<Begin Segment 27>

RD: They had all those gardens and stuff down there, you know. 'Cause I know I went down after the war, went down with my father-in-law, and he was showing me the areas where they used to, there's all kinds of buildings and stuff where all the gardens, Japanese gardens and everything used to be. They took all that away from them, lost all that land and everything. Took everything away from 'em, lost all their rights and everything.

RP: A few more questions about, just going back to Manzanar, Russell. We talked about a few of the guys, your buddies, and some of the other folks in the unit. Were there any other men that you would kind of term "characters" or, you know, had certain eccentricities about them, colorful people in the unit?

RD: Outside of the piano player. You know, the honky tonk piano player, he was quite a character. And that one guy that I was telling you about that I can't remember... you know, kind of became pretty friendly with him. In fact, he would, couldn't get any alcohol, he'd drink Aqua Velva, you know, shaving lotion, those guys would drink that. [Laughs] And, but he was quite a character too, and I still can't remember his name, but he was a nice guy. He was one of the guys that probably had about three court martials, I guess.

RP: Was he the Indian guy that you mentioned?

RD: Yeah, he was, I'm pretty sure he was mostly Indian. And where he was from, I can't remember any of that, but I liked him real well. I just can't recall his name. Bob probably would.

RP: Bob might have mentioned him in his interview with us. How did you feel about leaving the camp when you got the orders to, the unit --

RD: Well, I was happy about it. I didn't know what was going on. I wasn't happy when I was down there at Camp Haan on the guard duty, guarding Americans in there and everything else. But then I was glad I was getting shipped to the infantry, finally gonna get into the war a little bit there.

RP: Right. There was...

RD: There was some excitement there about that. And got in there, fit in real good and got acquainted with everybody like I said. Those guys in there, like [inaudible] in their company, those guys have been together for a year or two, see, and I'd only been there about five or six months with 'em. So like I said, I remember some of 'em, but not too well. And so I remember all of my [inaudible].

RP: And who, who have you seen from the 319th after, since you've left Manzanar? Have you run into anybody?

RD: Yeah, I was up here probably in the early '50s, I worked for my father-in-law, they had the laundry here, and I used to deliver stuff to the restaurants and the hotels and motels and stuff there. And one day this United Grocer truck was pulled in there, and this guy Bob Soames, he was from Des Moines, Iowa, you know. And I asked him, I said, "What the heck you doing out here?" He said, well, he's the one that went to the other, went to the medical group, and Arnie said he got discharged out when he was in California and decided to stay here. He got married and he's working out of Redding. I ran into him a few times, we had planned on getting together a few times, and it never did work out. And then I guess he was gone after that, I didn't hear more about it. And then I was talking about this one character, the piano player, from down there in L.A., and then in the afternoons there, father-in-law, we'd take a turn, take a break, we'd go down and have a beer for about fifteen minutes or so, you know, cool off. The weather's a hundred degrees or better up here, and lo and behold, there was that guy, just two guys from our outfit from Manzanar, you'd never expect to meet in a lifetime, you know. And especially that guy, honky tonk player, he would be, I imagine he was up in his thirties when I was in there. So he was one of the older guys, most of 'em were all up there probably in their thirties, in the service for quite a while. They all had three, four, five, ten years in. But outside of that, that's the only two I ran into.

RP: Have you ever seen Johnny or Robert since that time?

RD: Oh, well, like I said, I tried to tell you, I guess it was after I got discharged and came home, I think I looked Bob up and I went and visited him once, I think. And I think it was probably after I got out of the service. But like I said, I didn't stay in San Francisco very long, only a week or two. And I left, and then we kind of lost contact there.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.