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MN: Okay, we're gonna go back to the army. You're in the army now, and then two days after, Pearl Harbor is attacked. How did you hear about it and what were you doing on that Sunday?

TN: Not particularly. I wrote it down on the diary. It was sad.

MN: What were you doing on that day?

TN: Like I say, all the group is, it's already there, assigned something, I think, group. But I'm the only one alone, and tents, hut, maybe dozen in there, I'm the only one in there. So they don't bother me, practically nothing. Every morning, after the breakfast, they assemble, pick up the cigarette butt all around there, yeah, that's about it.

MN: Where were you at this time? Where?

TN: Where what?

MN: Where were you on December 7th? Were you at the Presidio already?

TN: Yeah. I was in there.

MN: In Monterey.

TN: Monterey, yes.

MN: When, in December, if America asked you to fight in Japan, would you have gone?

TN: Hmm... I don't think I went that far. I didn't think that far, face to face, you know. I was just wondering what's gonna happen.

MN: Now you were in Monterey for less than one month, and then you were shipped to Camp Roberts in California. What did you do at Camp Roberts?

TN: Driver. Big truck, I have to take my pillow, back. [Laughs] Oh, big truck, I never drive that. But they tell you to drive. About two hundred Japanese people there, is all doing detail work, that kind of driver.

MN: Now, from Camp Roberts, you went to basic training at Camp Robinson in Arkansas.

TN: Arkansas, yes.

MN: In Arkansas, were you training with hakujin people or just Japanese Americans?

TN: It's mixed, hakujin and Japanese. I could tell, Company A, B, C, D, all the group is working, Japanese is always end of the line. [Laughs] So they separate each company, Japanese, maybe ten each, I noticed.

MN: So at that time, the Japanese Americans were not segregated yet.

TN: No.

MN: But you saw blacks segregated.

TN: It's Leonard Wood. Then I went, after cook, I got hurt. I burned my hand in the coal stove, and I had to quit cooking. Then they assigned to me guard duty. At that time, I was corporal, so I just pick up the guard here and there and post. That time, I was, pick up a lot of colored people, camp, and those people I posted, you know. Magazine and area, oh, those people all took a lot of beating, and dirty work. But I pick 'em up, they issue me a jeep, and driver, and time come, I pick up the guard and post. So I was there.

MN: So you were picking up people, and you were picking up the black soldiers, also.

TN: Yeah, black and white, too.

MN: And white.

TN: And post, even guard house, you know, two or three posts there, change. Twenty-four hours, and forty-eight hours off.

MN: But you were seeing that the blacks were not treated well.

TN: Yeah, that's the time I saw, but after the incident, I mean, the court martial, in the stockade, then I see group with black people, white people, struggling.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.