<Begin Segment 21>

MA: In Fort McClelland, during basic training, you said there were 90,000 inductees training there.

GY: Yes.

MA: How did the different racial groups get along? Was there any tension?

GY: We have, it was so busy, our basic was so taken up by the day, hour, minutes, when you had over two months of training, of basic, they didn't give you enough time to have any discrimination. On our time off we, in that hot southern sun, we had our rain jackets on and we, we would go for swimming survival, or something like that. I remember passing patches of huge watermelon, huge watermelon, southern watermelon. And if you've never eaten a southern watermelon, boy, you missed, you're missing something. The reason we were able to eat it is because Hawaiians broke in there and swiped, stole a watermelon or two and brought it back, and we had a watermelon feast. Of course, we had to clean it up, but it, maybe it tasted better because it was stolen. [Laughs] But boy, that watermelon was delicious.

MA: Did the Hawaiians, I mean, you said they were kind of rowdier...

GY: No, not really. We had, the Niseiyogores, I'm not sure if you ever heard that terminology, yogore, it's a zoot suit, oh, the mainlanders. I suppose the Hawaiians, too, but mainlanders with a big keychain, gold keychain with a, with a hopped up suit with a hopped up tie. I don't know how you'd describe what "hopped up" means, but zoot suiters. Anyway, we called them yogores. I really don't know what yogore means, but it's a disparaging remark against some Japanese that dressed like that. The present-day long hair, ponytail I guess, I don't know. But it, they were a different group. So it wasn't just the Hawaiians, it was the mainlanders.

We had things disappearing in our company. Someone was stealing, I don't remember if it was money, in our footlockers. Our footlockers were tidy, very tidy under, just like the military, everything has to be in place. But someone was stealing money or what, primarily money, I guess, and we had the showdown inspection several times to find the culprit. Could never find him, but one time as I was coming back into the barracks area, I saw a army car, four-door army-colored car sitting there, and a Nisei being escorted in handcuffs by military police, hakujin military. And found out later he was the culprit. He got a dishonorable discharge and was sent to Leavenworth, Kansas, which is a military prison. And, but later I heard that if he behaved himself, they could clean, cleanse his record of the dishonorable discharge and he would be back in the military and serve out his time. That's what I heard. I assume what I heard was correct, got back in the military -- I don't know how -- but got back in and cleared his record. He happened to be a mainlander, mainland born in the States.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.