<Begin Segment 10>

MU: Okay, let's go on now, you got your draft card, was it, or did you volunteer?

MU: No, I was drafted. I had a draft notice when I was working in a cannery up in Alaska. And, but there was no way, there was no way to come back here. So I had a letter written for me by the superintendent of the cannery saying why I couldn't come down, and I came back to come down to Seattle, I believe early September, and I reported to the draft board and I said, "I'm still going to school." So the board said, "Well, you can ask for extension or deferment," which I did, and they gave me a deferment 'til sometime in December. So I was able to attend the fall quarter. But after the fall quarter when I went back to the draft board and asked for another extension, they said, "No more." So I quit school and left some of the things with my uncle, some of the things at the Caucasian family, and got ready to be drafted, which took place in March of the following year, 1942.

MU: By that time, your father was back in Japan?

TM: Yes, he was in Japan a year before that.

MU: And how about the rest of your brothers and sisters?

TM: They were all in Japan. I was the only one here.

MU: When, well, especially when Pearl Harbor happened, did you think of them? What might happen to them?

TM: Yes, yes, yes.

MU: Did you try to get in contact with them at all?

TM: No, I don't know. Maybe I did write a letter, but I don't know what I did or... I don't recall what happened.

MU: Did you try contacting by, or through the Red Cross at all?

TM: No, I didn't do that. I guess I felt, no use doing that. [Laughs]

MU: You felt kind of lonely out here, then, huh?

TM: Well, oh sure. But I had my cousin and my uncle and friends, so I didn't feel so bad.

MU: Not too bad.

TM: Uh-huh. I thought eventually, I'm going to have to be in the American, or I'll have to be in the service.

MU: The American army service.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.