Interviews
Appearance vs. Combat Effectiveness
In the military there’s a very, very strong belief that if you polish your shoes and press your pants and salute right and you’re clean, then you’re a good combat soldier. And so for the military, appearance in a sense is related to combat effectiveness. And nothing could be further from the truth. See? The 100th is the last…is the worst looking outfit, if you’re going to look at it from appearance, they’re the wrong height, they’re the wrong everything.
Now if you take the boys the islands, it’s even worse, cause over half the men in my platoon never wore shoes before, cause they were from a plantation. So they wouldn’t tie their shoelaces. See? Cause the feet hurt, I mean they really hurt, see. The other thing is that, since they didn’t tie their shoelaces, they didn’t blouse their pants inside their shoes or put leggings on. The other things too, it’s hot and humid in Shelby and so they wore their shirttails out like Hawaiian style, like I’m wearing now, see? And the other things is that they wouldn’t get a haircut, see?
So now I’ve got a crew that I’m trying to make get haircuts, put their shirttail in and tie their shoelaces and that’s almost an impossible task you know, it’s 44 against 1, you know and now trying to train a whole company I got a 180 of them, 190 of them you know, rebelling. And, sure I could get a few NCOs to do it and what not but I never succeeded in ever getting them properly “groomed” shall we say military style. But when I got in combat, I learned that those values are meaningless. That, that has no relationship to whether a man is combat effective.
Date: August 28, 1995
Location: California, US
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum
Explore More Videos
Being ordered to keep a diary that was later confiscated, ostensibly by the FBI
Hawaiian Nisei who served in World War II with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.
The day Pearl Harbor was bombed
(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.
Father as prisoner of war in hospital
(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.
Mr. Finch, godfather of the 442nd
(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.
Importance of education in achieving redress for incarceration
(1919-2014) Activist for civil rights and redress for World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans.
Her experience as a Japanese-American schoolchild in Oceanside, California, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor
(1924-2018) Artist and playwright.
Finding his relative among Japanese prisoners
(b.1913) Kibei from California who served in the MIS with Merrill’s Marauders during WWII.
442 soldiers visiting U.S. concentration camps
(b. 1924) Political scientist, educator, and administrator from Hawai`i
Teaching at the military language school during World War II
(b. 1924) Political scientist, educator, and administrator from Hawai`i
Devastation in Tokyo after World War II
(b. 1924) Political scientist, educator, and administrator from Hawai`i
Change in attitudes after World War II
(b. 1924) Political scientist, educator, and administrator from Hawai`i
Family's deportation from Peru to U.S. after the bombing of Pearl Harbor
(1930-2018) Nisei born in Peru. Taken to the United States during WWII.
Dealing with racism within army unit in Korea
(b. 1939) Japanese American painter, printmaker & professor
Loss of happy-go-lucky adolescence in Puyallup Assembly Center
(b. 1923) Nisei from Washington. Resisted draft during WWII.
Memories of dusty conditions at Minidoka incarceration camp
(b. 1923) Nisei from Washington. Resisted draft during WWII.