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VI: My age was a good age to see what happened to the older people, Issei. We were old enough to see what happened to the young people. And we were right in the middle between, should I volunteer, or should I... and lot of my best friends, like Sam Sakai, he came back so bitter that it was kind of hard to accept it. But I guess if you see your best friend being killed, I mean, there's only one way you can feel. And he had PSD, is that what they called it?

TI: PTSD?

VI: Yeah. I'm sure he had that, but in World War II, that didn't exist. But they went through the same thing that people are existing now. And I feel very strongly about the police in that a lot of the people, if you join the Marines or the army, what they teach you is now to kill. So they come back and they become policemen. For them to kill somebody does not mean as much as if you didn't have the background.

TI: Of a military person.

VI: Especially going to Iraq and taking the civilians there and killing them. I mean, that's a little bit different than killing a soldier, but they get used to killing civilians. So with that kind of thing, they come back, they become policemen. So they got no qualms of killing a Black person. I'd never say anything. I could say that with you people here, but you probably never heard of this kind of a story.

BT: Actually, my dad agrees with you. He says, "I had so much fun in camp." And my grandmother is a good example of what you're talking about. She was a single mother of three daughters and was just trying so hard to keep her family afloat before the war. And so when she got in camp, it was like, oh my god, she didn't have to work, she could garden, she could spend time with her friend. So for her, it was exactly what you said.

VI: And she met a lot of new friends?

BT: Oh, yeah.

VI: Look how close we are for our class reunion, you've never seen classes like that, that year after year, people were coming.

[Interruption]

TI: So, Dad, I just want to kind of, we talked about Bako and Pancho, and I didn't really explain who they are. So Bako is Francis Kinoshita, Mom's eldest brother, who was killed in action with the 442, actually, the 100th Battalion. And then Pancho, I don't remember Pancho's name.

VI: Isao Nakashima.

TI: Okay.

VI: They called him Pancho because he looked like a Mexican. [Laughs] I mean, I hate to say it. But like he joined the University of Washington, he joined the ROTC, so he had a little bit of training in ROTC. So when he went to Camp Shelby, he was somebody that was from the ROTC. He had a whole bunch of people coming from Hawaii that came from the farmers. And he's a very likable person, people like him, so before you know it, he became a sergeant. And then the Hawaiians accepted him, which was kind of hard because Hawaii was usually, didn't like Mainlanders, especially if there's a sergeant. But Bako was really accepted, because after he died, the Hawaiians all, people that were under him or with him, came to the family and told Mr. Kinoshita and the family how they missed him and all that. So when you hear about stories about, you know, they really didn't get together, they really didn't get together but they serve in the groups that really blend. In the case of Bako, we were kind of surprised because when he went over and joined the 100th, he was staff sergeant, which was unusual. Because usually they would be from Hawaii. So we were kind of surprised. I mean, there's a lot of those stories.

TI: Yeah, good.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.