<Begin Segment 24>

AI: Before we go on to that, because I know that's a whole story in itself...

PB: Right.

AI: ...I wanted to just ask a few more questions about your time in Des Moines.

PB: Right.

AI: And, now, I think after your working in Idaho, that was kind of through the fall of 1942...

PB: Right.

AI: ...or to the end of '42?

PB: Right.

AI: So then, by the time you had gone to Nebraska and then on to Des Moines, it must have been early 1943 or so?

PB: Right. Beginning.

AI: Right. Beginning of 1943. And it sounds like from what you've said that you received very positive treatment from...

PB: Oh, very much so.

AI: ...the folks in Des Moines.

PB: As I say, I went to visit my friend that worked at the Maytag because his son was with me, and the family, oh, they really took care of me. Now, his son that was my roommate decided that I'm gonna go, trying to get in the military. He says, "I'm old enough. I can get in." So he volunteered. And I said, "What are you going to volunteer for?" He says, "I'm going to go into the, either navy or the marines." I says, "Why not the army?" He says, "I've lived in Iowa and never seen the ocean." I said, "That is a silly reason for being in the navy or the marines." But he was taken in the marines. And he wrote me a letter, oh, about every week, every two weeks. Well, one of the things that I got from him is that he was sent to Camp Pendleton in California. And one of the letters he wrote to me, he says, "You know, Paul," he says, "I made a mistake." He says, "I should've gone in the army or the navy." He said, "The marines," he says, "we train," he said, "I've only been here for a couple, three months. We're now ready to go overseas." And he says, "They don't care about me. 'The honor of the Marines Corps' is all they stress. That's all they talk about." And he says, "They should care a little bit about the individuals." But he says, "That's it." Well, anyway, that was the last letter from Camp Pendleton. Then I got a letter from his friend, and he says, "Your friend was killed in action. We landed at Saipan first day." And he says, "One of the things he told me -- and he gave me your address, if anything happens to him that you would see to it that the personal belongings, you would take care of it and get it to the parents." So when the war was over, I, that's what I did. I went back there and did it. But he wrote me the last letter before he went overseas and got killed. And I still remember him as a friend.

And it was typical of all the people in Iowa, and they all, I don't know, my boss there and everybody. In fact I remember when I went and left -- as I told you, there was a streetcar into the fort and back. So the last day the train was coming through. I remember being at the train station. I looked up, and I think it was about 8 o'clock at night. The train pulled in. I was the only one in uniform waiting there. It was a troop train going to go down, and it was full of soldiers. So they stopped to pick me up. What happened is that the hotel, knowing that I was going to leave that night, about fifteen, twenty girls, all girls there, young girls, came to see me off. So I embrace all of them and get on the train. All these guys there had the windows, they're looking out, had their head out, here was this Oriental -- [laughs] -- I was probably the only Oriental in all of Iowa there, and they got, I got on the train, and everyone wanted to know, "Why all these pretty girls come to see you off?" I says, "I don't know." They said, "What do you do?" I told them I worked at the hotel. But anyway, they were so envious of the fact that I had a send-off of that kind. [Laughs]

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.