Densho Digital Archive - George Morihiro Interview (denshovh-mgeorge

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MA: So, George, we were talking about your experience in Minidoka, and I wanted to go over a little bit, when the government called for Japanese American volunteers in 1943, and what your reaction was to that.

GM: I thought it was great, because of all the guys I worked with, a good percentage wanted to go in, and when that call came through to go in, a lot of 'em went in. All my friends went in.

MA: Was there ever any discussion about, "Why is the government doing this now after they, you know, kicked us out of the army, but now they want us." Was there any sort of...

GM: No, everybody had his own ideas about that. The chance to go in was greater, and the action that these people took to, to this, will prove that. For instance, you know, you had to take a physical, and you had to pass the physical before you could even go in, okay. And I'm a bystander at this point, because all the older guys were going in, and I wasn't ready to go in with them. It wasn't long after I wanted to go in, but the guys I worked with, everybody wanted to go in. And so they took the physical at the hospital in Minidoka. Like mine, when I went in, I took my physical in Boise, but these guys had to go to the hospital there and take their physicals. And I guess some of the physical was run by some of the doctors in the camp there. [Laughs] Anyway, if you had a flat feet, you would be rejected. If you had bad eyes, you were rejected, and there was a number of things that you get rejected for. And there was this talk about, "How do we beat this thing?" because we didn't have very good eyes; most of the Japanese wore glasses. Well, then some funny stories come out of this, and one of the stories I've heard, this guy gets up and the doctor says, "Okay, read the, the line you could read," and the guy gets up and he reads the whole thing, see. And the doctor would say, "Well, that's pretty good, but you're looking, for a guy that's looking at the wrong, wrong part of the room." He said, "The chart is behind you." [Laughs] That was one of the funniest stories. And then another one, story, was a guy read the chart, and the doctor says, "That's pretty good," he said, "but we changed the chart." [Laughs] He says, "You've got the wrong chart." The other one was, if you didn't want to go in, he says, "You got to get your heart to pump." So if you want, don't want to get in, just drink a lot of shoyu. A cup, a half a cup of shoyu will make your heart pump like mad. [Laughs]

MA: So there were little, like, techniques that people knew how to do to either get in or get out. [Laughs]

GM: How to get in, how to get out. And things like that. But then the worst case was the people who wanted to get in real bad and couldn't get in.

MA: Were there many people that that happened to?

GM: Well, it happened to, in my case, I went to Boise to get a physical, and my, passenger in my seat was Manabu Fujino, I don't know if I should mention name, but he was a great athlete; basketball, baseball, a real athlete. And here I was, a skinny old guy, and we rode side-by-side to Boise, both hoping everything will come out good. And Manabu got rejected, and it was either from his flat feet or by his glasses, two things. And he was sad, and here I passed the test, and I was happy. I was worried, too, because when I was taking the test, they called me to another room and they said report to this room, and told me to take my clothes off and get on the table, something the other people didn't have to do. And I said, "What's this?" This big machine there and this, wires and stuff, and they hooked me up to a bunch of wires, you know, and I says, "What's wrong?" And he says, "Well, we, we can't find any blood in you." [Laughs] And they hooked me up and took the test and they said, "Okay," he said, "I guess you passed." And that's where they get this, if you got any warm blood in you, you could get in. [Laughs] But I was happy, 'cause I really wanted to get in.