<Begin Segment 19>

MU: Now that, that was when -- well, now we're in Fukuoka and then, oh you're there during the occupation there. You were assigned to the natural resources section there. Was there any real natural resource work that you people did?

GM: Yeah, natural resource, what'd I do? Natural resource, I looked at trees and lumbers, those are natural resources, aren't they? [Laughs]

MU: All right.

GM: They didn't specify what I should look for.

MU: The colonel didn't have...?

GM: I liked this colonel. I can't -- darn it, I can't think of his name. He said, "Go have fun, George. See your folks." Nice guy.

MU: So how long did you stay there?

GM: Gosh, I only stayed there a few days, 'cause he gave me, "Oh, I'll see you back here in so many days." We were supposed to go back to Tokyo.

MU: Oh, it's like a furlough?

GM: Yeah, I guess so. [Laughs]

MU: So, all right, you get back to Tokyo now...

GM: Yeah.

MU: ...and what kind of work did you do then?

GM: Nothing. Five of us were, had to take a military aptitude test. I said, "What's this for?" "Oh, we want you to take it." Three pass, three of us passed it; me and couple other guys. And oh, 'bout the time to come home, gonna give us direct commission, three of us.

MU: Oh.

GM: I said, "I don't want it." I had enough of this. But two other guys -- to this day, I can't remember who they were, they took it and I think one got killed in the Korean War.

MU: Oh. Did you have to go to the Korean War also?

GM: No. No. I came home before that. And after I came home, discharged, oh, several months later, War Department sent me another letter, "Come back in, give you a direct commission." I turned that down again.

MU: No thank you, huh?

GM: No thank you. And year later they still wanted me. I said, "By God, they're persistent." 'Cause I saw enough dead bodies around -- crippled, hurt in the hospital...

MU: You had enough of that.

GM: Oh, I said I had enough of that.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.