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TK: Then, at Fort Bliss, after the court-martial, you, ranks were frozen, of course. But then I understand that you tried some other options with respect to advancing in the army, in terms of rank?

MT: Yes.

TK: Could you tell us about that?

MT: Dr. Kashima, may I back up just a little bit? Is, the court-martial, under these circumstances, I'm sure the eight officer on the general court-martial felt that it wasn't quite correct, the way the results of the court-martial was. So they... this is my recollection now. They, and like I mentioned, I thought at that time, they brought me a copy of the orders and said that under the circumstances, the witnesses did not witness these people being shot. We have no way of proving that contrary to what the MPs have said, but here are the orders sending these MPs to... they're busting 'em, they're busting 'em to privates and sending 'em to North Africa. And at that time, North Africa was really in intense fighting and when Rommel was in North Africa. And so, he said, "Would you please explain to the Isseis that the court-martial did turn out this way but please, please understand that this is the best we can do is to bust 'em down to private and send 'em to North Africa." And so I took the -- and that's my recollection of the general court-martial and so I'd like to explain that part of it.

TK: Thank you.

MT: After the court-martial, let's see... I went back to camp, was relieved of duty and went back to the, to the reception center. About that time, Colonel Rasm-, well actually, Dr. Kashima, it was Colonel Rasmussen and Mr. Aiso in civilian clothes came to Fort Bliss, right at Thanksgiving time, which I remember very distinctly because we had a beautiful Thanksgiving dinner and we were all given a cigar to smoke. And after that we were ordered to meet with Colonel Rasmussen and Mr. Aiso --

TK: So this would be about August of '40-, I mean, October, November of '42?

MT: '42. Yeah, uh-huh, and... yeah. And so, we, after Thanksgiving dinner, we all broke up and we were ordered to be interviewed by these two people individually, and -- no, just before the interview, Colonel Rasmussen stood and called all the 185 of us out there and they stood on a platform and they explained that we were fortunate, we're in the U.S. Army, we're American citizens, we're in the army uniform, and we're able to, to fight for the county and everything like that. And it's true. I mean, that's what we're in the army, to do the best we can. But they said that, "In order to, to speed up the war effort in the South Pacific, that we are gonna start the Japanese language school and that's what we're here, to recruit the bilingual Japanese Americans." And so, he talked very shortly and to the point. And he asked all, all that you want to -- and he said, "Well, on top of that, your ratings are frozen but now we are able to give ratings to those who go to language school and are capable and will start getting noncom ratings." And so, it'd be something to look forward to. And so, but, and then he said, "Well, I'm sure all of you would be very interested in doing that," so, he asked all of the people to volunteer, that would volunteer for language school to come forward. And unfortunately, with the situation that we were under at that time, nobody would step forward to volunteer. And so, so, the next step was to interview each of us. So, I was interviewed by Mr. Aiso and, and I did not know that the general at the Fort Bliss had already talked to Mr. Aiso. He was in civilian clothes and said that, I had told him that he wanted them to take, Colonel Rasmussen, to take me to language school so I could get some ratings. But anyway, it was quite interesting from the standpoint that I... did (not) mention about my warrant officer's? Not yet.

TK: No, no. It's coming up.

MT: He asked me to read the katakana book, hiragana book and kanji. And I was unable to read that. And he asked me if I can speak Japanese. And I said I couldn't speak Japanese. Then he was quite upset because he said, "Well, Min, you're, I think you're lying." And I said, "What makes you think I'm lying?" And he said, "Well, the general just told me that you just finished interpreting the court-martial and that you were capable and he wanted us to take with. So, I said, "Well, no, the reason I answered your question that way is because I was turned down from Officer's Candidate School by three... the air corps and infantry, and that I'd passed the warrant officer examination because that did not require that I, whether I was Japanese American or not." And so he didn't know that I was waiting for that, that the rest of the regular army, master sergeant, tech sergeant and staff sergeant were all, got their appointments and I was sitting here. "And that's where I wanna go because I think I can do the best for my country by doing that." So really we understood each other, and we parted very good friends. And, but, he did not know that I already passed my warrant officer's examination. And so, we left very good friends and we had an understanding that, why I wasn't going to language school.

TK: But even though you passed the examination, the army still did not give you the warrant officer rank?

MT: No. I waited and waited and I couldn't get my appointment.

<End Segment 30> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.