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RB: So then following graduation from West Point, were you on active duty deployment? What was your role in the military?

MA: Yes. So I graduated as a second lieutenant in the armor corps, and so I went to units that had, at that time, M-60 tanks, Patton tanks, now the equivalent is the Abrams tank. So I was always in the tank community, and not only a platoon leader, a company commander, but to command units with tanks. And then when I retired from the military as I was wearing a civilian uniform if you will, I became the deputy program executive officer for the army, which was in charge of all ground combat systems. So not only for the research and development of these major platforms, but the procurement, the distribution. And so during that time, we Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom, which was Afghanistan. So I was the individual responsible to ensure I'd be working for the defense contractors, whether it was the Abrams tank or Bradley fighting vehicles. Once they're developed, to procure them for the government and then to distribute them to the combat units, field them, and then obviously to see how they operated. So it was very, very exciting times.

RB: Yeah, I mean, it sounds like a big role, between just the logistics required to even get that equipment for deployment.

MA: Right.

RB: Were you involved with any of the testing?

MA: Yes. I would oversee the testing, and you'd be working with the civilian contractors and the government engineers, and whether it's on, let's say, the gun system or the platform, they're doing the research and development and might be providing enhancements and the government might be at a point where we're saying we're not really ready for this enhancement, we only have a certain amount of budget. So that's another thing. As a program manager, you're always worried about cost schedule and performance, so you have to look at the cost of a platform and then you had to justify your budget, it's almost like running your own business. So then you'd have to go to the Pentagon and you had to work with your colleagues or your leaders and you'd have to provide programmer views, so it was very comprehensive about a particular acquisition program.

RB: It sounds very complicated in terms of how all the different moving pieces. I'm curious, in your time in the military, did you feel there was a general awareness about the 442nd and Japanese American military service?

MA: From other people's perspective?

RB: Yeah, from other people in the military. Was there a general awareness, you felt, among your colleagues?

MA: No, I don't think that it was really understanding, unless you were really a history buff, but I don't think it was common knowledge for anyone to know about the 442nd or the contributions that had happened with that particular unit, especially when their families were still incarcerated in camps. So I would have to sort of kind of mention this in conversation, and again, it was not received with, I guess, open eyes. Because they said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Well, there was a segregated unit that was formed, and it was due to the fact that they wanted to show that we were still loyal to this country, but it was very difficult. And I'm not sure, being a professional career military man, if I would have had the ability to make that same decision, realizing what I'm asking to do for my country when my family is still behind barbed wire. So I really admire the sacrifice of these people.

RB: Yeah. And then being a career military person yourself, that must give you extra perspective into what it may have been like for Japanese Americans at that time.

MA: Right, right. I do "what if" drills many times, like if I was a young man in my late teens, and being asked to fight for this country, and I have no problems about fighting for the country, but not when social justice is being, happening to not only my family, but my relatives and for all the Japanese Americans that were seventy-five percent citizens, or seventy percent citizens of this country, and to be forced into these relocation centers.

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