<Begin Segment 15>

KP: So which of your brothers went into the military?

TF: My oldest brother went into the military with me.

KP: At the same time?

TF: Well, yeah. Like my older brother just above me, we were in L.A., and they were making something, and somebody was cutting the burlap, and cutting upwards, you know. And then my brother was looking like that, and then the knife went right into his eye from the other guy. And so he lost his eye. And so when the selective service told us, "Don't leave camp because," us seniors, because we're gonna get drafted, we stayed in, and then all of a sudden, all three of us got letters to report. And then he was 4-F because, you know, he couldn't serve, so my older brother and I were sworn in on July 15th. And that...

KP: 1944?

TF: '44. And then we were called into active duty September 15th. And since we can't go to Fort McArthur, because we got kicked out of L.A., they sent us to Utah. And so we met with a bunch of the other Japanese from Utah, and my brother and them went to Blanding, and some of us went to Hood. In fact, one of the graduating students and I was together all the way through. And so when you come right down to it, at Fort Meade, this fellow student that I went through with, caught measles. So he didn't go to the 442 with us, but then my brother and I went there. And I don't know if I mentioned, or even if I should, but when we were in the 442, I got infantry training. We were known as "cannon fodder." That means the cannons are going to be fed us, or we're going to be fed to the cannons. But that's what you do, talk about when you have a fighting outfit. But then we were happy to be there together, and then the truck comes in, and first three guys are medics. And that's Fukushima, Fukushima, and Fukuyama. That's my brother, me, and another fellow. And I guess because I was the smaller of the two, the other two were made litter bearers and sent to Company L. And me, they said I'm going to be a medic for M Company. And at that time, I don't know what's going on, other than the fact that once I got there, I spot this guy here with an armband, and I tell him, "I'm new, I don't know what I'm supposed to do." And he had a bag, "This is the bag that you carry." I said, "I don't even know what's in there." So he opens it up, and then he tells me, "The most important thing is this is morphine. If a guy gets hurt and is hurting, you give him half of it. And if he's hurting in ten more minutes, give him the other half." Later on I'm saying, "Yeah, but what if he's still hurting?" He says, "Forget it. You're going to be too busy that you're going to have to have somebody else worry about that," this kind of stuff. And he's trying to point out these different things that's in there, since I don't know what's in there. And he says, "If the wound is too big, these are small bandages, take his shirt off." He's telling me all this thing. And then as a precaution, oh, I said something about, "Where's my hat with a helmet, red cross?" He says, "Forget that. The last guy got shot through there." And just telling me that, "You don't want that kind of stuff," you know. And we're getting ready to mount and go forward, and he said, again, with the encouragement, he said, "Don't worry, you'll be okay." I don't know when I'm okay, because I'm anxious, because I don't know what to do. My father leaves me with the word, "Do the best you can, but don't shame the family name." And I'm wondering, geez, all I can do is screw up, because I don't know what I'm supposed to do. And so I think this was already written out, because when I hit M Company, I'm sure the sergeant knew I didn't know anything. Because he never asked me where I got my training. He just told me that I'm the medic here, I don't do anything the troops do, I don't touch any of the ammo or the equipment, so I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Then he sort of tells me, "When they're moving, you could be in the middle," sort of leaving it up to me as to be my own judge. Says, "Or else you could stay by me," this is the tech sergeant. And so he's making me comfortable, and I'm worried about screwing up. With the idea that my only job is to do things when somebody gets hurt. And when I think back about it, I don't remember being scared of getting shot. I was only scared that I would screw up. [Cries] And so that helped. And so everybody was encouraging that way.

And when you go to a place like that, gee, one time we were able to have a building, and then the sergeant said the bed's reserved for the lieutenant, him, and the medic. And so I got to sleep in the bed with them. And then one time they were invited to a lady's house, and surprise, they invite the medic. And so I go there, and I think I learned a few Italian words, because they, she offered cognac. And the lieutenant, sergeant says fine, and I said, "No think you," because I'm, I was too young to be drinking. But she said something about, "No poira," it's not poison. And so I thought, "Don't be afraid." I never checked to see if it was. And so I just tried to get the idea across that I'm too young to be drinking. But then, in the army, when they're fighting, everything's available like beer. I tried the beer that they had, and since it's not cold, it was terrible. And yet, when we had R&R and we went to Switzerland, from Lucerne, we went to, I guess, a skiing place called Engelberg. And it's a nice place. And we were in this hotel, and this was the first time the four of us at this table, and we look at the menu, and there's a swiss cheese sandwich, and I decide to order it, and beer, because I hear that German beer is pretty good. And so, to my surprise, they sent me a, seemed like a quarter inch slice of swiss cheese on rye bread, and I never ate cheese before. I'm more of a rice person. And there's no mustard or whatever on there, and I kind of wondered, does anybody eat this? And since we ordered it, I decided, well, I better start eating it. I was finding it kind of hard to try that. So I took a little of the beer, and boy, the beer was good, a lot different than the beer that we used to get in the bottles. And so I always remembered this experience, because here we're in this hotel dining room, and we're fussing around, and then when you go there you have to, they limit the amount of money you could take with you.

[Interruption]

KP: This is a continuing interview with Taira Fukushima, and we were talking about you're in Switzerland, eating, trying to choke down a cheese sandwich with beer.

TF: Especially when I'd never had a cheese sandwich before. Well, then we were looking to see how much money we had, because we were sort of limited in terms of what we could take. And I'm struggling to eat the sandwich, but I liked the beer, and the next thing we know, the waitress brings another round of beer for us, and said, "The gentleman over there thought you would all like it," you know. And so the guy says, goes like that [waves] and we go like that, say thank you. And these are the kind of things, kindness that different people do, you know. It's just like on the bus ride they told me, "You get to get on first," or guy offers me a seat on the train. And then in Engelberg, he buys us a drink, and then we go outside, and we go by, there's a sort of incline like that, we're going up there. And then a kid comes out of a movie and says, "Is it like that in America?" They were showing Scarface. And so we said, "Yeah, that's the way it is all the time." [Laughs] We're just scaring him. And as we're walking up, this streetcar comes by, and the guy stops and asks us if we'd like to ride up. And everybody was so nice to us.

KP: So you served in Italy.

TF: Uh-huh. This was just a Rest & Recreation.

KP: And then where else did you serve? You were in Italy?

TF: Yeah. We went to France and then came to Italy. And then the war ended.

KP: You were in Italy when the war ended?

TF: Yeah. And that's when I got the letter about the dog. They kind of wanted us to go the language school, but fortunately, I had to decline because I couldn't even carry on a conversation with my parents. But I hate to tell you, I think guys who did worse than me was called in to do that also. Because that's what it is. If I was called out a year after, like a lot of my classmates, then I would have gone that way, too.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.