<Begin Segment 23>

TI: So after you finished school, after you graduated from high school, what did you do next?

TU: It was May of '44. And at that time, they were re-drafting Japanese American citizens. And I didn't want the draft board to tell me where to go, so I wrote a letter to MIS school in Savage, Minnesota. And this personnel director, Major Paul Rush, wrote back and said, "Write something in Japanese." And so I don't know what I wrote, but I wrote something in katakana and hiragana and sent this letter up there. Right away he says, "We want you to come in." So that's when I told the judge that the MIS school wants to have me. So he said, "I'll call the local draft board, that is the Des Moines draft board, and make arrangements for your induction." I said, 'That's fine." He went through all that trouble to set it up, so I had no problem. They sent tickets to me to go from Des Moines to Camp Dodge, Iowa. There were tickets for two or three other guys that were traveling with me.

TI: And this was to your basic training?

TU: No, Camp Dodge is just the induction center.

TI: I see.

TU: Okay, so I stayed there one or two nights, and I called up the Allens, I felt real lonely, you know. I called up the Allens and they said, "Well, we'll come out and see you." So they drove out. And she said, "You know, you did exactly what our son would have done. Our son Don would have done the same thing."

TI: Called them when you were lonely.

TU: Yeah. [Laughs]

TI: So there was a real special fondness or feeling between you and the Allens.

TU: Yeah. So they were wonderful people, and so they kept up with me.

TI: So I want to go back, and there are two questions I have. The first one is, your classmates that graduated the same year, did very many of the others volunteer for service when you all graduated?

TU: Well, see, this is before graduation. Just a week or so before graduation I'm in the army. So our graduation ceremony took place while I was not there anymore.

TI: So you missed your graduation?

TU: Yeah. But the interesting thing is by that time, my friend Joe was living at the Allens, and the graduation day, he attended the graduation service. Whoever read the names of the people who were in service, I don't know how many, but anyway, "In the service of the United States Armed Forces, Marvin Uratsu." And he said, "I felt so proud of you." [Laughs] But anyway...

TI: So there were other classmates that had volunteered while they were still in school.

TU: Yeah, there must have been. I don't know just how many were on that principal's list.

TI: And this is John Mackie?

TU: Well, Joe Nakamura.

TI: Oh, Joe Nakamura, okay. Got it.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.