<Begin Segment 20>

TI: Well, the other thing that I'm trying, I'm wondering about is, you were young enough that you were probably supposed to go to school, and yet you...

RT: There was no school yet.

JN: Before they set it up.

RT: See there was no school or anything yet. So when I got out of the hospital, and when I came back to the barracks, the doctor had told me, he says, "Now don't go to work. I think you should just sit around for a while." I sat around for a week, and it almost drive me nuts. And they were, so they were already talkin' to me, "Why don't you come back in the kitchen?" I said, "No. I think you guys are goin' good. You guys learned enough to how to cook, and you're doin' all right, so please excuse me." So then we went, I went to work in Parker, Arizona. That's where all the, that was the railhead for all our supplies for the camps would come into. So I worked out there for about a month. And oh, when you're in the railcars and stuff, it was fine, but otherwise it was hell. So I had to go in and see the doctor every so often, and he was telling me, he says, "Well, why don't you get a different job? Try to stay out of the sun yet for a while. Let yourself heal better."

So then I worked as a warehouse foreman. At nights, trucks would come in, and we'd unload the trucks and everything. And they made me foreman, so I wouldn't have to touch anything. And everything was goin' good for a while, until all of a sudden the FBIs come out, and they put the cuffs on me, took me down to the jail. And the chief of police was a friend of mine, Madokoro. So the FBI says, "We want him locked up." And he says, "What for?" "For stealing food." So finally, Madokoro said, "Stealing food? What's he gonna do with it?" And they say, "Well, there's such thing as black marketing and stuff." And I said, "No. Now what the hell's the whole situation?" Well, what they're really after was, there was a whole truckload of cigarettes missing. And we didn't even handle the damn thing. But they were gonna lock me up for a whole truckload of cigarettes missing. And then Madokoro was the one that said, "All right. I'll let you guys take him. Show me where the cigarettes are at. Show me how he got it outta camp." And they say, "Well, he probably sold it in camp." "All right, get me somebody that bought something from him." So they got no evidence.

TI: Now who was this person that was questioning the FBI again? That was...?

RT: Madokoro.

TI: And who was this person?

RT: He was the chief of police of Camp Two.

TI: Okay.

RT: And so they couldn't do anything to me, so they let me go.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.