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TI: Yeah, so let's talk about this, this is a good time. So this is after the war, back in Seattle, they were having a big basketball tournament. And how many years after the war is this, about? This is... is this, like, still in the 1940s? Or is this in the early '50s?

VI: Must be 1950s.

TI: Okay, so early '50s, so this is...

VI: Well, let's see. We were at the hotel then, late '40 or early '50s.

TI: Okay. So they're going to have a big basketball tournament, and tell me what happens in terms of... because you want to get everyone together, right?

VI: Yeah. Because, for me, people that volunteered were my friends, people that went to McNeil were my friends. So I thought, well, since the basketball tournament, and they were coming from Chicago and all that.

TI: So this is really kind of, after the war, the first real opportunity to get some of the OTs back together again.

VI: Yeah.

TI: And just to kind of clarify, in terms of your journey, you left camp after high school, you were eventually drafted and you served in the army but it was towards the tail end, do you weren't part of the 442 and had a different...

VI: But they were my friends.

TI: Yeah, your friends.

VI: I thought they would be friends, too.

TI: But a lot of your friends were in the 442.

VI: Very bitter, yeah.

TI: Okay, so going back to the basketball tournament after the war, first chance to get your friends together, tell us what happened.

VI: Well, it really never happened. I got some of the, like Pancho, and he would come. But Sam Sakai, which is actually my oldest brother, I mean, he was very bitter. He was so bitter that he... certain experience they had with the 442, really, some of them were really, really bitter about people that way, even if they were good friends.

TI: Okay. So even before this basketball tournament, they had these individual experiences with 442 vets that made them feel really, really bad and bitter.

VI: Right. I think what had happened is as they saw their comrades dying, about that time, they heard about the people resisting the draft. So they were really, really, I  mean...

TI: So these are guys in the 442 who read about this, like, in the Minidoka Irrigator, the men who decide to resist the draft.

VI: Yeah, they knew who. I was really surprised how bitter they got. In fact, it's amazing how some of the members of the 442 were really bitter against Japan because when they had the training ships come, they just ignore them. Only the... now, they come to the NVC. In fact, this year they came to the NVC and we were playing poker, and they came to look at the museum that's there. But boy, they were really bitter.

TI: Oh, so decades after World War II, when Japanese visitors would come visit the NVC, you're saying some of the 442 vets would not participate, they would shun these visitors.

VI: Yeah. Training ships used to come. Well, the Issei group, they will accept them. Because if they came from the same prefecture, a lot of them get invited, but as an NVC.

TI: But I think when I've talked with you in the past, I think the thing that struck me was going back to that basketball tournament, how you were surprised at, I guess, the level of bitterness with, I guess, both the draft resisters and the 442 vets? Or did you already know that there was bitterness? I mean, you must have been surprised, because you tried to bring them all together and you said people didn't show up.

VI: Yeah, especially the people that got drafted and were with the MIS, they're not that. But the 442 friends were really...

TI: And so that's an interesting distinction, too. So the Nisei men who were military service, many of them served in the 442, but many also served with the MIS. And depending on that kind of service, you're saying generally they reacted differently to the draft resisters. The 442 guys were much more, I guess, kind of negative towards the draft resisters than the MIS guys?

VI: Except the other thing, too, is we noticed that the draft evaders were not shy, but they kind of belted away from the community, so that they're not part of it. So they didn't make any effort to try to come back to the community. They were always kind of out, and that's the way they felt. In fact, like George Nakagawa, who was a good friend of mine, he came to our first class reunion, and something happened. Because from that point on, every time we're at a reunion, I asked him if he would come. He says he'll never come to a reunion. So somebody must have said something about... and the crazy part about that, he was re-drafted and he served two years in the army.

TI: Yeah. I mean, there these, they called themselves resisters of conscience where they said no to the military service as long as their families were in camp, and they served time at federal penitentiaries because of that. But then after World War II, they then were drafted or volunteered to serve in, like, the Korean War, and actually served. And I think some of the things that you're talking about for the draft resisters and kind of their removal from the community is actually, I think, what you just said. I mean, when they're part of it, like George Nakagawa, when he went to a reunion, I think in terms of what people said to him were so painful that he...

VI: Right. And I was really surprised. He's a good friend. I'd ask him, "Are you coming?" he says no. And this was schoolmates, friends.

TI: I remember when I was doing Densho, the Mariners reached out -- this is back when Ichiro and Johjima were on the team -- and they said, "Hey, can you find some baseball players, Nisei baseball players? We'd like to have them on the field." And I reached out to you and, I think, George Nakagawa was the first person that came to mind, like, oh, George was a really good baseball player. So I know it was great to have him there, because I think it felt special to him that he could be there, and that you invited them.

VI: Yeah, remember how special that was for him?

TI: It was pretty cool to have you guys on the field with Ichiro and Johjima, and watching you guys interact with them.

VI: In his lifetime, he never thought he'd get to meet Ichiro, and here he had a chance to meet Ichiro. He was so happy about it that his family, the picture we took, they took it and they framed it.

TI: But part of it, too, was, I think it was meaningful to him that you invited him, that you reached out to him.

VI: Well, he didn't want to come at first.

TI: I know, I remember. And you convinced him to come.

VI: But I told the people I invited, and there were really maybe... he might have been 442 but...

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.