<Begin Segment 17>

TI: So in 1944, you and I guess the other guys all got drafted?

GN: One guy, he was a football classmate of mine from Kent, he never told us he was born in Japan. He was born in Japan so he didn't get drafted or called up for a physical or anything like that. He went back east and went to a chick sexing school, then he worked around the Midwest and ended up in Denver.

TI: And so this man, was he also, did he start in Pinedale also?

GN: Yeah.

TI: At that time, do you think if the WRA knew that he was a Japanese citizen, would they have let him go, do you think? I'm curious, the rest of you were U.S. citizens, he was a Japanese national.

GN: They didn't care. My younger brother, he came out there the second year, and he was born in Japan. I had a hard time, he didn't want to go back to school, he had one more year of school to go to.

TI: I was just wondering if the bar was higher in terms of who they let leave camp for work?

GN: No. It didn't make a bit of difference whether you're American-born or Japan-born. "Jap's a Jap," I guess. [Laughs]

TI: So it sounds like about seven of you then got drafted, one didn't, but the rest of you got drafted?

GN: Yeah.

TI: And then, so what happened next? You guys take your physical?

GN: We all took our physical within about a month's time, it seemed like. But the guys that went back to camp, just as soon as they passed the physical, they said, "Oh, I'm going to go back to camp and see the family," so they went back to camp. They were drafted right, called up right away. But my brother and I stayed there, we didn't want to go back to Heart Mountain from there. So we stayed there until the end there, and we were the last ones to get called up.

TI: Okay. And you were thinking that maybe they postponed it until after the harvest?

GN: The sugar company must have had us deferred for the rest of the season.

TI: So, and that difference, made a difference in that the ones who were called up earlier, they ended up going to Europe?

GN: They ended up in Europe with the replacements for the 442nd.

TI: Whereas you, those three months later, you trained later, so you weren't sent.

GN: Went to train with the mixed group. Which worked out real well for me.

TI: So describe that. Why did it work out better for you?

GN: Well, 'cause there was only three of us Japanese in my platoon. There was only thirteen of us in the company. So I don't know, the hakujin, all the officers were, and the sergeants were all white guys, and they had heard about the record of the 442nd and all that, and they knew we were from camp. So they treated us real well.

TI: Now was there any friction or tension? Because I'm guessing at this point, these men are being trained to go fight against the Japanese, because the war in Europe is kind of winding down, and the war in the Pacific is still going on. So were there any, kind of, talk about that?

GN: No, Europe was still going... when I was, final months of basic training, Battle of the Bulge was going on real strong. Because our officers and sergeants got, all of a sudden they disappeared and then we found out they were all shipped out.

TI: Okay. So it sounds like, in this sort of integrated unit, the Japanese were treated pretty well.

GN: Yeah, yeah. We were treated real well.

TI: So after you finished basic training in Texas, where did you go?

GN: From there I got called to Camp Ritchie in Maryland. That's where I run into Senator Inouye who made an actor out of me.

TI: So tell me that story. So at this point, you said Senator Inouye, but at this point he was a lieutenant?

GN: He was a lieutenant.

TI: And he had returned to stateside after being injured with his arm?

GN: Yeah.

TI: So he had his arm removed, and so what was he doing?

GN: He was there probably... they didn't know what to do with him, so they had him segregate us actors, you know the guys that could speak well, and the guys that, like the Hawaiians, they're absolutely useless, 'cause the haole guys won't be able to understand 'em. So they were in the group that was marching around in the front. I don't know what the rest of the guys -- we never talked about what we were doing. Only guys we knew were the three that I was with, myself and two other Niseis.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2014 Densho. All Rights Reserved.