<Begin Segment 19>

TI: So, let's move from Camp Shelby, you said you then had an opportunity to go back to Minidoka.

JS: Yes.

TI: So tell me what that was like.

JS: That was a furlough that we were entitled to, I guess. We trained for over a year in Mississippi, and we were given this leave, so I did go back to Minidoka to see my parents. And I did meet my sister in Chicago. I spent a few days there in Chicago, my sister had gone out to Connecticut, I believe it was.

TI: And this was Sally?

JS: Sally, yeah. And met her there, but most of the furlough was spent in camp, really, or in transit. Because we traveled by train in those days, so what you can do in the, in hours now, took days.

TI: What was the reception by your family when you showed up in camp?

JS: Well, it was good. I have fond memories of them saying goodbye, you know. I don't remember the greeting that I got when I -- but I knew they were happy, and sad when I left.

TI: So talk about the farewell with your, say, your father. What was, do you recall...

JS: Well, it was... well, today, I would probably get misty-eyed, but, and I don't know whether he did or not. But it was, he was treating me like an adult, you know, so I felt good, and I knew that, where we were headed, so it was an okay experience. My father was a tough guy for us because he was so strict and was a disciplinarian. But at that time I felt that, well, he's treating me differently than I had known all the years growing up. So it was good, and we did write to each other.

TI: How about your mother? What was the farewell like with your mother?

JS: Well, mothers are different, you know. [Laughs] Mothers are always more sentimental and so forth, but I think that it was good, and she didn't cry or anything, but I know she was sorry that... but she also knew what was going to be was going to be.

TI: At this point, was there a sense of how difficult it was going to be for the 442 in terms of casualties?

JS: No, we didn't have any idea.

TI: But yet there was still this sort of foreboding, sort of, sense that, that this was going to be...

JS: Yeah. Well, if you're in the infantry, you know that it's a, a risky end of the service.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.