<Begin Segment 24>

KL: What am I missing from your time in Utah? I want to hear about what you did after high school graduation. But before that, what am I leaving out?

MS: Okay. I ended up finishing... I started in what might be called a middle school. I think it was called Central High or something like that. And that was the nine and ten? Must be. Okay, I finished eighth grade on the farm, so ninth and tenth was in Ogden, but it was not Ogden High School because Ogden High School was just eleven and twelfth grades. So the ninth and tenth grades were uneventful because I can't recall anything that was exciting or unusual or different. But then I entered Ogden High School where I finished up high school. But before I really completed finishing up, I joined the army one month before. And that was mainly, one reason was that the draft was still on, but I was expected to be drafted sometime after graduation. So therefore I wanted to get that out of the way, that's why I volunteered my services at that time, which happened to be the smartest thing, one of the smartest things I did. Because I ended up between two wars, two big wars, so I didn't have to engage in any wars.

KL: Because when did you graduate?

MS: '46.

KL: Like in May or June in '46?

MS: It was May. Yeah, May. Before graduation, I joined up. I had enough credits to receive my diploma, I found out later. But...

KL: You said it was this interwar period. I should probably ask you what you remember of milestones like Victory in Europe Day, the Japanese surrender, the dropping of the atomic bombs.

MS: Well, okay, the war ended in '45, right, World War II ended in '45. So I'm joining in '46.

KL: But I mean, even as just a teenager, what do you recollect?

MS: Oh, about...

KL: Yeah. Or do you? I'm curious especially about the Japanese surrender with your parents having some family ties to Japan still and wondering how that affected them if it did, and especially what people thought of the first atomic bombs being used at the time.

MS: Yeah. Well, I think about what was most critical, it's the loss of communication with the people in Japan. I don't know how much it bothered my father or not, but there wasn't anything that he could do about that. But hearing about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was a terrible thing, but you didn't know what to feel about that, whether Japan asked for that, or that was unnecessary. No way to evaluate, for us to evaluate, because we don't know what the decision was that made Truman to decide on dropping those bombs. I didn't feel any kind of a... I didn't know what to feel about such events. I knew it was completely terrible, but also that the war had to be ended to end all the killing that's been, that will keep going on. And I haven't discussed the issue with anybody else, neither did anybody else bring up the subject.

KL: When it happened, you mean?

MS: When it happened, or even after it happened.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.