<Begin Segment 17>

TI: So I'm thinking 1962, you're in Korea. I've interviewed some men who fought during the Korean War, so it was a little bit earlier than when you served. But they talk about that, they had to deal with a lot of anti-Asian or anti-Japanese sentiment in the military. Did you experience any of that?

RK: No, not really. I was just part of a unit.

TI: So no name-calling, I mean, like the term "gook" and stuff like that, would you hear things like that?

RK: Well, you always had that from guys in different platoons, a different company.

TI: But was any of that ever directed toward you?

RK: No. Because each company in Korea, they had a platoon of ROK, the Korean soldiers. So they actually trained with us. They were assigned, three or four of them would be assigned to every platoon. So I mean, it wasn't that bad. It was worse for them.

TI: Yeah, that's what I was wondering. So how did American soldiers treat the Korean soldiers?

RK: They didn't treat 'em any different than any other soldier. Matter of fact, I used to go to, whenever we had passes, I used to go with them to have dinner wherever they were eating.

TI: Well, so what about the Korean attitudes towards you because of your Japanese ancestry? Japan occupied Korea, there were a lot of bad feelings towards the Japanese.

RK: Yeah, it was.

TI: And here you are of Japanese ancestry, even though you're American. Did that ever come up? Was there any kind of like...

RK: No, not while I was there. We got along pretty good.

TI: And so at this point, did the happy-go-lucky Ron come out? How would you describe your personality during this time period?

RK: Yeah, I started to go back to my old self. I used to laugh and joke around with the other guys in the company, in the platoon. But up to a certain point, you didn't want to make real good buddies with some of the guys, especially if you ended up going into war.

TI: Because it was just emotionally so difficult if...

RK: Yeah. I had good friends while I was there in Korea, but you don't make bosom buddies, especially if you might be going to war. Because we did have to go, I think, three times in the year I was there. The Cuban blockade, I know that was three times we went on full order.

TI: Well, while you were in Korea, I mean, Vietnam was starting to bubble, or things were starting to happen in Vietnam also. Now, were you aware of that? Were things...

RK: Well, you're always aware of... if you have conflict going on someplace else, because you never know when you might get sent over there.

TI: Now, where were you when President Kennedy was assassinated?

RK: I was down at Fort Benning.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2024 Densho. All Rights Reserved.