<Begin Segment 26>

RT: And then I was, one of them kinda nutheads, that I couldn't eat sashimi. But then I find out the Hawaiians love sashimi. And -- close your ears. I was one of them guys that, anything I can take advantage of, I'm gonna do it. There was this Captain Applecrit in the 442nd, got appendicitis and he went to the hospital. I start to chuckle every time I think of this. The first sergeant of the company, I got to know him pretty good, see. So then, on the passes that they give out for weekends and stuff, they don't sign every one, they just stamp it. What they generally do is, they'll stamp a whole book or a couple of books. So I told the first sergeant, I says, "Hey, dat kine Captain Applecrit had dat kine passes stamped already?" "Yeah, I think so." I says, "Well, why you no give me da kine pass." "Nah, nah," he says, "We'll get in trouble." "Get in trouble? Nobody gonna say..." I come up here by myself. I stole it myself, see. (To use) by myself. So that's how come I used to be able to go to New Orleans. And I'd come back with tuna for sashimi. All the Hawaiians that time, the company, I was, they were real happy. And so the funny part of all this was, I used to go down just about every other week to New Orleans. It used to cost me over five hundred bucks to go to New Orleans from Camp Shelby, and come back with the fish.

TI: You mean each time you went down there...

RT: Yeah.

TI: To go there and buy the fish, and then come back?

RT: Yeah, because, see, gas was on rationing. But all the guys would chip in. And nobody knew how I was gettin' the pass to go down or anything. Because ("nevah-min'"), they used to say, "Hey, how come you get da kine pass all the time?" "Never mind, never mind. You get what you want, yeah? Never mind. I no like getting anybody else in trouble." So then they knew I was pullin' somethin' wrong. So they never asked me.

And so one night I was goin' to go into Hattiesburg, (Mississippi). I never knew who this Captain Applecrit was. So I was hitchhikin', and this car stops, and I hop in. We get to the gate, and this guy says, "You got a pass?" I says, "Yes, sir," and I hand him my pass. He looks at it, and he shows it to the guard out there, and he gives it back to me and we take off. And pretty soon he says, "How'd you get that pass?" "Oh." I says, "Dat kine Captain Applecrit give 'em for me to go tonight." "Oh, he did, huh?" I says, "Oh, yeah. Oh, he good captain, you know." And pretty soon he says, "Well, I'm glad you said that I'm a good captain." I looked at him. I says, "Are you Captain Applecrit?" He says, "Yeah, that's me, all right. That's me all right." [Laughs] And I thought he'd get mad and turn me in or something. He just said, "Now, just don't hand 'em out too freely, because you get, you hand 'em out too freely, then it gets me in trouble." [Laughs] And he let me keep 'em, see.

TI: That's a good story.

RT: Yeah. So I got along, I used to get along pretty good with the Hawaiians.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.