Densho Digital Archive - George Morihiro Interview (denshovh-mgeorge

<Begin Segment 40>

MA: When did you actually go back to the United States?

GM: Well, let's see. Must have been pretty close to, a little less than a year later, I think that's about... there's a lot of, most people didn't go home right after the war. And then there's, then they start sending older guys home, not the older ones, but it was by point system. And I came home in February '46, I guess. The unit came home in June, so I was home already when the 442nd came home.

MA: Why were you able to leave earlier than the other...

GM: Well, the first ones coming home, the first ones were the original bunch of boys, and then the next bunch was after they got to be sent home. This whole system was on a point system, and depending on how long you were in the service and if you got a Purple Heart you got an extra point, five points.

MA: And you had received a Purple Heart, right?

GM: I received a Purple Heart, so I, I qualified by five points, which meant about five months. So I come home, when I should have, if I didn't get the Purple Heart, I would have come home with the unit.

MA: And when you came home in, that was February of 1946, did you go right back to Fife?

GM: Uh-huh, yeah. I went to live with my sister in Fife.

MA: So they were back from Minidoka.

GM: Uh-huh. We had this home in Fife, but then I guess we had to, rented it out and nobody would have been there except my dad. So my dad stayed with my sister, too, and so when I come back to Fife, I stayed with my sister there, not very long.

MA: So your, your family was able to retain their house from before the war?

GM: Uh-huh. We never did go back to the house. I think they finally sold it. But...

MA: What was it like when you, I mean, came back from the war and saw your family again after a number of years?

GM: Like I said, my dad was the first one to see me out in the yard there when I was coming in. And we danced, it was a happy moment. We just danced around the yard there, just holding each other and jumping up and down. It was really a welcome there, that... that father/son relation wasn't really that close in a Japanese family. And I suppose most of 'em come home and shake hands and carry on with other things, but my dad and I kind of overdid it a little bit as far as the greeting was concerned. It was quite joyous.