<Begin Segment 11>

SG: Did you have any contact with the Japanese soldiers who had served?

GK: The only soldiers I knew were my relatives. All my relatives were either widows or veterans of the Japanese army and navy. And I thought before I met them that, gee, how are they going to regard me. And because I knew that there was some families that did not accept their Nisei relatives as GIs, and this kind of worried me. But all of my relatives quickly made it clear that, "We realize that, you were born in America and educated in America, and you had your duties to be an American soldier." So that never became a problem in my case. But I did meet one cousin. He was a naval officer, and we have to keep in mind that this was right after the war. Many of them had just returned from their overseas posts. And I heard after I got back to the United States that he had shot himself, committed suicide. And my guess was that he committed suicide because he felt that there was no hope in the future of Japan. And of course at that time, he was, Japan was, at least the average citizen was, didn't have much to go on, so he committed suicide. Everybody else was just trying to dig up whatever they could and survive, and it was a bad time. My parents sent me a bag of lemon drops once, and I went to visit some relatives in Chiba-ken which is outside of Tokyo. And when I got there, they were living in an anti-aircraft, underground shelter, and it was like a potato cellar. It was just underground. And my cousin, my female cousin, was tilling the garden outside, and she was carrying her, oh, two year old boy on her back or something like that. And so I went up there, and the first thing I did is I opened this bag of lemon drops, and I gave the two year old boy one of the lemon drops, and he put it in his mouth. And a few seconds later, his eyes just popped opened, and he couldn't believe what he was tasting. And my cousin was saying this is the first sugar that he's ever had in his life, and he's two years old. And you just don't even think about things like that when you have so many lemon drops on your side. And then a little later, we went down into the cellar. This is where they lived. I brought them a can of beer too, and they had never seen a can of beer, always a bottle of beer. And so they examined the can of beer, and they put it up on their shelf. And I bet to this day, it's still on that shelf, you know. They treasured it so much. But I got in there, and they wanted me to stay for dinner, and I knew in my heart that no, in no way should I stay for dinner. These people don't have enough to eat, but they insisted, so I finally gave in. And for dinner, I had a bowl of kind of gooey brown rice, and that was it. And I thought, oh, gosh, this is what the conditions are in Japan. So that encouraged me to do what I can to pass on as many goods as I can to my relatives. The years later, they really expressed their appreciation saying things like they couldn't have done it without their American relatives.

SG: Did you have any conflicting feelings of being the occupation force and being an American and seeing what the American forces did, and having your own relatives and the land of your parents?

GK: No. I just accepted what had happened. I knew about the atom bomb. Of course, I didn't have a chance to get down to Hiroshima or Nagasaki to see the damage, see the outcomes. I did come across several of their patients who were hospitalized in some of the hospitals in Tokyo. But I just accepted the war as it happened and didn't give it too much thought or worry too much about all the bad things that happened to everybody during the war. Because in the hospital, I found out that the nurses lived in the same room as their patients and nothing was sanitized. There was dust all over. The nurses' bedding was under the bed of the patients. So at night, they just pulled out the bedding from under the bed, and that's where the nurses slept. And I thought, my gosh, how can anybody get well under these conditions? But that was the best they can do at the time. It was a bad situation. I was, I felt very fortunate that I was an American and had my uniform on.

SG: Well, is there anything else you would like to, or you remember from that time?

GK: No. The GIs had it real good, you know. We had plenty to eat. We were there, I was there at the time when we all had weekend passes, and transportation was free, so we can get on a train and go any place, any time. In fact, they had special cars for us, so, whereas, the regular cars often were just crowded with people. There were special cars for GIs that were almost empty, and it was a luxurious way to travel. I felt real lucky of my military experience, you know. I was just too young to get into the combat areas, and I went over just at the right time and really enjoyed my service. And it all added up to my GI Bill, and I was able to complete my college with that money.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.