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HM: Where did you serve in the military after you...

KO: I was drafted after this orchard incident, instance. I thought to myself, "Well, with the little bit of cash in my pocket I'm going to go out and see the world." So I relocated to Chicago and there was a... there was an organization out in Chicago there that assisted people who were resettling and through their help I was able to make that move and they put me up for a couple of weeks until I got my bearings and after I got a job. I got a job in a liquor warehouse. I mean liquor, the real stuff. Old Forrester I think was their top of the line. But they had everything else. You name it, they had it. And then I got in touch with a couple of buddies, one of them of which I knew from the orchard. And they had an apartment and I imposed and talked my way into bunking up with them. That worked out fine, at least from my point of view.

After a few months in Chicago and now it was summer and gettin' warm, I got my draft notice that I was to report for a pre-induction physical at someplace in Chicago. I think it was right in the Loop someplace. But, well apparently I passed. They were joking about it. They said some guy made a comment that the navy was looking for good little guys like me in submarine service or something. I took 'em up on it. I said, "Okay, I'll volunteer for the navy." Knowing that the army was hot after me anyhow. But that didn't work. The navy guy shook his head, no. So I ended up one step ahead of the draft board. I moved back to camp in Idaho and I did my duty. I notified the local draft board that I was back. After that there was a delay of at least three months. I had all summer long to kill. From that point I was called up by the local draft board, Jerome, Idaho or some such, to report. Inducted into the army. It was, by that time, late summer. Went through Fort Douglas, Utah. And then a long train ride down. We knew, we did not know where we were headed for.

But we finally ended up in Camp Blanding, Florida. And we took our, or I took my basic training through the whole thing. And I was just thinking about that basic training bit after hearing about this fellow just recently being chomped on by a alligator. Camp Blanding was a little bit out of the alligator area, I think. Or at least I hope that's what it was. 'Cause we went swimming down in that lake every now and then and we didn't see any alligators. Course what we didn't know we didn't see. But we knew after a, after the whole training cycle was finished, they gave us one day, one Sunday, at a place called Silver Springs, in Florida. And it was a little bit of a resort town, as compared to camp town, just outside of the army camp. They had glass bottom boats and you could see right down into the water. And the place, Silver Springs I think it was called, the water was perfectly clear. You could see from the, from the glass all the way down to the vegetation growing down at the bottom of the pool, whatever it was. But along the river shore were alligators. And this was fifty miles away from camp. So if they had alligators that close, they might have had alligators in the lake we were swimming in. We didn't know. Nobody told us. That's it.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.