<Begin Segment 28>

AI: You know, there was a fairly famous incident where, I think you were still in Europe, but President Truman received the 442 back in the States, and I think he --

TY: That was after the war, wasn't it?

AI: Yes, it was after victory in Europe.

TY: That was when the unit came back as a group?

AI: Yes.

TY: That was after I was out of the army.

AI: Oh, okay. And --

TY: I went to that... when they came, I went to that ceremony, I think. I think I was still back east. I think it was in 1945 when I was in New York. 1946. Summer of '46, I think, wasn't it?

AI: I think there were several different ceremonies --

TY: Oh.

AI: -- with the President. But at one of them he did say something about how you fought not only the enemy but you fought prejudice and you have won. Did you recall anything like that, and if so, what did you think about that kind of statement?

TY: Coming from Truman, it really -- one thing about him, he says what he thinks. I mean, he had -- I think that he was basically a very honest individual, I think. And so I took his word for it, but I was not convinced that the "John Q Public" felt the same way. And that was proven by some of the problems that we had trying to find a house when we got to Seattle and things like that. That was in 1960, was trying to look for a house and that was how many years after that, and I was so surprised that, that prejudice still, that strong a feeling against the Japanese Americans still existed. So -- [pauses] -- well, beyond that I don't know. I think that's -- but in general, my whole life, and our whole family life has been, we've been very fortunate; things tuned out very well for us. And I know that a lot of other Niseis went through a lot more hard times than we did, and we feel very lucky that things turned out as well as they did for us, because some of the people had a really hard time.

AI: Maybe, just the kind of ending of this section before we go on to the next section is that, just that your return to the States after your service, and your discharge. And you returned in December of 1945?

TY: Yeah '45 and I got discharged, ironically, December 7th of 1945 at (4:33) p.m. in Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania. And then from there I went to Cincinnati where our folks were. But that date, I will never forget, of course, December 7th, and that time, 4:33 p.m. I walked out of the camp, free man. [Laughs] Well, I remember at the center, before they gave our discharge paper, he says, "Well, this is your last chance," he says, "who wants to volunteer to stay in the army?" And there must have been five hundred guys there and not one individual raised their hand. [Laughs] Oh, that was really, I found that very funny. Everybody laughed except for the commanding officer. He didn't think it was funny. [Laughs]

<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.