{"id":30212,"date":"2008-04-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-10T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/WP-IMPORT\/1970\/01\/01\/4583\/"},"modified":"2008-04-10T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-04-10T03:00:00","slug":"fov","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/fov\/","title":{"rendered":"FOV"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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US Army Nisei Translator, 1946
\u00a0
I have to take a break today. I am in the middle of talking to Al’s widow B., who is on the West Coast. Al was a nisei, a first generation American, who served in Army CID in Tokyo when Tom was down in Yokosuka. He gave me a short Samurai knife of the Edo period when I was a kid, a magical piece of killing steel that had the blood of the swordsmith in it. It would have been highly illegal in the time and place where it was\u00a0acquired.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

I have to correspond with her via snail mail, like I do with Tom, and there is the piece about Kiko’s bosom and the salacious Admiral which I still need to contextualize.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Plus, the Black Dog grabbed me something fierce after the adrenalin rush that accompanied the weekend. There is the dull ache that accompanies the realization that I have to find a hundred grand to give someone I don’t like, and who would like to see me in jail if I don’t.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The validation that my life is worth much outside being a walking ATM machine came from a Friend of Vic, an old shipmate. He has endured things that are much harder than I have, and he writes like a dream.
\u00a0
He wrote this:\u00a0 <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve enjoyed the recent tales of Tom, the plain clothes, uber-cop of Yokosuka.\u00a0 What caught my eye today was Vic\u2019s aside on Tom\u2019s use of the short-form word for the Japanese.\u00a0 It brought to mind a memorable meal that I shared long ago.\u00a0 This story is rooted in a time period, when a fellow spook and I would meet regularly for a multi-hours long, sushi lunches at Tachibana in northern Virginia.
\u00a0
When we first started dining at Tachibana in the mid 1980s, the restaurant was located in Arlington, hard by I-66 just north of Spout Run Drive on Glebe Road.\u00a0 We were drawn to it by word of mouth reviews proclaiming that it housed the best sushi bar in the metro-DC area and served the finest\u00a0toro\u00a0(bluefin tuna) on this side of the Pacific. \u00a0\u00a0
\u00a0
After its owner Eiji relocated the business to the more fashionable environs of McLean in the 90s, Tachibana became widely renowned for its unparalleled sushi selection and freshness.\u00a0 One time we ate sea scallop\u00a0sushi\u00a0which were de-shelled live in front of us, but I digress.
\u00a0
My friend and I preferred to eat at the McLean back bar.\u00a0 It was a secluded, Japanese style bar that seated six. \u00a0The back bar was sublimely personal, and its chef, normally Eiji, was attentive and observant. \u00a0\u00a0The sushi bar server, Armando-san, has been with the restaurant for many years and treated us like long lost uncles.\u00a0 Japanese tourists hardly ever found their way to the back bar.\u00a0 It thus housed a self-selected, motley assortment of locals, CIA weenies and\u00a0nigiri sushi\u00a0devotees like us.
\u00a0
On the day in question, we had arrived later than our standing high noon reservations, so we hurriedly took our seats.\u00a0 Eiji was absent due to some personal matter.\u00a0 The substitute chef was well known to us.\u00a0 He knew our preferences and meal rituals.\u00a0 Ordering our Kirin birus and inquiring as to\u00a0what delicacies had been delivered fresh that morning, we quickly set about savoring our first course \u2013 two pieces each of hand-formed, fatty tuna\u00a0sushi.\u00a0 As we warmed to our task, we became aware of a new face sitting at the end of the small bar.
\u00a0
As our meal continued, this gentle wizened soul slowly became fascinated with our strict adherence to a rote order for fish entrees and beer pouring for each other.\u00a0 Surprised to see two gaijin dining\u00a0a la japonaise, he decided\u00a0to breach the sushi bar privet hedge of dining privacy.\u00a0 \u00a0He paid us the high compliment regarding our eating rituals when with diffidence he inquired where we had learned our dining habits.\u00a0
\u00a0
We quickly explained and introduced ourselves — former Naval Intelligence officers, WESTPAC sailors and frequent visitors to his parent\u2019s former island home since the 1970s.\u00a0He reciprocated in kind — Frisco-born Nisei, WWII internee and General of the Army Douglas MacArthur\u2019s\u00a0Ichi-Ban\u00a0(number one) translator during Mac\u2019s first 5 years of his Japanese post war Shogunate. \u00a0\u00a0
\u00a0
Both of us had hoped to hear tales from the times of west coast Jap hunts, internment camps and his recruitment into the Military Intelligence Service as a Nisei translator.\u00a0 He was intent on sharing other more personal memories.\u00a0 For more than two hours, and well past the restaurant\u2019s mid-afternoon closing time, we were glued to our stools, while he spun his short and poignant narratives.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n

He refused multiple offers of sushi, Kirin and sake but did take up our offer to join us to facilitate our conversation.\u00a0 We\u00a0finally prevailed upon him to share a cup of Tachibana\u2019s home-made green tea with us.\u00a0 He generously shared snippets about:
\u00a0
\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0*\u00a0the early days of post war Japan;
\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0*\u00a0the power that his words had over Japan\u2019s occupiers and natives alike;
\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0*\u00a0how different his children had become — even preferring to own \u201cJap cars like\u00a0Toyotas and Nissans\u201d over American-made cars and trucks.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

He\u00a0softly stumbled on this point before choking back down his throat what I thought would be the word \u201cunpatriotic;\u201d and how he occupied his days since his wife\u2019s death.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
We were unable to dine with him again since we could not penetrate the sphere of silence that surrounded his habits and dining schedules.\u00a0 We did divine that he and Eiji had a long standing feud which dated back decades.\u00a0 This had led the translator to eating at the restaurant only on days when Eiji was absent.\u00a0 \u00a0
\u00a0
There were very few dots to connect in the aftermath of that afternoon\u2019s long conversation.\u00a0\u00a0
\u00a0
Given the Shogun\u2019s mouthpiece\u2019s use and inflection of the word\u00a0Jap, we settled on that as the reason for the feud.
\u00a0
Copyright 2008 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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US Army Nisei Translator, 1946 \u00a0 I have to take a break today. I am in the middle of talking to Al’s widow B., who is on the West Coast. Al was a nisei, a first generation American, who served in Army CID in Tokyo when Tom was down in Yokosuka. He gave me a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-socotra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}