<Begin Segment 39>

DG: Okay. Now this, about joining the 442nd... now, in February of 1943 -- so we've gone from September to Christmas and now we're into the first of the year. There was a "loyalty question." Can you tell me about that?

NS: Yes. It was all over camp that they were going to be a questionnaire circulated for people to assert their loyalty and so that went around.

DG: And it really consumed the energy of everybody.

NS: Yes. There were -- because a lot of the Kibei were suspicious that -- and a lot of them that had grown up in Japan were, well, they were skeptical about their treatment here in the United States. Having been brought up in Japan, I think they felt that Japan would have treated them better or something; that they might have had a conflict in their own feelings at that time.

DG: Now, you had four brothers.

NS: (Yes).

DG: What was...

NS: They were all, I mean, they weren't Kibei. They were all loyal to the U.S. They didn't know anything about Japan, even though Mako, the oldest, had been to Japan and the youngest had been there. But they were not sympathetic to Japan at all.

DG: So they all volunteered.

NS: So they all volunteered for the 442nd.

DG: What did your mother say?

NS: Mako, the oldest, wasn't accepted because he had asthma when he was younger and so with lung problems, he was not physically able to join the army. But the other three volunteered. And Harry was the oldest of the three, and he was the football player and the biggest one of the three. And I suppose he had more leadership qualities than the other younger boys, so he was chosen to go to officers training school. And so he became an officer and he stayed at Shelby until they closed up.

DG: What did your mother say about all this?

NS: She didn't say anything about the boys growing up. She let them, more or less, grow up the way they...

DG: But she didn't mind their all volunteering?

NS: No, she was all for it. She, of course -- all the parents were skeptical because they didn't want their children to be slain, you know.

DG: Right.

NS: And they were worried about that. In fact, one of her best friends didn't want her son to go because she was afraid for him. And she had a nervous breakdown, I think, afterwards, because her son was killed in the war. But it was the only son and she doted on him and it was just too bad. It was sad, but those things do happen.

DG: What did you think for yourself?

NS: Well, I thought that -- you mean, about my brothers going? Well, I just thought that it was up to them; after all, it was their life.

DG: Was there any need to show loyalty?

NS: No, it was their own choice. I mean, if they felt that they wanted to go with their friends and go to the 442nd, that was up to them. I mean, nothing I said would...

DG: But what was their reason for going then?

NS: Well, that they were all going to show their loyalty.

DG: They needed to do that?

NS: They needed to do that. And they wanted to go with their friends and they did.

<End Segment 39> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.