<Begin Segment 9>

BN: So you said you graduated in '66, and then what happens after that?

NN: Since I wasn't doing well, since I didn't do well in school, I guess it was time for a new chapter of my life that my father gave me a choice of going in the army, get a job, or you go to school. And if you go to school, you ain't going to school over here, you got to go to live with Grandma and go to school at College of the Sequoias in Visalia. So I thought about it, and I felt like working. I wouldn't go into the army, so I went to live with my Baachan and go to school at junior college, College of the Sequoias.

BN: And how did that go?

NN: Really well. For the first time, there wasn't too much to do out there except get healthy, fresh air, and my grandma's looking after me and feeding me.

BN: Were your cousins still out there?

NN: Just my cousin David, he's like a year younger. And he's the only one of the Nagatani boys that actually stayed at Hanford. And David was, he could have been the mayor of Hanford, really cool guy. Nice car, could kick ass if he needed to. Everybody got along with him. So anyway, just, David was there. So when I was living in Hanford for the first year that I applied myself, I excelled in school. So I was getting As and made the President's List, and I made the... let's see, the junior college basketball team. So I was doing very well. And so I did that for a year and got a whole bunch of college credits, which really helped me out later in life. I was close to getting an AA over there, then I'd come back in the summertime, kind of like everything was, gradually I'd kind of fall back into my old routine. And I went back for my second year and I stayed there, I lasted one semester. I guess as soon as the basketball season ended, that I came home then enrolled in LACC, and didn't do well over there. I mean, I didn't go to class, started hanging with my homies again. I mean, it wasn't all them, it was all me, but just didn't have the fortitude or the strength to think independently.

BN: And so this would have been '66-'67, so '67-'68, you're back in L.A. And then from there, you end up...

NN: Like from there, it wasn't even about school. School was like an afterthought, but now, I'm nineteen, or whatever, or enough like, people now were figuring out what they're going to do with the rest of your life. I'm still wanting to have fun, looking for excitement, and not finding it. Doing things that are deadbeat, kind of living this lifestyle, we're staying pretty high most of the day, still looking for the parties. And I guess it got to a point where I pretty much, just not coherent to reality, I have my own separate reality. And I ended up a day where four of us were, started the day off at one of my friends' house, and he was going to the recruiting station, because I think he had some type of issue he was trying to get out of. And the other three of us said, "You know what? We'll tag along and we'll go." And then we all went in there, stumbling in there in a drug-induced stupor, or stupid. And a couple hours later, we were Marines. A day in the life, yeah. So that was a life-changer. So a lot of significant things in my life, just was not planned or spontaneous.

BN: So you just went in and came out a Marine?

NN: [Laughs] Had no idea that morning that I'm going to end up a Marine, and I did.

BN: What was your draft status at that point?

NN: I don't even know. You know what? I may have still been enrolled at LACC.

BN: Oh, okay, so you were exempt. So you didn't know if you were, where you were in terms of the lottery?

NN: No. In fact, they didn't even have a lottery then at that time. In fact, back then, it was still volunteer.

BN: Okay.

NN: It was still volunteer. The draft was not instituted yet.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.