<Begin Segment 47>

MA: So you were able to leave your job and then go work in Fort Lewis?

GM: Uh-huh. And so I went into 6219 Reception Center at Fort Lawton, and right away we went to Fort Lewis. And it was quite a job, because I knew the job...

MA: Were you doing the same job as before?

GM: Exactly the same job, uh-huh, that I did as a civilian. And, and we ended up, right off the bat, sending six hundred men a day to Korea. So they, they came in, they trained for two weeks, well, they came in, took about a week to get 'em processed, then they trained for two weeks and we shipped 'em over to McCord Field, and they flew 'em out, and six hundred men a day.

MA: Did many of the old 442 guys get called back and eventually go over to Korea?

GM: Quite a bit of 'em, yes, there was. And some of 'em didn't come back. My good friend that was in my, my platoon, he went to Korea and he came back, but he got banged up so bad that it was pitiful. But there was a lot of 'em like that, that... and what that was was when you got out of the 442nd or out of the army, they told us that, "Hey, you got some rank here." They says, "We might be going to war with Russia again very soon, so why don't you just go in the reserves and you'll preserve your rank?" And that was it. We got caught in that and we never, they told us that they won't call us unless there's a national emergency, and the army called every reserve up and didn't call a national emergency, they just called you up, and that made the reserves pretty mad. Now, the reserves is if you put in so many time in the army, you automatically go into the reserves; you don't have to enlist in the reserves.

MA: So how long, then, did you stay at Fort Lewis kind of doing this, this work?

GM: How long I was at Fort Lewis?

MA: Duration of the war, yeah.

GM: All throughout the Korean War, which was about two, two and a half years or so, something like that.

MA: And then after, you went back to work at Tall's?

GM: Then I came back to Tall's, yeah.

<End Segment 47> - Copyright © 2005 Densho. All Rights Reserved.