<Begin Segment 19>

TI: Because at this point, just backing up a little bit, you had graduated from the University of Washington with a mechanical engineering degree, and you had all this experience. And so you probably took tests also, and so they put you in this special area for scientific and professional.

KT: Well, at that time, they don't tell you that, and then I'm in the infantry training. And after eight weeks of infantry training, they say all those with full classification 4-C, bad eyesight or physical deferment are step 1, rank forward. And they will go down the platoon saying, "Okay, you're assigned to this, mechanical, bakery," they'll send them off to different area. They come to my name and they said, "Tanemura?" says, "step back, you're staying in the infantry." I said, "Oh. That's odd. I got a deferment, and why am I still in the infantry?" I finished my sixteen weeks of infantry basic training. And then they called me up, and when they called me up, "You're going to Army Chemical Center in Maryland." So I'm headed off to Army, and the rest of the people were infantry, so they were going to Korea. And here I'm by myself, I got my orders, and I'm going to Maryland. And when I reported into camp at the Army Chemical Center in Maryland, walk into this place and we start talking around and we realize, hey, we're all graduates. The whole room full of us were all graduate. And then they told us, "Okay, this is for you people with a degree in scientific, we're keeping you here, and you're gonna be assigned to different areas from this point." "Oh, is that right? Well, what a thing." So I'm doing that, and then all of a sudden, there was a call in Maryland for a engineer with business training. And all of a sudden I get called up and says, "Hey, we see you took a five credit course in engineering, business law," whereas the rest of them only took the required three credit engineering, three credit course. "Okay, you're the guy with the business law training," And I get shipped off to Maryland, and I'm a nice office in there and I work there, I'm civilian clothes status, wore my civilian clothes. And I was doing that, and I was working there and all of a sudden they say, "We can't get a secret clearance for you. So you're not qualified to be here, we can't use you because we can't get you cleared." So they sent me back to the camp.

TI: And the reason was because of your Japanese citizenship at this time, because you were not a U.S. citizen.

KT: And to get the clearance, they were talking to people, my friends here on the coast, but they can't talk to all my relatives in Japan to get me the full clearance. So they said, "No, we're not gonna clear him." So I get sent back, then they tell me that, "Okay, since you're, we can't get you cleared, you're dropped from this program, and you're gonna be shipped overseas." So I said, "Okay." I said, "Well, okay." And at that time, I was thinking, "Hey, I might as well go to Japan and see if I could visit with my relatives in Japan," so I volunteered for Far East duty. And typical army fashion, they sent me to Germany. [Laughs] Opposite of what you requested. I go into the Germany replacement center, and they looked and me and they said, "God, what are they sending another clerk typist for? We don't, we got clerk typists galore here." And then they looked on my record, "Hey, you're a engineer. You could do drafting, can't you?" I said, "Yeah, I know how to do drafting." "Okay, you're now changed to draftsman," and they sent me to New Orleans, you know, from Bremerhaven down to New Orleans right outside of Paris, and I walk in there, report in there, and they say, "You're a draftsman. Hey, we could use a draftsman in the Paris office, Joint Construction Agency." So they shipped me off to Paris, France, and I'm stationed in there. And there, I walk into this office as a draftsman, and the colonel in charge of the office looks over my report and says, "You're an engineer." Says, "Yeah, I'm a B.S. in mechanical engineering." "We could use you as an engineer," so he pulled me out of the drafting group and assigned me as an engineer. So here I'm an engineer, rank of PFC, and I'm doing engineering work in there. And all of a sudden, you know, it was pretty good for me because that was a good job. And then they used to really praise me because there was only the colonel in charge of the office, and I was the only other military people in there. So any time an order comes in addressed to the colonel, it was addressed to me as the next military person in the chain of command. And then it goes to the civilian directors of the organization. And I used to kid, "Hey, you guys are all, when the colonel's not here, you're reporting to me," you know. [Laughs]

TI: So you were the second highest in rank.

KT: Yeah, military person in the place.

TI: As a PFC.

KT: Yeah, as PFC, and I'm doing engineering work there. That was really funny because I used to only put on my uniform once a month to go get my pay. And I'll go into this payoff, they got the enlisted people, officers. We go out there, and when I go up to the deal, god, they were paying me a lot because I used to get sixteen dollars per day per diem, that's four hundred eighty bucks there. My rank as a PFC was another hundred dollar, I had a clothing allowance of a hundred dollars, so I'd be getting, five, six, seven hundred bucks. And the second lieutenant on the other line, he only was collecting two hundred bucks or so. And he looks and said, "You must have had a lot of back pay coming to you, huh, Soldier?" I'd say, "No, sir. Sir, one month's pay, Sir," and walk out of there. [Laughs]

TI: So I don't get that. Why would a enlisted man get paid more than an officer?

KT: Because I was getting the per diem, sixteen dollars per day per diem.

TI: Now, why weren't the officers getting per diem?

KT: They were still in the military. I just go to the base only to collect my pay.

TI: Okay.

KT: So once a month, I had to go into the base to get my pay, and then they got these two, the pay line, you know.

TI: Then you would stay like in an apartment in Paris?

KT: Right.

TI: And so what was it like living in Paris?

KT: It was really fun. I lived in Paris for nine months there, and then I went to night school, I went to Alliance Francaise to learn French, you know. But I forgot most of that now. [Laughs] But I really enjoyed my stay in the military there. And since this colonel was there, he made sure that I would keep my engineering training. So that was really a good deal for me. And when I finished my tour in there, I was thinking, "Hey, they offered me a civil service job down there." They said, "Well, we really got to start you off as a GS-5, but with your experience, we could give you a GS-7. And within six months, you will be a GS-9." And I tell him, "Jesus, the job I'm doing right now is a GS-11. You want to hire me as a GS-9?" I said, "What kind of a thing are you..." and I was really thinking about that, because I said, hey, can't get a job, I still have to get naturalized first, and maybe I should stay there. And then what clinched me to come back was I heard that if you sign up for a civil service job there, when I finished my tour, I had to pay for my own transportation back to the States. I said, "God, you mean it's better to go back to the States as a military, and then sign up from the States?" I said, "Oh, okay, I'll keep that as the background," and I knew who to contact if I wanted that job and go back. Then I came back here and I said, well, do I really want to work over there? So then at that time, naturalization was open to us, so I, that was a good story.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.