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AI: Well, now, somewhere along here, did you receive your draft notice?

JY: Yes. [Laughs] That was 1944. Yes, 1944. And, if I remember correctly, in January of 1944 my draft status was changed to 1A. And then in March, I got a notice for pre-induction physical. And it says, if you do not report for physical, you have a fine and be jailed for not reporting, and such. But it didn't say how much or anything, just a penalty.

[Interruption]

AI: -- what the reaction was to what you did.

JY: Okay. The reaction is, like I said before, when I was going to grade school that, "One of these days I want to vote, be twenty-one." I was twenty-one, so I asked the Caucasian workers, says, "You know, I'm twenty-one. I'd like to get registered to vote and be a voter." And they just kind of laughed at me and says, "No way you can get no..." Says, "How could you vote here? You're in a condition where you can't vote," this and that. In the meantime I get this draft notice. I said, "Here I can't vote, I can't register, and they want me to join the army."

Meantime my brother was in the army after all the problems of segregation -- they were segregated in the army too. I don't know if I told you the story that, like my brother was in Camp Robertson, California. Then about a month after the war broke out, they were shipped into inland. About two months, two, three months after the war, they were shipped inland. And they were kind of status quo, didn't do much. Then all of a sudden they took all the rifles, bayonets away from, sidearms, and gave 'em wooden ones. So he's marching with a wooden gun and the next buddy there is marching with a real rifle. How degrading that is. And when the general comes by, they push all them in the corner and be a watch over them, and says, "Don't come out." Soldiers, right? American soldiers cannot see their commanding officer. And then when the commanding officer leaves, they were free to roam around the camp. So like I said before, my brother raised vegetable for the NCO club. He came from a farm, so he wrote letters back, and 'Yeah, the pepper's doing pretty good.' 'The tomato's coming up now.' He used to tell what he used to raise. So hear all that and here my brother is army personnel, yet he's treated that way."

Then too, like my cousins -- actually, they're second cousin to me -- they were farming not too far from where we were -- and two brothers, Mamoru and Noboru, was drafted in the army in 1940, '41. And one of 'em was stationed in Texas, and I forgot what the other one... Nob was stationed in Texas, I know that, the other one, I forget what it was. And we were sent, went to Pomona, and Uncle came to Pomona himself, and got ill. As soon as he come he got ill. So Pomona didn't have any hospital, so they took him to San Anita, and that's the last we heard. Meantime, went to Heart Mountain, and we got there and says, "What happened to -- ," Araki is his name -- "Where's Araki?" He says, "Well, he probably come on the last train because he's not feeling too good." " Okay." They didn't communicate. My father and them didn't get along too well, didn't communicate too much. And, finally he came from San Anita and he wasn't put on a pullman, he was put on a stretcher -- this picture of him, I saw some pictures of him -- they shoved him through the window, and the stretcher was laid across the back of the seat. He was there for five days and five... five nights and four days on the train. He had stomach cancer, he was laid on a stretcher. He just, with pain he just went into coma. So when he went into coma, he didn't, couldn't eat, just, his wife was just feeding him water. No intravenous, no nothing, no nurse, they came on the train.

And before that, the family wrote the brothers should come visit him in San Anita, because probably he'll never make it to Heart Mountain. 'Cause the other two brothers was with the father. He had two brothers, yeah, two older brothers. And so they asked for leave to go to see the father in San Anita. They says that, "You know that no Japanese Americans are allowed in the West Coast, so we have to hire escort to take you. And we can't afford to have escort to take you to San Anita, California, so your leave is denied." So, when the father was on his way to Heart Mountain, they wrote to him, says he's leaving, and they'll be arriving at a certain time. So when they arrived at Heart Mountain about three days later, the boys came, and naturally went to see him right away. He was laying on the hospital bed. He didn't know he was in there or not. There was nothing left of him. Just literally gone, and he just laid there with his mouth open and his wife would just -- when he opened his mouth, they just put a couple drops of water and he shuts his mouth. That was it. And he survived for about eight days or nine days, and he was the first person to pass away in Heart Mountain.

With that back of my mind, I says, "Geez, if I go to the army, that's how I'll be treated." So then and there I made up my mind that I'm not gonna' go to the army, so I just didn't report. Then I got a notice in July to be, to report to the front gate, to be taken with the marshal to go to Eureka for the court case. Naturally I was exonerated. We had a strong case, and we had a judge that was very understanding. He knew the Korematsu case, the Hirabayashi case. He wrote in his brief, he says, "They're arguing their case is not completed, but still this case here is, were not given due process of the law." That's what he said. We were not given due process of law, so we were not subject to be drafted. The draft board has no right to draft us, and so we would be returned to WRA as a free citizen. So if I went, it would have been five years in federal penitentiary and $10,000 fine.

But one of those things that, it isn't... I took a chance, I felt that I can't vote, I don't have no freedom to travel, even if you're a soldier then... I mean, the restriction was lifted, naturally would be, 442 was being formed, the 100 Battalion was being formed. But then again, same thing might happen again, so I felt... my father says, "Well, you have to make up your mind. You're the one who's going to live with it, not me." So I decided, well, "Then I'm not gonna' go." So there's twenty-six of us and none of us knew who was who, who was going. There was just two fellows that I knew, once we got together, two guys I knew, but rest of 'em I didn't know who they were. So we had no chance that we would -- they could never say that we got together and made up our mind. Meantime, reading different articles, and at that time sixty of 'em volunteered, went to the army, very quietly, middle of the night. If they went out in daytime, they would have seen 'em, so most of 'em during the night slipped out of the front gate and went to the army. That's the only thing I could find out as far as who went to the army then, but we didn't go. So there's twenty-six. I got, finally got all the names of the twenty-six of us.

AI: Well, now, that's a very unusual experience.

JY: Yes, it is.

AI: Compared to the other draft resisters.

JY: Yeah. Because nobody writes about it, because nobody knows about it, and nobody talks about it.

AI: But there were twenty-six of you.

JY: Twenty-six of us. I have all the names.

AI: And then, all, you were all exonerated.

JY: Exonerated, yes.

AI: You returned back to Tule Lake camp.

JY: Returned back to Tule Lake.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.