the part of life was that you don't condemn your bosses. >> going back to volunteering, as gung-ho as you were to volunteer, in your autobiography as i read it, there was a case where you almost didn't get into the 422. can you tell us about that? >> well, i was in pre-med, and that put me in a different category because our nation was at that moment looking for doctors. because they knew that the casualties would be high. secondly and most importantly, i was then employed in a job that was considered essential. the aid station. and when the draft board advised me that that was the reason for being turned down, i immediately without hesitation quit school and quit my job.

that afternoon i resigned. and i reported back to the draft board and said, i'm ready now. officially i was second to the last as far as the regiment is concerned. the last serial number for the men who left hawaii on the last batch, 30106417. >> that's a good story. i liked that when i read it. >> in fact, when they had the big parade to say good-bye to the men and they all assembled in the palace, i was in the crowd saying good-bye. >> at that point you didn't know yet -- >> i got in about three days before we left. >> shortly after that, after you got in, the inductees assembled the show field and took a train part way to the pier. then you had to march about a

mile to get to the pier. can you tell us about that? >> the train ended at the old railway station. and from that point we walked until pier seven. the lulene, the great passenger vessel was painted gray and converted into a troop ship. we, all of us, carried huge duffel bags. we were not soldiers at that point. nor training. our uniforms didn't fit. we carried ukuleles and guitars, and all kinds of things like that. very unmilitary like. we were not in condition, obviously. so it was a ragtag group of, we looked like prisoners.

and on each side were scores or military police. tall, white officers and men with guns and rifles and tells us to stay in line. and then for some reason the word had gone out into the community that we were leaving that day. although it was supposed to be a military secret. thousands of parents and family members were lined up along the street there. and you can hear them calling out the names of their sons or their sweethearts or their wives or husbands. and once in a while some person would run out and the mp would rush up, grab that person, get back. and so the departure was not one that we should have anticipated.

a departure from any country for men who go off to war is a glorious sign, a glorious scene with band music and flowers and -- but this was not the case. >> later as a -- >> nick would have put all our bags in a truck. easily done that. and we could have walked head up. instead we dragged ourselves. i will never forgive my country for doing that because the parents looking at this, this may have been the last sight of their sons. to see their sons dragging themselves, looking like prisoners, is not a sight that a parent should recall because

that's the last view. >> later as a senator, did you ever look into why it was done this way? or as a senator, did you ever do anything -- >> no, there's no way. that's military order. some foolish command of some colonel or some captain or maybe trucks were not available. i have no idea. i don't question them. i thought it was ridiculous. >> let's now go to camp shelby. and describe what camp shelby was like when you first arrived. >> i think we should go a few days before camp shelby. >> okay. let's go a few days before. >> when we were on the ship, we had no idea where we were headed for. we knew we were going to the mainland. and when we saw the golden gate, it was a beautiful sight. landed in oakland. and we got on trains. and we did our traveling 24 hours.

and the only time the trains stopped to let us off to stretch ourselves was at night. and when you think back, it's understandable. if we went through a town or city and let us off at 3:00 in the afternoon and we walked out, you know, people might stone us. they might think we're prisoners. you know? and so everything was done at night. just about the time we left oakland, the word spread around that we were headed for mississippi. i'm telling you, the reaction was just one of disbelief and horror. because after all, the only thing we knew about mississippi as young men was that mississippi was a state where they lynch people, that they didn't like colored people, and we were colored. and so all these scenarios became part of our imagination. what's going to happen to us? are they going to put us in special camps?

but i must say this much. though the mississippians treated blacks strangely, they accorded us a lot of friendship. they opened up their homes. in fact, in the early days since we're all out training, the uso operated and young ladies served us coffee, danced with us and such. and something strange happened the first month we were there. we received a letter which was read by every company commander to the assemble company. and the letter was from the governor of the state of mississippi. and it went something like, welcome to mississippi. you will do your training here

to prepare yourselves for service to our country. while you are here, you will be considered white, to be white. when we read that, i said, oh my god, we're -- and my company commander was a young man from hawaii, and so he was brought up living with us. he was furious. he put on dark glasses on that day because he didn't want us to see his eyes of anger, but he was required. he said, i have to read this because i'm ordered to read this. >> i don't quite understand. why was he so angry? >> that we would continue to be targets of discrimination. either reverse or otherwise. >> i see. okay. okay. >> then we were told that we should conduct ourselves like white people. so we can't sit in the last three rows of a bus which we

thought was ridiculous. we're standing while the three last rows are empty, no one's sitting there. and we have to go to a restaurant that's declared to be white. and i learned a phrase. as a young child there was a theater here, hawaii theater with a mezzanine and the mezzanine was for us, the preferred area, because you could look at the screen without anyone obstructing your view. and it was called -- heaven. i didn't think much about it. then in mississippi i realized why. because in movie houses there were mezzanines in just about every movie house and that's

where the african-americans were required to sit. they could not sit in the lower floor with the rest of the white people. they all had to sit up there and it was called -- heaven. >> this term went to hawaii even though it wasn't practiced in hawaii, this segregation. >> somehow it got to us, but at that time we had no idea why it was called -- heaven. we thought it was called that because it was very dark up there. >> at shelby, this is where the hawaiian contingent met a lot of the americans, the japanese ancestry from the mainland. tell me how that went, what the relationship was between the mainlanders and the hawaiians. >> well, the original encounter was not positive, was not friendly. both sides, especially the hawaiian side, looked upon the

others with some, i would say, well, distrust. for one thing, it was easily known that the mainland japanese spoke a better brand of english. we for the most part spoke pigeon which was absolutely foreign to the mainlanders because our pigeon was very unique and exclusive for hawaii. it was a mixture of hawaiian, chinese, japanese, portuguese and a combination of strange construction. and so oftentimes people like cash might be listening in to our conversation and they would smile because it's funny. and some of the white guys

didn't take that too well, what are you laughing at? and bang. and fights became commonplace. it got so bad that at one stage during the early days of our training, senior officers of the regiment seriously discussed the possibility of disbanding the regiment. that if we could not work together, how can we ever consider going into combat together? because a unit had to work together in discipline. and so frantically they fight all kinds of things. psychological gatherings, discussion groups, social hours. but fights continued and the

platoons would go on their own and we would go on their own. then suddenly i don't know whose bright idea it was, each company received invitations from two camps. now, keep in mind we had no idea about these camps. because to begin with, our relationship wasn't good. and they didn't tell us. they never discussed the camps. so i think jerome was the camp in arkansas. "e" company received invitations from the people of arkansas. i think the whole battalion went there. each company sent, oh, about 15 men or so. and by coincidence when we lined up we were all from hawaii. not a single mainlander. and for the most part we were non-commission officers. i was a corporal at that time,

so i was one of those invited. and we thought, well, we're going off to arkansas and there's a large japanese community. we didn't know the community was in the camp. and so we got ourselves all gussied up, getting ready for a weekend with young ladies. we had our ukuleles with us and our guitars and we left mississippi early in the morning because it was going to be a long drive into arkansas. then i remember when we turned the corner, the end of the road and the valley came into view, and what we saw was row after row of barracks.

we thought this was a military camp and we were going to pass this to go some place else. no, we came up to this camp and stopped. high barb wired fences. and there are machine gun towers all around the camp with men there with machine guns and greeting us at the camp at the gate were men in uniform with rifles and bayonets. we are in uniform. and i thought, what in the world is happening? then you look into the camp and there they were. then it dawned on us what had happened. and at that moment, thank god the men had the good sense not to search us. i can imagine if the guards began searching us. i think we would have had some bloodshed around there.

but then the gates were open and we were escorted in and we found that these barracks had been vacated by families who either doubled up with other families. they said we could stay in the barracks. we said, no, we'll stay in the trucks or the mess hall. and we tried our best to be happy and sociable, but it's not easy realizing what was happening there. and when we left, the atmosphere was totally different because when we arrived we were all singing and playing ukuleles and having a great time and when we left it was absolute silence. all the way to mississippi. no one talked. and i could imagine what was going through their minds and i think the, almost all of us must have asked ourselves, would we

have volunteered? that's a good question. then when we got back, we could hardly wait to tell the fellows. this is what they anticipated. and so overnight the regiment was born. next morning you had the 422. >> that's a wonderful story. if things didn't work out, in fact, some say were unhappy that they were treated differently and assigned to a segregated unit at first. how do you feel about this? to you think they would have fought as well if they were assigned individually to integrated units? >> no. number one, the realities of that time dictated it should have been a dedicated one. if i was in some other unit, i

don't expect white men at that time, or black men, to treat me as their brothers. so what's the mission? but when we trained together and fought as a unit with one goal in mind, and one mission in mind, i think success was guaranteed. after the first battle and knowing what the 100th had done, i think most of us left mississippi knowing that our mission would be accomplished. >> something, you know, i thought about this, if we still had a segregated army during the vietnam war, because my older brother was, you know, of that era, and if the infantry brigade was made up of -- >> no, officially the army became integrated during the

time of truman. >> no, i realize that. this is more of a hypothetical, that if an infantry brigade was made up of volunteers from hawaii and mainland, i guess the question is, how well do you think they would have performed compared to the 442? >> i think that's a bad comparison. because after all, we had a mission. we were there for a purpose. it was not just being drafted and having to fight a war. we were there to prove once and for all that we were just as good as others. that we were americans. in vietnam, it was not a matter of these men who were drafted, reluctantly got in. you can't make the comparison like that. >> okay. i guess one of the things i'm

looking for is the 442, there was a real specialness, a real togetherness, and part of that was a sense that they were all japanese-americans. >> it had to be that way. >> and that strength of being so close was a good thing that the military, the army should also be thinking about in the future in terms of how do you create that closeness? because that closeness can be such a powerful thing. >> well, the military is a transient organization. transient in the sense that unlike the 442nd, you do not train and fight as a unit. they go off to other units, replacements come in. as a result, it's very difficult to build up a spirited call. in the case of the 422nd, it was

a natural. we all looked alike. we had the same mission. we knew what we were there for. no ifs or buts. >> that's what i learned. it's such a powerful thing. let's move toward europe. when you cross the atlantic, it took almost a month for you to cross the atlantic to reach europe. what were you and the others thinking as you approached the landing in europe? >> well, i think all of us, in fact, 100% of us, on the last days before landing must have had going through our mind, because you could sense the change. in the first few weeks you had a lot of activity, gambling and singing and carousing. but the last week gambling became a rarity.

there was very little singing. people were just quiet. you would see them standing on the deck looking out into the horizon. obviously thinking, doing a lot of thinking. among their thinking was, i hope they do well. i hope i do well. in fact, after our first battle, the encounter with the enemy, and we got together and i'm a curious fellow, so i asked each one of them, what were you thinking about just before we got into battle? because we know at what point you're going to cross the line of departure and you know that at a certain point they're going to start shooting at you. what were your thoughts? and everyone had the same answer in a different way. one would say, well, i hope i

don't bring shame. another would say, i hope i do well. i hope i don't become a coward. it was something like my father said to me just before i got on the truck to leave. he said, whatever you do, don't dishonor the country or dishonor the family. and that's what it was. and for men of my generation, bringing shame upon the family or dishonoring the family was an important thing. and as a result, there are certain statistics that we never think about. we just take for granted. for example, in europe, there were certain units where one-half of the men had venereal disease.

one-half. in the 442nd, it was a rarity. it was really rare. in my company only one person had it. and he had it before he came in. he was cured, but he was always identified as a vd and he never got promoted. there was an officer who got court-martialed because he got cholera. our regiment was the cleanest in the united states military, army, navy, marine, air force. >> the men were so careful. they did not want to bring shame -- >> they did not want to go home with vd. that would bring shame upon the family. and what young lady would marry him? right? >> right. that's interesting.

>> and as a result, this was very important and so you would see gentle people who would fight like tigers because they wanted to bring glory and not shame. >> for you, how were those first few days? were you thinking similar things? >> all of us were afraid. in fact, we would kid ourselves, i remember the first bombardment. we were walking along this roadway, all of a sudden, artillery shells came pouring in, this was something we had never experienced, boom! boom! the men hit the ground on the road and here i am looking around and you would see here and there puddles of water. they're urinating because of fear. sphincter muscles get loose, a

natural reaction. i remember a couple of them were embarrassed. nothing to be embarrassed about, this is natural. after a while, you learn to control fear. but to say that no one is afraid, that person must be insane. every battle i went into, i was afraid. >> in those early battle days, how did death of a comrade affect the men in these early days? >> blood was not a common place occurrence. you saw blood when you garbed yourself or stepped on a nail or something like that.

but to see the gore and ripped out bodies and half a face gone, that's a new experience. unless you got involved in some terrible automobile accident. so to see that was devastating for some of us. it took a while to get over it. once you get to see death becomes come mon place. you don't forget them, but we'll move onto the next day. i lost many friends. >> in the first campaign in journey to washington, you spoke of the captain who was a special person, he was your first captain, and he died in the first campaign. >> he was the first casualty. he was our company commander,

promoted to become the battalion company commander. he was in command of the second battalion company, headquarters company. he got shot, artillery shell just landed on him. so on day one, he was killed. >> must have been pretty demoralizing. >> he was a good man, a good friend of ours. we got a little shaken by that when the news reached us. you learn to overcome that, most of us. but you learn to overcome that. most of us. there are some who, not too many, to this day, carry the scars.

i know of one person in our battalion, who had to undergo psychiatric treatment, which is astounding to think that just one. i would think it should be common place. that's another thing about don't bring shame, even if you have that feeling, you don't want to share it with others and suggest to others something is wrong. >> as a unit lost their officers, they had to be replaced and people received battlefield commissions. you were one of the ones that received a battlefield commission. why were you chosen to be an officer? >> i've asked myself that question, why was i selected? i was 19 when i was leading my platoon.