<Begin Segment 24>

TI: Okay, so Nelson, now we're gonna pick it up sort of when you got discharged. So now we're through Europe -- I know we're jumping ahead a lot here -- but let's now pick it up when you were discharged back in Salt Lake City. So why don't you pick up the story around there?

NA: All right. While I was in the service, my family, by way of Idaho, finally ended up in Salt Lake City. And so when, when I was in Camp Patrick Henry in Virginia, that's where my port of... well, that's where I landed. And when I was there, they asked me where do I want to get discharged, and I told them, "Salt Lake City," because my folks were already here, but I didn't know anything about Salt Lake City because I've never been here. But anyway, I came back, and was discharged in Salt Lake City. And the first thing I did was, under the GI Bill, it ended up that I could go to the university under the Public Law 16, which was for disabled veterans. So Public Law 16, they paid us a hundred dollars a month, whereas the GI Bill only paid, twenty, thirty dollars a month. So I took advantage of that, but by that time, I had posttraumatic syndrome. I would have nightmares every night, not only due to the fighting but all that pressure I built up inside because I hate, I hate, I hate, because I was discriminated so much.

TI: And back then, what did they call that? Did they call it Posttraumatic Stress Syndrome?

NA: No, they called it Section 8, "going crazy." They called it Section 8, there was no such thing as Posttraumatic Syndrome, they didn't know about it. But I had it, yeah. So after we were...

TI: And I'm sorry, so Nelson, can you describe again what the symptoms were? You said nightmares...

NA: Oh, nightmares, and I didn't want to associate with any Caucasian. It didn't matter who they were, but I didn't want to associate with Caucasians anymore, 'cause I hated them so, so much because of the discrimination and what had happened. And, but I could still associate with Japanese Americans, but I made a mistake there. When I was going up to the university, it was math, I don't know which math it was, but it used, I knew that most of the tests were gonna be open-book tests, so I used to write all the notes in the book. And one day, another Japanese student up there said, "Could I borrow your math book?" I says, "Oh, you bet, you're Japanese, I can trust you," so I gave it to him. And then the next day he said he lost it. And wow. [Laughs] And that plus I was taking political science --

TI: Well, going back to that, so when he, he told you he lost it...

NA: He lost it.

TI: ...did you just explode, did you get angry, or what happened?

NA: Oh, no, I was angry at him, but I could not nothing. He lost it, so I had to buy another... I don't know if he gave me another one, but anyway, I got another one, but no notes in it. Wow. So my math was licked. And then I was registered in political science, I mean, I was taking political science, and the professor said that "Japanese, it was a good thing that the Japanese were put in..." I don't know if he used the word "concentration camp," but he said, put in that form. He said it was a good thing that the Japanese were put in camp, but, and that, that really burned me up, but what can I do? He already had told the whole class of hundred or whatever. Those days, the classes were so large because there were so many G.I. Bill, Bill of Righters. But, and then, and then I had this posttraumatic syndrome and a few other things, so I couldn't even study any more. I was, here I was an 'A' student, and now I could study, those days I could read the book assignment once and be, close the book and be ready for a test. Here, I did the same thing up at the university. I said, "I'll just read the assignment once and I'll be ready for a test." Close the book, I didn't, I couldn't remember a thing, not a thing. Well, my memory was shot, seventy-five percent was maybe a passing grade, but that would be twenty-five percent loss of memory. And so I closed the book and I forgo twenty-five percent of what I read, but I'm, but I'm still thinking I could pass the test, go test, I'd go take the test. Wow, I can't answer the test, simple questions. And I says, "What's wrong with me?" And I didn't know at that time I had posttraumatic syndrome except I know in the evenings, I'm rassling the blanket, 'cause every morning the blanket was all twisted around and bed all messed up and everything. And that kept up for, oh, fifteen years, even after the war. But in the meantime, I was trying to adjust myself, and just little by little.

But I want to tell you why I went to war, finally, after I came back. First of all, I thought it was just to be in the war, just to be fighting. But being in the service had its... what is it called, hidden blessings? It had its hidden blessings. Now I have found out that I went to war so that I, along with my family and all other Japanese Americans, can have their freedom. So I went to war so that we could have our freedom and be accepted, accepted in the American mainstream. And I also went to war so that that Italian grandmother could have peace, okay. And then when I went on a, when I came home on my furlough, at that time, the family was still living in Idaho. On the way back, I had a couple hour layover in St. Louis, Missouri, and I went to the train depot restaurant to eat. And while I was there -- this was back in 194-, still 1943. I stopped in St. Louis on the way back to Camp Shelby to eat, and lo and behold, this girl, the waitress, there weren't too many eating there, maybe me and another guy were the only two there. So the waitress came over to talk to me, and not once did she ask me what nationality I was. She just took me as an American soldier, and boy, after I left, I said, "Wow, that kind of melted the hate I had in me." It started, melted me, melted a little bit. So I went, and I said, "Well, I went to war for that nice girl that was so friendly to me." And I said, "Gee, I wish all the Caucasians were like that," you know, I said to myself. And then I also went to war because no more letters could be sent by a soldier with the word "perhaps." Because during the "Lost Battalion," there were so many German soldiers just dead in the forest, and I, I didn't see the dead German soldier, but I think the letter I picked up was from a dead German soldier. He was already probably picked up and taken back for burial, but I picked up this letter, and every country we went, Italy, France and Germany, we used go get this phrasebook, and I could read Italian, German and French. So I read the letter, and almost every other paragraph started out with the word "perhaps." "Perhaps I'll make it through this war," "Perhaps I'll die," "Perhaps I'll be able to do this after I get discharged," or, "Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps." And so, so I went to war so no more letters with the word "perhaps" will be sent. And then what else did I...

TI: So, so instead of the word "perhaps," what word would you, would you use? Instead of "perhaps," so you're saying you don't want this uncertainty? Like, "perhaps this, perhaps that," you would rather it be what? That it will be this way, kind of?

NA: Oh, no. That if we don't have any more wars, I would think, well, if World War II stopped all other wars from then on, I thought at the time, then, then there won't be any more soldiers so they don't have to write back to their family and start out a sentence with the word "perhaps," and that's what I mean by it. But since World War II, there's still been conflicts all over the world, and people, and soldiers are still fighting a war.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Topaz Museum. All Rights Reserved.