<Begin Segment 14>

MU: Now, after they went into the internment camps, were you -- did you have a chance to visit them?

HW: Yes. Yes, just before I went overseas. After I graduated from MISLS in Savage. See, I met my wife-to-be in, December the 9th after we set up our guns. We stayed in Burlington -- that's where we left our stuff. And I met a lady walking down the street. I said, "Hello," casually. She says "Come on over." And that's when I...

MU: Oh, met your wife?

HW: My wife-to-be.

MU: Yeah.

HW: And they were evacuated -- went to Tule Lake. So I went to the army, Colonel Young at Fort Hayes, and asked for help. He did. He and others of his staff and, and he got civilian people to write letters to the War Relocation Authority and then they released my wife. So, then I had to go to my father and family and say, "I need money." [Laughs] So they, I don't know how they gathered it up but they sent me $300. So I sent it to her.

MU: Big money at the time.

HW: So she could get her tickets and everything, and come on out to Columbus, Ohio.

MU: Okay. Now, did you and your wife visit the camps before you left for overseas?

HW: Yes. That's right.

MU: Now, tell us how the circumstances were on your visit. You arrived at the internment camp, what happened?

HW: We arrived and presented our, who we were and who we wanted to visit. So they looked it over and -- the army did -- and then sent over a armed guard to take us in. I was in uniform, and take us in...

MU: An armed guard?

HW: Yeah, to take us in to see my family.

MU: Now, when you were visiting with your family, was the guard there?

HW: No, the guard then stayed there for a while and then left.

MU: Oh, then you could have freedom of movement without somebody looking over your shoulders?

HW: Saw some of our friends that were in the same camp.

MU: How did you feel with somebody guarding you, a U.S. soldier?

HW: Well, the thing about it is, as what was happening to us, it was not a strange thing. I mean, if it happened to somebody else, a -- say a white man for instance, that would've been a real weird, strange thing, you know. But, with experiences we've had in the past, well -- different things, a myriad of things -- I think you learn that, that it's not strange.

MU: Learn to accept?

HW: Yeah, you, you accept it. You don't like it but you accept it and forget about it. If you keep remembering those things, your mind will get all cluttered up with the bad things. Yeah.

MU: That was the way to survive, wasn't it?

HW: Yeah. I think a lot of it is that survivalist...

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.