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AC: Do you --

JS: When I -- go ahead.

AC: Do you regret not going to combat?

JS: I did at the time, because your buddies you trained with, you're trained to die, or give your life if necessary, and I suppose the thing you miss is a number of guys did. And various phases, I was, when the regiment went overseas and left the 1st, broke up the 1st Battalion, they were allowed up to twenty percent over strength in any of the units, so all the, except for the handful of people that left their cadre men to form the 171st Special Training Battalion, all the rest of 'em were assigned to other units of the regiment, different battalions or different companies. And then when they got over there, the 100th joined -- the 100th had been overseas for quite a while at that time -- they became the 1st Battalion. Every, every training group that we sent over was another training experience for we cadre men. So if you trained three groups, why, you went through all the basic training and rough times. Medics were trained to be litter bearers, give aid with machine gun bullets flyin' around you. It's, I guess... we'd go on night problems and come back to the hotel and somebody's havin' mochi, and so we'd fix up mochi and have a party. One time even our medic's captain joined us. So we'd have a party and drink beer and have a good time, and one morning I woke up from one of those parties and I couldn't stand up. I had an inner ear problem, middle ear problem or something. I spent in the hospital a week before that, before the regiment was over, I think. But anyway, we got, I guess there's something about training for combat that makes you really close together. Today it's no different. That part of the fellowship of people ready to give their lives for their country is something that, it's just like if you lost somebody in your family. I can't tell you how, I know how you feel. 'Cause I don't know how you feel. Well, that's the way a lot of people have never really tried to understand even, how people in the military feel, the comradeship that you have when you're a part of a group going overseas. Like today, something going on all the time now, you know? So that's why, that's why I guess that period of time became -- it's probably more important to me, when I go to Hawaii to see those guys, than it is for them to see me, because they see each other all the time. Once in a while the mainland guys come along. If they like it, why, you get along good; if they don't, they don't like it, they'll show it. You can go home. But Hawaii guys are really good people. And of course, this is quite an experience for us because it's automatic when we go over there and we go to a hotel, some, the haoles, they don't get treated quite as good as we do. We get the best rooms. And I don't necessarily think that's right, but that's the way it is. When you got a majority of people, somebody's gonna get on the short end.

But anyway, I have, this is the area of my life around which I built a future. So financially I never became the success that I ought to be, 'cause in the first place, I retired, twenty-six years ago I retired. Is it twenty-six? I'm eighty-six. No, twenty-one. I retired at sixty-five. And they were telling us about the time I retired, if you look, you better have a couple hundred thousand or something like that in the bank. Well, I didn't cut my living down enough, so I kept spending into the principal. Well, I got a little bit left. I got a little bit of cash left and a little bit of life, so that's where I am know. But it's been, in this period of time, most of my, I guess I've been motivated, other than my businesses, to see what I could do in public life to make the situation better for our people. That's been, it's been quite successful.

AC: How did you feel being back in the 171 Training Corps and reading about the exploits of the 442nd/100th Battalion in Europe?

JS: Well, you feel, you feel proud, really. You feel bad about losing individuals. Of course, you know they're gonna get killed, 'cause heck, we're, I mean, when you have an outfit like the 442nd, it's a cannon fodder out there. And if you're any good, the more, the better you are, the more you're gonna get used. And that was well proven. They were so successful in carrying out their missions that they were assigned missions that nobody else could carry out. You know, some of the things that happened in Italy, it's hard to believe, really, that those guys could take a, capture something that had been, other units hadn't been able to do in months, that they could do it in just a few days. Boy, you got to be willing to stick your neck out all the way. And some within the command groups, why, there was some, some of the people, the officers of the 442nd were mostly Caucasian, and they resented the fact that they were told by their superiors, "Put that outfit in there," knowing you're gonna lose. Like the Lost Battalion thing, it happens, that, very interesting situation because the 442nd was up there along with that, along with that group, until that Texas group got caught, that one group got caught in that trap. But they were advancing towards the same target as a group together. So it's, part of one group has to help, bail the other group out kind of situation. So that's about, you asked me how I felt and several of these questions, I don't know if I answered very many of 'em, but that's about all I can tell you right, without stopping for air.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.