<Begin Segment 14>
SY: So you were... but now, when you graduated from high school, then at that point did somebody suggest that you go on to college? Or how did, what happened to you when you graduated?
AM: One of the advisors advised me to, that I should go to a college in the Midwest because she thought I would fit in better than going to a large university, but I didn't go. But when I came out of camp, I came out in November and then UCLA was already in session, so I helped my father do gardening for a while and then I enrolled as a pre-med student. I took, like, chemistry, German, had to take ROTC, and yeah, ROTC for some reason came easy to me, or, either that or I liked it. I don't know what. Anyway, I happened to get either top grade or one of the higher grades, and they called the other class's top person and myself in, and they told us that we had to march the boys next semester. And, "Oh no, I can't do that." [Laughs] I said, "No, no, I can't. I really can't do that." And they said, well, they're sorry, but that's tradition, so I started thinking, how am I going to get out of this one? And I got my draft notice, so I said, "Ah, there's the answer. So after the semester ended I volunteered. And they asked me if I wanted to be a paratrooper or an interpreter, so since I didn't like heights I volunteered to become an interpreter, and I shipped to Fort Lewis, Washington, for my basic training. And I don't know if it was you or who it was that asked me how I became a firing line coach, and I started thinking that, I think, I think they chose the shooters that could shoot fairly well and they got them to become, be coaches for the other soldiers. And so I had to lie beside them, and -- [coughs] excuse me -- my ears started ringing, ringing and ringing and ringing. When we got to the submachine gun it felt like somebody jabbed a knife through my ear, that's how painful it was. Anyway, by the time I finished basic, got to the Presidio of Monterey, the MIS Language School, it was still ringing, so I was commuting to sick call fairly often, and two weeks, about two weeks, my guess is that about two weeks before my class shipped over to Korea they said that for the army's sake and for my sake that I should be discharged. So I came out. I didn't, later I thought, gee, I should've begged them to keep me in school for two more weeks, then I could've called myself a graduate of MISLS, the language school. Because when I came out and I wanted to join the organization, my wife said, "What for? You didn't even graduate." Okay. [Laughs]
SY: So the whole, when you... it's interesting to me, though, that you entered the army at, the point at which you did was late, your family was still in --
AM: War was over.
SY: The war was over, and your family was still in camp?
AM: No. We left camp in November of '45, and I went to UCLA '46. I volunteered around September of '46.
SY: That's right. That's right, 'cause you said that you helped your father on the nursery for a while.
AM: Yeah.
SY: So he got his nursery back.
AM: No. He, he lost his heart for business and he started gardening.
SY: He started gardening.
AM: He was doing some gardening as well as a nursery business too, because when he'd get a traffic ticket he'd say, "Well, I guess I have to go see Captain So-and-So and have him tear this ticket up," or whatever. [Laughs]
SY: Wow.
AM: That shouldn't appear on the screen. [Laughs]
SY: You didn't name any names, though. So one, and backing up just a little, because you said that they encouraged you to go to a school right after you graduated from camp, I would imagine because you were probably a pretty good student. They, your teachers encouraged you to go to college.
AM: Yeah. I was a member of the National Honor Society. But I worked over, a little over a year in the hospital.
SY: That was right after camp.
<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.