<Begin Segment 32>

RP: Speaking of the mountains, how did that, how did the landscape around Manzanar, did it have any effect on you? The Sierras in the background...

RD: I don't know what kind of thing could happen, 'cause all we knew, there was mountains up there, there was Mt. Whitney and then Whitney Portal, on the other side was Owens Valley. And that had that lake there, I guess it almost dried up. I forget what they called that lake there and everything else. We never did get over in that area, but it was all kind of flat in our area right there, we could look out that way. And then it looked like it was probably about, couple blocks away, but it took several miles before you got to the mountains back there. Everything looked so close when you're looking at it. Might look half a mile away and it's really five or ten miles away. But most of the area around where we were was all level. Probably pretty flat.

RP: Do you have any recollections of wind at Manzanar?

RD: No, but I imagine the wind did come up. We did have some wind there, and maybe when I was out there digging a ditch or something in the snow and got a little cold out there, or windy. But, and up in the towers, I'm sure it got cold up there. I don't remember too much, 'cause we didn't have no heaters or anything up there.

RP: Had you ever been in snow before, before you came to Manzanar?

RD: We never had any snow in Manzanar. Oh, yeah, we did, too. That's right, we did that one winter there. [Laughs] There wasn't that much, though. I think it was just, it might have been more frost than anything, but there was just maybe an inch or so on the ground there, and I think that was unusual for there anyway. 'Cause that's the only time I ever did see, I remember that one that was in January, that was out there, I guess it was, January or February. Yeah, I forgot about that part. But otherwise, I don't remember hardly any snow ever being on the ground at all except for that one time I was out there.

RP: Did the experience that you had in Manzanar as a military policeman change any of your attitudes or did you have a clear understanding of what had happened to Japanese Americans, what was going on?

RD: No, I really didn't understand it. I could maybe see how they were gonna, some of the old people were probably dedicated to their country and maybe keeping guard on them or something like that, but moving the family, the young people were born and raised here. I didn't think that was right to lock them up. And that just tore 'em from their homes and everything else, they lost everything they had down there. I guess they finally reciprocated some of the people later on, but they didn't get nearly what they had coming. I don't know when that happened, a couple years ago or something that they awarded them some money? But like I said, they were just probably, same way with probably some Germans. They were probably loyal to their old country too, you know, over there, came from the old country. But as a general, the biggest percentage of 'em were all born and raised here, there was no reason to lock 'em up as far as I'm concerned.

RP: Russell, on behalf of the National Park Service and myself and Kirk, we thank you so much for the opportunity to hear your stories.

RD: Well, I'm happy to be able to help you out as much as I can. I appreciate you coming up here and visiting with me.

<End Segment 32> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.