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MN: What was the hardest part about boot camp training?

RW: Well, I guess the hardest, there's two things. There's a mental hardness and there's a physical hardness. The mental hardness was learning to deal with the discipline, the harassment, the harsh mental treatment, just saying, "Yes, Sir," an immediate response was a, "Yes, Sir," whatever they tell you. If the drill sergeant sticks his nose right in your nose and says, "If I told you to kill your mother would you kill your mother?" "Yes, Sir." You know, it's not a, "Oh, Sir. I don't know if I'd kill my mother." I mean, you don't give that kind of answer. But they don't expect you to kill your mother; it's just, it's, they want that immediate "Yes, Sir." When you go to combat they want that immediate, "Okay, we're gonna do this, we're gonna take that hill," and, "Yes, Sir," and you go. You learn not to question. And so the mental harassment was hard, but I think for me the hard part was the physical part, like going into the so-called gas chamber and taking off the gas mask and having to sing the entire Marines' Hymn before they let you out of that Quonset hut where they were having the gas chamber. And the other physical thing I remember the most was putting on full backpack, rifle, helmet, everything you had, canteen of water, and then they took us out to the beach and we walked for miles in that sand in the beach. And if you ever want to know what that feels like just take a fifty pound bag of something and throw it on your back and walk along the beach and that's what it felt like. To me it almost felt like a hundred pound sack of rice, but I don't think we had a hundred pounds, but we had more than fifty pounds.

MN: Did you ever have second thoughts about joining the Marines while you're going through boot camp?

RW: Not at all. Bat and I talked about it when, we were gonna get through it. One of us was not gonna fail, and we pretty much were determined to get through it.

MN: Now, were you the only Asian American in your unit?

RW: Oh, yeah. I was the only Asian American. We had maybe three or four blacks now -- they were now integrated -- a number of Mexican Marines, but I was the only Asian at that time. I think I ran into one other Nisei. He was from San Diego, that I knew from Poston. I saw him at Camp Pendleton, but that was the only other Japanese that I saw. Although I did see, on the boat going to Korea I saw Vince Okamoto's younger brother, Roy, 'cause I knew Roy in Poston. I didn't talk to him and I'm still kicking myself for being stuck up and seeing him on the boat, saw his name on his back, Okamoto, and not realizing that it was the same Okamoto that I knew in camp, 'cause this is a few years later. I still regret not saying anything. And then when we were over on Hill 749 I saw him, I think he was in engineers, mine clearing, and he was on the hill in the trenches there. I saw him again and I could've said something to him there, but I didn't. I wish I did.

MN: Well, you're friends with Vince Okamoto, so you must see Roy also.

RW: Well, Roy lives in Chicago, I think. So I just saw him, I think, at a funeral, talked to him for a little while.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.