<Begin Segment 30>

AI: Well, we'll be coming back to that later, but before we get too far ahead, I wanted to go back to when you were in the service --

AS: The army.

AI: -- because you had some photographs from that time. I wondered if you could show us.

AS: Sure.

AI: And tell us what's going on in these pictures?

AS: This is a picture of our detachment. Since we didn't need the whole company, we were only assigned to a detachment because company holds over two hundred people. So, so, we were just a detachment.

AI: And where are you in this picture?

AS: This is Germany, right next, on the side of the bar. Germany, it wasn't barracks, it was a building. And we were only assigned eight people to a, eight soldiers to a room.

AI: And do you have a picture there of your, is that your room?

AS: Yeah, this is, this is my room. There were eight, eight soldiers in a room and four double bunks.

AI: And then these are some of your buddies from...

AS: This is part of our softball team.

AI: And what position were you playing?

AS: I was pitching.

AI: Still pitching?

AS: Yeah. I was pitching.

AI: So tell me about the, tell me about the softball team. How did that get started?

AS: Well, in camp there were so many companies and detachments, so each company had their own team. So we made our own team, too, and played against them.

AI: Well, from that picture it looks like you had a multi-racial team?

AS: Oh yeah, yeah.

AI: Was that --

AS: Mostly, but they were mostly hakujins, just, I was the only Japanese and there was one African American there. I don't know why we took this one. This is part of the detachment. And this is in front of our theater in camp, army camp.

AI: Right.

AS: In Germany. And these are the two closest friends I had. In fact, this fellow in the middle, he was from Chicago, too. The other one was from Connecticut. But he was bunking right next to me so that's why we became close.

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