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TI: So here's another question. So as a replace-, you're being trained as a replacement. I talked to some of the other 442 guys who were there earlier, and they were being trained for a particular task, like a BAR guy or artillery. How did they train the replacements? Did they know what you were going to do?

GS: We took all kinds of equipment, from .45s to machine guns, throwing grenades, shooting 50-caliber machine guns, we took all that basic training. We were trained in all different type of a bayonet practice, we had a, Jake Taguchi used to be Camp Savage army, playing football for Camp Savage. He came, he took, missed basic training, bayonet practice, so then he had a big bayonet, transferred to the haole bunch. So he got out there and he, barrel and all, and right through the stuffing with the... and he pulled it out and goes whack, he knocked the head of the, helmet off the, the dummy. [Laughs] These poor white guys, "I hope we don't go to Japan to fight those guys like that." They were scared. He said he scared the heck out of... they were, oh my god, they're looking at him. He's, barrel and all goes through that dummy, and then he turns around and whacks the head off of it, and oh my gosh. He scared the daylights out of those haole bunch, soldiers.

TI: So I'm curious, for you, was there a particular kind of task that you were good at, that you thought you were better than...

GS: I could crawl, but those little eight-foot, ten-foot-high walls, I could never climb up those. I went around 'em. [Laughs]

TI: Well, so let's talk about your height. Did that, I mean, technically, I thought you had to be five feet or taller to be in the, in the army. Did they ever, did your height ever come up as a factor?

GS: No. There was a guy shorter than me, he couldn't, we had to push him, throw him, push him over.

TI: So are you talking about, I interviewed, we interviewed Shorty.

GS: There's one guy, John Kusano, he was... I'm 5'4", he was about 5'2" or three. Twenty-five mile hike, I told him to drop out, and I'll drop out with him. He made the whole twenty-five mile, he made me march the whole twenty-five mile hike and back to camp. I had to cuss him out so much, he should have dropped out this...

TI: So you weren't that good of a marcher, either.

GS: No, I was no marcher either.

TI: See, Joe, you have to help me. I'm trying to find out what you were good at. I keep asking you --

GS: I was nothing, good at nothing. [Laughs]

TI: How about shooting, rifle range and things like that? Were you good at that?

GS: No, I was, rifle range, they had a big door out there about the size of a door, target, 200 yards, height and windage, bang. And they had this red dot on the end of a pole, ten-foot pole, and that was, the red dot would indicate target, part of the target to hit. Some, one guy hit it up there, another guy would hit over here. When it came to me, I got this waving thing called Maggie's drawer. I missed the target? I didn't hit the target? I didn't even hit the target, I didn't hit the target. Oh my god, I couldn't shoot that rifle. I didn't know, too much windy or too much elevation.

TI: So I'm curious, so I mean, you're training, and you're training next to all these men, and you're going to be fighting with them. Were they ever worried about you? You're a little smaller, you're not a very good shooter.

GS: We're all the same size, about, 5'4", 5'10".

TI: But I'm curious, were the men kind of sizing each other up thinking, oh, in battle, you don't want to be next to him or...

GS: Oh, Kurihara, he was five feet, 5'8" or so, so he's in the head of the line, and his legs are faster and he's walking like this. For each one of his steps, we had to take two. So we're on the tail end, me and John Kusano's the tail end, picking up, we had to double time to catch up with them. When it went the other way, we was ahead, our normal step, the guys in the back, Kurihara said, "Step it up, move it up." [Laughs] Hollering because they couldn't have, they had to take shorter steps. That's the only thing we, long as marching forward, we're fine, but marching behind 'em, could never win.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.