Gender

Male

Birth date

1927-12-19

Place of birth

Alameda CA, U.S.A.

Inducted

1946-4-29, Detroit MI

Enlistment type

Draftee

Service branch

Army

Service type

War,peacetime

Unit type

Combat,sup

Units served

1946-47: The Infantry School (Army Officers Candidate School and Basic Infantry Officers Course)and 756th Armored Tank Battalion, Ft. Benning, GA (as Officer Candidate, Student Officer, & Tank Platoon Leader)
1948-50: 356 HQ Intel Det & 163 MI Det, Maizuru, Japan (as POW Interrogation Officer)
1950-51: G2 Section, HQ, 7th Infantry Division, Sendai, Japan and Korea(as Order of Battle Officer and Assist. G2 Operations Officer)
1951-52: G2 Section, GHQ, United Nations Command/Far East Command, Tokyo, Japan (as Order of Battle Officer)
1952-56: 338/319 MI Battalion & (concurrently) G2 Section, HQ, Second U.S. Army, Ft. George G. Meade, MD (as Chief, OB Sec. of the M.I. Battalion and concurrently, Chief, Plans, Estimates and Dissemination Branch, Intelligence Division, G2 Section, HQ, Second U.S. Army)
1956-57: HQ, Support Group, United Nations Command Military Armistice Commission, Munsan-ni, Korea (as Support Group S-2 and S-3)
1957-58: US Army Command Reconnaissance Activity, Pacific, Tokyo, Japan
1959-61: 1st Training Regiment, Ft. Dix, NJ (first as Assistant S-4, then as Executive Officer, 4th Training Battalion)
1961-62: HQ, Combat Command C, 4th Armored Division, Crailsheim, Germany (as Combat Command S-2)
1962-64: HQ, 4th Armored Division, Goeppingen, Germany (successively as G2 Operations Officer, G2 Executive Officer, and Assistant Chief of Staff, G2)
1964-65: US Army Special Warfare School, Ft. Bragg, NC (first as Chief, General Subjects Division, then as Chief, Propaganda Division of the Psychological Operations Department, USASWS)
1965-66: 55th Military Intelligence Detachment and HQ, I Field Force Viet Nam, Nha Trang, RVN (as Detachment Commander and concurrently as Deputy G2, HQ, IFFORCEV)
Sep. 1966: Retired

Military specialty

1542, 2162, 9301, 9305, 9316, 9318, 9368

Stationed

Overseas: Japan; Korea (North and South); Germany; & Vietnam
Stateside: Ft. McClellan, AL; Ft. Benning, GA; Ft. Meade, MD; Ft. Dix, NJ; Ft. Bragg, NC

Separated

Oakland CA

Unit responsibility

Varied, depending on the organization and mission at the time.
1948-50:Occupation duty, in Japan, interrogating Japanese POWs repatriated from Soviet POW camps in Siberia.
1950-51: Combat intelligence support of the 7th Infantry Division during combat operations in Korea.
1951-52: Production of order of battle intelligence for GHQ, UNC/FEC.
1952-56: Intelligence training, reserve forces training and mobilization & emergency defense planning for the Second Army at Ft. Meade.
1956-57: Providing security and logistical support for the UNC Military Armistice Commission (including UN facilities inside the Demilitarized Zone at Panmunjom) in Korea.
1957-58: Special intelligence operations.
1959-61: Providing basic and infantry training for Army recruits at Ft. Dix.
1961-64: Planning and training for, and testing plans for the NATO defense of West Germany by the 4th Armored Division.
1964-65: Special warfare instruction and training (including counterinsurgency, counter-guerrilla, and psychological operations) for U.S. and foreign military (officer) students from all armed service branches by the Special Warfare School.
1965-66: 55th MI Det provided MI support to IFForceV and G2 Section, IFForceV, provided combat intelligence support to HQ, IFForceV.

Personal responsibility

As indicated in the chronology under Units Served

Major battles (if served in a war zone)

The 7th Infantry Division's amphibious landing at Inchon in September 1950, the division's advance to the Yalu River, the division's withdrawal back to the Hungnam Perimeter, and the division's advance back up the Korean peninsula to and above the 38th parallel.

In Viet Nam, my detachment provided military intelligence support to what was initially called 'Task Force Alpha', then Field Force Vietnam, and finally I Field Force Vietnam, at Nha Trang, RVN. My unit, being a HQ unit, did not engage in any direct combat operation.

Awards, medals, citations (individual or unit)

Bronze Star Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters for meritorious achievement in Korea September - November 1950; GHQ, UNC/FEC in July 1951-July 1952; and Viet Nam, August 1965 to August 1966.
Army Commendation Ribbon with Metal Pendant (now called Army Commendation Medal) for meritorious achievement in Korea November 1950-July 1951
Air Medal for meritorious achievement in aerial flight during 1965-66 in Vietnam
Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation awarded to the 7th Infantry Division
Various Service Medals including: Korean Service Medal (with 5 battle stars), World War II Victory Medal, Army Occupation Medal, UN Service Medal, National Defense Service Medal with 1 Oak Leaf Cluster, Armed Forces Reserve Medal, Vietnam Service Medal, and Vietnam Campaign Medal

Living conditions

Omitted (Not meaningfully relatable)

Most vivid memory of military experience

No single incident or event stands out since there were so many - good and bad, humorous as well as tragic.

Missed most whilst in the military

Nothing in particular.

Most important thing, personally, to come from military experience?

The most important thing that resulted from my military service was meeting my wife, Kimiko, to whom I've been married now for over 51 years, and the son she bore for me. It wouldn't have happened had the Army not sent me to Japan in 1948.

The one 'thing', instilled in me - through training and actual experience - is the concept that a leader must never forget his responsibility for his subordinates, peers, organization, and ultimately country, society and mankind.

I also learned the futility and tragedy of war as a means of resolving differences between nations, and the corollary that confrontational tactics and methods can never satisfactorily help resolve international, societal or intergroup differences.

Finally, I learned, from experience that, despite all the contemporary rhetoric about 'racism' and 'discrimination' and the tendency of individuals of one racial or ethnic group or another to blame others for whatever displeases them, The United States of America is the one country in the world in which one can improve his lot through his own effort if he or she will only take advantage of the opportunities that are there or open-up to him or her.

Additional information

Upon retiring from the Army, I completed my undergraduate studies (which were interrupted when I was drafted in 1946) and obtained a BA in Political Science from the Univeristy of California at Berkeley in 1967. I then began my civilian career in the U.S. Civil Service Commission's San Francisco Regional Office as a personnel management specialist/advisor, and also (in 1969) obtained a Master of Public Adminisration (MPA) degree from Cal State Hayward. In 1972, I was reassigned to the Commission's Central Office in Washington, D.C. to head a special project (review of civil service qualification standards to eliminate discriminatory features) in the Bureau of Policies and Standards, then another project in the Bureau of Personnel Management (investigation of merit system abuses) in 1975, and in 1977 to serve as a project coordinator under President Jimmy Carter's President's Reorganization Project to assist in developing and gaining Congressional passage of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978(CSRA). I was then transferred on January 1, 1979, to the newly established Office of the Special Counsel, Merit System Protection Board, in which I served successively as Assistant Special Counsel for Investigation, Associate Special Counsel for Investigation, and Associate Special Counsel for Planning and Oversight (concurrently Agency Inspector General) until 1988, when I retired again.

While pursuing my post-military career, I also served as National President of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) from 1974-76.

After retiring from the federal civil service, I completed my studies in 1993 for the Master in Jodo Shinshu (Shin Buddhist) Studies degree at the Institute of Buddhist Studies, a graduate school and seminary in Berkeley, CA. Also, to help a friend who became disabled, I served temporarily in 1998-99 as Vice President of the Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, a non-profit organization that is publishing English translations of selected parts of the Chinese Buddhist Canon.