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We had an orientation when we first arrived. This is the second training, we went into clerical, typing and things like that, the major was to make a big speech and I was tired, I was falling asleep and he saw me, I got in trouble for sleeping. He said, "You're going to do KP, dishwashing, all the time." Oh, boy. But then I played basketball for them and we won the championship, right, and so he says, "No more KP, you're okay." But what happened was I played good that day, I stole the ball, passed to my friend, went for a layup, and we won the game, right? So it made me look good. Anyway, that's my experience, basketball.
Now for the second time, I joined another basketball team there, and this was a bigger deal, And so we played, and then we were supposed to play the championship game on a weekend, but I needed a pass to go home. But the company commander says, "If you play, I'll let you have the next day off, easy." So I said, okay, so again, I played basketball and they gave me a pass. Nobody else got a pass, but I got a pass to go home. So it was great, basketball did a lot for me. [Laughs]
Date: September 20, 2019
Location: California, US
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda and Yoko Nishimura
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum and Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.
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