<Begin Segment 27>

TI: So, we're now in our third, third segment. And where we left it last was you had just been wounded. And so let's pick it up there. So you were shot, you said, kind of in the chest area. So describe the wound and what happened to you.

MT: Certainly call it a million dollar wound, but I was shot in the shoulder, left shoulder, and the bullet went through me and came out my back and missed hitting my shoulder, missed my lungs, grazed my lung. And so as far as outwardly, there was nothing really, no wound to see except for a hole in the front and the back. But treatment-wise, they just drew the blood out of my chest cavity, and recuperating, and there was a certain amount of blood and things that I had to cough out and clear my lungs area and then, I don't know how many weeks I spent there in the hospital, but the war ended at the time I was in the hospital there. And I could remember meeting this, my platoon lieutenant, he was in the next building from where I was. But we got together and the two of us were sitting outside, and the war ended there, or we were notified that the war ended. There was a lot of celebrating among the different troops that were there, but most of these troops that were there were what we called the rear echelon support troops. So they didn't see much, they really didn't see hardly any combat. But the fellows that were in the hospital with myself or all the others, we all were wounded one way or another in combat. And we, I don't recall any of us sitting there cheering and whooping it up, "The war is over," or anything. We just kind of sat there and, I think, kind of shed tears because, thinking of the fellows that we lost. And you couldn't call it a happy occasion, it was a very solemn, relief, the war was over and things. But this lieutenant and I was just sitting there, and I think we had a beer there. And we were kind of reminiscing about so-and-so, what happened to him, some of the things that we went through. Because this is, the lieutenant and I were joining the unit at the same time, we went through everything together. So had a lot in common with the lieutenant, and he was really a nice fellow. I can still remember sitting there with him and talking about the war. It was a very, very somber, sad, relief feeling.

TI: When you talk with the other people who were in the 442, was that kind of a common feeling, when they heard about the end of the war? That rather than a celebration, it was more of a time to contemplate or think back.

MT: I think it was just, "It's over." Couldn't call it a happy occasion, it was just a sense of relief, I think.

TI: That's good.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.