<Begin Segment 37>

AI: Well, so at -- what did cause you to start thinking about your U.S. citizenship and seriously thinking about returning to the United States?

AO: As commanding officer liked me and trusted me so much, and I worked very loyally for the hospital. So he arranged with the American consulate in Fukuoka to interview me and fill out application for reinstatement. And so I went to meet the American consulate. And his name was Johns Ainsworth, a very nice gentleman. So I filled out the application for reinstatement and he looked it over. And he said, "Art, you don't have to tell everything about your experience." I said, "Thank you." So they forward that to the State Department in Washington, D.C., and just about within a month the reply came and I was reinstated. And the U.S. consulate notified Colonel Duryee. And as soon as he received it he called me in my office and he says, "Art, I want to see you immediately." So I hobbled over to the, to his office and headquarters office knew that I was very close to the commanding officer, so as soon as I appear the door is wide open for me to go into Colonel Duryee's office. And as soon as I entered he stood up and said, "Art, I wanted to be the first to congratulate you," so he congratulated me and he was hoping that I could return to United States and go to OCS school. That's Officer's Candidate School. But after he realized that there would be no possibility of that, even if I did become a noncommissioned officer that I would not be able to be assigned to his unit. And so he says, "Probably best thing for you to do is to return to the United States and start all over again and work." And that's what I did.

AI: Wow. How, how did you feel when you got this...

AO: I felt good. I says, "Now I could return to United States and start over again." To make sure that I would not have any difficulty to live the first few months, he sent me a check, his personal check for a hundred dollars to start with. And when I arrived in United States I had less than three dollars in my pocket and the hundred dollar check of Colonel Duryee. At that time he was commanding officer of hospital at Fort Riley, Kansas. And I did communicate with him there, write letters, and he would write back. And my sister had married a soldier and was living in Los Angeles at the time so she met me at the pier in Wilmington, California, and I stayed with her for, I think just about a month, then I found a place to stay in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles.

<End Segment 37> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.