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Ken Akune
Military Intelligence Service
INTERVIEWER: Okay Ken, let's talk a little bit about the time that you had volunteered. Can you go over again about your thoughts of why you volunteered? AKUNE: Well you know, like I said, I was mad, jealous, whatever you wanna call it. In Japanese they call it "kuyashii." There's nothing you can do about it. Here you wanna do something to serve your country and you're not permitted to do it. And so, suddenly the door opens and now you’re able to carry out your duty as a citizen. And so it made me feel real great. You know, like I said the moment I was signed up, I said we were going to win. There's no chance we were going to lose. But you know, my brother and I came back, the other two or three kids that were with us also came back and they found, their parents found out that here my brother and I had volunteered, and you ought to see, all hell broke loose. The people start saying, what's a matter with you people, here, you claim you’re an American citizen, and you're no better than we are. You're in this same camp we are and now your saying your going to volunteer. And you have parents in Japan. What are they gonna say? And my thought was, I told them I says, you know the reason why we're here is that we don't have any past record where the Nihonjin or Japanese could prove their loyalty. Now's our chance. And if we don't take this chance and do something about it, it's going to be our fault. And, you know, some of us are not gonna come back. But, you know, if that were... excuse me... I don't know, everytime I think about this thing. But I felt if that would change things for the better for the Japanese, you know, it'd be worth it.
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