<Begin Segment 24>

TI: How did she feel about you being in the military with the prospects of going to Vietnam?

HY: Oh, well, we didn't know about Vietnam or anything like that. I guess I don't know how she felt about that. Anyway, when I got out of OCS and got the mission, I managed... see, because if you're a top graduate in the program, which I was, you could choose your military occupation, so I chose infantry. In fact, the top graduates went to the infantry instead of going to other things like supply or something like that. So I got to Camp Pendleton, which is back here next to Anaheim, and we got married. And then that first year I hardly saw her because I was training. And I didn't know that, but we're going, ready to go overseas. Went on a cruise and all that, getting ready to go to Vietnam. My first anniversary was July 7th.

TI: And what year would this be?

HY: '64. And our anniversary in July '65, I was sitting off the coast of Vietnam ready to make an embarkation onto Qui Nhon. So that first year, we hardly saw each other because I was in training and so forth. But I remember the last day before I went to Vietnam, it was kind of like, you know, you felt like you were kind of drowning because you didn't know, you knew you were going to have to end, and you didn't know what was going to happen after that. And I remember we went to Laguna Niguel and she read a book and I was going to fish off the pier. And then it was just like, you know that life is going to change dramatically. By the end of the evening, we had to be aboard ship.

TI: Did you guys have, do you recall the conversation the two of you had that day?

HY: Yeah. It was hard to talk because you knew this was going to... we did have dinner together with the rest of the officers in the battalion or in the company that we knew. Most of us had married after getting out of OCS. So at least we had the friends, and then after that dinner, we had dinner, in fact, in La Jolla, and then we went to San Diego to board the ship that evening. I remember we, the enlisted men weren't able to get off ship because the fear was we would have a lot of, trying to get people back aboard ship. But I remember one of my men's wives and came and she was crying, she wanted to see her husband before we left. There was nothing I could do for that, and I just felt guilty because I was able to get off and see my wife and they couldn't. So that was kind of, one of the most, saddest days, I guess, having to leave my wife and also having to see my, the wives of my men who were trying to see their husbands.

TI: And at this point, you're about twenty-six years old?

HY: Yes, this is '64, so I was twenty-five.

TI: Twenty-five. It just sounds so young.

HY: Yeah. You know, I see people who are twenty-five, and it was young, but I didn't feel that young. I was actually older than most of my fellow officers because I had been enlisted for a couple years after college, university.

TI: And was it pretty common for the others to have a college degree also?

HY: Uh-huh. Yeah, most of them, they all had college degrees and they went from college into the Marine Corps. So I was about two years older than most of them.

TI: Before we... or anything else about that departure with your wife that you remember? I mean, the conversation, what did you two talk about?

HY: I guess just about family. Yeah, I just, we didn't talk mostly, it was just being together.

TI: How about your parents? Did you have a talk or conversation with them before you left?

HY: Not really, no. I saw them a couple months before. I talked to my dad on the phone, but...

TI: Were they still upset with you for doing this?

HY: Well, after I became an officer they weren't so upset. But, of course, they were upset that I would be going off to Vietnam. You know, we really didn't know if there was going to be a war then. Some Marine units had already landed, in May they had landed in Vietnam. But you know, there wasn't really much fighting going on at that time. In fact, we didn't know. We might be going to Indonesia because it made sense, right? The Marine Corps was an amphibious force, and Vietnam was more of a land warfare type of thing.

TI: I'm curious, during your training or anything, or when you're in the army, did the 442nd ever come up in terms of any discussions or anything in terms of when you're in the army?

HY: No, no.

TI: Or Marines, I'm sorry, the Marines.

HY: In the Marine Corps? No. But you know, it was in my mind, I mean, I remember my uncle and my cousins. And kind of, well, it would have been nice if we still had our own unit, a Japanese unit. Because I'm sure the bond was much stronger in the 442 because they were all Japanese Americans. Whereas, you know, in the Marine Corps, people from all walks of life were there.

TI: I remember having a conversation with Senator Inouye about this, because he was saying the same thing in terms of how special the 442nd was. Because it truly was, he said, a band of brothers. Their backgrounds were so similar and they felt that... but then I said, so is that an argument for more of a segregated unit? And of course he had to kind of, "Of course, no." But he did have those similar feelings that it was a very special feeling. Did you have a conversation with anyone before you went to Vietnam that you were close to, like a brother, cousin, or anything? Or was it pretty much you were kind of on your own doing this?

HY: Yeah, well, we were under orders, you know, not to discuss this with anybody. I mean, the departure was supposed to be a secret. In fact, I didn't tell my wife for quite some time, until I started making out my will and all that. She said, "Are you not telling me something?"

TI: So she must have been pretty concerned, I'll say concerned, or how would you describe how she was taking all this?

HY: She was very, very good about it, very strong. She was by herself, we were living in Oceanside at that time, and she was teaching school. But you know, she kept it together pretty well. I know we were talking the other day about the day we left, that's always burned in our minds about how that day was. Just going through the motions during the day and just sort of not knowing what's going to happen afterwards.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.