Densho Digital Archive - Susumu Iwasaki Interview (denshovh-isusumu

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RP: A short, a couple of months after the riot occurred at Manzanar, there was another very controversial event that happened. The "loyalty questionnaire"?

SI: Like what?

RP: Where the government had everybody over seventeen sign a, fill out a "loyalty questionnaire"?

SI: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

RP: Yes-yes, no-no.

SI: Yeah, yeah, right.

RP: And how did, tell me how that went down with your family and yourself.

SI: Well, most of my brothers and myself, we, I can't remember, but, my part... I didn't even ask my brother how they, they wrote down their answer. But I answered, if the enemy attacks the country will you defend the country? I said "yes." So that was one, one of the questions. Then on the other question was, will you, are you willing to go in the army? I said, "Hell no." I said, what? You in a... they put you in a concentration camp and they ask you to go in the army? "No," I says. But that question followed me all through my army career. Did you know that? Then, well, to move it out further, when I was in, well, I went to MIS school and they sent me... well in fact, I couldn't go overseas because I only had six month to serve. So I had signed up for eighteen month. In those days you had a choice of either eighteen month or three years or whatever. So I signed up for eighteen month. Then school took one year of my time. So only had a half a year. So the guy told me, he says, "No, you can't go overseas unless you sign up for another, extend your enlistment for another half year." So, which I did. So I went overseas. And then I was assigned to CIC. You know what the CIC is?

RP: Tell us.

SI: It's a Counterintelligence Corps. Okay, that was more like, I think, more like...

RP: CIA?

SI: CIA-like. Anyway, I was assigned there and then I served one year there. They found out my questionnaire was "no-yes." And so anyway, before that, thing came up. They wanted me to stay for another year. I says, "Hey, I already made my extension." "Oh, don't worry, we'll fix that up." So, like a damn fool, I, I extended my, enlist for another year, so it made me three years. So I says, "I thought they was gonna give me another stripe." They, they promised me another stripe. It never came. So anyway, they recalled me to headquarters and from there I came back to ATIS, which is the group where they assign all the linguists. And so the exec called me in and he says -- I still remember that guy's name. What's his... I can't think of it off the top of my head. So anyway, so he, he called me in and he says, "You know why you got recalled back?" I said, "No," I says, "I don't." "Well, in camp," he says, "You had a questionnaire, twenty-seven, twenty-eight." He says, "You answered, no you would not go in the army." That was the reason why I got recalled. So I asked the major, I says, "Kettle" his name. Anyway, I says, so I asked major, I say, "If you're in camp in a concentration camp" -- I always say concentration, which it was -- "would you have going in army?" And he didn't, he didn't even answer me. But he was nice, I got to know him pretty well. He came to see me after I came back from Japan. [Laughs] Anyway, it was all, he says he's going home to San Francisco. He was on the way. I don't know why he came to see me all the way into Long Beach and then, anyway, I got to know him pretty well. So I asked him, I says, "Hey, would you have gone in the army if you're in, in a concentration camp?" And he didn't even answer me. But anyway, that was the reason why I was recalled. So I say, "Who cares?"

RP: So those, those answers followed you all the way to Japan.

SI: That's right. But anyway, it was a, it took almost three years anyway, two and a half. [Laughs]