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AI: Now, you were born in May, and so you were going to have your twentieth birthday right there in Puyallup.

MN: Uh-huh.

AI: Tell me about that.

MN: Oh, when I was volunteering at the JACL office, there was a young soldier there, and he was a (driver), his lieutenant was assigned to the office to help us with evacuation. And so this young soldier had nothing else to do except drive the lieutenant wherever he wanted to go. And so he had lots of time on his hands, so he sat around and talked to us all the time we were there, so we got pretty well-acquainted with him. And just before we were leaving for camp, I says, "My birthday's coming and I won't have a birthday cake for the first time in my life." And that was all I said, and I go, "How immature could I be when I'm worrying about a birthday that's coming up?" Well, we had bigger things that were happening all around us, but when we got to Puyallup, May 12th came and somebody came running to find me, and said I had a visitor. Well, the visitors weren't allowed into camp, and we weren't allowed to go outside, so we had to talk between barbed wire fence. And then when I got to the gate, I was surprised to see this young soldier there, and then he shoved the cake through the barbed wire fence and said, "Happy birthday, May." And I was just shocked and speechless to think that he would take the time to go out and buy a cake and bring it over. And I thought, "Well, there's still some good people out on the other side of the fence." But that was the last time I ever saw him, and to this date, I don't even know his name, and so I'm sorry that I lost contact with him.

AI: What an interesting memory. It must have been very positive to have that happen.

MN: 'Cause that was one of the good things that happened in camp.

AI: Well, you also mentioned, just talking about this as evacuation, I was wondering, when you were talking about it yourselves at that time, being evacuated, did that seem strange to you, that it was called "evacuation"?

MN: No, 'cause that was the word that was used most.

AI: I was wondering because people are evacuated for hurricanes or whatever, but, so it just seemed normal at that time.

MN: Uh-huh.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.