<Begin Segment 18>

AC: So in 1945, was it, you were drafted into the army.

PS: Yes.

AC: And how did you feel about that?

PS: Oh, I think at that time I was probably ready to go. My oldest brother was getting near discharge, he never did go overseas, he was cadre, I think, most of the time, and in the medics, and he was ready to come home about the time I... as a matter of fact, I got together with him one time, I think it was when I was still in basic training in Camp Fanin, Texas. My brother was over in Fort Harrison, or someplace over there, and we got together at Texarkana one weekend, because he was getting ready to come home. And we were able to get together in Texarkana. I don't remember much about the weekend except that riding in the train, going from, I guess it was near Tyler, Texas, to Texarkana, the old train had a wooden stove in the end for giving, creating heat for the passengers. I thought that was so strange. But anyway, that's the way things were. So at that time I was probably eager to get in and try something different. Fortunately, I didn't have any bad experiences. I was able to get through basic and all that stuff without any particular problems.

AC: Well, in basic you were introduced to chiggers in Texas.

PS: Yes.

AC: Tell me about that.

PS: Oh, that's a... there's a little insect, biting insect that are called chiggers. And in that sandy ground where the army camps are, they're everywhere. They're nasty little things that bite, and it's just something you get used to. [Laughs] Anybody that's been trained in, basic training in that area, why, they were introduced to them, and that's part of the things you've got to get used to. I think of things that could be worse than chiggers like ants or snakes, you know. So it was a learning experience and it was all right. It got to itching so bad, you scratched a lot. [Laughs] But you made it, you lived through that kind of thing. And you think about all the other kinds of exposure you get when you get into a battle, why, it's really nothing. It was something a person learned about and got along with it.

AC: You joined the counterintelligence, you went to counterintelligence corps training. What kind of things did they teach you in that?

PS: Oh, language, surveillance, photography, lock picking, lot of different things they touched on. And the stories that they would tell about the business of intelligence. Some of the things that they talked about were off the record kinds of things that are methods they used to get confessions or find out some things that they're trying to learn, lot of things like that. I've forgotten so much about that now, except some of the basics, like surveillance, lock picking, observations, how to get along doing your work, that kind of thing.

AC: You had mentioned that you had gone on a surveillance excursion into Baltimore, you went to a place called "the blot."

PS: Uh-huh.

AC: And there were all these bars, and you said it was really fun. What happened?

PS: It was just... you're supposed to follow somebody, and I don't know, follow somebody without being observed. That's what the exercise was. And you went through the, so many of the bars, that kind of thing, and that's what it was. It was an exercise in surveillance. It was a kind of a fun thing to go through that part of Baltimore. It didn't go into anything wicked or bad, just an exercise in surveillance.

AC: You also said you learned how to drive a duck?

PS: Yeah.

AC: And you didn't know why?

PS: No.

AC: Did you ever drive a duck after the training?

PS: No, no. Well, I think in the service, sometimes you run into things that never, you never used that particular training. And there were times when you wish you'd had some specialized training. But I enjoyed that, going to Fort Mead and seeing different things. And I guess that goes back to my driving tractors as a kid on the farm, I had that kind of curiosity. And I had that, I guess I've always liked to drive, my wife teases me about that. And I think since I started driving in 1939 with the CDL, I think I probably have driven a million miles. I don't know. Anyway, I've had some experiences driving down through Arizona with a semi. But anyway, that's here nor there. [Laughs]

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.