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MA: Was your brother drafted?
GM: Yeah, uh-huh. He, he was one of the first ones originally drafted from the draft deal.
MA: Was that 1941 when he was drafted?
GM: I don't know, no, draft time before, I guess. He was 19-, yeah, in '41.
MA: But before Pearl Harbor, right?
GM: About eight months before Pearl Harbor. So he was in the army quite a bit before that. My brother used to write me letters, and every time I read his letters -- and I have some of 'em at home -- they're very much like a lecture.
MA: How so?
GM: Well, in his own way, he used to tell me why you had to do this in order to make, make it good later on, you know, and it's, it was quite a lecture about things. In fact, he, after the war, he talked me into going into the stock market, and he was quite involved in it at the time.
MA: Where was your brother stationed in that period when he was drafted, and right before Pearl Harbor? Was he...
GM: I really don't know, but I think it was somewhere in Arkansas, Fort Riley or someplace. I never had a record of that.
MA: How did your parents feel about your brother being in the military and being drafted?
GM: They were very proud of him. And my father, the whole family was. And when the war started, we were prouder yet, because it gave you some sort of an assurance, assurance that you'd be treated differently from anybody else. We had this, in those days, when you, a son went into the service, they gave you this flag that you displayed in your window. And it was about this big, and had this one star on it, a blue -- if I remember, a red and white type of flag, but it had a blue star in it, right in the middle. And if there was two sons, you got two stars, but, but if he died or got killed in action, I think you got the star. And you displayed it in your house or on the window or something like that. And we're talking about war, you let everybody know you got a brother in the service. My father was very proud of him.
<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2005 Densho. All Rights Reserved.