Peter Ota, Nisei and Betty Basye Hutchinson, Nurse

After reading about Peter Ota, Nisei, and Betty Basye Hutchinson, nurse, I was surprised by how World War II had affected their lives. I was mostly disturbed with Ota’s story, because of the treatment he and his family had endured during WWII. I was also disturbed with Hutchinson’s story, because of the disgusting injuries that she described. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Peter Ota’s family went to jail. When Ota’s mother saw her husband in a jail uniform, she felt “the shame and humiliation.” (205) This shame broke Ota’s mother down, which caused her to get sick and eventually die. Peter’s father was sent to am internment camp in Montana, and Peter “got letters from him -censored, of course- telling [Peter] he was all right.” (205) While Peter’s father was at a camp and his mother was sick, Peter, who was only fifteen, had to take care of his twelve year old sister. Eventually, Peter and his sister would be asked to leave for a camp. Peter took “A toothbrush, toilet supplies, and some clothes. Only what [he] could carry.”(206) He and his sister ended up in Santa Anita in 1942. Peter’s dad was eventually transferred over to Peter’s camp, and Peter recalled that his father was “a man who had worked so hard for what he had and lost it overnight.” (206) Peter’s father showed very little emotion about his loses, and continued to have faith in his country. Peter had left camp to“[work] on sugar beet farms” (207) in Utah. When Peter was eligible for the draft, he noticed the irony in the fact that he was fighting for freedom, while his sister and father where in a concentration camp waiting for the war to end. During the time that Peter was in training his mother passed away, and was planned to be buried in the camp where the rest of his family was living. He had to be escorted by an FBI agent, who “could see no reason for him to be with [Peter]” (208) Unfortunately, Peter started to view camp as “like going home for [him]” (209), because all of his family was there. After the war was over, Peter and his family were released from the camps, and had felt like they had to prove themselves as Americans. Betty Basye Hutchinson had become a nurse after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. She new it was “the fastest thing [she] could do to help our boys.” (211) Betty had “the government [pay] for [them] to become nurses.”(211) During the war, Betty kept wanting “to really have something to do with the war.” (212) The war had become personal to Betty, when, “[her] boyfriend, whom [she’d] been engaged to ever since [she] left high school. He’d joined the marines and was gone.” (212) Betty got her “first military assignment at Hoff General Hospital in Santa Barbra.” (213) After Roosevelt died, Betty became more dedicated to the war effort. When Betty was dealing with patients, she was “stuck by the horror of it, but it wasn’t as bad as what was to come.” (213) By the end of the war Betty started doing plastic surgery, and listening to the men’s problems. Many men were losing their wives, and were going through tough times. This made “having pretty, young nurses around” (215) important to the men. After the war, Betty got married to a man, who fought in the South Pacific. She and her husband would not discuss the war after it was over. These stories raise multiple questions. The first question is why did the Japanese Americans, who were drafted, have to prove their loyalty to America when they were already fighting for America’s freedom? The second question that comes to mind is how hard was World War II on the nurses, soldiers, and Japanese Americans? These stories remind me of slavery and the Civil Rights movement. The Americans treatment towards African Americans in America was similar to how the Americans treated the Japanese during World War II. The Americans had treated the Japanese Americans as if they had no human rights, which was also how the Americans had treated the African Americans since the beginning of slavery. The immorality of the Americans during World War II was just like the immorality that the Americans had during the Civil War. These stories remind of my grandmother, who was a nurse’s aid during World War II. She went through a course and became a Red Cross aid. My grandma would help wounded soldiers write letters home, and help out any way she could at the veteran’s hospital.

Peggy Terry, "hillbilly", and E.B. Sledge, Marine

After reading Stud Terkel’s interview with Peggy Terry, who was a “hillbilly”, and E.B. Sledge, who was a Marine, I was surprised by how the war had impacted Americans views towards Germans and Japanese. I was also shocked by the immorality that Terry and Sledge had witnessed and Americans had taken apart of during World War II. Terry took a job in a factory that produced bombs. She worked on a machine that put the detonators in the explosives. She took the job, because her family had no money during the Great Deppression. While working with the explosives, “It didn’t occur to [them] that [they] were making these shells to kill people.” (190) Terry and her coworkers had endured terrible working conditions and harsh labor. Terry’s mother who also worked at the plant had wanted to take time off when her mom died, but the company told her that if she took time off she would be fired. Terry’s mother then had to quit and later Terry herself decided to as well. Even though the working conditions were awful, the factory “were a big family, and [they] hugged and kissed each other.” (192) The factories’ closeness came from a magnitude of reasons, but mostly because they “were very patriotic and [they] understood that that the Nazis were someone who would have to be stopped.”(193) The factory “[was] awarded the Navy E for excellence.” (192) The factories and later the victory of the war had “People’s expectations, financially, spiritually, were raised.” (194) Terry’s “husband was a paratrooper in the war, in the 101st Airborne Division.” (193) Terry’s husband had later suffered terrible nightmares about how he had shot an innocent woman during the war. E.B. Sledge was a marine during the Second World War. He and his unit “were a bunch of scared kids who had to do a job.” (196) Sledge had fought on the islands in the pacific. Sledge had watched many of his fellow unit fall victim to the Japanese style of warfare, and Sledge knew that “the only thing that kept [him] going was [his] faith in [his] buddies” (198) Sledge’s unit had grown a hatred for the Japanese during the Pacific Theatre. “This hatred toward the Japanese was just a natural feeling that developed elementally.” (199) Men would steal dead Japanese soldiers’ gold teeth, and shoot off additional body parts after killing the Japanese. Sledge was disgusted by his unit’s immoral actions, and when the war was over was glad to return home. These stories bring up many questions. The first question is why was World War II such an immoral war? The second question is why did the Americans sacrifice their morals during time of war and treat the Japanese so poorly? These stories remind me of slavery and the Civil Rights movement. The Americans treatment towards African Americans in America was similar to how the Americans treated the Japanese during World War II. The Americans had treated the Japanese Americans as if they had no human rights, which was also how the Americans had treated the African Americans since the beginning of slavery. The immorality of the Americans during World War II was just like the immorality that the Americans had during the Civil War. These stories also remind me of my grandfather, who had helped develop the atomic bomb during World War II. He, just like Terry, had not thought about how the bomb was going to kill many Japanese people, but he was very patriotic and knew that the war had to be ended, which was why my Grandfather had worked long hours trying to develop such a bomb.

The Rifleman

After reading Studs Terkel’s introduction to An Oral History of World War II and Terkel’s interview with Bob Rasmus, a rifleman for the U.S. army in World War II, I had realized how the war had changed soldiers’ perspectives on the war and countries. I was surprised by Bob Rasmus’s experiences, views on the war, and by feelings, as the rifleman passed through Europe. Rasmus explained that the war had made “young kids, who had never wandered beyond the precinct of their native city or their small hometown or their father’s farm, ran into exotic places and exotic people, as well as into one another, whom they found equally exotic.” (164) The war had played a role in Rasmus’s perspective, because on one hand Rasmus was excited to have this adventure and to be able see the world, but at the same time, the enemy “were no longer the Germans of the brutish faces and the helmets we saw in the news reels. They were exactly our age. Those were boys like us.” (163) Rasmus’s view had changed drastically after fighting in Europe. He had noticed how the emotion of war had changed depending upon what area of Europe he was in. Rasmus had mentioned that some villages were pretty and filled with small churches on the countryside, but when he entered a major city the tone would change from this pretty peaceful countryside to a beat up and destroyed city. The major cities were filled with ruble and it was that change in mood that really impacted Rasmus. Rasmus not only noted the changes that he saw in Europe, but he also had mentioned how America had changed into an even greater world power. Rasmus explained that “The United States had become the most powerful industrial as well as military power in the world.” The interview makes me question the use of propaganda and the power of nationalism. Rasmus’s view of the enemy had changed when he saw the dead bodies of young German soldiers, which makes me question the use of propaganda in World War II. It more specifically raises the question, how factual was the propaganda that was used in World War II? This propaganda had also influenced an extreme nationalism, but the question that this interview raises is how much pride could soldiers, like Rasmus, have for their country after seeing the young German soldiers that they had killed? This interview with Bob Rasmus reminds me of nationalism and propaganda and how they have played a major role in both World War I and World War II. Nationalism and propaganda had helped America enter the wars and encourage Americans to fight against Germany, but both nationalism and propaganda had once again led to the mistreatment of German Americans. This interview with Bob Rasmus also reminds of my grandfathers, who both served in the Army. Both of my grandfathers had extreme patriotism resulting from the intense propaganda and hatred for Hitler. The fact that both of my Grandfathers were Jewish magnified the patriotism and desire to defeat Hitler and his anti-Semitic ideology. This Rasmus interview reminds me of my Grandfathers service and their extreme desire to fight in the war.