<Begin Segment 11>

DG: Well, can you tell me more about the war?

AS: Don't think of more... isn't that enough?

DG: It's very interesting to me. Can you -- you told me before about what your father thought of the draft. Tell me again what your father said to you about the military and the draft, and joining, enlisting in the...

AS: Yeah, you mean for the draft that we had? He was against it, but he never fought when I got drafted. I was workin' on my cousin's farm then, and he didn't say nothing. He just... he, he let me go. Isn't that somethin'?

DG: What did he say about enlisting?

AS: What?

DG: Enlisting in the army.

AS: No, he didn't want me to volunteer. A lot of people volunteered. To me, I thought that was stupid. That's a heck of a thing to say. You know, they draft you in the camp, put you in the camp, and you volunteer? Isn't that... do you believe in that? Huh? I thought that was stupid. That's my thinking. I was only twenty years old then. I was, I wasn't smart, I was dumb in school. I didn't know much. But, I went out, I didn't like to stay in camp. What do you do? You go crazy goin' there. I went... I got a, my cousin was farming in Weiser, Idaho, so I worked for him. And I thought maybe, well, they can maybe defer me. But, no, they took me out of the farm and put me in the army.

DG: And where were you in the army... where were you sent while you were in the army?

AS: Huh?

DG: Where, what did you do in the army?

AS: I was an MP. I took the basic training for 442, remember? The famous? And when I got out... oh, when I finished my training, the war was over in Germany. So we were the first ship going across, you know, when the war was over. So instead of takin' seven days to go to England, only took three days because we didn't have to go this way, see. [Laughs] Yeah, I stayed in... they put me in MPs there for two years. That was a boring job. No, it is; it is a real boring job. I know I wouldn't want to be in military police. You know, routine, day after day after day after day. I stuck it out. [Laughs]

DG: And then you came back to Bainbridge Island to start farming again --

AS: 1947. '07 I'll have sixty years of farming. I got, if I live that long, I got another thirty days to live, maybe. I'm, I'm lucky I'm here today even talkin' to you because, in, what was that, February or March I had that major heart attack.

DG: And you look great.

AS: Well, I didn't think I was gonna ever come back. I didn't even know where I was. I was totally berserk, honest to God. I didn't know if I was on Bainbridge Island, or I was in Seattle. I didn't know where I was. They just said, "Well, you got a strong heart." I said, "Oh yeah? How come I had a heart attack then?" [Laughs]

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.