<Begin Segment 29>

RP: A number of, looking over some of the history associated with the military police in Manzanar, there were some local, locals and also military officers that characterized the MPs as, sometimes calling them "misfits" or just... and it might have been related or directed to some of the earlier units that served there. Did you get that impression from... it doesn't sound like you got that impression.

RD: No. I never did hear any reaction or anything about being an MP or anything else. That's all that we were, we're soldiers and everything else. That's the only reaction I got. Some of the guys got to town, went to town and got drunk, got in a little trouble, got beef sometimes. We had a couple guys in there that everytime they went someplace, always ended up getting in a fight or someplace, you know. But outside of that...

RP: You weren't involved in any fights?

RD: No, not there.

RP: Not there? [Laughs] You were nineteen years old, and you were sort of at that falling in love stage. Did you, did you fall in love with any of these girls in Independence at all?

RD: Well, no, we just ran around, we got along real good. We were all real young, we just socialized real good and got along. And it's just something, you know, people talked to you. Like I said, they had a dance down there, and it's just company, you know, and people talk to you. Like I said, they had a dance down there every once in a while, I think, if I remember right, and had something going on, or some celebration of some type, we'd go to that. But we didn't go to town every night, so I mean, just maybe one or two nights a week, something like that.

<End Segment 29> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.