<Begin Segment 18>

TI: Okay. So I'm going to move forward now, I'm going go to about March 1944, because that's when you (volunteered). So why don't we talk about that, why don't you tell me about being drafted.

GS: Well, I wasn't drafted. In March, I volunteered for the Air Force, but then my draft card says 4-C, "enemy alien." "Enemy alien? What do you mean enemy alien? I'm an American." "Your draft card says 4-C, 'enemy alien,' we can't take you." So I wasn't able to. But in the meantime, 100th Battalion, national guard from Hawaii, they didn't call 'em national guard, they called 'em Hawaiian something, but they were guarding the islands, they were in the service like national guards. So they rounded them up, sent 'em to Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, took the basic training's over, and they shipped 'em overseas to General Mark Clark. Then went in, marched into, took Sicily, and then they went into Italy and went to Naples and as far as about Cassino. And Mt. Cassino is, the abbey, the church on top of the hill.

TI: Right. So, but so I want to go back to your story a little bit in terms of, so initially you volunteered for the Air Force, but you're saying that you were 4-C, or your draft card said 4-C, so the Air Force said, "No, you can't do this."

GS: "No," wouldn't take me.

TI: So you just went back home.

GS: Went back home.

TI: And then you kind of waited around.

GS: Waited around.

TI: But then eventually they contacted you again, but this time it was with the...

GS: Then I volunteered again.

TI: Oh, you volunteered again, okay.

GS: But I couldn't volunteer 'til Roosevelt signed the decree that we could join the army.

TI: Okay.

GS: 'Cause the, it took the 100th Battalion, "Purple Heart Battalion" to...

TI: Okay, so it was because of the 100th that allowed the change to --

GS: Changed, Roosevelt signed the decree that we would be able to join the army.

TI: And that's when they formed the 442.

GS: That's when they formed 442.

TI: Okay. So when that happened, then you volunteered?

GS: Then I volunteered.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.