he's interceded in my life. First time when I was wounded. Second time when I went to Vietnam.

TI: So was there a close incident in Vietnam? Well, let's go back. There's the story about stopping smoking.

SK: That's the Vietnam one.

TI: Right. Let's -- tell that one, because we haven't told that on camera.

SK: I had given up smoking on a temporary basis, I thought, when I left for Vietnam. And when I went to Vietnam, they had assured me in Pentagon that (my) predecessor will stay in place for two weeks to break (me) in. So when I reported to Vietnam, my predecessor, colonel so-and-so is not there at the airport with the driver. And the driver says, "Oh, he's in the hospital in Japan, fighting for his life." And I found out, after I reported in, that the colonel whom I'm to replace was waiting early one morning on a street corner along with others, waiting for the bus to come, but he was trying to light a cigarette. And since there was a breeze, he was cupping his hands and bent over this way, trying to light a cigarette, when somebody hollered, "Grenade!" And they all went down except my buddy, from this position he should've gone down. But he looked up, realized what was happening and went down. But too late. Piece of shrapnel got him in the back of the neck. And so I thought, "That's a message for me." I had just given up smoking, and here my buddy's trying to light a cigarette. And he's fighting for his life. So I stayed quit. I have not smoked since. That's December 1966.

TI: Because up to then, you had -- you were a one pack a day smoker?

SK: Pack a day.

TI: You quit on a, a, temporarily on a bet, but then you had started smoking, and then you quit again when you went to Vietnam. But again, you thought probably temporarily? But then...

SK: Right -- right.

TI: ...when this happened, you decided...

SK: I got the divine (message.)

TI: ..."At this point, I will stop."

SK: Yeah. Intervention message.

TI: Okay. That's...

SK: Because I gave up -- I started when I was teenager, about twelve, thirteen I guess, on the old Cubeb. Do you ever hear of Cubeb? C-U-B-E-B. That's the cigarette that the entertainers smoked to soothe their throat area, I guess. So I'd go to a cigarette shop and say, "My dad wants a Cubeb." He said, "Like hell, he does." And he'd still sell it to me. [Laughs] And then I graduated to Bull Durham. And I learned how to roll it one hand, and mix it up with sawdust and Bull Durham. So I was a dyed-in-the-wool smoker.

TI: Right. So that's two. So your wound -- when you were wounded -- your smoking...

SK: Third time, third time was in New Guinea, when we sent roughly 500 prisoners from New Guinea to Australia. And I accompanied the MPs down to the, where there's -- ships will come in...

TI: Okay.

SK: ...to load them. And along the beach were...

TI: Oh, yeah. You told that story -- where the sergeant came out...

SK: That's right -- sergeant came running, rushing along...

TI: Yeah, armed to the teeth.

SK: ...armed to the teeth, followed by armed personnel. And they come right to this one particular place where I am. And the water -- the enlisted bag's right there, and the prisoner with the long-handled cup -- he's 'bout ready to drink, and he sees a rushing sergeant bearing down on him, so he -- instead of drinking, he goes like this, and hands it to the sergeant. And the sergeant says -- he swore, and he says, "I'm not taking that from him," or something like that. So I grabbed the handle, and I said in Japanese, "Let go. Let go. Give it to me." And I took it, and went like this, and I poked it in the sergeant's stomach. I said in English, as loud as I could, "Okay, then, sarg, here you are!"

TI: Yeah. That's a good one.

SK: And with that, he took it. And he says, "Well, this is different!"

TI: Uh-huh.

SK: Afterwards, on our way back to the prison, the MP says, "How come you were right there? You could've been anywhere else, but -- ?" I says, "I don't know why I was there, but I was right there."

TI: Yeah. And you saved the -- yeah, the situation.

SK: Yeah.

TI: So that was the third one.

SK: And of course, I remembered to speak to the sergeant in English. (Had I) spoken to him in Japanese, I wouldn't be sitting here next to you. [Laughs] He would've probably shot me.

TI: And, and not just in English, but in a way that would...

SK: Right. Right.

TI: ...would, would -- yeah.

SK: And of course, the fourth time is, is my right shoulder ached so much that I insisted on having the doctor check me out, and he found all the blockages.

TI: Okay.

SK: That's five years ago. Four times, I can distinctly recall in my life that the good Lord intervened.

TI: Well, good. Well, Spady that's, that's all I have. Thank you very much for...

SK: Well, I thank you for the opportunity.

TI: ...for coming.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.