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AC: So what you made decide to go and train to become a medic, or decide to specialize in medicine?

JS: We didn't have any choices. They, Uncle Sam just took, whether you were a truck driver or whatever you were, he'd decide to go put you in the medics, why, you went in the medics. And other people went, became riflemen. They might've been musicians, but they, if that's the way you got sent, well that's what you did. And it wasn't until probably after the war started, then things had to be determined on a practical manner, where an individual was needed and where would they, they would fit the best, that they changed the training program. So that's why, as I mentioned earlier, we went in, everybody went in and trained for four months, whatever branch you were, or training area you were sent into, that's how you trained for, and you didn't get out of that until your period was over. You didn't have any chance, unless you -- well, maybe, like in those days, if you had had two years of college you could apply for officer candidate school, which I think a lot of people did. But that was about one of the only, that was a qualification you had to have, at least a couple years of college before you could apply for OCS, and that was a way out. But then, as the war progressed, various opportunities and needs opened up, so that you could move to, apply for different places. A lot of times they were looking for people, even had you not applied. So that's why I ended up as a medic trainee. And not knowing what else I could do, I figured, well, I could drive a truck, I could do something like that. But being, it was kind of an interesting area too. I just decided when I was given the opportunity, or asked when I was moved around, what I wanted to do. Well, I especially, I think it became a factor when I, after I came back from the, got off the ship and came to Fort Lewis, Washington, when I was sent to an outfit there. The captain or commander of the unit asked me if I wanted to stay in the medics or whether I wanted to do something else. I said I'd like to stay in the medics 'cause that's what I trained for. So that, I was a medic with a tank destroyer battalion, and we maneuvered out in the Washington Coast for a while, and until I was sent out with that unit back East, why, I was with, I was in an assigned unit. So I had some experience that way, but it was, I didn't learn anything medically during that time, but that's where I was. So that, my first practical experience as a medic was at Fort Harrison, Indiana, when I was at the station hospital and I was there for a year and a half. During that period of time I also went to a specialized school at a general hospital there. On the post was also Billings General Hospital, and I took training in various aspects of hospital practices, amongst those being psychiatric wards and surgery and further medical. I was a medical, pretty much a bedpan commando until that time, and so I advanced some there. And then my, after I went to Camp Shelby, I, that was field medicine, company aid and first echelon medics. So that's where my career pretty much ended. And OCS, it was the same, just in the -- well, of course OCS, I went to, it was the Medical Administrative. In the Medical Administrative commission would be to have people in service who, with officer responsibility, who could do the paperwork for doctors so the doctors out in the field wouldn't have to do, keep the records on patients incoming and outgoing. They could do the work for whichever it's supposed to be. They were training so that the paperwork would be Medical Administrative. That department now is called Medical Service. That's what my commission says, Medical Administrative, but today they're Medical Service. So that's how my career ended.

AC: So you did you do a lot of clinical work in the hospital?

JS: There are different assignments. Some do clinical work. Mine was wasn't clinical work. Mine was mostly ward work in hospitals. Both, well, I worked in surgery too, as... well, I don't know, the highest rank that I got was dirty nurse. That's a person who, you don't, you take the equipment and sterilize it and prepare things for surgery, but actually in surgery the other nurse is the one that takes the gloves and hands 'em to the doctor and assists the doctor in surgery. Maybe the job I mentioned about handing the gloves so the doctor could jam his hands in there, maybe that's the dirty nurse's job, I can't remember. But there are, there was a distinction. You're working around the floor in surgery and do all the things that are not directly connected with surgery. So that's as high as I got. I had a very interesting experience one time preparing a patient for surgery, for, what do you call this stuff, you got, problem you got in the rectum?

AC: Colostomy?

JS: No. No, no, those bumps you get growing in the end of your rectum.

AC: Hemorrhoids?

JS: Hemorrhoids. I was, when we prepared patients for hemorrhoidectomies in those days, we took forceps and clamped a razor blade, Gillette razorblade, and stuck 'em in the forceps and then you kind of trimmed the hair off. And one day I had an anus that was kind of particularly hard to work on, and when we got into surgery, Lieutenant Shaw was gonna do the surgery, he says, "This --" he was getting ready to prep him, I guess, or he was gonna do the surgery, and he said, "This guy doesn't need any surgery 'cause he's already had it." I scarred up the, around the area so badly from the, and I, they never asked me to do one again like that. I didn't want to do one like that anyway. You can just imagine, with a pair of forceps with the blade clipped into it and trying to trim the hair off all the wrinkled area. Not an easy job. I wasn't asked to do it again and I wouldn't have, I would never volunteer. Had I been ordered, I might've refused. I don't know. [Laughs] But that was, that was where I was when I was shipped, when I volunteered to go to Camp Shelby and join the 442nd. So anyway, in the 442nd it was natural that I continue my, in my medical area, as a company aid man, train in company aid. And I enjoyed the work. It was rough, but it, you lived a life of an infantryman, did everything except shoot the guns. And in our outfit, they even, I don't know whether they liked me, they wanted to see what I could do, or... I fired weapons. Some of 'em I could handle pretty good, and I never could handle a BAR worth a, the bullets just flew all over. Everything, hit everything except what I was aiming at. But I went with the infantry, fired a .50 caliber anti-aircraft and various weapons, and got my little badge for being a good marksman and all this stuff. But this was exciting, really. And it was, you felt good when you trained that hard. By golly, when you get overseas, why, the guys around you are good too, most, the best bunch of soldiers I ever was around. Little guys that weighed a hundred and ten, twenty pounds could carry all that weight and last all day. It was just almost unbelievable what little guys can do if they make up their mind to do it, I guess. So that was why I stayed, I was in the medics, stayed in the medics.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.