Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Rudy Tokiwa Interview II
Narrator: Rudy Tokiwa
Interviewers: Tom Ikeda (primary), Judy Niizawa (secondary)
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Date: July 2 & 3, 1998
Densho ID: denshovh-trudy-02-0051

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TI: In fact, later on, you said -- this was after the war -- you had a conversation with General Clark.

RT: Yes.

TI: And did he talk a little bit about this with you? About the 442 and how they were used?

RT: Yeah, well, General Mark Clark was, he was a hundred percent. In fact, he always said, "I'm a hundred and fifty percent (for) 'Go for Broke.'" And like he said, he says, "There were many times, they, I got orders to do certain things." And he said, "It used to aggravate me." And I said, "What do you mean, aggravate you, sir?" He says, "Why couldn't (they've) used somebody else? Why always the 442nd and the 100th?" And he said, "It takes all kinds of people to win a war. But you don't try to make one group of people do all the fighting for you." And he was, that's the reason why I like the General Mark Clark. The last time I was able to talk to him like that, and he cried all the way through (the interview). And he said to me, he says, "You know, Rudy I'm sorry that I had to be the bastard to send you guys in like that." And it takes a damn good man to be able to come out and apologize like that. After all, he was a general in the United States Army. He's the top man.

So I, I always sit back and I think about all this that happened and everything, and I think well, I know a lotta the younger generation, they feel that I'm a guy that rah-rahs too much for the 100th/442nd. But I've always said, I don't think they realize what the 100th/442nd has done for them. Because before, even though we were soldiers and everything, people used to shun us quite a bit. But after we came back, nobody shunned us. I'm amazed. I go to the high schools. I don't get too much of this from the colleges and universities. But I go to the schools to talk about the concentration camps, and the forming of the 442nd and what the 442nd has done. And it's, a lotta times, I won't even say nothing about our motto being "Go for Broke." And some guy would holler out, "That's right, 442nd, 'Go for Broke,' the best." That makes you feel good. When, hearing my, a Caucasian out there, he's thinkin' about us. And like I'll go to these, speak at colleges and universities and stuff. And I've spoken to a lotta Japanese organizations. But you don't hear them saying, "Yeah, what you guys did was great. You did it all for us." And my feeling is, all them guys that never came home, and weren't able to walk up their front step and say, "I'm home, Mom." They're the guys that made it so good for all the Japanese afterwards.

<End Segment 51> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.