<Begin Segment 19>

SG: What was your responsibility at that time in the army?

BO: Army, I was just a corporal and in charge of warm bearings and, a group of Niseis, told them to keep a real GI everything just perfect, bed and everything. When they come in and inspect, they're proud. They never seen a -- men that display all the, everything just perfect, just line the rail. That's my outfit.

SG: All Nisei in your outfit?

BO: Yeah, that one, only in platoon. The rest of them, I don't know. So then they try to keep us as garrison soldiers so they could demonstrate in front of them, forward march, right flank, left flank, rear march, all that.

SG: How were you treated by your men?

BO: Well, they, the men, well, we don't know each other, but you know, since I had the rank and all that, I never pulled it. I just, my duty is my duty and do it and not rely on the other guys to help me do it because I'm getting paid for, my rank, so I did it. That way they respect me. And any formation or anything, I just go along with them, play with them, want to be the first in chow lines. You want to be the first in chow, I said, "I'll get you there." Even though we have to go doubletime, we'll get in front, and we got to the chow line every time right in front of all the other guys. Boy, I tell you, it was a good place to work. A lot of Niseis there, boy, California and all that, all bunched in there. Then when we got to Fort Riley, they go for fun. So many and go stay in quartermaster motor pool. The rest of them go to detail work, so we got the best one. So we got the motor pool. We get to ride the truck or car, don't have to walk, you know. The other guys had to stay back and do yard duty. They formed a softball team, same office, same officer, same first sergeant, everything. Other side of that stick, the marker is "colored." Don't you guys go over there. That's "colored." That's off limit. On this side is your side. Same office now and they're playing ball with us, softball. So the boys figured well let's form a softball team and let's challenge them. They formed a softball team, and here's where I didn't get a chance to stay back away from motor pool to see. I got permission to cross the line, go over there, and play softball with the "colored," 'til then, no, no. You go in a bus and then you pay the fare, you know. Say I pay the fare, that's right. That's "colored" section. You have stay up in the front. What do you mean? I'm black. I'm going to sit back there, so then we all went. The driver can't tell the difference between a black and a yellow or what. We got a good audience right there. So the driver, he give up. We just sat in the back. We didn't care. If you want call us black, call us black. We paid.

SG: So how was your relationship with the black troops?

BO: Black there?

SG: Uh-huh.

BO: Well, see Fort Riley is South. They all think different. He has to stay away from them or they'll stay away from you, so you won't get in trouble. Then you still scratch your head, what's going on around here? So we had a church call us up, said we send a car down to the church, so I dispatch one over there. He went over there. He said, "What am I going to do over there?" He come back, so I said, "Well, I'll go with you." I went with him. So we go to church, you know. I don't know if there's all, we're off limits from going into church, that's black church. A lady decides decorate to have a party, but I didn't care about any fence or anything like that. I just went right in and try to ask for the head lady, but big white eye and white teeth, it scares you. [Laughs] I guess we got a good audience. But I didn't go back and check on that detail. But post laundry, that one was a special, real good. He asked the boys if they could drive a dump truck or semi and all that. Any volunteers? Yeah, I drive, you know. Well, you sign him up, you know. Like the post laundry, you have a panel truck, delivery, pick up and delivery laundry. So they go there, and the head lady says, "These people are different from all the rest of them." All I had to do is I have this and this, I had to serve, can't find service or stuff like that and what they do, they load up, they head out. Next morning, they load up themselves, they go. You don't have to tell them again, never twice on any outfit. The outfits over here now, you don't have to tell them that, you know. They find it and then they take off. They're different. Something's wrong. They're all above high school graduate. They don't have, you got a bunch of guys that they can't even sign their own name, difference in education. They observe all the instructions and do it, carry right out. So they say they want us to dispatch Nisei, nothing but Nisei from thereon to them. No more white people or anybody else. We didn't have no "colored," blacks. So when the white people come back from a big three-day pass or furlough or anything, I don't put them back on the dispatch sheet. I keep the Nisei right on it and let the Nisei continue to make it look real good for the Nisei.

SG: How did the white troops treat Nisei soldiers?

BO: Well, they rejected that they didn't get the job back, but they're happy that they don't have to go back to work again. They want that job back and take it easy, but I didn't give back to them. I feel it was Nihonjin, Nisei and left it that way.

SG: Was there any other difficulty between white soldiers and Nisei soldiers?

BO: Well, not necessarily. We do have unloading detail. Now I did unloading trucks and jeeps in Fort Lewis but very little. And then when we got to Riley, they had the unloading detail there. Big trucks, the cab, the driver sits almost in front of the front wheel, and you hang way out there. It's a pontoon moving along, a long pontoon, and the cab is pushed forward because the pontoon is long, so unload those and others. And what this white guy did is that when the boys went under the truck to cut the straps off, strap tie down, take them all off, you get some clear so that he could start it and move it out. Well, one of them have to spring back up. Reason, he started the motor up and just smoked the inside of the boxcar. It's inside boxcar, smokes it out, so the boys there crawl out of there. And then the guy, he come out and says, "You guys sabotage. You left the strap on to break the line so would be no break." Oh, big, made big noise. So I told Major, I says, "You know, it's either get rid of that guy or I'll take the crew." I'll go up there and unload the thing because I did unloading in Fort Lewis. So Major says well, he says, "Where these boys at?" I said, "I dispatched them to all the other jobs. They're not here." The guys are standing right there. He didn't listen to me, telling big lies, you know. Oh, this is straight stuff. Then I told them, well, I'll run the boys and we'll get up there and finish the job. Oh, okay, sergeant said, and Major left. So I rounded up the boys and went up there and unloaded the rest of the vehicle and then that was that. Later on, reason is that when he shipped these vehicles, they sent certain ones to Fort Riley or certain ones to Fort Crew. Fort Crew, they had a lot of jeeps and weapons, pickups up there. It has to be brought to the exchange. It's just heavy stuff have to go up there. So I ask the boys, I said if they know how to drive the big stuff. Sure, Imoto, the little guy, he said, there's no safety belt on these. So you sit sideways because you can't reach the gas pedal or brake and the big steering wheel, and there's three transmissions see, and I use a lot of the split. And this is how you drove that thing, big stuff. But we took that up there. It worked out fine because it don't go any faster than 35 miles an hour anyway, so you don't have the accordion. You know how accordion works, you don't have that.

Then coming home, they had a whole bunch of jeeps, so we all got the jeeps and stuff, and I have in the middle of the convoy. And the white guy, he had a semi up in the front who I don't know what's in that thing, but light. Then the sergeant, he had the motorcycle. Well, that looks pretty good. Well, we started stretching out, going out. Then when we came to town, we don't know whether you're going to go straight, turn. We had the headlights on. We lean on the horn, and the kids all say, "Went that way," so we wave at the kids and thanking them, which way to go. We don't know where they turned at. So we got through that city, and I don't know which city that was. But when we go out, we were going wide open in town, and the law says that we supposed to obey all traffic signals and stuff like that in the cities or wherever we were traveling. Well, it didn't go that way. The guys didn't know the rules like they were supposed to. So we got on the other side of town and were still going in front of the high school. The semi going up, he kind of shift gears or something and all like an accordion, all coming together, and I got called to it, behind me, like a pickup, it caved the chest in. We had to tow that truck. Boy, I don't know how many we smacked up, but we did tow one in. And when we were going that fast on the other side of town, I had mine going full bore at 60, 65. That's all it'll go against the wind, and sergeant with the motorcycle was just going together. I shake my head, you'll waste time trying to catch up with the guy in front. But then as we went, I kept thinking to myself about time if that guy slow down or shift anything. I had to hurry up and break the line and try to break it and make another line to make more room for the boys behind. But they have time to break it and make a second line. You get small to break it. You're supposed to stay in line. So that kid, one kid got steel shoved in his chest. And when we got back, the officer says, "We're going to order that kid, we're going to court martial him." I said, "Why, you know. If you're going to court martial him, I want you to court martial me too." "Why you?" I hit the car in front and the car behind me hit me. Oh, it's that guy in the front that don't know the regulation on convoys. And you know, they didn't have no court martial. That's the kind of junk that I played, volunteered to get sucked into a court martial and stuff, and the majors dropped it.

SG: Well, it sounds like there wasn't -- the relationship between Nisei soldiers and --

BO: That's the relationship. That's the relationship. He is trying to double-cross us to get us more trouble and like that unloading that our boys sabotaged and left the strap on, brake line hose, and when we backed up, it ripped it off. That's sabotage, he says, see. It isn't so.

SG: Because you were a Nisei, he was saying that?

BO: Probably so, but he was kind of jealous once, that, he's only a private or PFC, but he's white, so he think he could play this joke and everybody else is dumb and they will all fall into a trap, and he would be a hero. I ain't going to do nothing like that that happen to my boys.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.