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TI: And when you took over a squad and you had your men, how did you lead them? I mean, what would you do? Would you do anything different than the other sergeants, do you think?

SK: Well, as I mentioned earlier, I took every man for himself. I didn't want to discriminate one against the other so I treated all those guys equally. Maybe this is the reason, too, we respect, the respect for each other was really great. And here's a good story where I learned that the men really, my squad members, really liked me. For Christmas I got a cake from my sisters and somehow I was out training. I came home late. All the squad members were -- the squad occupies one barrack, you see. They said, "Hey, Kubota, come on, come on. Someone sent you a cake over here." "Oh, yeah, okay." So I just took off my equipment and then above our bed there's the shelf and there's a box. And I took it down and it (...) didn't (feel) like cake, not heavy like cake, so I took it down and I opened it and there was one piece of cake left for me. [Laughs] Shucks.

TI: [Laughs] And the men were all there laughing?

SK: Yeah. They ate it. They ate everything except this one piece. So then I thought, well, son-of-a-gun. If they play jokes on me like this, I guess I'm in. You know what I mean.

TI: That your men felt comfortable enough with you and liked you enough to do that because if you were more aloof they would not, they would not take your cake.

SK: Yeah, that's right. So I felt good. Although they played a mean trick on me, I felt good. The second time -- this was on my birthday, March -- I got a cake. I guess they opened it. Maybe they would have played the same trick on me, but then on it says, "Happy Birthday Big Brother." [Laughs] So this one they didn't touch.

TI: Because they wanted you to see the -- [laughs]

SK: Yeah. So anyway, right there and then -- I have a picture of that cutting the cake and those guys eating the cake.

TI: I'd like to see that.

SK: So we shared that cake, but I guess this is how we got along.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.