<Begin Segment 6>

BY: And so after you graduated from high school, what did you do?

DY: I went to junior college, Montgomery junior college, and that was in Takoma Park, Maryland. And then I went to University of Maryland to study engineering, and then I flunked out, and then I volunteered for the army.

BY: And how old were you when that happened?

DY: About twenty-two.

BY: Okay. And so where did you do your basic training?

DY: Fort Dix.

BY: Fort Dix, all right. And so what was it like being in the army? Were you again in the minority, and how were you treated?

DY: I was treated like everybody else. However, I completed basic training and I was transferred over to Fort Devens, Massachusetts, in an army security agency. They were lined up to get our bedding, and the lieutenant looked at me and says, "You were in the Menehune Platoon." And he says, "What the hell is the Menehune Platoon?" Well, if you don't want to be in Menehune, you're on KP. Looks like I'm a Menehune. Turned out that the Menehune were a platoon with Japanese Americans, and they played aggressors to the training. So we played the Viet Cong.

BY: So you were the bad guys.

DY: I was the bad guys, right.

BY: So Menehune is a Hawaiian word. Was it a platoon made up of Hawaiian soldiers?

DY: Right, and one Papago Indian.

BY: Okay, all right. And you were trained as what at that time? What were you being trained in?

DY: In electronics, technician.

BY: All right. So you got this specialized training and then what happened?

DY: Well, they gave me a form, your first choice of assignment says, "Send me to Germany." Second choice, "Send me to Germany," third choice, "Send me to Germany."

BY: Why did you want to go to Germany in particular?

DY: Because it's geographically as far to be stationed as for Vietnam. So I figured that it would be inconvenient for them to switch me to Vietnam because I had a problem. I realized that during the training, my mind didn't know the good guys from the bad guys. I was the enemy. Later on, I figured out, if you look on the website, look up "Stanford Prison Experiment." The guy came up with the idea, okay, students, half of them were guards, half of them were prisoners. And they got through one week of the experiment and the guy's wife said, "You got to shut it down. People are reacting negatively to the experiment." And they figured out that your brain, you know you're being pretend, but you role play as a prisoner or role play as a guard, your brain trains yourself to be a guard or to be... and I did that for a year. So I was a danger if I was assigned to Vietnam. If somebody looked at me, in his view, Vietnam or GI. And you know what he's thinking. So I made up my mind, says, okay, for self preservation. You look at the tip of his rifle, if it starts moving in your direction, you have no choice, shoot him. It was a long time for me to say that was a decision that I made for fear that people would react, but now I'm comfortable making that decision, saying that.

BY: So it sounds like, growing up as one of the only Japanese Americans in Maryland, in Bethesda, going to predominately white school, and then going into the army and being forced to play the role of the Viet Cong, really had a deep psychological impact on you.

DY: Yeah.

BY: So you decided, "I want to get as far away from that as I can," so you went to Germany.

DY: Right.

BY: Yeah. So and so what did you do in Germany?

DY: I repaired equipment so the army can listen to the Russians listen to us, so we monitored the communications.

BY: And were things better for you in Germany?

DY: What?

BY: Were things better for you in Germany? Did you like it?

DY: I liked Germany, but I was in the army. The desirable thing, to be in Germany and not be in the army.

BY: Okay.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.