<Begin Segment 13>

RP: Jim, did you have opportunities to leave Topaz, go out into Delta?

SS: Yes, well, as a member of the... being part of the drama club, we used to put on a sort of... take our different productions to the different community high schools, Delta, Hinckley, I forget all, and so we used to get out, have a chance to leave the camp. Mr. Evans, who was my speech teacher, enrolled me in a statewide speech contest and so he took me down to Cedar City for representing Topaz in an extemporaneous speech contest at a college down there at Cedar City and so that got me out of camp too. And I recall Mr. Phillips, the J.P. Phillips took us on a... group of us on a picnic there outside of Delta and he used to take a few of us into the movie in Delta. And right across the street from the theater was a hotel, neither of them are in operation now, and have dinner there, steak dinner for ninety five cents and go across the street for a movie for thirty five cents, something like that. And so, yeah, you know, I was there in Topaz only eight months but I don't know how many times I went into... out of the camp, at least a half a dozen times.

RP: How were you personally treated by folks in Delta? Japanese Americans in general?

SS: Well, the people in Utah were all very friendly to us and I recall going when I went down to Cedar City for the speech contest and they had lunch there in the college dining room and so forth. They're very, very, I'm not sure how you, courteous, solicitous and very kind. I found the people in Utah to be the most kind people. Of course in Manzanar, you didn't have any contact, there's no one to be in contact with to begin with.

RP: You were actually recruited to go to Ann Arbor?

SS: Yes, in the spring of '44, the person in charge of the residence hall, I guess recruiting for workers, came up to hire people to work in the residence hall so it was a great opportunity. Well, the main thing is that I wanted to go to the University of Michigan, you know, with medical school... there were two medical schools that I had on my list, number one Johns Hopkins obviously and the other one... Michigan I recall because there were a number of novels, what is it, based on the University of Michigan medical school so that, struck me as... and then when this person came from the university to recruit people... hey, great. And so it was I think one of the wisest decisions I ever made, of course my father was unhappy, you know, that I decided on my own without even consulting him. But my mother realized that, you know, that was in my interest and talked him into it.

RP: Who did you go out with?

SS: Well, Shoji Horikoshi, he's originally from San Francisco and he's presently in San Francisco now, and he and I both went. And when we arrived in Ann Arbor, we're assigned to dishwashing. The East Quadrangle where we worked, housed the 900 US Army personnel in three different groups, the one of the largest groups was the Army language school, Japanese language and that was Company A. Company B was the medical students, army personnel, and the C Company was what they call the Army Specialized Training Program reserve. I think actually that program was intended sort of to subsidize the university because at that time the university population was down to 4,000 females, 800 male students, besides the military. And C Company was the reserve people were enlisted to attend school and made part of the Army Reserve. And they were given free room and board and all their school expenses were paid for, but they were not given any other compensation. So anyway it was, so we had 900 officers and men enlisted, and so the first month I was washing dishes for 900 three meals a day. And then about after the first month, the head dietitian who was in charge of the dining room asked if I would be interested in working with the cooks and I said yes.

So for the rest of the time I worked as a cook's helper type and all the way through until I was drafted in April '46. Full-time during the summer and then when school started, kept on part-time. And they're very, very good about the whole thing, and those of us who were... Shoji and myself. Well, Shoji he graduated high school, returned to California because he was expecting the draft. He was accepted at Wayne State University but he left. I was fortunate, I was admitted to the university and started there a week after graduating high school. We were on a... they were on an accelerated program, wartime program, and essentially it was a trimester system and so in July I enrolled as a freshman and then I, let's see, I think it's four months, July, August, September, October and then November the second semester and I finished, I think the end of February, got my first year completed and I decided to, since we're on an accelerated program, I said, "Well, let's stop, drop out for one semester, work, then start again." Well, in a way that was mistake because shortly thereafter I got my draft notice. If I'd have stayed in, I would've gotten my student exemption.

So when I was inducted on April 29, 1946, I was sent to Fort Sheridan in, just north of Chicago for processing, and so there I said, well, as long as I'm in the army and they have the GI Bill, and the GI Bill in those days was good because you got month for month for school training (...) up to three years, (...) for every year of service, plus one additional year. So the GI Bill would've given me forty-eight months of schooling, and the University of Michigan at that time had for the medical program, they had what you call a combined program where in your senior year as an undergraduate, you're also enrolled in the medical school. So you (...) could shave off one year. So I figured, well, with the forty-eight months of schooling that would get me through much of (med school). Otherwise I couldn't have gone. So I immediately reenlisted for three years so I would be guaranteed the maximum forty-eight months, and, of course, you know, that led to us, well, (I) also I signed up to go into the Medical Corps. Then when I got (into) basic training about the second or third week, they called (for) volunteers to go to officer candidate school. So I figured, well, if I'm going to be in for three years, why not get a commission? So I volunteered and out of the twenty that first volunteered only ten were found (to have) passed the minimum requirements, and after all the interviews and all this other stuff, I was the only one that finally made it to the final cut. And out of the four companies in the battalion, 800 trainees, I think six of us were finally selected to go to Officer Candidate School. And as I recall (I) was the only one that went and finished and got my commission. But that's how I got into the army as starting out intending to use the Army as a stepping stone to get to become a doctor.

RP: And you ended up spending twenty years?

SS: Yeah.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.