TANI: J A V A, (JAVA) is the acronym for the Japanese American Veterans Association. It is an association of veterans, their spouses, and friends with the shared interests of those who participated in the Armed Forces of the United States. JAVA is a partner of the Veterans History Project of the Library of Congress; the Project collects audio and video recordings of oral histories. JAVA members have been encouraged to record their oral histories in interviews within the guidelines from the Library of Congress. The purpose of these interviews is to preserve for historians and researchers the experiences of the person not only during his military career, but also his or her life experiences before and after that military service. JAVA also provides the video cameraman and the interviewer. Today, the cameraman is Grant Hirabayashi, and the interviewer is Paul Tani. Most of the JAVA members are Americans of Japanese Ancestry (AJA). However, persons who were not an AJA, but who participated with AJAs in the armed services are also JAVA members.

The subject of our interview, today, July 29, 2003, is Dr. Stanley Falk, who is not an AJA. Dr Falk has welcomed us into his home for the interview. He was born on March 11, 1927 in New York City.

He served on active duty in the U S Army from April 23, 1945 to July 28, 1948. He graduated from the Army’s Military Intelligence Service Language School, after studying the Japanese language. During the Occupation of Japan, he served in the Army’s Military Intelligence Service at GHQ, Far East Command in Tokyo. Fortuitously, he began his career as a historian in the Occupation’s Historical Division. As a historian, Dr. Falk is well aware of the importance of these oral history interviews. We thank him for his preparation for and participation in this interview. Welcome, Stanley Falk.

TANI: Stan, could you tell us a little bit about your background, your parents, and a little bit about your early education?

FALK: My mother was born in Kharkov, Russia, and her family immigrated to the United States in 1906. My father’s family came earlier, and he was born in Baltimore, Maryland. I was born in New York City and lived there until I went away to college several years later.

Education? I was educated in the New York City school system, which had a program of pushing you

ahead as quickly as they could so that the way it worked out fortunately I went through my early education fairly quickly. I went to high school in Manhattan, the high school called Townsend Harris High School; which coincidentally, Townsend Harris was, of course, the first Minister to Japan, our first Minister to Japan. He was also very, very well involved in free higher education in New York City which was why the high school was named after him. I did my undergraduate education at Bard College, a small college in the Hudson Valley, about 95 miles up from New York City.

TANI: Stan, could you tell us a little bit about your wife and your children?

FALK: In 1956, I met my wife (Lynn) who was then a senior at George Washington University. I met her in 1955 actually, and we were married in 1956. We have two daughters: Karen who lives in New York, and Lisa who lives in Tucson, Arizona.

TANI: You definitely accelerated your education, and you graduated high school at what age?

FALK: Fifteen.

TANI: Wow! Okay, now, tell us about Bard College.

FALK: I started at Bard in the Fall of 1942, and because of the acceleration, and because we also had an accelerated wartime program at Bard, I graduated at the age of eighteen just as I was entering the Army, which turned out to be fortuitous, because then I could go on to other things having completed my undergraduate education. My major was Journalism; it didn’t say so on the diploma, but that was what I wanted to do; I wanted to be a newspaperman. I edited the school paper; I worked on newspapers between terms and during the summer and so I had that sort of a background when I entered the Army.

TANI: Were there Nisei (Japanese Americans) at Bard?

FALK: There were three Nisei. In 1943, the government instituted a program in which Nisei in the relocation camps could come out and if they were accepted at a college or a university; a countrywide program. We had three gentlemen who came to Bard. One was TARO KAWA, who was and remains a very good and close friend of ours. The second was JIN KINOSHITA who went on to quite a career in medical research. The third was TOM HAYASHI, who became a lawyer, and lived in New York, and was very active with the Japanese American Citizens League; unfortunately, he died at an early age. TARO was the only one I was really closely in touch; although I had seen quite a bit of Tom before he died.

TANI: When did you get interested in the Japanese Language?

FALK: The son of a friend of my parents was in the MISLS (Military Intelligence Service Language School) program at Camp Savage and Fort Snelling. He told us about it and it seemed like a good idea if I could get into this: study Japanese and learn Japanese. It seemed as if I was going to be in the Army, I could probably make a better contribution that way than as a rifleman.

TANI: You were tutored in Japanese?

FALK: When we learned about the program, I had to have some background in Japanese. I had studied Latin and French, but I never studied Japanese. Somehow or other, my parents arranged for me to take lessons at Columbia University. A former missionary named NOSS, who was teaching Japanese at Columbia. I was able to take tutorials with Mr. Noss. So, what I did was I would come down from Bard on the train on Friday evening, I would visit him Saturday morning at his home and take a lesson, and run back to Bard in the afternoon. I was quite busy at school, it was my senior year, I was editing the paper, I was writing a senior thesis, I was working at several jobs on campus to help pay for all this, and I also had a girl friend. All this took a lot of time. So, it was down to New York, take a lesson, come back to Bard, study Japanese during the week, and come down again. And, after I had made sufficient progress in this to satisfy Mr. Noss, he recommended me to the MISLS program. A number of former missionaries were running this program or were certainly involved in the program. One of them was Major Paul Rusch, who I think had been a missionary. So, Noss wrote to Rusch that I was a suitable candidate. I was accepted into the program. In fact, I had my orders in hand when I was inducted into the Army in April 1945.

TANI: You were accepted in the language school before you were even in the Army?

FALK: At that time, I think they were scraping the bottom and were looking for anybody. We had quite an assortment of people in my class at Ann Arbor (Michigan), which was where the Japanese language program was.

PAUSE: THE CAMERAMAN (GRANT HIRABAYASHI) REQUESTED STANLEY FALK TO MOVE SO THAT HIS GLASSES WOULD NOT GLARE SO MUCH ON THE RECORDING.

TANI: Did all of these experiences and activities as a student lead you toward your ultimate career?

FALK: Well, actually, as I said I wanted to be a newspaperman, but this led me to getting me assigned to the History Office in Tokyo in the Occupation. I got to Japan in late June 1946, and because I supposedly could write as a newspaperman, and as a Japanese language officer, they assigned me to the History Office there. That’s what led me into the History Business.

TANI: Let’s get back to when you got into the Army.

FALK: On April 23, 1945, I got out to Ann Arbor on the First of May.

TANI: Before you graduated?

FALK: I graduated in absentia. They sent my diploma to my home address. I wasn’t there to receive it personally, obviously.

TANI: How long did you stay at the Army Language School?

FALK: The language program for Caucasian students was supposedly a year at Ann Arbor and then another six months further work at Fort Snelling. The War (with Japan) ended in the summer of 1945, so they cut short the program to end in December 1945. And, after Christmas leave, we reported to Fort Snelling and continued on, there.

TANI: So you were at Michigan on both VE Day and VJ Day?

FALK: Yes. I don’t remember much about VE Day but we certainly celebrated VJ Day.

TANI: You could have gotten out of the Army?

FALK: At the time I got to Fort Snelling and had been there for a while, enlisted men were getting out in about a year or a year and a half of service; on the other hand, we had the opportunity to become commissioned officers and stay on in the Army as language officers and one would have to stay for a total of something like three and a half years altogether. So, I had a choice, I had a decision to make: not to take the commission and get out probably in another six months, or take the commission and go to Japan but know that I was going to be there for a few years. Here is where my rush through the education system was good, because I already had my Bachelor’s degree, I was only nineteen at the time, I could spend two years in Japan. And so I decided that having studied Japanese and having

looked forward at all of this, I would go to Japan for two years . So I accepted. On April 23, 1946,

exactly a year after I went in the Army, I was commissioned Second Lieutenant along with a number of other of my friends.

TANI: Did you sail from Seattle?

FALK: We sailed from Seattle in June, and reached Japan in late June, and finally came into Tokyo from the Replacement Depot about the 5^th of July. We were billeted in the NYK Building, the Nippon Yusen Kaisha Building, the steamship line company building. That was also where the offices of ATIS, the Allied Translator and Interpreter Service, were located. And, that’s where I lived for about half of the time that I was in Tokyo, and then they sent us to another building. But I lived in there, and when I was assigned to the History Office, that was also located in the building. So, it was a short commute.

TANI: How did the Occupied Japanese officials and the people of Japan react to you?

FALK: I was on a very, very low level and I didn’t deal with high-level Japanese. But, the Occupation was a benign one, the Japanese people were quite accepting of the Occupation, so the people I dealt with in ordinary life either just running into them in the streets or traveling, it was a very simple relationship. I did have a lot of relationships with former Japanese military officers because part of my job in the History Office was to talk to former Army and Navy personnel about their campaign, their activities during the war because there weren’t too many records and we were trying to compile as good a history of it as we could. Again, I would say that relationships were always cordial.

TANI: You mentioned some of your functions, that you interviewed these Japanese officials and talked to them. Were there causes of stress and anxiety?

FALK: No, the only thing that we had to reassure them that we weren’t looking for. . . we weren’t doing any war crimes investigations. We had to gain their confidence and when they saw that we were simply talking about how the campaigns were fought, what the problems were, what the strategy was, and so forth, they were quite forthcoming. If you are talking about stresses for me, there were none. It was a very fine assignment. I enjoyed it very much. It was very pleasant to be there.

TANI: Did you enjoy Tokyo?

FALK: I enjoyed Tokyo. I enjoyed Japan. It was a wonderful opportunity for a young guy to get around and to see the country, to meet the people, to learn something about the culture. I traveled quite a bit on weekends. If we could get a jeep out of the motor pool and we could take off. Because we had the language advantage, we could go where we wanted to. Some places we weren’t supposed to go, we went nonetheless. I traveled mainly in the KANTO area; but I also got down to Kyoto and Kobe. I knew some people in Kobe.

TANI: What’s KANTO?

FALK: The KANTO area is the plain area around Tokyo, generally south of Tokyo; as opposed to the KANSAI area, which is the Osaka/Kyoto/Kobe area.

TANI: Did you have any relations with the Japanese American GIs at the time?

FALK: Oh Yes. Of course, we were living in the building. And ATIS was there, and it was fully staffed by American Nisei. There were Nisei in the Historical Office where I was. Clark Kawakami, George Kanegai, and I think there was a fellow named Henry Ikemoto, I think he was also in the History Office; I know he was a friend of mine. And of course, there were a lot of other Nisei in other important jobs in the Tokyo area. And there were also Nisei girls there whom I occasionally dated. So, it was a fairly broad interaction.

TANI: Did you visit Japanese homes?

FALK: Yes, I did. Several of them. Also, for a while, I was taking Judo lessons at a KO DO KAN in Tokyo. And, one of the top Judo men was a man named MIFUNE, and he invited me to his home.

And, in fact, I was very, very honored when he gave me one of his Judo gi (costumes), which I still have; you can see the ideographs, MI FUNE (three boats).

TANI: I notice that you have artwork from Japan.

FALK: Yes, not too much. I bought Japanese prints and Japanese sculptures and statuary. I didn’t know much about it. I didn’t know what I was doing. I bought things that I liked. We visited, I remember, one artist’s home in Kyoto and I have a beautiful jar which he made which I bought from him and which we still use; we put flowers in it.

TANI: I understand at the end of your tour of duty, you did something different.

FALK: Yes, most of the time that I was there in Japan, I was in the History Office. But, toward the end, I was transferred back to ATIS, (the Army’s Allied Translators and Interpreters Service), and at that time the Russians were releasing hundreds of thousands of Japanese prisoners that they had taken at the end of the war and had held for several years. As they came back, our people were interrogating them to see what intelligence information they could pick up. For a while, I was editing some of the reports that were made of the interviews. But, then, the Japanese returnees who possessed a great deal of information, after being interrogated at the ports of entry, at Sasebo, or Maizuru, or wherever they came in, were sent up to Tokyo for further interrogation. And for a brief period, there, I was put in charge of a language team which consisted of about ten or a dozen Nisei enlisted men interrogating these Japanese returnees.

TANI: What did you do at the History Office? Write history?

FALK: I did several things. I spent a lot of time interviewing former military personnel. I also wrote and contributed material to what is loosely referred to as the "MacArthur History" which is really officially the reports of General MacArthur, four volumes, a very fancy thing that they put together out there which has a volume on the American side, and another on the Japanese side of the war. I contributed to both of these.

TANI: Are these available?

FALK: They are available; they were finally printed and published in 1966 by the Government Printing Office. As I said there were four volumes; actually there were three volumes and one was two books. One on the American side of the war, the MacArthur side; the other on the Japanese side; one on the Occupation. I contributed to the wartime volumes.

TANI: We are about to leave the military service. Is there anything else you want to say about your military service?

FALK: The military service was really the basis of my later career, having gotten into the History Office there and having dealt with the Japanese and language, I was never vary far advanced in the language but I was into it. When I came back from Japan and got out of the Army, I went to work as a civilian

for the Army Historical Division in Washington, in the Pentagon, actually, and this began my career as a historian in the government. And I continued on in that. And, while I was there, I went to graduate school at night; I went to Georgetown University, which the GI Bill paid for I am pleased to say. And I got both my Master’s and PhD in American History. My interest was really World War II, especially in the Pacific. And that’s what I had written mainly about.

TANI: Were you involved with the Air Force? What did that involve? Just World War II?

FALK: I later became Chief Historian of the Air Force, yes. That involved supervising the Air Force Historical Program, which was fairly extensive. The Air Force Historical Program covered the History of the Air Force, and I didn’t focus on any particular area at the time.

TANI: You were also a teacher?

FALK: Yes, for a dozen years, I taught at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, which is a part now of the National Defense University. I taught National Security Affairs, International Affairs, and with as much history as I could bring into whatever I was teaching.

TANI: It seems like you had a lot of time. You wrote books?

FALK: I did a lot of writing nights and weekends. I published a number of volumes on the War in the Pacific. And, I also have written and published a lot of articles and reviews and essays along the way. This kept me fairly busy nights and weekends as you can imagine.

TANI: Earlier, you mentioned that you talked to Japanese Army and Navy officers, and that contributed to your store of knowledge about what you write?

FALK: Yes. Because I have written about and I write about the War in the Pacific, I am able to write about both sides; not just the American side, but also about the Japanese side, which is very important.

TANI: How did military experience change your life?

FALK: It gave me a profession. It gave me a career. I thought I was going to become a newspaperman and work for a newspaper somewhere and this sort of thing. But, this sent me into a different direction. It also, as I mentioned, paid for both of my graduate degrees. We had a GI Loan on our first house. And all these things contributed.

I stayed in the Reserves. I kept my commission as a Reserve Officer, and served as a Reserve Officer for another thirty years, attended the drills, the two weeks of active duty for training we took every year, and filled out the correspondence courses and do whatever else I was supposed to. I was promoted and eventually I was able to retire as a Colonel.

TANI: Let’s go way back. When you were in the service, did they take money out of your paycheck?

FALK: I had an allotment. They took money out for GI Insurance Policy, which I was later able to convert into a very good policy. I had an allotment, which I sent home to my parents; and they bought war bonds for me so that I had a nest egg when I got out of the Army and certainly helped pay the down payment for our first house.

TANI: That’s great. Why did you come to Washington, DC?

FALK: I came here because this is where the History Division was. I was back in New York, and I wrote the History Division down here and told them my background; they said come down for an interview. They offered me a job in the History Office. So I came to Washington in January 1949, and I’ve been in the area ever since.

TANI: What about life, now? Are you benefiting from all your experiences?

FALK: One’s whole life benefits from one experience. One thing builds upon the other. My interests are developed out of my experiences as a historian. Having been in Japan, I am very much involved in JAVA (Japanese American Veterans Association), because I have a lot of Nisei (Japanese American) friends.

I was in the same program as the Nisei who were in the Pacific in the MIS program. So, all of these things came together.

TANI: You got a military retirement?

FALK: Yes, I have a small military retirement. Not what I would have had had I been on active duty for thirty years, but as a Reserve Officer, you can build up credits and you do draw a nice small retirement; which is good. We also have access to the Commissary and the PX which saves us also.

TANI: You don’t regret being involved in the military, obviously?

FALK: No. For me, my service in the Army was educational, it was beneficial, it was not at all unpleasant. Possibly the eight weeks in basic training weren’t the happiest time; but even that was good because I was learning a lot of things about weapons and the Army and how you did things. Obviously, for many people, military service was not pleasant; and for many people, it was tragic. I was very fortunate.

TANI: How about your interaction with the Nisei? You said that there were teachers at the Army school?

FALK: At the University of Michigan where the Caucasian students were trained for the program I was in, all of our teachers were Nisei, and they were very good. They worked us hard, but they were good teachers. Once I got to Snelling, of course, we continued further courses there where we also had Nisei teachers. But also, for a period at Snelling, I was assigned to a Nisei company. There weren’t too many of us left; all the older folks were getting out of the service. So, there were only about twenty of us Caucasians left who might be considered for a commission, we were still enlisted men at the time. Rather than set us up as a separate entity of only twenty people, they put us in, I think it was Company I, living in the old stone barracks at Fort Snelling. This was a very interesting experience.

TANI: Did it appear that you were going to be resented by the Nisei?

FALK: We weren’t resented. Even though it was clear that we were probably going to be commissioned and the Nisei were not; which was grossly unfair. I had no experience, no antipathy, no resentment or anything of that sort. I did see antipathy sometimes between the Mainland Nisei and the Hawaiian Nisei. Sometimes, there were fights; one which I witnessed. But as for me, personally, there was no problem.

TANI: How about parades?

FALK: I’m glad you mentioned that. When we first were in the company, because we were taller I guess; they put us in the front of the formation when we marched. And, of course, because we were taller, we took longer strides than many of the shorter Nisei. So, there were a lot of complaints from the rear about that. So, then, they put us in the rear. We couldn’t complain because we had to take shorter paces. Not that I’m that tall, but some of my colleagues were.

TANI: How about KP?

FALK: KP was the easiest KP I ever had. The Nisei cooks were real professionals. They were very careful about everything. They wouldn’t let us touch anything. They cleaned the stoves themselves.

Which was very unusual, because the worst thing you could do on KP was to have to clean the stoves. They wouldn’t let us clean the stoves. We only had to show up about a half an hour before the meal was served, set up things, help serve the meal and pick up afterwards and that was it. I had taken KP down at basic training and believe me, there was a considerable difference.

TANI: How was the food?

FALK: The food was good, because we had a slush fund. Everybody kicked in something. So, they bought rice and other Japanese goodies; and as I said, the cooks were good. The food was fine.

TANI: You felt no problems about your getting commissioned?

FALK: No. I never felt antipathy. If there was any, some people may have felt resentment. It was never expressed to me personally. I never heard about anything of that sort.

TANI: You mentioned, earlier, that in the History Office in Japan, there was Clark Kawakami and George Kanegai. You mentioned (offline, earlier) Frank Motofuji?

FALK: Frank was at Fort Snelling I think as a teacher, and he came overseas with us, as did Francis Sogi, who had also been at Snelling. We all came over to Japan on the U S Army Transport, Milford Victory, which was a Victory Ship. Slow crossing. I don’t think I saw much of Sogi in Tokyo, but Motofuji, I guess, was in the NYK Building, because we used to play Poker, I remember. He was a pretty good poker player.

TANI: Grant Ichikawa (of JAVA) was around.

FALK: I didn’t know Grant, there. At least, I don’t remember knowing him. He was in ATIS, and he said that he was either Assignments Officer or had some responsibility and processed my papers when I was assigned to the History Office. I have no recollection of that but I’ll take his word for it.

TANI: What is the 5250^th Technical Intelligence Unit?

FALK: Before I was assigned to the History Office, I was assigned to the 5250^th Technical Intelligence Detachment, I guess it was. We had required the Japanese to write monographs on the war, on the campaign. These were being translated in ATIS, I believe. But somehow or other, the 5250^th was administering the program. The translations were good, but sometimes, they needed a lot of editing. So, I was assigned to edit these things since I was supposedly a newspaper man and knew how to write and also because I was a language officer and it was thought it was appropriate for me to do that. Then, subsequently, all the History Offices were combined under G2, Intelligence under General Willoughby, because there were a number of History Offices throughout the program. That’s how I got into the History Office.

TANI: Since 1949, you have been here in Washington, DC and you joined JAVA. What was your participation in JAVA?

FALK: I had had some professional relationships with Ki Kobayashi, who was either in charge or was the assistant chief of the Japanese Section at the Library of Congress. He and Phil Ishio decided to start what was initially an MIS (Military Intelligence Service) Veterans Group. Ki knew about my service in the MIS, and we talked about it, and he said "Would you be interested?" I said, "Yes". So, I got a form letter from Phil Ishio asking if I would like to join the MIS unit. I said, "Of course." And, so I joined.

Of course, JAVA later expanded. We went beyond MIS; we have people who served in the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team as well. It has gotten quite large. But, I’ve been with JAVA since its inception. In the first year or so, we decided we were going to have a big MIS reunion here in Washington. There weren’t too many of us, then, so we were all on the committee to put this thing together. And we all had different chores, and different things that we did, and a lot of hard work. People spent a lot of time on it. We had a wonderful reunion in 1993. At this reunion, we had a program in which a number of the Nisei not only from people here in JAVA but from all over the country who came to the reunion and talked about their experiences. We had a panel set up, and they talked about their experiences; quite a few of them did.

After that, with Warren Tsuneishi, another JAVA member, we edited a book of these reminiscences, if you will, and I did some of the historical writing for this and edited it and put it together and Warren did his share of it. It was subsequently published. The official title was "MIS in the War Against Japan". It’s often referred to simply as "American Patriots" because those words appear on the jacket of the book. But, if you want to go to the Library of Congress and get the book, please look under "MIS in the War Against Japan" or under my name or under Warren Tsuneishi’s name.

TANI: You were on the Executive Committee of JAVA for a long time?

FALK: Yes. We had an Executive Committee. Initially, it was all of us. But as JAVA grew, lots of people weren’t on it. But, I served on that for about ten years, I guess, till just this past year, and there was some reorganization. We’ve got a different Executive Committee. Now, we need to get some new

blood into it; which I think is a good idea.

TANI: You supported the local JACL Chapter (Japanese American Citizens League)?

FALK: Ki Kobayashi came to me. He told me that every year, at Arlington Cemetery, on Memorial Day, there was a service and a presentation at the grave of one of the Nisei who was buried there, and asked me if I would give the speech, give the talk at the next one. I was flattered. And I did. I have forgotten what I said but it was apparently well received. The only problem was that it was a very windy day; that I remember. I had to hold my notes down so that they wouldn’t blow away. That was my main experience with JACL.

TANI: You had mentioned to me earlier about Jim McNaughton.

FALK: James McNaughton, Dr. Jim McNaughton, is the Army Historian at USARPAC that was the Army Command in the Pacific, stationed in Hawaii. He has just completed the manuscript of a history of the MIS, focusing on the Nisei in the MIS. This was instigated actually . . . JAVA started pushing for this, mainly through Ishio, I guess, and we got the attention of Senator Akaka, from Hawaii, and persuaded the Army to undertake a volume which would be part of the Official Army Series on World War II. There is a huge Army History of World War II; there is something like ninety volumes. The Army agreed that the history would be written of the Nisei in the MIS. McNaughton was chosen to write the book, and he took this on, in addition to his regular duties and all his other chores. He has been interrupted a number of times. But, he has finally completed a manuscript. This has been handed into the Army History Office, now called the Center of Military History.

There will be a review panel meeting on this at the end of August. I and Phil Ishio and Warren Tsuneishi will be members on this panel as well as some others. We will review the manuscript. Actually, I have been reviewing it chapter by chapter as Jim wrote it and sent it to me. So, I have a pretty good idea of what’s in it. I think it’s a very fine manuscript. I think it’s going to be a very good book. Unfortunately, it has taken a long time to write it, and it will take a long further time to get it published. It’s a shame because as our Japanese American veterans are getting older, some of them are no longer with us and they won’t be able to see it. I explained this to JAVA when we first started on this project, that it is a long, long time. It has taken Jim several years to write the book. We will review the book at this panel meeting, hand in our recommendations to the Chief Historian of the Army, who will then take his own thoughts and our recommendations and issue a directive to Jim if revisions are necessary. He will have to have time to do these revisions. Then, it would be turned in; the Chief Historian will have to approve the final product. Then, it will go through an editing process, a mapping process, a production process, and a funding process which is always important. So, it’s going to be a few more years before it appears. It will be a good book, but I wish some of my departed friends were going to be around to see it.

TANI: You seemed to be wrapped up with Japanese Americans. Aren’t you tired of us?

FALK: That’s a silly question.

TANI: I’m on the mailing list from JAVA. I got something from you about the Jerome/Rohwer Reunion.

FALK: There is a big program in Arkansas focusing on the relocation camps there. A fellow historian, by the name of Roger Daniels, who has done a lot of good scholarly work on Japanese American history, is a consultant on this. And he mentioned to me that they were looking for veterans who had been in Jerome and Rohwer camps who could be interviewed, and tell their stories as part of the whole program. And he asked me if I knew anybody. So, I put something in the email circuit saying anybody in JAVA who had been in those camps who would want to participate get in touch with me and I would pass the names on. I have not received any responses, which suggests to me that nobody in JAVA was in those camps. Either that or they are very hazukashii, they are very embarrassed about the whole thing, … , I don’t know. But, I’m sure that there are other veterans throughout the country who will be involved in this program.

TANI: The program sounded great.

FALK: I don’t know much about it, except that the Rockefeller Foundation has put up an awful lot of money to back this thing; and there are going to be exhibits, and videos, and a number of other things related to it. So that, I hope that it will again be another means of telling the Japanese American experience. It was a sad time for Japanese Americans; a shameful time for the country. But, the story has to be told.

TANI: Grant (Hirabayashi) and I appreciated having your relationships with JAVA, got to know you better; we hope you feel the same.

FALK: I’ve made a lot of good friends.

TANI: How about wrapping this all up, how did you feel about being in the military? Was it worth it?

FALK: It certainly was worth it for me. It was an experience, one which I shared with a great number of people my age at that time. People don’t have that, now. And, it gave me the basis for my career. I made some friendships in the Army that I still retain. It was for me a good experience.

TANI: You told me before that you were very fortunate; others were not as fortunate?

FALK: Yes. Obviously, I was fortunate. I was not in combat; I was not shot at; I survived very easily except for Basic Training. It was a very pleasant time. I enjoyed being at the University of Michigan; I was fresh out of college so I was used to studying; I had no difficulty studying; it was exciting, was learning a new language; I was meeting new people. Everything throughout the three years and three months I spent on Active Duty was really an enhancing experience.

TANI: Stan, we thank you very much, not only for your hospitality here, but also for your very interesting and pertinent interview. Of great interest to WW II historians will be the descriptions of your unique activities during and after your military service, and your diverse interactions with those of Japanese ancestry, both in America and in Japan.