<Begin Segment 33>

MN: Somehow you ended up in Chicago and you worked at the Galler Drug.

CH: Yeah, that's the Jewish wholesale drug. That's the last time I went to Chicago? No, from Salt Lake I went to Denver, and Denver I worked at a ice company. No, egg. Dollar an hour, that was a good money, one dollar, you know. So I stayed over there, but my friend keep on calling, "Come to Chicago." I worked about two weeks and I went to Chicago that time. Then I stayed there the longest. That's the second time I went Chicago, you know, second time.

MN: And then you got a letter from your friend in the Counterintelligence Corps.

CH: Yeah. That guy, yeah, I was working -- I hadn't, of course, before I worked in the, the longest job I had was in wholesale drug, the big company, used to be. And that's the time Japan needed sugar, saccharine. They, we had all kind of saccharine. Piled high all over the place. Little by little... I had a whole bunch of, they sent me a letter, black market in Japan. That's why, okay, now, how the hell I'm gonna send that thing to Japan? So you know what I did? At the same time, Military Intelligence school, Sakai, Lieutenant Sakai and one more sergeant, they came together recruiting people. And somehow I got hold of that guy, Sakai, and I talked to that guy. "Do you take alien?" I tell him. "We take anything right now." "Why?" "There's a lot of prisoner of war coming from Japan from Russia, and interrogation, interpreter we need. So we need every available soldier who is bilingual." "If you take 'enemy alien,' 4-C, I volunteer." "Fine." So I signed. So I went to my friend's place, and, "You know what? I'm going to go in the army, I'm going to volunteer." "Yeah?" I told him, "You're not doing nothing." See, like me, I was a bum. I used to be a bum. Bum around everything for food, and, 'course, got everything. So army was the best place for me to go, and they had a deal, too. So that guy said, "Yeah, if you go, I go, too." We both volunteered. And when I found out that you swear the oath, allegiance, I went over there. "Hey, you're alien. You got to do by yourself." I was separated from the other guys that volunteered. That's where I got my citizen. [Laughs]

MN: Did you ever make it to Japan?

CH: Huh?

MN: Did you ever make it to Japan with the sugar?

CH: That's why every, nothing goes smoothly in life, right? Something always interrupts, something always happens. So when took a basic over here, Fort Knox, what's the name of the camp over there? Camp over there, that big training camp?

TI: Snelling?

CH: No, no, no, on the West Coast, near Monterey.

MN: Oh, Presidio?

CH: No, no, that's not a training camp.

TI: Not... Monterey.

CH: Monterey, yeah.

MN: Camp Roberts?

CH: No, that... Camp Roberts is more north. No, south, Camp Roberts. Fort... never mind. Then I went Monterey. After basic, Monterey. So I started over there for nine months. It was twelve hours a day, Japanese. But I was the number one because I knew how to talk Japanese. There was a student from Florida, adopted by a hakujin, he didn't know a word of Japanese. But when he'd make a talk, everybody would make a speech, something, one sentence like this, he cut it in about four different parts, speaking Japanese. Nobody knew what he said. [Laughs] He flunked. Other guy, head of our class, the teacher passed him and he went Japan. But my case, my case, when it came time go to overseas, I didn't have the clearance yet. And besides, when you want to go overseas, you have to have thirteen month overseas duty, and I had only eleven month to go. Eleven month to go, huh? So they want me to re-up for one more year. One more year, army one more year, so I told that colonel, "You know what? See that boat on the Monterey harbor? That's a fishing boat. Well, what do you think I was? Look at the record." "Oh, you're a fisherman. Well, I want to be a fisherman. You know what? My father owned about five of 'em like that. So I got to take charge, so I can't go in the army." I bullshit that guy, the colonel. So, "Oh, in that case, okay." But meanwhile, prior to that, prior to that, they checked my record, and they knew I was in North Dakota as an "enemy alien." That's why I didn't get the clearance first. But afterwards, they accept my 4-C. That's why, the thing was, I didn't have enough overseas duty, eleven months, and I was two months shy. So the rest of the guys, they all went. See, I was waiting for my clearance. See, if I wasn't waiting for the clearance I would have went with those guys. I want to see my mother and father over there. And you know John Sagrove, you know him? I was in the army same time as him. He went to Wakayama, MG, military government, Wakayama. So I was in the same one. I was going with same prefecture where my mother and father was. It was real good. But hey, forked tongue, you know what a forked tongue, huh? I thought one side was going to be... this side was exciting life, too. So I don't regret anything. I went to Central and South America, the other forked tongue was. Right?

<End Segment 33> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.