<Begin Segment 17>

EG: So you were, where did you do your basic training then?

TM: After about a couple of weeks and more and more of us, the Japanese, American Japanese, Japanese Americans gathered at Fort Lewis and we didn't know where and when we were going. We were getting inoculations every day.

EG: Was this a segregated group?

TM: No.

EG: No.

TM: Like any other place.

EG: Just a group of draftees.

TM: Yeah. And I think we went to Arkansas, Camp Robinson, about April. Either that or toward the end of March. I think probably toward the end of March, from Fort Lewis. And before we left for Arkansas, a couple of boys like us from Wapato area were told to go home and do work on the farm. They said, "You should go home and work on the farm. We need you at the farm," so they were told. [Laughs]

EG: But you were still responsible to the army? Or they were pushing you out to go do farm work.

TM: They were, they were, I think, discharged. Yeah. They were told to go back to their farm and work on the farm.

EG: Now, these were Japanese American boys you're talking about.

TM: Yes, just like us.

EG: Uh-huh. But not you.

TM: No. I wasn't from the farm.

EG: No, so you stayed in the service.

TM: That's right.

EG: At that point.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.