<Begin Segment 22>

MA: So the basic training, then, lasted a couple months, you said?

GY: Oh, yeah. Ten weeks, eight or ten weeks.

MA: And then you got out of basic training.

GY: Uh-huh.

MA: Where did you go after that?

GY: We went back into Headquarters Company and processed those that were going overseas. That was part of my job, and the war, it was a six-month course for a lot of the people. Some of the other people was a three-month course, and for a couple, they were so well-versed in Japanese that they immediately went into the Philippines.

MA: Oh, I see. So you're talking about language school?

GY: Oh, yeah, language school, and Tosh Ichikawa, he was three-month, no, he was, he went overseas right away, because I remember him coming back, and we went on a big party spree when he got back to the States, and we went to Chicago and nightclubbed up there, as I remember. And then there was a three-month course for those that were real good, but not quite good military bungo, they called in bungo, Japanese military. And then there was the long course which was six-month, and by that time, war had just about ended with the six-monthers. And by then, we had moved all our belongings and I accompanied a troop train. I had one troop car, Pullman, to Presidio California.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.