<Begin Segment 20>

SG: What was the relationship, other than that, was the overall, the relationship between Niseis soldiers and white soldiers pretty good?

BO: Well, it was good, but we didn't get into too much, hardly anything because the Nisei pretty much taken over the whole, let's see details in Fort Riley and the motor pool, and we didn't go to the rookie side. That's outside of Fort Riley. That one, the one case where they found a short samurai sword knife hidden under the pillow, see, under our mattress, and they said he has to give that up, but he didn't want to lose it because that's the family treasure. Well, he finally had to give it up. Then the shakedown. They told everybody to turn in their pen, ink, and stuff because it might be poison in that. It might jab the horses and kill them just like you do with the knife. They didn't find any. All that work for nothing, shakedown inspection. That's the friction we had.

SG: They were suspicious of the Nisei?

BO: Yeah, kind of, but you had to keep erasing as fast as possible. You can't just stand there and let them do it. But that is not my department over there. My department is on this side.

SG: What were the living conditions like for you there?

BO: Where we were at on the laundry detail. We made laundry detail. When they issue those sheets and pillows and stuff like that, pillow slip and all that, we get the perfect white sheets, just perfect. The colored, the other, all yellow, rotten, torn, and that's what they get. So they did treat us good, and we lived up to it, the Nisei did.

SG: So you were a corporal at this time?

BO: At that time, and they finally gave me a buck sergeant. I'm supposed to have a staff sergeant which I refused because I don't want to go to the main repair shop and boss over the white mechanics. So I turn it down, and I don't know what the Major did there. You know, all this extra work you get is kind of silly. You're risking yourself in doing it when the other boys are just standing there listening. But somebody got to speak up, so I just went in spoke right up, and I said, told them you court martial me, you know. That's a big embarrassing record. It goes right on your record, and you get no more jobs after that. You never want to get court martial, not even company punishment, but I did it. Folks don't know that that I... would you do it? Well, I'm just asking you. It's past tense now. You could say yes or no.

SG: That's a tough, that sounds like you risked a lot by doing that.

BO: That's why, only thing I was after is get my men's feeling toward me because I mercy all this, and therefore, they should back me up, which they did. Of course, they didn't say a word, but what's in their mind, that's all, where can they go? They got no home, just the uniform they got on.

SG: What, so you were like family basic?

BO: Huh?

SG: You were family, you and your soldiers?

BO: Oh, my group there? Yeah, I'm kind of a mother to them. They come cry about this or that, so I patiently listen to it and wait for a time to get even with them.

SG: Why did you not take the promotion to command the white people?

BO: And dump my men? And see them get in trouble? Oh no, I'm going to stay back and go as a team and protect them because they're doing a good job. I don't care about the white in the main shop. If I go there, they're all going to go and get canned, and yet all the Niseis are going to take over the shop. That's a big thought too, you know. The Niseis are not dumb. They all went to school. They know how to monkey wrench. They know all about it. The only thing they don't exhibit. Why do it because they get to more work, that's all.

SG: What was the most challenging thing for you as a corporal?

BO: Those are the things, you know. I wasn't a sergeant yet. I was still corporal yet when I, spoke right up. But other than that, everything went smooth because they can't argue against a corporal. They can't hit them irregardless of what they are, you know. So noncommissioned officer. The only thing you don't do is you don't salute them or "sir" them. [Laughs]

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.