Kenneth Aijiro Tashiro
Bio
Kenneth Aijiro Tashiro enlisted in the American Army once he graduated high school to help pay for his education. He specialized as a translator in the Army Language program, fully learning Japanese he had heard from his grandmother as a kid. He describes his interactions with ROK, Korean civilians, and North Korean prisoners of war while speaking Japanese. He explains his experience with a chaplain who urged him to move on while the chaplain stayed behind with the wounded. He also describes his letters home describing the horrors of war and how they played out with the Korean civilians.
Video Clips
Answer Me in Japanese
Kenneth Aijiro Tashiro describes his job translating and interpreting in Japanese during the Korean War. He explains his interaction with ROK and Korean civilians. He also describes his interaction with North Korean prisoners of war.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxHkrowa2hQ&start=499&end=541
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https://koreanwarlegacy.org/interviews/kenneth-aijiro-tashiro#clip-1
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The Chaplain and the Wounded
Kenneth Aijiro Tashiro describes being instructed by a chaplain to move on. He explains that the chaplain promised to stay with the wounded soldiers and that Kenneth should leave to save himself. He found out later that the chaplain and all the wounded were killed.
Share YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxHkrowa2hQ&start=841&end=909
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https://koreanwarlegacy.org/interviews/kenneth-aijiro-tashiro#clip-2
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The Horrors of War
Kenneth Aijiro Tashiro describes his letters back home explaining the horrors of war. He explains his feelings for the civilian population and their absorption of the war. He describes that once he left the Korean War, he wondered what happened to those people he had seen.
Share YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxHkrowa2hQ&start=1036&end=1116
Share from this page:
https://koreanwarlegacy.org/interviews/kenneth-aijiro-tashiro#clip-3
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