<Begin Segment 7>

Q: Did you get drafted into the service?

CU: No. They wanted me to volunteer for the army. They sent a, during the camp, they sent a major from intelligence in there to give a pep talk to all the young people about volunteering for a segregated combat team. After he gave this long spiel about how, you know, most of America wasn't acquainted with the Japanese people, and that by joining the segregated combat team, we would be proving our loyalty to this country and so on, so forth. Well, after his spiel, I raised my hand. And he said yes, and I told him, I said, "The question I'm about to ask you might prove embarrassing, so if you don't want to answer, you better say so now." And he said, "I'll answer anything you want to ask." So I told him, I says, "If you were in my shoes and I were in your shoes, and I just gave you the same speech that you gave me," I says, "What would your answer be?" He looked at me straight in the eye and he says, "I'd tell you to go screw yourself." So then that's when a lot of the guys said, "Hey, this guy's alright." So they said, well, they'll volunteer, and they handed out forms. When it came to me, I said, "No, there's no way I'm going to volunteer. You people incarcerated me in a concentration camp with barbed wires, uprooted my whole family, took everything away, and now you want me to volunteer for this man's army?" I said, "No. There's no way I'll go."

Q: But your number never came up?

CU: It came up at the end of the war. So they sent me a draft notice and wanted me to go take a physical. Well, I was always classified 4-C, "enemy alien." I had lost that card. I had written to the draft board and told them that I had lost it. They never sent anything. All right, so when I took my physical, I passed l-A. So I told ' em, all right, well, since I passed, they 're gonna take me, like it or not, they're gonna take me. So I might as well go down and volunteer then. So I went down and I said, "Okay, I'm here. I passed my physical yesterday so sign me up." Since the war's over, I'll go. So they said, "Well, let me see your draft card." I said, "I don't have one." "What do you mean, you don't have one?" I said, "I lost it." "What was your classification?" I said, "4-C." "We don't want you." So I said, "Okay. You had your chance now." I said, "Even if I got to go to state prison, I'm not gonna go."

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 1983, 2010 Densho and Steven Okazaki. All Rights Reserved.