Densho Digital Archive - Shig Kaseguma Interview (denshovh-kshig-01-0021)

<Begin Segment 21>

RP: Then Uncle Sam had some plans for you.

SK: Yeah, I got called by the draft board. I remember we went to the draft board and they marched us in the street. We didn't know how to march, but we were traipsing down. The people knew that we were going to war. [Laughs]

RP: So you put in for the 442nd, or how did that work out?

SK: No, I told them that, "This could be very difficult for you to place me, being Oriental and especially Japanese. How about sending me to my original place? Because then I got a chance to go with the 442nd." He said, "That's a good idea." He agreed about it. Cause they would have had a hard time trying to place me with a Caucasian group. Especially if they were goin' to war with Japan. So they said, "Okay, you can go back, and we'll transfer your draft board back to Salt Lake City." So that's how I (went) back. It took them about six months to call me again. And the six months probably saved my life, too.

RP: So in that six month time, you went back to Cincinnati?

SK: No, so I went back, then I got drafted in Salt Lake, Fort Douglas. And from Fort Douglas, we were all shipped to --

RP: Camp Blanding?

SK: Camp Blanding in Florida.

RP: So, I think you told me earlier that that six months you had to go back to Minidoka?

SK: Yeah, I just hung around, waiting for them to call me.

RP: Call you again?

SK: And then when we went, we were all, true enough, we were all from the camp. We were all driven. All the whole group was from the camp.

RP: Some of your buddies, too?

SK: Yeah, there was quite a few. Not a lot, but all over, from all the other camps, too.

KP: Can I ask you how it was different after you had been out and been to school, then come back to the camp? Did the camp seem different to you then?

SK: Yeah, because, parents, you know, my siblings, the younger ones were still there. So it wasn't, I had my family there, but a lot of the fellows were gone because they were drafted or went to other jobs.

RP: Farming.

SK: In New York. Because it was okay to go out then. So it was completely different. There were a few guys that were there, they were all waiting for the same thing, getting drafted. So we had to hang around.

KP: But I guess you also knew it would be over, you wouldn't be there forever.

SK: Yeah, we didn't think that the war would be over, not for a while anyway. And of course, my parents, my mother especially was sick because all of the news of fatalities and, you know, they were coming back to the camp. And they were giving, army personnel would come, and they would tell them that your son was dead. It was a big tragedy. Then all the people, the "no-no" people would say, "See what happens? Your son is killed," and all that, but my mother knew that. But she was a very religious woman, she was praying for us, paying for everybody really. So when I went into the army, she knew that probably that was the last. But she never told me that though. She told me later. She thought that when you left... but I think, so of course we were young, so we didn't know what happens at war, nobody knew. If we'd get killed, or you hear of people dying, but you don't know how did they die. Was it quick? Was it long? But we thought, well, we're gonna to go to camp and we're gonna get trained to be in the infantry. And we replaced the 442nd.