<Begin Segment 20>

RP: So, do you remember when you left camp?

MN: Yeah, that was in 1945. I think it was September. Right before the school started, semester after.

RP: Oh, okay.

MN: Yeah, 1945. And we relocated to Riverside, California. My father went out about two weeks before and got hold of the, contacted people for, he could take, resettle us. So he came across another internee I guess. I don't know what camp, but he had a land in Riverside, a farmland. And he needed somebody to more or less sharecrop. So my father was, asked him to sharecrop with him. So that's how he got, came back and got us out. But living quarters he didn't provide us. Across the street was Inaba Chicken Farm in Riverside, California. Okay. So he had a lot of chicken coop. And so when we came there we had to more or less improvise the chicken coop as a living quarter. We had to hang blankets and everything because chicken coop, one side's all open. So we had to close all that. So we stayed there about six months, not even that. And Father got another job with a Chinese asparagus farmer in Van Nuys, California. So he needed a sharecropper that my father take care of the asparagus farm, irrigation, fertilization, and harvesting and all that. But this Chinese farmer never, never lived in Van Nuys at the farm. He lived in L.A. So when the harvest time comes he tells my dad to get, round up the pickers for the asparagus.

RP: Did you work on that farm too?

MN: Yeah, we did. But not harvesting but after packing the asparagus it got three classes, choice, the top grade and... they pack 'em and we used to drive the asparagus down to the Seventh Street wholesale market in L.A. We'll leave about maybe one or, one or, twelve or one o'clock in the morning, and come back right before school starts.

RP: Wow. And you were going to Van Nuys high school at the time?

MN: Yeah.

RP: Huh. Uh, so your housing wasn't much better than the barracks that you left in Manzanar.

MN: Yeah, right. Yeah. But, after we got out of Riverside housing was a lot better because one side was a horse stall but other side was more like a room where you could have living quarters and you have kitchen, cooking facilities, and things. So I stayed there in 1940s, I think 1946, that's when my brother needed help in the...

RP: Pocatello.

MN: Yeah, so I decided to go that summer. So went to help summer but got stayed. He needed help more, help my, help him out with more so I enrolled in high school there and worked until the draft time came.

RP: Oh, that's right.

MN: Yeah. So, when the draft time came I decided to volunteer instead of get drafted because if you get drafted you put in two years active duty, then after you get discharged you have to put in five years of reserves see. And I didn't want that. And besides, I asked the recruiter, I says, he told me, "You, your job, it's a good job for the army." So I says, "Could I have this job after I get in the army?" He says, "Well, you have to take the aptitude test. And if you pass that then they'll send you to school and teach you the army way." Not the civilian way, the army way. Okay, I says, "Sign me up for three years then." So that's how I went in.

RP: And what was your job that you, that you wanted to have in the army?

MN: Oh, regular maintenance work, automotive maintenance.

RP: 'Cause that's what you'd been doing at Pocatello.

MN: Yeah. Fixing tires, things like that. Pumping gas. It's like a motor pool like a job. Check oil. All the things like that. So they, in the army they call it first station on maintenance.

RP: So what was the toughest part of resettling for you coming out of camp?

MN: Coming out of camp?

RP: Yeah.

MN: Well, it's always on the move. You're not settled in one place. And you don't know how it's gonna be that next place. You, you think about it. You worry about it and things like that.

RP: Uncertainty.

MN: Yeah, right.

RP: And how, how did you find the world when you came out of camp in terms of Caucasians? How did they relate to you as a Japanese American? Did you feel... what, what kind of attitudes did you kind of experience in the world when you came out?

MN: Well, I don't know. I... about same. I mean, I didn't have any... I know we were different, but that was it. But army, when you go into the army, there was some prejudice too. In fact, I got in a couple of brawls. Army, my own company.

RP: Really?

MN: Yeah.

RP: What happened?

MN: Well this guy was, he was a navy guy. And somehow, I don't know, he transferred to the army. And he was a kind of cocky guy. Well, he short, short-sheeted my bed one night. I went to an army movie and came back and tried to go to bed and try to crawl into your sheets and everything and short-sheeted, nothing there. Then I found out later who did it. So I questioned the guy and we got, we got in a fight. Yeah. But I think I got the better end of it. Even though he was a navy guy. He's a real cocky guy, pushy. So anyway, from basic we went to, I got transferred to Fort Lewis, Washington. From there I was permanently assigned to a division, ordinance where they take care of all the equipment, tanks, vehicles, all the vehicles. So I was a mechanic there.

RP: And then you were shipped overseas.

MN: Yeah.

RP: And served in Korea?

MN: Yeah. Before that, 1949 the second infantry division in, in Washington, they had a maneuver in Hawaii. And this supposed to consist of ninety-nine ship convoy. Just like a wartime situation. It took us, you down with it, zig-zag, and finally hit the Hawaiian islands for the maneuver. So before that, about two months before that, we had to camo, I mean, what they call get, get all these vehicles waterproofed. Yeah, all that work. And we worked our butt off that thing try to get all these done. And finally 1949 we loaded up on the ship in Puget Sound there, Tacoma, Washington. They loaded up. And we headed out. And it, [inaudible] the Hawaiian islands. And it's just like a maneuver. Get off. All the vehicle go out the and we didn't even touch water. Dry land all that work we did, waterproofing, we didn't use it.

RP: Oh, wow.

MN: Yeah. So we spent one week, aloha weekend in Hawaii. Then we finally came back. Then in 1950, well I got tired of the state of Washington. There was a lot of rain and I want to go overseas so I requested for overseas. I thought hoping that the, not the Far East, but the European theater. But no, they gave me Far East. Then right after I got my orders they give me thirty-day leave to go home and visit, have vacation, then report to my regular place for load the ship for Far East. So, which I did. In the meantime waiting, having my furlough, that's when the Korean War broke out. Yeah, so from there I had to report to Pittsburg, California. That's where the Repo Depot was for Far East command. So when we got there we were issued all these rifles and helmets and all that. And rifles we had to [inaudible], all that stuff. So I spent ten days there and it was in July. Oh, talk about hot. Hundred and ten, hundred and fifteen degrees at the time. Yeah, so we finally got our orders to get, get on a ship at Fort Mason, California, near San Francisco there. It was a troop ship. So I think there was about pretty close to two thousand of us on that ship. It was the first ship replacement from stateside for the Korean war.

RP: Were there other Japanese Americans with you in that unit?

MN: Not at that, not at that time. But after, well after I got there, in Korea then I met a Hawaiian guy, in the same outfit. But in States, before this goin' over, you have another fellow from Seattle, a Japanese guy. But we got separated because I got my individual orders to go to Far East and I think he stayed with the Second Infantry Division and they left for Korea, too, see. So after I got to Korea I kind of met up with the division. But try to locate an individual, it was pretty hard.

RP: Okay.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.