<Begin Segment 12>

SF: How did life change after Pearl Harbor?

SI: Initially we were drafted for one year and we got twenty-one dollars a month, which was okay. They did our laundry, they did, we got all our food. I brought my car there from Stockton and so we had quite a bit of freedom. And then before the year ended they said well, they're going to extend it for two years and the war clouds in Europe and so forth were coming up, Germans were active in Europe. So a little over a year later, Pearl Harbor came and I had a pass for that day. I had a girlfriend in Riverside and I wanted to go see her so the radio came on, and they said Pearl Harbor was blasted and so forth, but orders had not come through that passes were canceled. So my friends kept urging me saying, you have a pass, go ahead, go ahead. So I drove out, went into Riverside -- I still have some friends from that area -- and we went out all day and listened to the car radio and see what was happening and I thought well, I guess this is it. So I made believe -- and they urged all military to return to their base, but I stayed out most of the day into the night [Laughs] making believe I hadn't heard, which wasn't true at all.

But when I got back they were waiting for me and they said, "You speak Japanese?" I said, "I speak a little." "Well, we're rounding up a bunch of suspected Japanese Issei who are leaders of local community and Japanese association society and so forth." And I guess the FBI or the military or whoever was concerned wanted to interview them. Well, my friend was much better in Japanese than I was so they took him right away, or we were still together, but they took him to interrogate the locals that they'd rounded up. And I said well, I don't want to disagree or refuse, but I feel very reluctant to be interpreter for these people 'cause I really don't know that much Japanese, so in spite of their trying to twist my arm and make me do this, I refused. I kept on doing whatever truck repairs or duties in the unit and I was accepted by everyone. Some were very good friends. We'd even go out together and so forth, and this continued on until January, February. I drove back once to Stockton and I left my car there and either I came back with some Caucasian friends or so and stayed in camp until they suddenly shipped me out. I thought they took my rifle away before then, but my friend in San Diego, the reunion in May, the fellow who took me, he later became a captain. He says, "Remember Ito, when you went to the railroad station they took your rifle away?" I didn't remember the incident, but they put me on the train and shipped me off to Fort Ord in Oklahoma.

SF: Fort Sill, wasn't it?

SI: I'm sorry?

SF: Fort Sill?

SI: I'm sorry. Fort Sill in Oklahoma, in Lawton, Oklahoma. And there were some 200 other Nisei from various parts of the country. As were in San Antonio, El Paso, various places. They put them into noncombat units where I spent from '42, early '42 into '43, when the 442nd was organized and I became cadre.

SF: How did you feel about being put into this service component and then your weapon taken away and all of that and Japanese all put together?

SI: Yes. I accepted this as what... well, I guess it's difficult to comprehend how, in the light of current thoughts, activities, and behavior, how we would accept my mother, father, two sisters being put into the race track in Stockton and shipped off to Arkansas. But I suppose that I really don't know why I or we accepted this type of treatment, not do much about it. But we did and I guess we rationalize and said well, I suppose this is for the good of the whole war effort or the times as they were. And I remember feeling quite different about this, but on the other hand, I think that the very sheltered life that we had -- that's the first time I had been out of California when we got sent to Oklahoma.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.