<Begin Segment 6>

PM: Okay, Larry, now what we want to talk to you about is your military experience, and just before the war broke out. So, can you hear me? Okay. So I want to know what you were doing just before the war broke out. I understand you were --

LK: Before the war?

PM: Yeah, just before the war.

LK: You ever heard of a CCC camp?

PM: No.

LK: That's a Civilian Conservation Corps.

PM: Yes.

LK: That Roosevelt, you know, started for young kids like us that go in, I mean, going school and no work. So that's what I was doing.

PM: What were you actually, what were you doing? I mean, what kind of work were you doing?

LK: Well, this is all manual now, all pick and shovel. Pick and shovel, now, and your back hurts. Man, your back hurts.

PM: Where were you working? Where in Hawaii were you working?

LK: That's, we was working for the rangers.

PM: The... what rangers?

LK: Park rangers, National Park rangers. That's what you call... anyways, federal, controlled by the federal government. Anyway... yeah. See, now, what we do is make highways. That is not paved highways, but what you call trail... yeah. It's a crude highway, not a paved highway. But you know where all the, they want rangers to go in the forest? That's what we do. We make a -- then you see the, you ever heard of earthquake and stuff like that? Well, when the... did you know that part of the road can just fall apart? Just open up and sank. That's what we do, we covered it up so cars can go through. That's what we do.

PM: How long did you work for the CCC?

LK: Well, let's see now... three years.

PM: And then where did you go after CCC?

LK: That's when I went to go join the -- oh, no, no, I went, moved to Honolulu and worked for Pearl Harbor.

PM: So tell me about that.

LK: So, yeah, now, to get in the -- that's when the trouble started. I wasn't a citizen then; I was a dual citizen. So now I want to go to the consulate, and then applied for citizenship, and they gave me a citizenship. So I applied a job at Pearl Harbor, and then, see, now, I'm a oiler on a crane and bulldozer. So that's how, when the war started, I work on the crane and the bulldozer. They both, yeah, we hauled the lumber, and then the bulldozer dug the, what do you call... ditch, I mean, trench for the coffin, you know. That's how, it's happening when I -- that's why I have to work little longer than lot of people, because that was my job.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.