<Begin Segment 16>

BN: So before we get to San Francisco, I wanted to ask you about Haluto. So can you tell, talk about his story? Was he drafted?

RM: Drafted, yeah.

BN: And this is after you were in Utah.

RM: Yeah. I think he wanted to graduate with the Granada, the Amache people that he was in school with, so he went back to Amache just to graduate. And I think that's where he got his draft notices, and so he went to Fort Douglas, Utah, which is right at Salt Lake City. And I don't know where he trained, I don't know if they trained at Fort Douglas, I don't think they did. So I don't know where he trained, but then before he went overseas, he came and talked, talked at the class and then he went to Shelby.

BN: And then he wrote back to...

RM: Yeah, I wrote him a lot of letters when I was in... and in fact, his mother told me that when his letters were returned after he was killed, his bloodstained letters that I had written him was returned. But I haven't seen that, they didn't show me that letter. This was all letters to his sister. It starts with this letter, I start this letter that his father wrote to him when he went back into camp, told him about that ping pong is all right to be good at, but to, "study hard," because he said, "there's going to be a lot of opportunity for you after the war," but unfortunately he never made it. So I started off with that letter. And I have a little letter in the back, because the younger, the only girls that's alive now never knew him. So I just told a little bit about him from my perspective.

BN: How did you find out about, that he was killed?

RM: I can't remember. But I think I was living in American Fork, and the family had moved to Salt Lake City at that time to work in in the city instead of farming. And the interesting thing is, when the war ended, the mother and June, the sister, met every troop train that went through to see if they could find someone that would have known him. And fortunately they did. One of the troop trains that went by had the 442 in it, and they got to talk to him. They recognized her because he had pictures of her, and so they recognized her. And I had talked to someone that knew him. In fact, he said he was right behind him when he was killed. In fact, his son worked for (JANM). You know Hamada? What was his name, first name? I can't remember. He was working the front desk, his son had the same name. Miles.

BN: Oh, yeah.

RM: Well, his father, when I talked to him, he was already in the nursing home in Boyle Heights. But he remembered that Haluto, when he was hit by or he was killed, he was hit by a mortar. He was a walkie-talkie carrier, he carried a radio for his company commander.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.