<Begin Segment 26>

TI: So let's keep going chronologically through this, I'm really curious. So it sounds like between military service and then going back to school, this is when this transition really, really happened in terms of...

RE: Well, there was a time, it's interesting, I was in the service and my good friend was Curtis Roosevelt. Curtis Roosevelt was the son of James Roosevelt, and he was the, and Curtis Roosevelt was the grandson of Eleanor Roosevelt. When I was in the service, Curt was the mailroom clerk, I was a radar instructor. But we were nonetheless relegated to duties and guard duty, which I felt was wrong and everything. But the whole thing is that I fell asleep in guard duty one night, and the second lieutenant turned me in and I was being court-martialed. So Curt wrote Grandma, and Grandma came out to see us in the Boston defense area. And I told her what happened. This captain, they called me all kinds of racial epithets, so did the second lieuy, and she got on that and she went to see the colonel, and she got me off the hook.

TI: Wow, that's a pretty powerful story.

RE: Eleanor has come through for our family on two occasions.

TI: By any chance, did she know the previous story?

RE: Never talked to her about that. She didn't know who I was, really.

TI: But did you ever get a chance to meet her?

RE: Yeah, over, yeah, had dinner with Curtis and I and Eleanor, and somebody else, I don't recall. What do you call it, secret service people. We had dinner together in Boston.

TI: What did you talk about with her?

RE: Not much. I really, I was more embarrassed.

TI: Was she, did she ever ask you any questions about, about your...

RE: No, just about the incident and what, Curtis wanted me to tell her what happened, what transpired. And she jumped on that thing about racial epithets and that it was wrong. In fact, the captain of the battery, who was a POW in North Korea, made sure that he was committed to the hospital for head thing, and sure enough, he was gone. He was sick; mentally ill from his ordeal. So that saved me, too, based on the fact that all these things happened because it wasn't right.

TI: You know, going back to that dinner with Eleanor Roosevelt, did she ever mention the camps and the Japanese Americans?

RE: Not that I recall.

TI: What was she like during this, this dinner? How would you describe her?

RE: She's got a high-pitched voice, but you get used to it. I kept, I always looked at her teeth, they were so huge. [Laughs] Don't, don't put that. She was a wonderful person. Curtis was my good friend, used to go to Greenwich Village when we would have a weekend off, ride the train from Boston to Greenwich Village. I enjoyed it. I never communicated with Curtis after I left the service. I wanted nothing to do with the service, and, of course, I just failed to communicate with those who I befriended.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.