Densho Digital Archive - Tosh Tokunaga Interview (denshovh-ttosh-01-0013)

<Begin Segment 13>

TI: At some point, when you were at Minidoka, for young men, they started drafting them out of -- or asking first for volunteers and then drafting men into the military service. What was your response when that started happening? Did you volunteer or when you were drafted, did you join the military service?

TT: Well, when I turned eighteen, I had to register for the draft. And our draft board was Boise. Classification of 4-C, "enemy alien." So I must have been still in school. Then after school, I went to work in the Hazelton FHA camp that was where all the laborers stayed. So I remember, oh, a great number of my age group (I) graduated with, went out there to work. And while there, I guess the government changed their mind and reclassified us 1-A. And got drafted, went down to Fort Douglas for induction. I came back to camp, recalled about a month later, we had to go back, and we went to Fort Douglas then on to Camp Shelby. I was a replacement for 442.

TI: Yeah, before we go through all that, did you ever get a sense about your parents and how they felt about you going into the military service? Did you ever talk to them about that?

TT: Well, my dad told me and my brother, he says, "You guys are born in the States, and you gotta act and be a citizen of the United States." I remember him saying that.

TI: And your brother was older, so did he also go into the military service?

TT: Oh, he was out working elsewhere. I think he was in Utah somewhere. But (...) he got called up later. In fact, they took the young ones first. And the reason -- well, yeah, they took us eighteen-year-olds, nineteen-year-olds first. And they drafted all the people from camp first because that freed the farmers, you know, the regular outside farmers' kids.

TI: Oh, that's interesting. So they had to reach --

TT: So we fulfilled the quota.

TI: Right. So they had to get certain numbers and they would get the young men from camp to fill their quota. Interesting. That's the first time I heard that, that's interesting.