<Begin Segment 14>

TI: Did you ever get a chance to talk to the other Niseis who were drafted the same time?

HN: Yeah.

TI: And what did you talk about in terms of what was happening to the families?

HN: Well, I knew the Seattle guys like Tetsu Oye was from the Buddhist church, Shig Sumioka was from Buddhist church, Matt Tanaka was from Buddhist. Most of 'em, now that I question that, most of those guys were from Buddhist church. But I'm sure there were others, too, from other... oh, yeah, there was one Shio Oyama from White River. But there were other Niseis, too.

TI: Because while you were in the army, people, your family, had to leave Seattle and the other families had to leave. Did you talk about that when you guys were, got together?

HN: You mean, later on, you mean?

TI: Yeah a little bit later on.

HN: I went there on the furlough.

TI: Well, not furlough, but you're now training.

HN: Oh, yeah, writing letters, you mean.

TI: Yeah, writing letters and...

HN: Because I was in Arkansas. My parents went to Hunt, of course.

TI: Right. But when your, when your parents had to leave Seattle, where were you at that time? Were you in Arkansas?

HN: Arkansas.

TI: And so when you heard that they had to leave, what did you think? Not just your parents, but then your brother also had to leave.

HN: Of course.

TI: Yeah, so what did you think about that? That all the families in Seattle...

HN: I was shocked. I was shocked. I thought, "Now what? Now what's going to happen? Am I gonna see them?" You know, everything was bewildering. Everything was all really confounding. Everything that's happening was, to say the least, it was... we couldn't figure out what's going to happen. Well, you got a... I'm in the training so I got to do my thing. But at the same time, I'm thinking about them, too, and wondering what's going to happen to them. It was not the, certainly, it was not the best of times. It was chaotic. We got to, we got to be, in the meantime, you have to be a good soldier, you have to train, and then in the back of my mind, I'm thinking about my parents, "What's this? What's this? What's that going to mean?" Later on, they became much more concerned.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.