<Begin Segment 32>

TI: When you think about this whole incident, did this, do you think this impacted your life after the war, when you think about the court-martial, or were you able to go on and live your life and forget about this?

FM: Yeah, I try to do that -- live my life, forget about it. But it's always in my mind, you know. Yeah. If this thing happened, I probably come out as at least a staff sergeant, Kash would probably be a lieutenant, as a DSC, at least a DSC. The guys, the guys, they didn't tease me too much about it, because like, different company guys. You know, they always tell, "Hey, Kash, how come you're always in the stockade?" And all that kind of stuff. Kash is a good-natured guy; he just laughed it off. But when I talked to Kash about it, he says, he said he feels pretty bad about that, too. There was a black mark on his record, too.

BK: Yeah, 'cause my recollection of the reunions were you guys used to just yuck it up about how you would always get thrown back in the stockade again. But in actuality it was just...

FM: It hurts inside.

BK: ...it was hurting every time you talked about it.

FM: Um hm, yeah. Because we didn't do anything wrong, you see.

BK: Right, right.

FM: All we did was try to stop the fight. And I don't know how they got Kash and myself involved in that.

TI: Well, over a period of a fourteen year stretch from 1983 to 1997, through the efforts of Kash, Louise, Sadaichi Kubota and Bill Thompson, they worked, and they were able to get the court-martial overturned for Kash.

FM: Yeah.

TI: Are you hoping to do a similar thing with your record?

FM: They working on it, but they say they can't find my records. So you can't find your records, you can't do anything, so... but Bill Thompson is still workin' on it. He says, "Well, we'll refer to Kash's record," because we did the same thing; his charges and my charges are the same. So he's working on it. He's trying to clear my name also. But I told him, you know, they just give me my stripes back...

BK: But it wasn't until 1995, I think it was, that they finally found his records.

FM: Yeah.

BK: And so that was a span, it's between 1983 to 1995. And unfortunately, I mean hopefully, they're not going to take that long to find them, but they'll find them. I mean, they better find 'em, because I mean...

TI: Well, one of the problems was there was a fire. And I think even your father's records, they could see the burn marks, and so a lot of records were destroyed.

FM: Yeah, yeah.

BK: I guess I'm just a cynic, though. I think, I don't know if I kind of buy into that. You know what I mean? And so I think, hopefully it won't take them that much longer, though, with the pressure from the previous situation with my dad.

<End Segment 32> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.