<Begin Segment 27>

AL: So you're, you have, you said, two sons? You have two sons? Four sons, okay. Could you tell us the children that you have and when they were born?

AN: Well the oldest is, I commissioned him when he graduated, he was an ROTC colonel at BYU. He went to BYU, and he was the top dog in the ROTC over there. And so I was still active duty in Arizona, so came graduation and commission, I came over and I commissioned him in front of everybody. That's number one.

AL: What's his name?

AN: Castle, like a castle, C-A-S-T-L-E. And I commissioned him and he stayed in the military for ten years, said, "Dad" -- all my kids were born in the military so they know military life. And so he says, "You know, the army today is bad." I said, "What do you mean, bad?" He said, "We just got a bunch of civilians in uniform, they're worthless. They're not leadership, they're a bunch of people that kiss others' butt." He said, "This is not no army anymore, I'm getting out." Too much politics, too much rubbing noses and all that, so he got out. I said, "What are you going to do?" He said, "I'll go to FBI, they'll take me anytime." So he just transferred from the military to the FBI, still federal work, right? So, of course, now he's retired from the military. And then he wasn't just an ordinary FBI agent, too, he was in the FBI, the elite outfit called HLT, lot of people don't know about that, hostage reconciliation, they go all over the world putting out fires, like Waco, like Idaho, Columbia, all those places. Anyway, he was one of them, so he's retired now.

Number two boy... in fact, all my children, I was able to help them to go to college. Because I didn't finish, I envied that, and I wanted them to finish. So number two boy, he's also retired. My oldest boy now is about sixty-five, sixty-six, sixty-seven... sixty-five years old. And the second boy is sixty-three, they both retired. My number three boy, he's a... by the way, my family is what we call "law and order." The reason why is because all my children are all law enforcement types. FBI, police...

AL: We better behave ourselves, huh? What is the number two son's name?

AN: Number two is in the, Utah.

AL: What's his name?

AN: Spencer.

AL: Spencer?

AL: Yeah, Spencer. And he's the only one that chose a different field. He chose a field where he worked for the Utah State mental school, so he specialized in that, and he retired after thirty years working in a mental school. And so, and number three boy, he was associate dean of a college, and his specialty was all criminal justice. So as associate dean, he had different colleges under him, and this past year, he called me up and he said, "I'm going to quit that." I said, "What are you going to do?" "I'd rather go back to teaching. I don't like all the politicking in the college, I want to go back and teach college," rather than sit on top and have several colleges under him. So he asked to be released as associate dean and put him back on a staff of teaching.

AL: And what's his name?

AN: Ian.

AL: Ian?

AN: Yeah. So he's there now. He will retire in a few years. Number four son is, you often have one prodigal son, unemployed, no more work, that's it. The reason why is because last year he quit his work to keep us, help us, mom and dad. He said, "I'm going to, since I'm not married, I'm going to take care of you folks, but I'm going to resign from work."

AL: What was his career?

AN: His career, he's another, he's a college graduate, he's a criminal justice.

AL: And his name is Wells?

AN: Wells, yeah. And he had all kind of experience in criminal justice. And so, anyway, the last job he had was, the last five years were working for the state prison, okay. And before that, he worked at a correction office in Utah, and he looks like a nice peaceful man, but when it comes to prisoners, he's a mean old... but respected by the prisoners. They're all respected.

[Interruption]

AN: Yeah, his name is Wells, and what he did was he resigned from work to take care of both of us, because my wife got Alzheimer's the past five years. And so he said, "Now, Dad, I will take care of her," but not that serious, not that bad. You can talk to her, she'll answer you, but she was losing it little by little, you know. And so he said, "I'm going to resign from work, I'm going to take care of both of you." I said, "Go ahead." So he said, "I'll move in with you, because only you two cannot be living like the way you're doing. You need the help." And so that's what he did. And now, today, for the first time, prior to going into law enforcement work, he learned the gaming control, the gambling over here. When he first came here, he led such a sheltered life, he didn't even know what a deck of cards looked like. Really, he didn't know. "What is this?" "That's clubs," or it's diamonds. "What's this picture?" It's king, queen, jack, ace. I said, "You've got to learn all these if you want to work in a..." because he's a criminal justice graduate, he wanted to get into the different types of... he never learned in college. He said, "I want to get into this field." I said, "You can't, this is too much for you." He said, "I will." I said, "You don't even know what a deck of cards look like." And he did, and he went to school here, college, learned all the gambling, okay, and then how to cheat, how not to cheat, because now he's going to be investigating, he's going to be one of those surveillance operators. And he did, he mastered that whole thing. Now he knows what we call pai gow, Chinese game, all regular American surveillance operators know that game. He studied that. And so he just applied today, he was processing to work at the Hard Rock.

AL: Oh, really?

AN: Hard Rock, he got a job at the Hard Rock. He said, "I'm not worried about getting a job." I told him to go back to work, because I'm by myself now. He doesn't have to worry about me. He's just going to be gone for eight hours and come back, so I'll be all right. Anyway, that's what he's doing now. Instead of going back to jail, he said, "I don't want to go back to jail anymore." Well, he had high respect from the prisoners, very high respect there. They respected him, because he wasn't those kind that, like he said, "I didn't bring my level down to their level." But many of the officers, they bring their level down to their, the prisoners' level, talk like they do, use the language they do, and they think they're tough. And he said, "I never bring myself down, but I try to bring them up to my level," and that's what he'd been doing to all the prisoners. He counseled them, helped them, he met them on the street after they came out of jail, they call him, they say, "Hey, Wells, I'm out." Couple of them right here in Las Vegas. Wells says, "When did you get out?" He'll say, "When you coming back?" [Laughs] They laugh, but they love him. But they also know that they don't fool around with him. So he said, "I don't know why these officers cannot see what they're doing. They're bringing themselves down to their level." He said, "I'll never do that, but I'll try to bring them up to my level, and they'll have respect, and they won't have much trouble with me."

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.