<Begin Segment 18>

JA: Do you remember how you answered those questions?

HT: I answered 'no' for serving, and as for the emperor stuff, I said 'no.' I'm not going to swear loyalty to an emperor that I don't even know what he stands for and if the government is going to doubt me and tell me "serve in the forces," if I'm not going to be trusted, then I cannot. You know, let me go back a little bit on this one over here, you know. I go back before the evacuation, when the war broke out. I had two cousins, we were one year apart. We were brought up like brothers. On First, Second Street and Broadway, I think it is, there used to be a recruiting station there. We went in there, the three of us, Tosh, Ted, and myself, we volunteered. We went in, and we wanted to volunteer. You know what? We were thrown out of the office. We were told, "We don't want Japs."

[Interruption]

JA: So what did they tell you when you tried to volunteer?

HT: "We don't want Japs." So that was the end of that. As for Tosh, the oldest of the three of us, he turned right around and he volunteered for a pilot, for the Air Force. Took the test, flying colors, entered, was there for a while, then they threw him out. The reason being Japanese, Japanese blood. Then right away he turned around and this time he volunteered for a bombardier, and it was okay, he was accepted. Then he was thrown out again, the reason being, was Japanese extract. Now, this is Tosh. Tosh eventually wound up as a doggie, and he died over, over in Europe. And Ted, he died a year after Tosh, and his mother, who is my aunt, it was too much for her to handle, and it just broke her up, physically and mentally. You see, a lot of these things; people don't know what actually happened.

JA: Now these were your cousins, both of them?

HT: Yeah.

JA: Were they in the 442nd?

HT: 442nd, yes. 442nd and 100th. If you go down to the West L.A. cemetery there, there's only one that I know of that has two, two stones side-by-side. They're still together. Now, I always go down there, my kid loves that. He says, "Dad, you're the only one that's talking to a stone." I keep telling the stone, I said, "You guys are still together, huh?" They are the only ones that's together yet.

[Interruption]

JA: For, in case there's anybody in our audience who doesn't know what the 442nd is, could you tell what that was? Tell me what the 442nd was.

HT: You know, I'm not too familiar with that, so I prefer not. My knowledge of that is very shallow. As for the technicality and all that, I do not know enough, so I don't think I have, I should be talking about it.

JA: Okay, that's fine.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2002 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.