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TI: So after you finished OCS, then what happened? Or was there, like, a ceremony when you finished?

EW: Yeah, sure, we had a ceremony, and we had to a parade march in front of the commanding officer, and then we had a graduation ceremony. We had a big dinner and things like that.

TI: Did any of your friends or family come?

EW: No, unfortunately, it was all the way in, at Fort Benning, Georgia, so very difficult for people from Hawaii, so even my parents did not attend. And from there, I came back home for a little leave, and then I went to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where I did my specific branch training, which was in field artillery, the field artillery branch.

TI: I'm curious, when you went back to Hawaii for a little bit, did people notice any changes in you, when they saw you after you had gone through this, this process? Were there any comments of, "Ehren, you're different"?

EW: Well, my close friends says that, "You just, you look agitated," or, "You look like, you don't look the same." And it's true. Because you have to imagine, for, if you take into account basic training and OCS, about six months, you're on the edge the whole time. I mean, you, you wake up to somebody yelling at you, you go to sleep to somebody yelling at you. You have to sleep the right way, everything has to be just right, so it's a hard way to live, and you are on, you're on edge, and you still feel it even going back. And you don't feel secure, you have to always be looking over your shoulder, pretty much, because you don't know when that drill sergeant or that TAC officer or that TAC NCO is going to come out and be yelling at you, so you're always on edge. It's, it's kind of like coming out of prison, you know. [Laughs] And so, yeah, some of my closest friends could pick up on that, and it takes a while for it to go away. And I think even being in the military, it stays with you, even when you're out of the initial indoctrination.

TI: And so when your close friends notice that, did that surprise you, or you knew that you were on edge?

EW: Yeah, I knew that I was on edge, 'cause, 'cause some of my other friends who had gone through basic training told me the same thing, that for a while, you just say, your body has to have a chance to relax. It's the same thing when they talk about soldiers coming back from Iraq. 'Cause even more so over there, it's, your life is in peril all the time, so when you come back, you have to, your body and your mind has to adjust back to a normal, a normal way of living again.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.