guards beat the Prisoners regularly and the smallest infraction of Rules could prove fatal
One day, I was walking back from a detail, that day on the streets of Osaka, and the weather was cool
And I put my hands in my pocket, and I'm walking along with everybody else
when we got to the camp and they checked us out, and this guard pointed me out and called me out and
said "why did you have your hands in your pocket?" I said because I was cold.
So they took me in the commander's office and the interpreter says that "It's against the military code"
"Soldiers do not walk with hands in pockets." And I said "Well I'm not a soldier. I'm a personal war"
So the commander banged his fist on his desk, and he was a major and got up
And he says- the interpreter says "He don't like your attitude."
so he come up, and he started arguing with me and
I couldn't understand anything he said.
So he pulled his saber out, and he said he was gonna make an example of you
and so that the other men will understand they have to obey orders.
So he puts the sword to my throat here and nicked me a little bit
and I can feel a little bit of blood coming down. So the interpreter said "He's going to execute you."
So he asked me if I had any last words to say
I looked him straight in the eye, and I said "He can kill me,
but he cannot kill my spirit, and my spirit's gonna lodge in his body and haunt him until the day he dies."
He had a frown come over his face and
took three steps backward and lowered his sword and ordered me to be put in a five by five by five
cubicle in the ground
I had never seen a Japanese back down in front of any of his
subordinates until that particular time
Because once they got to that point they went through with it
regardless of the results.
