<Begin Segment 13>

TI: Okay. So you got your draft notice. What was the reaction that you had when you first got it?

HN: It was such a, after Pearl Harbor, there was so much commotion going on there, whether I should continue school, and then now their draft notice. Well, yes, so I wasn't happy about draft, but at least it helped to, maybe alternative to go to the service, because I didn't know what to do with my life. I would have probably quit school.

TI: So I'm curious, so when you reported, what was the reaction of the army people when they saw you?

HN: I don't know that. I got no reaction from them.

TI: Okay, so from your perception, you couldn't tell if there was any reaction.

HN: No, no. No, no. No sign of prejudice, no. There was no sign of that.

TI: And where did you report?

HN: Fort Lewis, closest camp, fort.

TI: And so no reaction from --

HN: There were other Nikkei there, too. Yeah, there was no reaction. In fact, my parents came out to the Fort Lewis reception center. The parents are invited for a reception, lunch, so my parents came to Fort Lewis. I'm surprised they came. I didn't think, I didn't think they would be...

TI: And when, so at this reception, how many other Japanese Americans were...

HN: Oh, there were about twenty offhand, I would guess.

TI: And twenty out of how many for the reception?

HN: I don't know how many out of the total.

TI: But was it like a small portion or a fairly significant portion?

HN: Well, I'm thinking about company size. Because I'm sure it's a fort, so it's a division size. They didn't do ten, twenty thousand people, but we were just in one company.

TI: Like a company, so about, so close to a thousand people then, about that size?

HN: There might have been. This is all new experience to me.

TI: But again, I was trying to get a sense of, during the reception, were there any reactions from the other families?

HN: No, I didn't really think about that. But I was surprised to see my parents there, my brother, and that they had come to the reception center for lunch. Things were happening so much that I couldn't really... wondering about what's the next... go to the next step, okay, next step.

TI: So what about your parents' reaction? Because in particular, your mother...

HN: You know, that was just one time, and I really didn't talk about, to my mother or my father or my brother at that time. I think we didn't, we didn't have much... I think there was so much change, sudden change of events, the Pearl Harbor and my being drafted, and everything was so up in the air, you might say.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.