<Begin Segment 22>

AC: You had mentioned that recently twenty members of the 442nd had just received Medal of Honors fifty years after the end of the war. What was, why, why the delay?

JS: Well, when the battlefield commanders wouldn't approve of them, they buried them. And their army, military records, and they could develop, they could put them any stage of, category of secrecy they want, can't they? So they bury 'em in the archives. Well, when they, recent legislation that has made it okay, opened the archives up to the public to be able to study those records, now they've been able to get at those records, and those recommendations that were made by field commanders that these guys be, receive, considered for that honor have been brought out in the open. So in, during Clinton's administration, why, you got your senator from Hawaii and your Congressman Akaka -- is he a congressman or a senator?

AC: I think he's a senator now.

JS: Well anyway, he was the leader of, I think, in this, wasn't he? One of the leaders, at least. And that's why these just came out. It kind of looks strange, I'm sure, to some veterans, non-Japanese veterans. It must look strange that all of a sudden, "By God, we're all givin' this many, twenty, twenty-two (Congressional Gold Medals) to a bunch of Orientals or Filipinos and stuff. Jeez." I'm sure there must be some veterans of World War II with a kind of, in their hearts they resent it. But when you place that many people as absolute cannon fodder, those situations open up.

AC: Now, that's the second time you used the term "cannon fodder," they're just thrown at difficult situations. How do you feel about that?

JS: Well, I don't know what I'm supposed to feel. We were trying to prove something and we're a combat outfit, and like I said, the more, the better you do, the more they're gonna use you. I think some of the commanding generals out there, "Jeez, these guys are really hotshots and they want to do it. Let 'em." And in some cases they made 'em do it. That's what was bad too. But you know, they're, at the commander, field general level, why, you got all kinds of things. Like today they said, they're thinking today, "If we let the war go the way General Patton wanted to, we wouldn't had all that trouble in Berlin later on." But these things, second thoughts are just a thing that, if you make too much of this, well, then it's kind of a situation, who's running the war? But we got, I guess we got to put an end to this thing after a while, someplace. My feeling is that, as a person, I am perfectly happy with the situation of our people today. There are those who maintain that our people are not getting enough management, top level management jobs, but we've got, gosh, think what we've got. We've, a lot of people aren't in top management because they choose not to suffer the headaches of top management. They'd rather be in an area, professional field, something. And we haven't gone the limit, but look at what we and the Chinese people have done in American society. Now the Hindus, or the Indian society, there's Koreans, Vietnamese, and people of all, in all areas, ethnic Asian groups are rising up into political fields, professional fields and the business field. Look at the, I mean, business now is being, in a lot of areas, dominated by foreign companies rather than American companies. American companies are being bought up by foreign companies, and the Japanese and Chinese now are, and we're, somebody from India might answer the phone when you want to know, get some information. And these things have got so intertwined now that, I don't think, I don't think our people ought to be hollerin' too much about the lack of opportunity. This is my personal, country boy feeling. I'm not very sophisticated, but I never hear George Azumano complaining about things. People who are there are not complaining, mostly. If they are, I don't hear them.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.