<Begin Segment 22>

RP: So you went to Camp Blanding, Florida.

SK: Yeah.

RP: Uh-huh, that was your basic training.

SK: Yeah, then we got through with our training. And that was in April. And we went to Fort Meade to get ready to be shipped out. But all of a sudden, they felt like, you know, what to do with us, because the war was kind of coming to, they felt like it was going to come to an end. Said, hey, let's do this. And we hung around and hung around at Fort Meade waiting to be transferred.

[Interruption]

SK: And then we were hanging around there, and then, "Gee, I wonder gee, what's happening." And then, then finally you realize that the war is over. Oh my God, that's what happened, that the war is over. And he says, "We don't have to go to Europe maybe." Well, we didn't know that. Because you still had to go back there because there were prisoners to be taken care of and see what they're going to do with it. Then the draft, the people from Fort Snelling came down, the recruiters came down, right away. Being Japanese, and the war in Japan was still going on. And so they all interviewed us and thought nothing of it. But then, the same day they came back and said, "Okay, you, you, you, you, you. You're coming to Fort Snelling." And I said, "Yeah, but I know Japanese that well." "That doesn't matter. You went to Japanese school once." [Laughs] We all did, until we got to high school. And he said, "You went to college. You're in."

RP: Oh, boy. Two strikes against you.

SK: Yeah, but we don't want to go. "Yes, you are." Because we thought we're gonna go to Guam or someplace and get killed in the front or back.

RP: So you thought you'd escape the war, but...

SK: Boy, I thought, get into another war.

RP: You might be going to the other side.

SK: Yeah, that's worse yet.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2007 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.