A sniper’s bullet through his chest ended his stay on that bloody battlefield and Cole then spent two long years in the hospital recovering from his wound. Upon his discharge, the bag holding his belongings also held a Japanese soldier’s wallet. Decorated with pink flowered needlework and holding a Japanese war bond along with some other papers and a photograph of a Japanese family, Cole has no idea where the wallet came from.
       Daughter Susan Kleinz remembers her father had a few souvenirs from the war, mostly some medals and the wallet. “He never talked about the war, but we knew he did lose a lung and he has a tremendous scar on his back from that.”
       But then in 2006, Cole saw the Clint Eastwood films Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, each film depicting the same WWII conflict but each from the viewpoint of each country’s side. Seeing the film reminded Cole of the long forgotten wallet he’d stored in a plastic bag, and then thrown in a drawer where it had been sitting for years.
       Cole decided to contact the Iwo Jima museum to see if they wanted the wallet and could perhaps find away to return it to the soldier’s family. Officials there suggested he contact the Japanese consulate.
       Finally after two years, the 77-year old sister of the Japanese soldier was found. Cole enclosed a note expressing his hope that when she received the wallet, it would in some way comfort and give closure to the man’s family.
       This quiet gesture opened a floodgate of media coverage. The soldier, later found to be Toyoj Ojkawa, had in that wallet the only existing photograph of their family. Soon CNN was interviewing Cole at Arnie’s Health Foods, the local store he owns at 52nd Street and Thomas, which had its beginnings back in 1954 as a fruit stand.
       Cole and his wife had settled in Arizona because with his lung problems he could not breathe well in his hometown of Billings, Montana. He came to get a degree at ASU and ended up buying a new home in an undeveloped area of Phoenix at 44th Street and Thomas on the prior site of a watermelon patch.
       In those days, the family had to do all its banking and grocery shopping
in downtown Phoenix. As the area grew, Cole and his wife raised three children who all attended Tavan and Arcadia High School.
       “I can’t tell you why I kept the wallet. Things just get put away,” says this veteran, who now gives interviews to Japanese reporters while dishing out nutritional advice to his long time Arcadia customers.
       

E-mail Tracy at: tracywerth@cox.net

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