<Begin Segment 20>

MN: Now, yourself, when did you leave Poston?

DM: It was in the early part of '44. I just chose Cleveland 'cause it sounded like a nice town. We were allowed to leave anywhere except for California, Oregon and Washington. So they gave us a ticket to Cleveland, we left sometime in early part of February, I think. Of course, my friend Tosh left the same day. His destination was Chicago. We got on a train in Poston.

MN: Poston or Parker?

DM: Parker, I'm sorry, Parker. There wasn't any station in Poston, Train stopped at Parker, and then next stop was Winslow, Arizona. And when the train stopped in Winslow, Arizona, Tosh suggests, "Hey, there's a restaurant over across the street, let's go get a steak dinner." 'Cause we hadn't had steak in years. So we went and got, ate our steak dinner, rushed back to the station, and the train had just left with our baggage, ticket and everything on the car. And there was a... before that, before we got on a train, in camp, one of the parents came up to me and told me that his daughter, she's around thirteen, fourteen years old, "would be going on the same train with you. She's going to Chicago, would you keep on her and see that she gets there safely?" So I nodded and said sure. But when we got left at the station in Winslow, had to have the stationmaster call the next station, tell that stationmaster to ask this girl to put our things together and drop 'em off at that station. So she did that. [Laughs] So she took care of us instead of me taking care of her.

So we ended up in, I ended up in Cleveland. In those days, they had a place called hostel every town. This hostel was owned by a young Quaker family, couple. It was a big old two-story wooden house in Cleveland where we got our board and room until we found our own place. And the next day, I had to go look for a job. So a country boy with no hat and just a jacket, I was traveling up and down the street, snow falling, slushy streets, looking for a job. And I went into this Chrysler Plymouth dealer, and the owner was a man named Zettelmeier, a German man. He hired me right away as a mechanic, and being a new mechanic there, I got all the dirty work, like crawling under a car to change a muffler as the water and the slush would drip on me.

And that kind of stuff, which lasted for another two months when I got a notice from the draft board to report for a physical. In the meantime, I did find a hotel room with another fellow from Seattle, Washington, his name was Gene Kumagai. We both got the notice to report, so we went for a physical. I passed, and at the end of the line where this interviewer stamped my paper, he stamped "navy." I saw the word "navy" in there and said, "Hey, you gonna put me in the navy?" And he said, "Oh, no, that was a mistake." So he erased it and stamped "army." When I got back, I asked Gene, "How'd you do?" "Well, I flunked out, I was 4-F." Said, "What happened?" He said, "They said my heart is in the wrong place, that's why they rejected me." So I never saw Gene after that. So about two more weeks working at the garage, I said, "I better head out of here before they call me." So I went back to Poston.

Soon as I got to Poston, I got a notice, "Report to Salt Lake City for induction." And from Salt Lake, with a bunch of other Nisei kids, we got on this train, creaky old passenger car, traveled all the way to Fort Blanding which took us two days. That's Fort Blanding, Florida. Think it was near Jacksonville. And we started our nine weeks' basic training.

MN: You know when you were traveling into Florida, you were going through a lot of segregated states. Did you have to deal with the "whites only" blacks only" sections?

DM: No, we weren't even allowed to get off the train, I don't think. They had a meal car on the train where we ate. Of course, there were other soldiers, too, Caucasian soldiers on the train. We weren't allowed to get off.

MN: I have one question. Going back to that German Chrysler Plymouth dealer person that hired you? Do you think he hired you because Germany and Japan were allies?

DM: I think he took pity on me, 'cause right away he hired me.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.