<Begin Segment 14>

PM: The day before you went to your commanding officer, you heard the speech.

TN: Yes.

PM: Was there something in that speech that indicated to you that you could talk to your commanding officer?

TN: No. I don't know. I don't know, but I don't care. I wanted to state my part. Then I wanted to satisfy myself. Then I'm willing to give my life. That's the way I felt.

PM: What type of satisfaction were you looking for? What did you want your commanding officer to do to satisfy you so that you would continue to train?

TN: Equal. Then they have to change.

PM: Well, but the commanding officer couldn't do that right away.

TN: Couldn't do that. So what can you do? I couldn't do it, but I have to clear my thinking some way. I need a help. I have to talk somebody to clear, so I could give my life to country.

PM: Well, you talked to him --

TN: I waited so long.

PM: Okay, and you talked to him.

TN: Yeah.

PM: And what did he say?

TN: He can't do. But that's okay. I want to say something in the court martial. That's the way. If they can't do, that's okay. Not okay, but what can I do? At least I say something. Then I clear my feeling.

PM: So when you were given the choice to go to the right or to the left...

TN: Yeah, left.

PM: The commanding officer in the stockade had talked to you before you made that choice. Isn't that true?

TN: It's all my choice.

PM: Well, before you made that choice, the commanding officer talked to you, and to everybody else in the stockade, right?

TN: Stockade.

PM: The commanding officer talked to everybody in the stockade before you had to make the choice to go right or left. Is that true?

TN: What is that?

PM: The commanding officer talked to you in the stockade. Yes or no?

TN: Stockade... they don't talk person to person there.

PM: The whole group, they talked to the whole group.

TN: Yeah, whole group.

PM: And what did they say to the whole group?

TN: He say, "You open the door, you want to go back to camp? Refuse, left, right."

PM: It was my understanding, from what other people have said that heard that same speech, that it was a little more threatening than that. They said something to the effect that if you choose not to go to training, that that would be disobedience, and that, "You know what happens to people in Japan if they choose not to do that." It was like it was, it was trying to make a threat to you. Do you remember that or not?

TN: No, I don't. I just clear my feeling. Only way I'm gonna go left, and I want to declare my obedience in court martial. That's all I wanted.

PM: So when you went to the left, you had no fear about --

TN: No fear. None whatsoever.

PM: Okay. And so you felt that was your chance, then, to make a statement at the court martial.

TN: That's right.

PM: Okay.

TN: Exactly. I don't care what they're gonna answer, give to me, long as they don't clear my mind, I don't care. That's the way I felt.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.