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KT: Yeah, and then my second, between the sophomore and junior year, I worked in a garage, and I was the gas pump, and Blue Top Garage I think it was called on Seventh Avenue, and then I worked as a mechanic doing that thing. And then my junior year I worked for Lincoln, Boulon and Associate in their office as an engineering trainee, and then I would be working on these lines. And that was the time when I started interviewing for school, I realized, hey, I'm not gonna be able to go work for Boeing, because they told me frankly that, yeah, my qualification was good, "But it's going to be hard getting you a clearance," because I was a Japanese nationality. And there, I found out, "Oh, this is gonna be tough." I'm not gonna be able to get a good job with any defense industry because I would have to be naturalized first before that. So I knew, realized that was gonna be happening, and during the summer, my last year, these people at the Lincoln Boulon knew some industry on First Avenue that needed engineers to do these works that I was doing there. So he recommended me for that job, and I was working for them until I got drafted. And when I got my draft notice, I went down there, and I figured I got drafted, but I wouldn't be able to qualify because my eyesight was so bad. I remember an incident where we, in my training, they told me, "Take off your glasses, walk into the room, look at the eye chart, and read the biggest letters you could see. And if you can't see that, just walk forward until you can see a letter, stop." So I just walk into the room, I took off my glasses, and then proceeded to walk almost two thirds of the way down. I would stop and I say, "E." And the attendant there looks at me, "God, this guy, we got a wise guy here." [Laughs] And he's starting to say, "Hey, wait a minute, Soldier. You're not supposed to be doing that. You can't tell me you can't see the E until you're up there." And just then the doctor happened to be walking by, heard this scuttlebutt, so he drops in, "What's wrong here, Soldier?" "Oh, we got a wise guy here. He says he can't see the E." So I just grabbed my glasses and I handed it to him and he looks at it. "He's telling you the truth," you know. So I figured, hey, I was, I flunked. And lo and behold, I go back and I get a notice saying, "Hey, you're drafted."

TI: So how did that work? I mean, why didn't your eyesight disqualify you?

KT: At that time, I really didn't realize why I didn't get a deferment. They needed bodies, and then they also had a program called Scientific and Professional Personnel program. And they never told me that. It was only until after I went through the training that I realized that program was in existence, and I guess it was designed to make sure that the people with scientific and professional training were not going to go into the infantry, that they would be kept stateside because they didn't want to have all their talent pool killed in action. So, but they never told us that.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.