<Begin Segment 19>

MN: You and your friend joined the National Guard?

TS: (Yes).

MN: Why did you do that?

TS: Because we wanted to avoid the draft. He said we were all gonna get drafted. I (said), "Well, I don't want to get drafted." That (was during) the Korean War. I said I don't want to be an infantryman, so we joined the National Guard. He said National Guard will always defend California.

[Interruption]

MN: Now, we were talking about you joining the National Guard. Can you continue that story?

TS: (...) Don Hasuike, says, "Hey, if we join the National Guard (...) we won't have to go to Korea." And shortly after we joined we were gone. [Laughs] We went overseas. (...) All of us were sent to Air Intelligence headquarters in Tokyo, and the only guys that were kept there were Don and myself. Don was a linguist and they wanted him to read the Chinese papers from China that we were getting every day. And I don't know what I was doing there. I don't know why they kept me there, but they did and everyone else went to Korea.

MN: Weren't you, the Kibei, helping the Kibeis? The Kibeis were interrogating prisoners and you were helping them?

TS: Well, I was editing their reports because the English was so bad that the people in Washington, intelligence people, were complaining about all the reports, says, "We can't read those reports. They're ass backwards." I said, "Well, the Japanese language and English is different. It's backwards." Okay, so they put me in charge of (correcting the writing of) the interrogators -- not in charge, I was the editor for the hundred Kibeis (who) weren't writing intelligibly. Myself and a hakujin woman were editors for the whole bunch.

MN: Now, while you were stationed in Tokyo, were you also able to visit your relatives in Hiroshima?

TS: (Yes), I did, couple times.

MN: So I'm gonna assume this is the 1950s.

TS: (Yes), I guess that was when. I don't remember the dates too well.

MN: So by then was Hiroshima recovering from the atomic bombing?

TS: It was all one-story buildings, no, no high rise like today. Hiroshima's full of high rises now. I've been there many times since.

MN: Did your family lose any relatives in atomic bombing?

TS: No, because they were out in Shobara, which is in the mountain country.

MN: So you served your time in the military, you were honorably discharged at March Air Force Base, and then from there you were able to enter USC Law School on a GI bill?

TS: Right.

MN: Did your camp experience have any effect on you choosing to pursue law?

TS: I don't know. It may have. I don't know why I even went to law school.

MN: Now, after you graduated, what did you do?

TS: I think I opened up a law office in Gardena. (...) That's a long time ago.

MN: And you've been in private practice since?

TS: (Yes).

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.