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HU: There's one more thing I want to tell you of my war experience in the Philippines. It rained and rained, we were fortunate enough to hang a hammock away from the wet ground. Night came, we were all in our hammock. Here's a man who lost his mind. He had a machete in his hand, he was hollering, and he was running, waving his great machete. He passed close to me, good thing he missed me. They finally caught him and sent him back. He lost his mind. But that experience, that tiny cell remained, that particular experience. Ten years after I came out of the service, one night, I had a nightmare. That picture came to me, and he was thrashing around, I'm kicking him, and my wife gave me the elbow. "Dad, you're dreaming." And I had many of that afterwards. And one night, that was the last. That was the only thing I brought back that wasn't pleasant, physically and mentally.

TI: So you had that recurring dream of that man who sort of lost his mind.

HU: Yes. So my wife had to elbow, said, "Dad, you're dreaming." [Laughs] And I would go back and settle in. That's enough of that war.

TI: Before we leave the Philippines, I wanted to ask you, how did the Filipinos treat Japanese American soldiers? Because they were occupied by Japan, they were fighting against Japan, when they saw Japanese Americans, how did they react?

HU: I had very little contact because we were confined in the safe zone. So we were pretty well protected. And two years of experience in the war zone gave me, what, sixty-day furlough, they said, "You want to go back?" That was the end of the war. And our officer, the leader, I still remember his name, Lieutenant Mill Emandorf, he brought a case of beer and he says, "Say goodnight." [Laughs] That's touching.

TI: That was your going away, kind of gift, coming back to the States?

HU: Yeah, and he said, "Good luck. If you have time, stop in at Oakland and say hello to (my wife)." They had a lot of nice people. So my wife was here, and I got discharged at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin.

TI: So your wife was in Minneapolis.

HU: Yeah.

TI: You get to...

HU: She stayed with the family watching two kids, [inaudible] family.

TI: I'm sorry, which family was this? She was watching a, like she was a houseperson or a helper?

HU: They were in Edina, nice area.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright ©2009 Densho and the Twin Cities JACL. All Rights Reserved.