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TI: So let's talk about your siblings a little bit. So your oldest brother John volunteers, and joins the army. How much contact did the family have with him at that point? Was he sending letters back and forth? Did you ever see a letter from him or did you ever write a letter to him?

FS: No, not me personally. I know he communicated with my sisters, primarily Betty. But I never did receive a personal letter from him. I don't have a letter from either one of 'em that I could say, Tom, here's a letter I got from Bob or John when they were in the service.

TI: Now, did either return and visit the family while they were in camp, after they had left for the service?

FS: Yes. I remember both of them coming and visiting, but I don't remember too much details about it.

TI: Now, would they stay in the family apartment when they came, or they stay someplace else?

FS: You know, that I don't remember. I don't remember that.

TI: Yeah, because I know they had a USO and stuff like that, I wonder if they just had a place for soldiers. I don't know either, I'm just curious.

FS: I don't remember guys that came back on leave, any of the others staying in any particular place or anything. I just don't remember too much about that.

TI: And so you had that time period where men were either volunteering or later on the draft, going in. But then eventually, especially like in 1944, when the 442 was really active and fighting, talk about that time period. As the 442 starts engaging more in battle, and you started seeing casualties, how did that impact the families and people in camp?

FS: I don't know that I can answer that well, Tom. The only thing I know is my mother never said too much. My dad didn't say too much, but I knew my mother was very worried. How did I know that? Well, just things that she'd say, you knew that she was constantly worried about them being in the service. And kind of an interesting thing, you know, while they were overseas, my dad left camp on leave, and he was working for a turkey farmer in Wendell, Idaho, about a half hour, forty-five minutes away. And my mom would go out there to help him, and she lived in a trailer. And I'd even go out there to help my dad, but one of the key things I remember is my mother would take a huge turkey, butcher it, and she'd can it in a regular quart jar like this. And then she would have me take a regular paper bag, put that jar of turkey in the center, put rice, uncooked rice around it, pack it, and we'd send those care packages to Bob and John. And Bob used to always tell me that whenever he got that care package, all the guys really enjoyed it. They would cook rice in their helmets and enjoy the turkey that my mom had canned, actually. And that was, as he used to say, so much better than k-rations. [Laughs]

TI: Because they had rice.

FS: Yeah.

TI: And the rice was a dual function. Not only was it food, but it was probably packing material, too.

FS: Yeah, yeah. So it kept the jars intact, and I did that often.

TI: Oh, that's a good story. And how did you know that they cooked the rice in the helmets? Did Bob tell you that later on?

FS: I asked him. I said, Bob, how did you guys cook the rice? He says, "Oh, we used to just cook it right in the helmet, it's an open fire." I can't imagine how good the rice was, but I guess it was okay. He said the guys all enjoyed it.

TI: Yeah, that's a good story. You know, when you said your mom was worried, was she more worried about, say, Bob, who was in the infantry, 442, versus John? Did the family have a sense of the differences between MIS versus 442?

FS: You know, I never sensed any difference. My mom was worried, obviously, more about Bob, because she knew that he was in combat. And kind of an interesting story, you know, Bob had an injury on his arm that he got in combat, and I learned this later on, they wanted to give him a Purple Heart for it, he wouldn't accept it. He didn't want my mom to know that he'd been hurt. So there was a sensitivity both ways.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2017 Densho. All Rights Reserved.