<Begin Segment 16>

KL: So you were honorably discharged from the army, and then from there...

RF: From Camp Ritchie they decided to send some of the people who spoke Japanese into the Fort Snelling military language school. And some of us who were not that conversant with Japanese were put into headquarters there. So we all got shipped to Fort Snelling, Minnesota. This is back to my hometown, Minneapolis, which was great because we had friends there. [Laughs] And being headquarters, my assignment was to become a supply sergeant, so that was my occupation in the military towards the end. And my job and role was to help make the move, to move the language school from Fort Snelling to Presidio Monterey. So mine was the last train out of Fort Snelling. And we went to Presidio, and shortly after, a couple months after that, I was discharged from the service.

KL: I have a question about the different places that you were, and I wondered if you would compare -- it's kind of a big question -- compare your thinking about prewar Los Angeles, Manzanar, Chicago, Minneapolis, Jefferson City, Little Rock, Camp Ritchie, how did those places feel different to you especially as far as how different cultures interact, different races?

RF: Everything was contrasts. There was great contrast between Sawtelle prewar, pre-World War II, to Manzanar, great contrast. Of course, the psychological emotional one was there, too, because there was uncertainty, not knowing what was going to happen, where are you going to be, what's... when you think about your future, you can't think about your future, you don't know. So the contrast physically and emotionally was great there. Going from Manzanar and comparing it to a small area like Sawtelle to Chicago, a big city, was also a big contrast. Not one that I would call a happy one. I couldn't take Chicago, it was too hard, too big, too impersonal. Of course, the situation, just to amplify that as well, the fact that I was still a teenager, still had to go to high school, find my way around, make a living, etcetera. And not having family around, being on your own at sixteen, seventeen, you wonder what the heck you're doing. And yet you have to live day by day. So I never have liked Chicago. Even going back to Chicago quite a few times in my career for business and seeing the good side of Chicago, the nice hotels, the nice restaurants, good view spots and everything else, I still have very little feeling of, desire to want to live in a place like Chicago. And I didn't have any friends I developed in Chicago as well, so that probably also affected that an awful lot, because I didn't have time for social activities. I did meet a couple of people in summer school who continued on to Hyde Park, they were great friends. We were in the same math class in summer school, so that's something in common. And then when I went to Hyde Park High School, we were together for a little bit. And had the shock of my life, she suffered a... what do you call it? It's on the tip of my tongue. She went into a faint, what do you call that?

KL: A seizure?

RF: A seizure, yeah. There's a name for it, I can't remember. Where you have to watch your tongue...

KL: Oh, yeah. I don't know the word, but you wrote it... what is it?

RF: (Epilepsy). Yeah, yeah, and she was flopping around on the ground, what a shock. And so her other, the other friend of mine, we tried to calm her down and all. But anyway, that was a shocking experience. But that was a nice friendship that we developed, and then when I left, that was the end of that friendship. There was another incident, another friend who was at Hyde Park High School who happened to be from Emerson junior high school (in WCA). His family moved to Chicago and he was going to Hyde Park High School. So we met, and we had a good time, I remember on Easter Sunday we went to Easter sunrise services together, and that was kind of a great reunion for me. But even so, Chicago was not my town, even though the song says "my kind of town." [Laughs]

KL: You get your own song. [Laughs]

RF: Yeah. Minneapolis was another place in contrast, primarily because of weather. I've never been so cold in all my life like Minnesota. But great people, there were Swedish people there, not all Swedish, but the people in Minnesota are as warm as the weather there is cold. They'd go out of their way to welcome you and make you feel like at home. So I developed two good friendships, one, a guy by the name of Tom Battey, and the other was a fellow by the name of Bob Anderson. They were as good of friends you could ever find. Tom Battey's family would invite me to their home and have me stay over, had me join them for dinner, wonderful people. And so Minnesota, I look at with great contrast, great people terrible weather, terrible jobs. [Laughs] The worst jobs I could ever imagine were in Minnesota, Minneapolis. So it's quite a contrast. Where else have I been? Well, the treks in the military, you don't really see the, get to know them, the areas you're in.

KL: Why do you think the Batteys responded to you the way they did?

RF: Well, they were very sympathetic with the plight of the Japanese people. Couldn't understand why the American government would do such a thing. They felt in their hearts to make up for that, I think. He would, Pa Battey would write me letters constantly, and they moved, they moved from Minneapolis to Oklahoma, and he would write constantly. Really wonderful people. And most of the people I met in Minneapolis like that, we went, we've gone back to high school reunions where we met another fellow by the name of George Uram who I knew only briefly in high school. But engaged with one of them at the reunion, another wonderful person. There's something about the people in Minnesota that just is overwhelming in terms of sincere friendships. In Chicago I didn't get any new friends there. Even the couple that I met in summer school, as nice as they were, it doesn't compare to the friends I developed in Minnesota.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.