<Begin Segment 29>

SY: So this is a time in your life when you were sort of re-exploring your Japanese, Japanese-ness?

BW: Yeah, so in 1968...

SY: You graduated from college in...

BW: Graduated from college in January of '66, and I took a job with Lockheed Missiles in Sunnyvale. I was working up there and a friend of mine there told me, "Hey, you know they have this, Cal State has this language program where you can live abroad for one year and learn a language." And so I heard about that and I thought that sounds great, spend a year, like in Japan, and try to learn the language, learn about Japan, visit some of the folks in the old country. All of that was very attractive to me, and I thought this would be an opportunity to be able to learn the language so I can talk to my parents. I'm, by that time I was like twenty-three, and I thought, "You know, I really want to communicate better with my parents." So that was really what motivated me to do that, so I applied and was able to get accepted into the program. And so in September of '67 lived in Tokyo for about nine months.

SY: And that was not a difficult, was that a difficult decision given the fact that you're already working in a...

BW: So I quit my job at Lockheed.

SY: That was a very conscious...

BW: It was very conscious, but one of the backdrops to that was the Vietnam War was going on, and I don't know if you remember, but they were drafting people and they assigned people a lottery draft number, draft lottery number based on your birthdate. And my birthday, I think I had the number one hundred and forty or something like that, which was pretty sure. If you were three hundred and sixty you probably wouldn't get picked, but I had a number that was very likely to get picked earlier on, so when I was working for Lockheed I had a defense deferment because Lockheed was a defense contractor. So the government had decided that you're more important building missiles than being drafted into the army. Well, when I heard about this study abroad program, did I want that bad enough to quit Lockheed? 'Cause once I quit Lockheed, then I'm eligible for the draft, which was not attractive to me, I have to say. But I decided I want to do this, so I went to Japan, lived there for a year, and then when I came back I became eligible for the draft.

SY: So they let you go through a whole year with, or nine months, however long you were in Japan, and you weren't, you were not bothered by the draft at that point?

BW: Yeah, because I didn't actually quit. I took a leave from Lockheed. But I knew I wasn't gonna go back. In fact, after one month of working as an engineer, I realized I'm not a good engineer and I just did it 'cause I couldn't think of what else to do. But I knew I was not a good engineer and I would never be a good engineer. I could be, at best, a mediocre engineer, but that was not attractive to me. [Laughs] So I knew I wasn't gonna come back.

SY: It was a course of study, though, right? You knew, I mean, it was, you had to, like, study to become an engineer in a very specific way.

BW: Yeah, I had to work like a dog.

SY: And that was not, was that difficult for you?

BW: It was. Even in my senior year it wasn't coming naturally to me and I was struggling. So that helped me to realize, maybe this isn't the field for you. And then when I graduated and I was working in the job, I was so lost and I wasn't adept at it and I needed, I was constantly asking for help from my peers and supervisors. When I compared myself I thought, "You know, I don't think I could be that good."

SY: But there was something that drove you to do this. Was that, it really was because there was nothing --

BW: Practicality. In 1967 the space race was going on and technology was booming in southern California, so it was like, you'll always have a job. You have an engineering degree, you'll always have a job. [Laughs] If you look at it today it's like, it's all gone, but back then there were tons of jobs for engineers. So I just felt like no matter what I do, the engineering degree will always be there to help. But when the war broke out in Vietnam and then they started the draft, that's when I first realized I'm not really fully in control of my life. The government wants to grab me. I thought, "Gosh, I'm not in control like I thought." I thought I could just blithely, I'll quit and I'll look for another job, whatever. But I couldn't do that. There were consequences.

<End Segment 29> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.