<Begin Segment 20>

KL: So you were still in the D.C. area when the September 11th attacks happened in 2001.

SS: (Yes).

KL: Oh, you had left already? When did you leave?

SS: 2002.

KL: Okay. But you were still in D.C., though, then when the planes hit the Pentagon?

SS: When did it hit?

KL: 2001, am I right?

SS: Was it 2001?

KL: Yeah.

SS: Oh, I was still there then. Oh, my memory is fading. [Laughs]

KL: But everybody, I don't know, if you weren't out, you were home watching it.

SS: Oh, yeah. But --

KL: Go ahead.

SS: I was retired. But I was retired. Okay.

KL: Sometimes people who lived through both that and the Pearl Harbor attack say that there were some similarities. Did you feel similarly at all?

SS: Oh, yes. Because that's... I knew exactly were the Pentagon got hit, and I would have been killed if I was in there. But that was a long time ago that I was there. But after I retired, I did volunteer work. We used to go to the Arboretum.

KL: Oh, okay.

SS: Do you know where that is?

KL: Yeah, uh-huh.

SS: It's a nice place.

KL: It is, yeah.

SS: I did, worked pruning, planting, and working (in) a hothouse, transplanting. That was fun.

KL: Yeah, yeah.

SS: And I also volunteered at the National Japanese American Memorial Foundation when they were still trying to get money to pay for the, to build the... so I worked there at least once a week.

KL: Did you do fundraising?

SS: I helped with the office. The fundraising, it's just a letter that goes out. In a way, yeah. I kept the office files and tried to keep things in order.

KL: Uh-huh.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.