<Begin Segment 9>

MN: From Camp Leonard Wood, you went to Fort McClellan, Alabama.

TN: Yes.

MN: The day your Company C arrived, you heard a speech by Brigadier General Wallace Philoon.

TN: Yes.

MN: Can you tell us what he said?

TN: Yeah. I think Company A, B, having the trouble. And General knows what's going on. So when Company C was, arrived, they, Company C, D, too, I think, we went to that place to listen to his speech, yes.

MN: What did he say?

TN: He say, he don't say, obviously, what's going on, but he knows not everybody happy there. So he went out to prevent any trouble, I think. Any trouble feeling, talk around. That's what I understood. That's the way I took it.

MN: So after you heard this speech, what did you do?

TN: Then, next day, I went to see company commander. I'm not happy.

MN: Did you go by yourself?

TN: No, I went, I think, two, three guys was there, too.

MN: And what did your company commander tell you?

TN: He said, "Well, can't do much." So I asked, "Put him in the cage," I want to say something. He said, needs some kind of excuse to put... so I said, "Make a excuse, anything." I want to get in.

MN: When you say the "cage," you're talking about stockade?

TN: Stockade. Then they called the jeep, loaded me up, went to stockade.

MN: Now, why weren't you happy?

TN: Huh?

MN: Why weren't you happy? What were you upset about the army?

TN: I went, lots of Japanese people was in there. I was surprised. [Laughs]

MN: In the stockade.

TN: Stockade.

MN: When you got there?

TN: Yeah.

MN: You did not know there were Nisei soldiers?

TN: No, I didn't know. But I was surprised, oh, my gosh, what's going on? But, then, stockade, and they assigned me in the little hut, you know. And so cold, so I had a bucket, and go outside, then guard on the tower, he say, try to shoot me. "Where you going?" I say, "Too cold. I want to make a fire." No, he tell me to get back in the hut. So I go back in the hut. And within a few minutes, they all called, "Go out, fall out and line up and march down to the mess hall." Then that's the time when we hear the speech.

MN: What was the speech?

TN: Speech, it's the same thing. "This is treason, very serious case. If it's any other country, they're gonna shoot you down. So think hard," and mess hall, they have an open door like that. Open door, "Go back to company, turn right. If you don't, turn to left." So I went out, turned to left, stand there. Everybody coming out of mess hall, what the heck, they're following the other guy right. I thought, "Oh, my gosh, what the heck those people come here?" Yeah, I was kind of surprised and disappointed.

MN: How many people went left?

TN: I think twenty-one, first.

MN: Twenty-one?

TN: Yeah, twenty-one. And all went to right.

MN: How many hundred went right?

TN: Yeah, right.

MN: How many, how many?

TN: I don't know. Big number. Rest of them went. And we was... group here, "no-no" group here, and all the fence outside. And it was, I mean, people, go back to company people were outside, line up. And a few people come back to, in the gate again. That time, I remember Sumida, he's a DB Boy. His brother was there, too. He was with me. And one brother with me from Leonard Wood. And that brother was talking, side, tell him to get out. We can't put the, in the same part. One should take another chance. Tell him to get out. So he got out, taking a training, right turn. They, you know, he ended up with a labor battalion. But with me, Sumida was always with me.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.