Oral History Videos

Ray Nosaka
Interview Length: 1:50

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:
It's hard to answer that, you know, when the parents ask you, "how did he die?"  How are you going to answer this kind.  It's the hardest question I ever had when we visited the parents.  That's one of those things that you have to go through.  I think that all went over asking us how he died.  You ask any of us, we tell the same thing.  See, we don't know how to tell them.  We cannot tell them, oh he died.  If he died just instantly, fine, we could tell them that.  If it was the other way around, you know, some guys had to drag them out.  You know, leg all bleeding, and you not going to tell that kind of story.  So that's one of the hardest questions to answer to the parents.

Interviewer: Did you witness someone dying?

Oh yeah.

Interviewer: How did that affect you, when you were going for, you know, going ahead?

The bad part is, you, we just see them, you just keep going.  We cannot stop for them.  That's the hardest part, you know.  Even that's your closest, closest buddy, you cannot stop for them.  You got to advance, keep going.  And then the medics will come.  And the medics - every forty people, there's only one medic.  So you can imagine - how can he take care, you know, when you get a barrage, about fifteen of them lying down.  How can anybody take care of one guy, take care of all of them.  So, the one that is seriously wounded, they try to take care of first.  But you don’t know how serious each one is.  So somebody going to bleed to death.  Too late, you know.  But sometimes, combat too, you know, you feel, you feel unlucky, you going to die.  If you feel lucky, you survive.