<Begin Segment 11>

gky: Walter Tanaka on October 20th, the year 2000 in El Macero, California. Walt, just a couple more questions. How did you feel about being a Nisei, person with a Japanese face in Japan, and yet your loyalties are with America?

WT: Well, I always felt that America's my country, and even though they might not accept me, or, you know, discriminated against me, that regardless, this is my country. What other country is my own, you know? I don't know anything about Japan in terms of question of loyalty to the emperor or what is that, you know? I had no feelings like that. But I did feel that, right or wrong, this is my country. And regardless of what they do to me at the war, that it's my duty to serve, to serve our United States. And so I always felt that way about the United States.

gky: How about, what kind of a thing do you want your children to remember, to know about your military service and the United States?

WT: Well, I want them to feel proud about my service to the United States. I have a son and three daughters, and I encouraged my son, when he was going to San Jose State, I encouraged him to take up judo. He loved western wrestling in high school and continued it in San Jose State, and he continued wrestling. But I told him, "Take some judo." So to satisfy me, he took one semester of judo, and he didn't like it so he quit. And then, after two years at San Jose State, he went to Cal Berkeley, and at Berkeley -- oh, in the meantime, I said, you know, we didn't have a lot of money to send our kids to college, what little we had, I used up all my insurance money and whatever we could, and the kids earned scholarships. So when he went to Berkeley, I felt that, well, "Why don't you... two more years of college at Berkeley, and why don't you apply for West Point?" I figured he might do well to go to West Point. And no, he didn't want to go to West Point. But he satisfied me in terms that he joined the ROTC. So he took ROTC for two years. I felt he would make a good officer if he had tried for West Point, but he never did, and he's a biochemist now, but he wasn't interested in continuing from ROTC. In ROTC, he went one summer to Fort Lewis. Another time he went to Fort Benning, Georgia, and another and in his platoon in Fort Benning, he was honored by getting, he won the plaque. And so to that extent, I tried to steer him towards a military career. But he's a biochemist with a pharmaceutical company after teaching at the University of Wisconsin for about twelve years. Then my daughter coming along, the eldest one, she went to Stanford. And fortunately, there was a state scholarship, there was a Stanford scholarship and all that, and they, my kids hashed for their meals and worked summers, and they worked ever since they were kids when I sent them out to the farm to pick blackberries and things like that but...

gky: You say that you would want them to be proud of your service. How do you feel about looking back? There's something that the Iwo Jima Memorial in Washington says, it says, on the inscription on the bottom says, "Uncommon valor is a common virtue." Do you think that that's applicable to the service that you gave to the United States during the war?

WT: Well, you know, the type of warfare for us linguists in the Pacific, with some exceptions, where a Nisei served in pretty much in close combat and made a name for themselves. But the kind of work we did is not in the category of valor. In other words, valor is you're ducking bullets and getting shot at and shooting back. It's that kind of warfare. Our warfare in, as linguists was the tool of using language to gain information about the enemy, and supplying information about the tactical units, enemy units in front of us, the tactical, the strategic information for targets for our B-29 raids and for navy and their guns and artillery, and that kind of thing. But with the exception of those with outstanding service, meriting valor, we served, but in a different way.

gky: Can you elaborate on that a little more? What do you mean when you say, "We served, but in a different way?"

WT: Well, we did our best in getting information from the prisoners. I know that there were times when through the interrogation and asking questions of the prisoners to get the entire information about enemy units such as the aircraft, type of aircraft, their capabilities, their numbers, the ability of the pilots, the training or the actual combat experience that the Japanese pilot had, and the unit commander, what kind of a person he is, what track record he has of leading the troops, and being aggressive or defensive, or everything about the enemy forces. And in this way we helped provide target information. We helped gaining information that ended up in the, their units being targeted for bombardment by the air force or by naval units and things like that.

gky: Anything else you that can think of?

WT: No, I don't think so, except that we had hard times. Our parents had a hard time. We could be thankful that today, after these many years, that it's a better democracy or more understanding America that considers that minorities are just as good Americans as the majority, and we could be proud of this country, and look at all the opportunities, the avenues that have been opened through our service and through the efforts of our kids themselves. They studied hard, they worked to earn money and, you know, helped put themselves through school. And so my message to all Americans is that, you know, it's not what... just like Kennedy said, "It's what your county could do for you, but what you could do for..." "Not what your country could do for you, but what this country could, what you could do for your country." [Laughs] I got this mixed up again.

gky: Say that again.

WT: That, you know, it's a question of "Not of what this country could do for you, but it's what you can do for your country," and that, you know, persevere, work hard, and be successful and, in turn, help this country to remain a leading nation, and a nation that supports democracy. And that we're fortunate to live in this country with all the things that we have, and that don't squander this, or don't waste it. You still have to work for many things.

gky: Thank you very much.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2000 Bridge Media and Densho. All Rights Reserved.