Densho Digital Archive - Mitsuye May Yamada - Joe Yasutake - Tosh Yasutake Interview (denshovh-ymitsuye

<Begin Segment 74>

AI: ...short break. We were at a very emotional time for your family, because you're still in Minidoka, but early in 1943, the call for volunteers to the army service had come out in camp, and so you were having quite a bit of family discussion, it sounds like, about what to do, and Tosh, you were thinking about what to do. So what, what was your thinking about this, when you heard about the call for volunteers.

TY: Well, when the volunteer notice came out, of course, a lot of fellows started volunteering. And I was very close to the people that were working in the hospital, and about three-fourths of the fellows had volunteered already. And I was considering doing so, but then, one thing that upset me, disturbed me about the whole situation was that the volunteer was, the volunteering was specifically for a segregated unit of Niseis. And at that point, at that time I thought, well, that's not very, that's kind of a rotten idea. I thought that if we're going to be, volunteering or being drafted in the army, well, I thought that the best thing for us, and for army in general, was that we be assimilated among hakujin outfit. And not have a segregated unit. So I held off until the very, very last day. In the "nth hour," I decided, well, gee, maybe I should volunteer, and maybe help Dad get out. And so I didn't tell, I just thinking to myself, and not even discussed it with May or anyone else. And I was afraid to go tell my mother I'm going to volunteer, so I went to Father Joe, was our Episcopal minister that we were --

MY: A family friend.

TY: -- a family friend, and asked him -- well, actually, I had, I can't remember the exact procedure that I went on, but when I read my mother's discussion that she had with this, right after they had, this lady wrote a oral history of Mother that this lady had taken, written, well after reading that, and what Mother had said, it all came back to me. And I, and what I had done, as I recall, was that I went to Father Joe's apartment, and I asked him whether he would tell my mother that I had volunteered. And so he asked Mother to come and -- we went over to our apartment, I think, at that time, and I went with Father Joe and sat down, and Father says, "Well, I think we have something, important news to give you." And told Mother at that time that I had volunteered. And I think the first remark was, she said, "Maa." And of course, she was kind of shocked that I had, so I told her why I thought, why I made the decision to do so, and I think she felt a little better. So I think that was, must have been --

MY: In May?

TY: -- must have been April.

MY: April or May?

TY: April, because I got inducted in June. So --

MY: That happened very fast, didn't it?

TY: Yeah, it did. Well, since it was the last day and I was the last one, I think, volunteered in Minidoka, and so I, once I volunteered, things got, very rapidly. And I went to Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City, and Ogden, Utah. I forgot what, in Utah, anyway. And I took my physical, and when they took my physical, one humorous incident was that I think the weight requirement was 110 pounds. They didn't have any height requirement, for some reason. But anyway, the weight requirement was 110 pounds. I weighed 106 pounds.

JY: [Laughs] Nineteen years old, 106 pounds.

MY: That's less than I weigh now.

TY: Well, anyway, I, he said, "Well, I don't know. You're a little bit too light." And I told him, well, "With all that good army food, I should be able to gain my, get that extra four pounds in couple days." [Laughs] And I almost got on my knees and begged him to take me. So he finally relented and says, "Well, I guess, I guess you're right. You probably will get it, get that extra four pounds at least in a month or two." So I was accepted. And I, and I had a... but before that, that's when we went to see Dad. In Lordsburg.