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MT: But anyway, they served. And we, so we were older quite a bit. We had guys that were by, while we were in training they're twenty-five years old and older. Twenty-five, I guess, about the oldest we had. And so someone, none were married. They couldn't, unless you were reservist, reservist or if you were one of these that got called back in 'cause you didn't serve long enough. If you were married you didn't have to go at that time. They eventually later had to serve. So some guys married just before they went in, and their girlfriends, they wanted to get married right away, so they got married. But that was the kind of atmosphere that we were in, and the thing is that they would take us out to the, into the sagebrush, we would sit on our steel helmets and we would listen to the National Guardsman read the manual, who may not even have been trained at all. And we knew that because there were some medical terms they couldn't pronounce.

TI: So that was your medical training, just --

MT: That was the medical training, read the manual. The only difference, some of the guys were so bitter -- by the way, at the end of the week they would give you a test. If you didn't pass the test you couldn't get a weekend pass, so the incentive's at least do that, so the smart guys would just listen to enough to pass the test. But being Japanese, I was fatalistic; they were telling us we were going to Germany, I said fat chance. We're not going to Germany. We're gonna go to Korea. That's where the war is, not in Germany. And so I thought I'm back in school again and I took copious notes 'cause I figured if I, because I'm angry at these guys for what they're doing, they can't even pronounce the words, and I don't study and I don't know what's going on. I get into a war situation and a guy's dying and I don't know what to do with him because I didn't pay attention. The guy that did, gave us the poor lessons is gonna be scot free -- it's the other lesson, right? -- scot free and he's not gonna, nothin's gonna bother him, but me, it's gonna bother me for the rest of my life. So I said I got to study, got to study. Then had no problem with tests or anything. Only thing I didn't study was military 'cause I had taken ROTC at UCLA. It's pretty straightforward, and at the end of the class then we had, they said we're gonna have a test. First sergeant got up and he said, "Alright, we're gonna have a test, what you've learned. All those who've done, run well will get rank." We didn't have any rank. We were privates. The other companies were making draftees PFCs, but they wouldn't make us PFCs. They said we don't have time, we don't have time. There were those kind of excuses they gave to us. So we, all he draftees, of course, and especially the guys that we hung around with are all people who had gone to college or graduated college or something. We said hooray. Then he said, "All those who do poorly will lose their rank." Hooray. [Laughs] Well, then we took the test, and next day I'm walking and Sergeant Williams, who's a World War II vet, good guy, strict and everything else, good soldier, not partial, very good, he said, "Tonai, I want to talk to you." "Yes, Sergeant." He says, "Congratulations." I said, "Congratulations for what?" He said, "You came number one in medicine in the company." I said, "Really? Well, that's good." He said, "And you came number two in military." "Oh. That's good." The guy that came in number two in medicine was a guy that went to a medical school but before he graduated he was declassified as substandard. He later went to become a RN, then he became a chiropractor. He came in number two, 'cause he probably thought he didn't have to study, right? But he also was in the navy during the Japanese-China war. He was on, I believe, on a hospital ship, and in that for bravery he got the Navy Cross, which is second highest in the navy, next to the Medal of Honor. And so he used to have his, all his stripes and everything else, and so he was really chagrined.

TI: That you beat him.

MT: That I beat him. [Laughs] But he came in number one in military, of course. But anyway, so then Sergeant Williams says, "I want you to report to the dispensary." "Dispensary?" "Yeah, I want to report there." "Okay." "Tomorrow morning." "Okay, Sergeant." So I go next morning to the dispensary. I walk up there and this sergeant, young sergeant, National Guard sergeant, SFC or tech sergeant, two stripe sergeant, two [inaudible] sergeant, he says, "What are you doing here?" 'Cause I'm Japanese he knew who I was, and he's yellin' at me. I said, "Well, Sergeant Williams told me to report here." Whoops. He's not gonna cross Sergeant Williams, so, master sergeant, anyway, and then so he said, asked me, "Are you good at math?" I said I'm okay. I've taken some college math courses. I was okay. He said, "I want you to do this," and that is to make sure that everybody signs in the roster when they come in sick call. At the end of sick call, and then you hand them an emergency tag and he gets, and whatever treatment he gets, prescription or treatment that he got, will be recorded on there, and he would hand it to the guy. And then at the end of the day I would collect those and compare it with the roster to make sure I have a tag for each one. If one's missing I got to go find it. What if I have more tags than signed in? Throw it away. That was my mathematical ability. So I said it's stupid, but it's sure better than sitting out in the tulles, right? So I -- in the sagebrush, as they say -- and so I, 'cause they started another session of medical training again to keep us occupied, so then I'm sitting there and I'm doing that when up comes Sergeant Williams. "What the hell are you doing here?" I says, "Sergeant Crouch told me to do this." He goes up and chews the poor guy upside down. "He came in number one in the company in medicine, better than you did and all the other guys, and you've got him doing this stupid thing." He says, "Tonai, I want you to go into consultation." Now I'm upset. Consultation is where everybody goes in and that's where they diagnose the person, and they say this is the treatment you get with the medicine you get.

TI: So acting like a doctor.

MT: Yeah. And I'm saying, "Well I don't know anything about that." "Don't worry. Corporal Carter will tell you what to do." So I sit in with him, so he enters, Carter, and he says, "Sit in with him." So I'm listening, and mostly he's giving APC pill, which is [inaudible], and he's giving, take the ankle up 'cause they sprained an ankle or something like that, so relatively simple work. Occasionally some things I don't know about, there's this fungus and he's putting some salve on it and so forth, fungicide. And so I'm taking notes and figuring out what's going on. Two days later, "All right, Tonai, you take over." He takes off. I'm in a quandary, 'cause I don't know what to do. I want to do a decent job and I don't know what to do, and in the process I talked to the chemist, the UCLA grad. He said, "Go buy a Merck Manual. That'll help you 'cause that'll tell you a lot of the stuff that you don't know." So I bought a Merck Manual and that was my bible. I would say, "Just a moment please," and I would go in another room and look it up to find out what I'm supposed to do. And because I found out that the doctor, the National Guard doctor, he had a thyroid condition and so he wanted to stay in the army. He didn't want to go back to civilian life 'cause his thyroid condition. He had an operation, but he was still very nervous, and he then decided that he, the Table of Organization, TOE, said that he could be a major -- he was only a captain -- so he started chasing a, the commanding officer, who was a West Point grad -- that's stupid, the guy would know what he was doing -- and going, following him all over the place. So he was not available. When I left six people one day, he chewed me out. He didn't have time for six patients, a whole day. So now I'm in a quandary, what to do, so if I didn't know what to do, I couldn't figure it out, I would send them to division, to their medical company, medical division, company there. And sometimes they would get mad at me, say, "This is a, why don't you treat him like this? You shouldn't send him out here." But I didn't know what to do, so that's what I would do.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.