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gky: Can you think of anything else occupation?

Gordon Y: Well, I guess... I guess you've mentioned it someplace else, there were six thousand of us over there. And we were divided into, we're assigned to different kinds of duties. I just concentrated on what I did, the reparations program. But of course there were other folks involved in other parts of the different things that were needed like the education of children, education of school system, that had to be reconstructed. And I think the main thing that the occupation caused in Japan was not Americanization, but the manner in which schools were reconstructed. There's an interesting thing, one came out during this conference is about the... oh god, let's see, what's the best way to put it? I can't remember how I was going to state it.

gky: When you were stateside, when you came back to the States, you were in uniform, did you ever have any incidences of prejudice or discrimination?

Gordon Y: Before we went overseas?

gky: No. Oh, you didn't come back until you got married?

Gordon Y: No, I took my discharge in Japan. So I didn't come back in uniform.

gky: And why did you... why did you decide to become a civilian and essentially do the same work?

Gordon Y: Well, it's kind of... see, when I was fortunate enough to be the best soldier of the graduating battalion at Fort Snelling, I had a chance to apply for OCS, but at that time the war was over, and I had mixed feelings about why do I want to become an officer or try to become an officer. Because the war with Japan's over. We're going over there for a different reason. At any rate, I chose not to pursue OCS and go on to Japan in the occupation. And before I went over there, we had many incidents here in the States, discrimination. Those were war years. We had a lot of, lot of problems, physical problems at Fort Knox. Not so much in Fort Meade. I remember some bad incidents in Minneapolis, Fort Snelling. There were too many of us that look, look like the enemy in Minnesota, and I think the people resented us up there. Not everybody, but some people.

gky: Can you give me an example of an incident?

Gordon Y: Yeah, name-calling, confrontations in bars in Minneapolis. You know, just bad incidents. I even had 'em in Japan. Here we're in uniform in Japan, and another American soldier wants to pick a fight in Tokyo. I could recall a couple of incidents like that. But that's, you know, you shrug it off and don't harp on things like that.

gky: Now, you have the value of fifty-five years of perspective on your years in Japan, but the time then was very different.

Gordon Y: Yes.

gky: How would you look at your experiences in Japan now? Any differently?

Gordon Y: I had a... I think I was young and foolish when I was young, just like many people are. After fifty years, you become mellow and you become wiser. And I look back on the time I spent in Japan and I have regrets that I didn't get into business, because now I realize what could have been. And that's what mellowing with age does to do, you realize what could have been if you were smarter, wiser. When you're young, it's too late when you're old to think about that. But it's... I look back on my life, and it's been very good. I feel very fortunate, all the things that happened to me. I have no serious regrets. And I think, I think if I had the wisdom that an older age gives you, you could be a lot more useful to society as a young person, if you had the wisdom that you get with age. But then you lose your energy and you don't have that energy to do it. If I had to do it, if I had the wisdom in the young age, that would be awesome. I think everybody would say that. Isn't that true?

gky: Well, I think you did good.

Gordon Y: Well, we think of the times over there like all of our four kids were born there. I know that they had some peculiar feelings growing up. But when we look back, everything worked out okay. Everything. Kids were born there and they were too young to understand the culture, but everything turned out fine. I think we were there a total of... '46 to '56, I guess, ten years. Mother was over there about eight years of the ten years, and I was there two years alone. But as I look back, I wouldn't want to change it much. Everything worked out.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2000 Bridge Media and Densho. All Rights Reserved.