<Begin Segment 10>

LD: You have all these people wanting to sign on, and you're going to have to make choices, you and Herbie, to pick 'em. So what are you looking for? What qualities are you looking for, I mean, besides the language skill, which is obviously important. You've got to find somebody who speaks good Japanese, strong Japanese, you want somebody strong in English, I know those things. But what qualities are you looking for for this thing? What personal qualities? Let's start with, you have a lot of guys wanting to sign up, and we had to make our choices, what's the basis?

EM: The questions I asked was about different persons.

LD: Start with, "We had a lot of guys."

EM: We had a lot of guys, and a lot of guys wanted to go, they all had signed up. They all... well, they didn't even read the thing about "your return would not be guaranteed," no guarantee about your return and all that. So the only way I could pick the fellows up were to look for fellows who I thought would have... not so much because I knew, the fellows that, if they had signed up already, that they had guts and everything. It wasn't a matter of guts and everything, but what I was looking for then was fellows who would have good intelligence, of course, fellow who could think on his feet, and fellows with a reputation of being a very smart guy and this and that, not only in the language. And then, of course a fellow who was very cheerful, fellow who had a good sense of humor. And again, I was looking for a fellow who would have some sense of ego too at the same time. Because without the ego there, the fellow would not be what you call, showing... even if you had some initiative, you might hold back on initiative and all that. I wanted a fellow who would be able to come right out, fellow like Herbie, fellow like Russ Kono. They don't, fellows, they didn't seem to... Herbert being aside, but the others don't seem to be fellows who would be putting themselves forward. They don't have to put themselves forward, they would be fellows who were aggressive enough in their own way of doing things. They would come out and say, well, should be this way. They were honest enough to come out and, in a sense, the quality of honesty.

Those were the things I was looking for, language ability being on the side, because what I was looking for also was language ability and combination, that's the reason we had some fellows like Jimmie Yamaguchi, who was more the Japanese language than the English language. Then we had other fellows like [inaudible], turned out to be a very well-balanced team. I wasn't looking for any heroes. Because anybody who's going to sign up, I was pretty sure that that man was already brave enough to sign, well, fine, that man showed his courage already. I didn't have to think about his courage. I didn't have to think about whether he would be a good soldier or not. Because after all, it's not the uniform, it's the guy that's in that uniform I felt would be the person to be with, the fellows I would like to be with myself in this case, Herbie and Akiji, with Russ Kono, with Jimmie Yamaguchi, people like that.

So it turned out that... and this was never done by deliberation or in a pre-fixed way, that is just by accident I happened to pick seven fellows from the States and seen fellows from Hawaii, including myself, of course, from Hawaii. Nothing was premeditated or was done in that fashion, "He's from States, got to be one. He's from Hawaii, we got one." Everything was just one pile, and without thinking, without thinking about where the person was from, was the way I picked the fellows. There was no selection for area. I mean, there was idea whether being from Hawaii, I would pick only fellows from Hawaii or something like that, but it wasn't that. Just by coincidence, I just picked seven and seven.

LD: How do you think the fellows did? These are the fellows who became Merrill's Marauders.

EM: They were excellent. Good language ability, both English and Japanese. Of course, a couple of fellows like Jimmie weren't too good in English, but good enough to be able to explain things and everything to anybody who needed that information. And they were fellows that you could talk to, fellows that you can play with, and fellows you can drink with. And not fellows that would lose their head so that it becomes obnoxious or become... some fellows you drink with, and after a while you want to sort of get him on the side or something, get away from there. But these were regular fellows, turned out to be. Fellows that they were sure, they were smart, people that could think, people that had consideration for others, all that. Turned out to be real, what they called, normal fellows, I would say.

LD: Why do you think so many guys wanted to sign on?

EM: Well, I think strictly because the Niseis who were in camp then, they were ready to go and everything. And they were, what do you call, their friends or colleagues or families were in different camps, different, what do you call those places, concentration camps.

LD: Relocation centers.

EM: Relocation centers, right. Those relocation centers. So I guess they wanted to prove that we should not be under suspicion, I think. To let the rest of the U.S. know that they were really good Americans, too, they were willing to volunteer for service, something that they could do. So they could prove themselves, too, that they were doing something for their country.

And I doubt that they, like myself, too, they were thinking in terms that they were fighting Japan at that time. I mean, it could be fighting Italy or fighting Germany or something, except, of course, when you come across any kind of fighting in, what do you call it, Southeast Asia or in the Pacific or something like that, there's no question, as soon as you see something on the other side, and see who the other side is, you become sensitive to that, there's no question about that. As myself, I'm not thinking about, too much about the fact that the other side is my own race, I'm thinking in terms, you know, that they're against us and we're against them. I think that was the general, I would say was the general idea that the fellows in the school had at that time, and they just wanted to get out to prove themselves, and they were ready to. And that's the reason, as I say, even in the commandant's office, everybody else were completely surprised, completely taken aback. They thought they would have to assign these people to go out, well, you'll be going outside, so you're assigned to so and so. Well, then nobody said anything, sure, they'll be going with the assignment. Because that's all that's ready, so it's fine. In this case, you'll be asking for volunteers. And it's already said in the beginning, it's a very dangerous mission, return not guaranteed, and, of course, as Colonel Rasmussen told us, if fifty percent should come back, you'll be lucky, he says. So that's the way I put it to the fellows who asked me about it. And yet, with all the signatures, it's more than enough. I don't know how many signed.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 1986 The Center for Educational Telecommunications and Densho. All Rights Reserved.