<Begin Segment 9>

TI: So what did you do? How did you pursue it further?

BT: Well, I told Louise that she had to prepare a letter asking for the Judge Advocate General to reconsider his decision. And we helped her prepare her letter. Yeah. So I guess she expressed her feeling in that letter that sort of, maybe woke up the -- woke the compassionate feeling in the major general who was reviewing the case. Yeah, and then well, I think what we had to do was stress that the evidence that we were presented was not available until recently. And I guess that was convincing. So that opened the case, and then I guess the Judge Advocate General reached the logical conclusion that the court-martial shouldn't have been.

TI: And what were your feelings when you heard that they overturned the court-martial?

BT: Well, Louise was kind of choked over the phone when she read the letter to me. And, wow, I felt, well, what do you say? All high, emotional, something that you look forward to long time, and finally you've got it. And I think it took me about two days to realize the importance of the judge's decision. I had to think about it, what we did, why we got it this way. But it's just (like) going to the Supreme Court and having a case won. This was the highest military court. So it was something that, well, we should be grateful for, thankful for. But it was a victory that Kash had really worked hard for and deserved.

TI: It's just too bad that he didn't live to see it happen.

BT: Well, in a way, when he died just before, right after the judge's decision. When we asked for the appeal, I guess they must have taken that into consideration that here a guy has spent the last couple years of his life fighting a court-martial of dubious circumstances that violated key points in the army court-martial manual.

TI: So to his last dying day he was still fighting. He was still a fighter.

BT: That's why I call it his last battle, yeah.

TI: That's good.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.