<Begin Segment 18>

TI: So you reported down at Fort Douglas , Utah?

FS: Fort Douglas, yeah. You recall that, well, the Western Defense Zone was closed, and the major recruiting point, the processing point was Fort Lewis. [Laughs] But even as a soldier, we couldn't go into, into Western Washington, so they sent us, all the Japanese Americans on the West Coast were processed at Fort Douglas, Utah. Ran into a bunch of guys there, at Fort Douglas that summer. They were, they were mostly, well, they were guys out of camps, and some of the guys were, were other, from Idaho and Montana, Wyoming and so on, who had volunteered.

TI: So what did you have to do at Fort Douglas?

FS: Well, this was, this was the major processing thing, and they, they do the usual thing, they poke and pinch you, they give you shots, they issue you uniforms and all that kind of thing. You had to pass the physical, and it was very apparent that if you were alive and could almost see, you were, you were going in the service. [Laughs] But it was a busy, busy place. I went by there, oh, I don't know, a few years ago, and of course, they've closed it down pretty much, there's nothing, nothing left there. But anyway, it was a busy, busy place, full of recruits.

TI: And so not just Japanese Americans, but just lots of people going through there.

FS: Oh, yeah, lots of people from, from that central area were being processed.

TI: Now, did you ever catch any flack from anyone because you were Japanese Americans?

FS: No, no. The only incident I remember is that I think four or five days of all this poking and prodding and testing and stuff, they said that all the, all the new recruits are to report to the, to the auditorium or whatever area, to be sworn in. And then it went on to say, "Except the following names," and there were eight or ten or twelve of us, they were all Japanese American names. "You are to report to the provost's, provost's, office, So-and-so." And so we, we all showed up there at the appointed time, we were all Japanese Americans. And, and we wondered what the hell's going on, but the provost was a major as I recall. And, but there were four officers, and they each stood at each corner, two in front and two in back, and they watched us while we were being sworn in. [Laughs] So we were segregated right at that point, too. I guess they thought maybe we'd cross our fingers or something when we were sworn in. [Laughs]

TI: Did they ever explain to you why they did that? Did they say, "The reason we're doing this is..."

FS: Well, they didn't have to, did they? You knew exactly, all you had to do is look at my face, see, that was the idea. I'm sure that's what --

TI: But they didn't have an official response, or official policy of doing this?

FS: Oh, no, no, I never, I guess I didn't think about it much. I didn't think about it until much, much later, and I realized, "Isn't that strange that they would do that to us?" But hey, that was the army, and that, see?

TI: Was that, did that give you a foreboding sort of feeling? "Here I'm entering this army, and already they're doing this to me?"

FS: Well, I already knew that I was going into a segregated unit, and obviously that's what they were doing. They were enforcing that right from the beginning. It just seemed strange to me now that I'm thinking about it, why would they do that? They obviously, everybody who was drafted, who volunteered, had a background check. I'm sure that they, they made sure that we weren't saboteurs or something. [Laughs] But until years later, it didn't, I didn't even think about it.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.