<Begin Segment 13>

KL: Did you, you did in enroll in college?

RF: Well, after I graduated from high school, most of all the male friends were going into the service. They're going into the air force, the navy, nobody's signing up to go to the infantry. And so I said okay, I'll sign up for the air force. Sorry, they're not accepting Japanese people in the air force, the navy. "The only thing we have available for you is the infantry if you'd like to volunteer." So I said, "No thanks, I'll go to college." [Laughs] And so I started at the University of Minnesota, and after a quarter and a half, I think it was, then the government says, "We'll draft you," so they drafted me into the infantry. So I didn't have much of a college experience there.

KL: And let's go through your different posts, because you had some interesting stories about your military experiences.

RF: Well, we were inducted, officially I think it was Fort Snelling, Minnesota, but our first assignment was in St. Louis, Missouri, Fort Jefferson, we were officially enrolled into the infantry. Then from there we were shipped off to basic training to Camp Robinson in Arkansas, another dismal place. [Laughs] I've never seen so many rocks on the ground as in Arkansas. Even more than Manzanar. At least in Manzanar it was sand, not heavy rocks. But here there were rocks all over the place. And they had our basic training there, and just as we were finished basic training, we were ready to get shipped off to Europe. But as I said the good Lord is watching over me, and just about then, the European conflict ended.

KL: Do you remember hearing that news?

RF: I don't recall how I learned about that. I think it was officially from the military.

KL: How'd you learn, when you learned your deployment was not gonna happen? I mean, how'd you feel?

RF: Well, I felt relieved because I wasn't interested in going to fight in the middle of a battle. So anyway, we were at Arkansas for a little while, then they shipped us to Camp Ritchie, Maryland.

KL: Let me ask you one thing about Arkansas before we go on. You said that some people went to visit Rohwer.

RF: Oh, that's right.

KL: Did you go to Rohwer?

RF: Yes. This was one weekend, a bunch of us (Niseis) decided we wanted to, we were not too far from Rohwer, so we took the bus to go to Rohwer. And that was an interesting experience, too, because you get on the bus, and the bus says... what did it say? "Whites in the front, blacks in the back." And so we said, "Where do we sit?" And the bus driver says, "Up front." And said, "Well, why is that?" So he didn't give us an explanation, said, "You're not black, so you sit up front." Of course, that stops on the way, stop at these places, the restrooms for blacks, restrooms for whites. Water fountain for black, water fountain for whites. So it was really a mixture of being Asian in the South. You're not sure where you belonged. But anyway, that was an interesting experience. But we did get to Rohwer and spent a day in Rohwer having a great time visiting with people there.

KL: How did it compare to Manzanar in terms of how people felt or what it looked like?

RF: It was not too different except the missing thing was what nature provided. There was no sand, there was no majestic mountains. But the people were the same, the people were still resigned to being contained in that area and trying to make do and enjoy life the way they could. So they really enjoyed the fact that we were visiting, because it was something new for them. That's all I remember.

KL: Yeah, thanks. I wanted to hear about the bus, too.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.