<Begin Segment 9>

FA: You... I understand from -- thank you for that speech, by the way. I really enjoyed reading your speech. I'm just kind of asking questions to go over the same territory that you did in your speech in Nebraska, that 1991 speech.

BK: What's that?

FA: I'm just... thank you for sending me the speech.

BK: Oh, you're talking about the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.

FA: Yeah, right, right. I understand you begged to go overseas.

BK: Oh yes, I had to do it twice.

FA: Why did you beg to go overseas?

BK: Well, because I knew that that was the only way I was going to be able to prove my loyalty, was to get into combat. I figured if I just stay in stateside that I would never be able to really prove myself. And that was the reason.

FA: Why... this is a complex story, and I'm just... why did you feel -- and a lot of people felt this way, of course -- but why did you feel you had to prove your loyalty to the United States?

BK: Well, first of all, I was the same as the Japanese, as the enemy who was Japanese. And I knew I was different. I think the other thing, that I was so upset. I mean, I just felt that Pearl Harbor was terrible, and I think I felt like a lot of the Caucasian kids that wanted to avenge what happened at Pearl Harbor. That wasn't the main factor, but certainly had something to do with wanting to get into combat and get into the service.

FA: In your speech you mentioned, you used the word "shame." That you felt Pearl Harbor was...

BK: Yes, I did, because it was a sneak attack. If it hadn't been so many hundreds and hundreds of the American soldiers, sailors were killed without a chance.

FA: In your speech you say, "Pearl Harbor" -- and I want you to tell this to me, like double jeopardy, why do you say Pearl Harbor was a "double jeopardy" for you?

BK: Well, it's because I was of Japanese descent, I guess. I don't remember exactly that part anymore.

FA: You said, "I developed a strange guilt complex."

BK: Oh, that, yeah, that was the double jeopardy part. I felt guilty for what the Japanese enemy did at Pearl Harbor and then I had felt guilty because I was of Japanese ancestry.

FA: Was that feeling rooted in anything that your parents had taught you?

BK: Yes, it's one thing that my parents had stressed in all those years was not to bring shame to my own family. And not to do anything that would bring shame to my family, and that's the way I felt about Pearl Harbor, I just felt that it was a major shame. It was a really, toughest time of my life at that time.

FA: And yet, you had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor.

BK: No, but my ancestors did and that's what come back to reflect on me, is what they did. And what I considered was very shameful the way they had pulled off that sneak attack and killed so many of our soldiers and sailors.

FA: It could be argued that you as a Nebraska-born citizen, American citizen, had your rights, and you had no need to prove anything.

BK: Well, I suppose you could say that, but I think, you know, you... all of my friends and my high school buddy Gordon Jorgensen, they were all enlisting and so, you know, I just, anyone who would have had any bit of patriotism in his blood would certainly be willing to join the services, I think, at that time in Nebraska anyway.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 1998, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.