<Begin Segment 13>

AI: Now when your draft notice came, where were you?

RS: I was in Ontario, Oregon. Working in the fields and I just turned eighteen in April and I got drafted in August. So I had about four months there at the age of eighteen, then I got drafted.

AI: And, in August now do you recall was that before or after that atom bombing in Hiroshima?

RS: I think it was just before, just before, because V-J Day was in, I think later in the fall. So yeah, I was -- it wasn't then, it was after I went in.

AI: And where did you -- after you reported, then where did you go?

RS: I reported from Ontario, and went to Fort Douglas, Utah, and probably stayed there three, four, five days. Then I went to Camp Hood, Texas, and I took my basic training there. And...

AI: What was Texas like?

RS: Texas was... well there again, it was kind of a barren waste to me. And then I noticed there was a white and black restrooms, and I just... first time in my life I saw that. So of course I just went in the white, and there was nothing said, and I don't know how long that was there like that.

AI: And when you were in basic, were you segregated? In a Japanese group?

RS: No, we were not. The colored people were at that time, but we were not. We were with the Caucasian or anybody else.

AI: And then what happened after Texas? Where did you go from there?

RS: From Texas, they sent out a questionnaire and asking if we knew Japanese language or Japanese, yeah, Japanese language. And I filled out the questionnaire, and I guess I qualified, so they send me to Fort Snelling, Minnesota for language school. So I attended there for several months.

AI: So that was for the Military Intelligence Service, the MIS at Fort Snelling?

RS: Yes, mm hmm, mm hmm.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.